Gang Tackling Challenge Response (from Ian Cummings)

[Ian_Cummings]

Hello everyone.

Well today I captured some video to answer to the original post from LBzrule. Here is the youtube vid:


(give the video a few minutes to finish processing after I post this)

Though I know you guys may get tired of hearing this, here's where I am genuinely so f**king stoked that we have started posting on the forums and can interface directly with you guys. Why? Well, here's the short (or long) story:

As you may or may not know, I was taken off of gameplay for the past 3+ months to work on some super-secret stuff. This has been great for the forum feedback because I've still been involved but I also haven't been going through the huge crunch (thus allowing me more time to post to you all). So when I wrote the post that our gang tackling implementation was the same as 2k's, I knew I was right on. But here's where it starts getting interesting. As soon as you all answered my request for 2k clips that you thought were really impressive, I had to capture something to back up that statement. Well, I sat down today to capture, and I was able to get examples that show we're doing exactly the same thing (the first 3 in the video). But as I sat down to do this with a fellow designer, we found a few pretty major issues in our gang tackling logic / animations. In the interest of being candid with you guys (and not make just a highlight video), I went ahead and added these problems in my "lowlights" section of the video. These issues were:
- Defenders slowing / stopping once tackles started (was not fixed correctly from Simon's initial video)
- Animations not consistently matching (even though I knew we had animation coverage)
- Still an old NaturalMotion gang tackle or two in there

Here's why I'm so stoked. I am 99% sure that these would have shipped in Madden NFL 09 if LBzrule hadn't created that post.

So I immediately went down to the gameplay engineers and designers and just sat down trying to figure this stuff out. Two of our best engineers took each problem (Ryan Burnsides on the pursuit problem, VJ LeBlanc on the animation problem), and within like 30 minutes we had figured out the solutions. The player slowing down issue was a legacy problem from when we didn't have proper gang tackle "coverage", so Ryan fixed that pretty much right away. The animation matching issue was a series of numbers we were able to tweak - they were the initial degrees of a defender's position to the ballcarrier that made an animation valid to play.

So, in short...

I am here to admit defeat to 2k's gang tackling system.

...
...

For now.

Hopefully by the end of day tomorrow, I'll be back with a new video to show you that WE WILL HAVE TRIUMPHED, ALL THANKS TO YOU - THE COMMUNITY!

Stay tuned!

[BrianFifaFan]

Ian, you are the MAN! Thanks so much for all of this. And it does take a Big man to admit defeat. But it is cool to see you guys taking on issues like this. I have faith you guys will get all of this worked out within a couple of development cycles. You've won me back! Now just budget the time for the OL/DL and kick whoever makes the presentation decisions in the Butt!

[countryboy]

this is why, you guys should continue and be allowed to interact with community boards.

And you could've easily said that you have exactly what 2k has and done nothing to back it up. But because you chose to put your money where your mouth is, you guys found an issue that may have gone un-noticed otherwise.

Please, continue to communicate with the community boards such as this. Yes, we are demanding and yes, we are downright hard to please, but in midst of all this complaining, disappointment and such, a positive can become, and that is what I feel has happened here.

[trendsetter09]

This is really good stuff Ian. I'm looking forward to seeing the video tomorrow. Also, I wanted to ask if the Challenging system improved at all this year. It seemed as if the computer never challenged anything, also will we be able to choose specifically what we want to challenge? (ex. ball spot error, stepped out of bounds, whether receiver had possession or not). 2k also implemented this very well.

[SteelerSpartan]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheFuture15

Hello everyone. So, in short... I am here to admit defeat to 2k's gang tackling system. ... ... For now. Hopefully by the end of day tomorrow, I'll be back with a new video to show you that WE WILL HAVE TRIUMPHED, ALL THANKS TO YOU - THE COMMUNITY! Stay tuned!

Hopefully this is just the start...the guys around here really know their stuff about the game of football, and want to help further recreate what we see on Sundays in your games.

[RaginCajun]

Your the f'n greatest Ian.

[drlw322]

in much appreciation for your team i'm officially stoke about madden's future. thanks also to lbrulez

[jjdogjjdog5162]

looking good. i will give this game a rent as soon as it comes out instead of giving it the bird and spitting on it like i had planned to do.