Can we get an inside explanation of why we are still seeing so much player warp?

[countryboy]

Quote: Originally Posted by Netherscourge

See my signature...

they are required to put out a NFL game each year due to their contract and license deal with the NFL. Its the same for NBA, MLB, NHL, NCAA, etc...

[Anim8or]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheFuture15

Impossible to say for sure. There is a lot of research out there that's done where getting too many people involved can drastically reduce your productivity. Like a law of diminishing returns. I grabbed this from google: "Time is time. No one can buy more time. You can buy more labor if you think it will help your team do more work faster, but that’s not the same thing as adding time to a project. The law of diminishing returns dictates that adding labor doesn’t exponentially increase productivity; in fact, at some point productivity can even go backwards. For a real-life example, consider that two hardworking and experienced programmers working on a project. In order to finish the project on time, you decide to add one more programmer. Now the programmers may be completing the code more quickly, you decide to add six more programmers so that the project can be finished even sooner. You soon realize that although adding one programmer increased your productivity, adding six more only created chaos with creating a contentious environment. You reached the point of diminishing returns when you added six programmers. Bottom line: You can’t build a house in a single day even with 100 people." I know when we ramped up (big time) to get 06 up and running, it was a bit of a nightmare. I personally prefer to have smaller more experienced and focused teams. I'll take 3 engineers that know football inside and out over 6 that don't any day. I also think that getting more feedback earlier from more hardcore fans (i.e. people on this site) is going to be the big game changer for us for the coming years.

I totally agree with Ian. I am a big proponent of the "Mythical Man Month" which was a book written about software engineering that discusses this exact issue. You can't just throw more people at a problem, many solutions take time (imagine brain surgery where to save time you put 8 surgeons in the room... not going to help at all, and you will probably end up with a dead patient). The phrase I use at work a lot is "you can't make a baby with 9 women in 1 month". I am a fan of smaller teams with more time which "more time" for us means having plans that span multiple cycles. Get new compression for last cycle gets us more presentation in this one. things like that. There are things that just take TIME because you have to play the game to tune it. When it comes to new tech, you really can't have more than one engineer working on each piece of it. With catching, the HumanIK was 1 piece and took months. I am a huge driving force of technical solutions to problems, but like Ian said we did SO much new tech in 09, and a couple of those things can take multiple cycles to mature. The HumanIK catching system came in fairly late in the cycle there was a lot of concern about replacing the catching system so the warping was left in the system "just in case" to compensate if it became hard to tune. We are actively working on making these warps not happen (one of our best animation engineers has been on warping for a while now, and we have some tech from FIFA that really helps this a lot).

You have to play a catch animation, you can't just rely on the ball hitting a guys hands he needs to move to the ball (like a real human would) and he has to reach out for it, but we actually DO use hand contact to determine if he caught the ball (and sadly, in replay, it doesn't look that way sometimes.. one of the reasons I am pushing to limit the replay length and get it visually accurate to what happened in game)

[BrianFifaFan]

Quote: Originally Posted by Anim8or

I totally agree with Ian. I am a big proponent of the "Mythical Man Month" which was a book written about software engineering that discusses this exact issue. You can't just throw more people at a problem, many solutions take time (imagine brain surgery where to save time you put 8 surgeons in the room... not going to help at all, and you will probably end up with a dead patient). The phrase I use at work a lot is "you can't make a baby with 9 women in 1 month". I am a fan of smaller teams with more time which "more time" for us means having plans that span multiple cycles. Get new compression for last cycle gets us more presentation in this one. things like that. There are things that just take TIME because you have to play the game to tune it. When it comes to new tech, you really can't have more than one engineer working on each piece of it. With catching, the HumanIK was 1 piece and took months. I am a huge driving force of technical solutions to problems, but like Ian said we did SO much new tech in 09, and a couple of those things can take multiple cycles to mature. The HumanIK catching system came in fairly late in the cycle there was a lot of concern about replacing the catching system so the warping was left in the system "just in case" to compensate if it became hard to tune. We are actively working on making these warps not happen (one of our best animation engineers has been on warping for a while now, and we have some tech from FIFA that really helps this a lot). You have to play a catch animation, you can't just rely on the ball hitting a guys hands he needs to move to the ball (like a real human would) and he has to reach out for it, but we actually DO use hand contact to determine if he caught the ball (and sadly, in replay, it doesn't look that way sometimes.. one of the reasons I am pushing to limit the replay length and get it visually accurate to what happened in game)

Great post , Simon. Just wondering If I read correctly, you got some new tech from what game that's helping? LOL! You vindicate my fanaticism!

[BrianFifaFan]

Read my name. And Fifa is a football game made by EA!

[therizing02]

Since Simon and Ian are both here today, I like to get some clarification where the play calling AI went wrong this year....if possible.

I'm regularly seeing the CPU passing with under a minute to go in the 4th with a lead and I have zero TOs. The CPU electing to punt on my 31 yard line. I find it interesting that I get a lot of the same problems with NCAA and I can't ever remember it being this bad.

I wondered if the same change in the programming of both game triggered this.

Any ideas or thoughts?

Thanks fellas.

[Anim8or]

Quote: Originally Posted by lint

Hummmm... ok how about this. you can play the catch animation, but can you do the calculation to catch at the time the ball hits the hand rather than predetermining the catch. Could you choose which animation would be best to play then the character will act out that animation which is predetermined then at the point of ball contact register catch or not. I assume that would be difficult to code (it would probably cause you to re-design and code that entire area of the game) So I would assume that would not be practical for a 1year project. Just to throw this out there. I develop the middle ground between the UI and the database. So my perspective is the calculation more than the interface which shows it. honestly though this should be middle road of priority. line interaction, pass trajectory and proper franchise should be #1 I will overlook a few warps for those to be fixed. No more 15QBs in the first ROUND!

Catching is a huge challenge, mainly (or rather "totally") because the legacy of letting the user take over the receiver when the ball is in the air. We could make catching perfect with no warp, ever, massive variety and a bunch of user control features over timing/interception/etc.. if we didn't let a users control the path of the receiver themselves (like FIFA and NBA don't let you).

If you would be willing to trade user control over the path of your receiver, but still have to time your catch manually or you miss the catch, and it opened up MASSIVE variety (I mean you won't see the same catch twice in the same game) AND it totally eliminated warping, and it let us choose perfect catches that fit the skill of the player and the game situation visually.. would you kill us, or like the realism it gives you?

Taking the tech FIFA uses for one timers should help us quite a bit (but again FIFA takes control of the guy receiving every single time which is why they have zero warping when catching and volleying). This thread has inspired me to go chat with Ian on Monday though, it gave me an idea we can try even if we can't take away your ability to control the receiver's path.

As for the play-call question, sadly not at all my area.

[jfsolo]

Quote: Originally Posted by Anim8or

Catching is a huge challenge, mainly (or rather "totally") because the legacy of letting the user take over the receiver when the ball is in the air. We could make catching perfect with no warp, ever, massive variety and a bunch of user control features over timing/interception/etc.. if we didn't let a users control the path of the receiver themselves (like FIFA and NBA don't let you). If you would be willing to trade user control over the path of your receiver, but still have to time your catch manually or you miss the catch, and it opened up MASSIVE variety (I mean you won't see the same catch twice in the same game) AND it totally eliminated warping, and it let us choose perfect catches that fit the skill of the player and the game situation visually.. would you kill us, or like the realism it gives you? I know that online, and tourny guys would cry like little girls if you took away the user control, but I selfishly say, screw them, I would definitely rather have the massive variety, no warping, with animations being based on player ratings and game situations. I wish you guys would have been doing this all along. For my tastes, and probably most franchise heads, the game would have been exponentially better. Taking the tech FIFA uses for one timers should help us quite a bit (but again FIFA takes control of the guy receiving every single time which is why they have zero warping when catching and volleying). This thread has inspired me to go chat with Ian on Monday though, it gave me an idea we can try even if we can't take away your ability to control the receiver's path. As for the play-call question, sadly not at all my area.

I know that online, and tourny guys would cry like little girls if you took away the user control, but I selfishly say, screw them, I would definitely rather have the massive variety, no warping, with animations being based on player ratings and game situations.

I wish you guys would have been doing this all along. For my tastes, and probably most franchise heads, the game would have been exponentially better for it.

[lint]

Quote: Originally Posted by Anim8or

Catching is a huge challenge, mainly (or rather "totally") because the legacy of letting the user take over the receiver when the ball is in the air. We could make catching perfect with no warp, ever, massive variety and a bunch of user control features over timing/interception/etc.. if we didn't let a users control the path of the receiver themselves (like FIFA and NBA don't let you). If you would be willing to trade user control over the path of your receiver, but still have to time your catch manually or you miss the catch, and it opened up MASSIVE variety (I mean you won't see the same catch twice in the same game) AND it totally eliminated warping, and it let us choose perfect catches that fit the skill of the player and the game situation visually.. would you kill us, or like the realism it gives you? Taking the tech FIFA uses for one timers should help us quite a bit (but again FIFA takes control of the guy receiving every single time which is why they have zero warping when catching and volleying). This thread has inspired me to go chat with Ian on Monday though, it gave me an idea we can try even if we can't take away your ability to control the receiver's path. As for the play-call question, sadly not at all my area.

Thanks for the reply.... so ummm could you tell me if you use waterfall or agile or some other development process???? Just my curiosity. If you cannot answer please say so... so I can stop asking