From Ian's twitter: some AI strategy fixes

[Ian_Cummings]

Quote: Originally Posted by J.R. Locke

It would be nice if the coaches actually mattered. Whether they are a conservative coach, they would punt. Aggressive they would kick the field goal or maybe even go for it on a 4th and 4. Obviously who the kicker is should matter. Instead of universals Madden (and EA sports games in general) need to understand how boring it is playing against the CPU when there is little to no difference from team to team. No strategy!!!! Please make playing different teams more diverse from a strategy standpoint.

We just added this in last week as well. Donny re-rated all the coaches and we added support all over the place for the aggressive coaches to possibly go for it more often.

Pseudo code used to be basically:

if (yardsToEndzone > 37)
   Punt It Away

Now, it's more like:

if (yardsToEndzone > determineKickersRange() and yardsToEndzone < determineMinYardLineToGoForItBasedOnCoachAggressiveness())
      if (CoachAggressiveCheckToGoForIt())
           Go For It or Fake It
      else
           Punt It

[Ian_Cummings]

Quote: Originally Posted by CW McGraw

Every once in a while, the CPU will be driving near the end of the first half, reach the 35 yard line or so, call a timeout with a few seconds left in the half, and then punt on one of the first 3 downs. Did you guys fix that?

Good one - I'll look for that in the tool.

[Ian_Cummings]

Quote: Originally Posted by CW McGraw

Every once in a while, the CPU will be driving near the end of the first half, reach the 35 yard line or so, call a timeout with a few seconds left in the half, and then punt on one of the first 3 downs. Did you guys fix that?

Hmm...I can't find it.

Do you remember anything else? Score? Was the CPU winning/losing?

[callmetaternuts]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA

We just added this in last week as well. Donny re-rated all the coaches and we added support all over the place for the aggressive coaches to possibly go for it more often. Pseudo code used to be basically: if (yardsToEndzone > 37) Punt It Away Now, it's more like: if (yardsToEndzone > determineKickersRange() and yardsToEndzone < determineMinYardLineToGoForItBasedOnCoachAggressiveness()) if (CoachAggressiveCheckToGoForIt()) Go For It or Fake It else Punt It

Nice! Good to see these things getting looked at. Keep up the good work.

[XtremeDunkz]

Ian, this is VERY important..if you're saying coaches might try fake punt/fg's. this needs to be addressed.

whenever a team would fake a kick in 09....the defensive plays would automatically start on "ask madden" and madden would always conveniently suggest "fg block zone" or punt black safe man..basically telling you the cpu was faking it.

[Ian_Cummings]

Quote: Originally Posted by xtremedunkz

Ian, this is VERY important..if you're saying coaches might try fake punt/fg's. this needs to be addressed. whenever a team would fake a kick in 09....the defensive plays would automatically start on "ask madden" and madden would always conveniently suggest "fg block zone" or punt black safe man..basically telling you the cpu was faking it.

TOTALLY! I hate that it used to force you into Ask Madden.

We have a bug in the DB to get it fixed. My other problem with it was because when you're playing head to head it's impossible to fake it without your opponent noticing (since you had to back out a couple of levels).

[marktg30]

To build on coach aggressiveness, will there be anything similar for QB Aggressiveness? It seems like there are always a few QBs (IE - Favre) who like to force throws. Sometimes they would make them beautifully but other times it is a catastrophe.

Something like throwing the deep ball for the TD (Favre, McNabb) vs. hitting the screen pass and hoping to get into FG range (Manning, Romo, Brady).

Does that make sense?

[Ian_Cummings]

Quote: Originally Posted by marktg30

To build on coach aggressiveness, will there be anything similar for QB Aggressiveness? It seems like there are always a few QBs (IE - Favre) who like to force throws. Sometimes they would make them beautifully but other times it is a catastrophe. Something like throwing the deep ball for the TD (Favre, McNabb) vs. hitting the screen pass and hoping to get into FG range (Manning, Romo, Brady). Does that make sense?

Yeah...QB tendencies...we've definitely talked about that.

This logic (that I've been working on) though is wholly contained CPU play calling logic based on situation...the decision making of the CPU QB on the field during the play is a whole different set of (rather complex) logic that I can't tune myself.