idea for analog based passing

[JustinSainn]

So I'm at work today, bored as usual and I got to thinking of different things to fix Madden and I came up with a way they could implement analog passing that could add a ton of realism to the game. I'm hoping I can get this idea to Ian or someone from the dev. team somehow but I'm not sure how I would do that. Anyway, the idea borrows the same principals as the new analog based pitching meter in The Show this year. Basically, it would go like this, you hike the ball then hit X which will highlight your "hot" reciever, hit X again and your primary reciever is highlighted, continue with this to simulate a QB going through his progression. Now, after a receiver is highlighted and you've moved on a button icon appears on that receiver as a "go back" button to quickly move your QB's focus back to that reciever. One of the cool things about progressing through the receivers like this is that the defenders can use the highlighted receiver as a way to read the QB's eyes. If the QB stays on a receiver too long the defense could actually start cheating toward that guy. Now, once you have your open man, pull back on the R stick to **** the ball (there will be a meter in the bottom corner). Have a yellow line at the bottom of the meter and if you pull back too far you'll overthrow the pass, if you do pull back far enough you'll underthrow the pass. Then complete the pass by pushing up, this can be done immediately after cocking the ball or the QB can hold the ball in the cocked position as he's running to keep defenders honest. When you push up on the R stick, if the receiver is sitting in a spot pushing straight up will hit him square in the numbers. Likewise you can push up and slightly to one side or the other to throw to a specific shoulder but if you go too far to the side you'll miss the receiver and risk a pick. Now if its a route in which the receiver has to be hit in stride you have to try to direct your throw to hit him in stride, if you push straight up the receiver will have to stop to make the catch. Finally, when you push up you can release quickly for a missle or hold it for a touch or lob pass. I'm hoping this makes sense to everyone, I think it would add another dimension to the game. True, it doesn't fix all of Madden's issues but I think it would do alot to enhance the cat and mouse game played between the QB and pass defenders.

[Helios12787]

biggest issue with this idea would be the length of time needed to get a pass off.

In today's Madden game environment you have anywhere from a couple of seconds to 5-8 seconds of pocket time. The one issue I see with your idea is say the "click progression" goes through receivers in order as follows:

WR#1, WR#2, WR#3, TE, HB

Using the method you're stating it would take a good 2 or 3 seconds to click through the receivers to get to the dumpoff routes that the TE / HB are running. If you are being blitzed up the middle that is about all the time needed to get hit with a big sack.

The throwing system itself is fairly solid but again meters I think is a bad way to go with Madden in comparison to a slower paced sport such as baseball. I think the better way would be to go with the same motion you suggested but without the meter. The quality of the pass could be determined by the fluidity of the motion, the force used in the motion(to differentiate lob / bullet passes), and the QB's ratings.

I myself would hope Madden could master a full analog system without the need to "focus" or "target" a receiver before throwing. It would be extremely hard to get working well but being able to have that full control of the pass with the stick would be mesmerizing.

[JustinSainn]

Quote: Originally Posted by Helios12787

biggest issue with this idea would be the length of time needed to get a pass off. In today's Madden game environment you have anywhere from a couple of seconds to 5-8 seconds of pocket time. The one issue I see with your idea is say the "click progression" goes through receivers in order as follows: WR#1, WR#2, WR#3, TE, HB Using the method you're stating it would take a good 2 or 3 seconds to click through the receivers to get to the dumpoff routes that the TE / HB are running. If you are being blitzed up the middle that is about all the time needed to get hit with a big sack. The throwing system itself is fairly solid but again meters I think is a bad way to go with Madden in comparison to a slower paced sport such as baseball. I think the better way would be to go with the same motion you suggested but without the meter. The quality of the pass could be determined by the fluidity of the motion, the force used in the motion(to differentiate lob / bullet passes), and the QB's ratings. I myself would hope Madden could master a full analog system without the need to "focus" or "target" a receiver before throwing. It would be extremely hard to get working well but being able to have that full control of the pass with the stick would be mesmerizing.

I disagree about needing the focus/target before hand because I feel this is a good way to make pass defenders read the QB's eyes and thus cheat to what they're reading. As far as the checks go, the progression wouldn't be the same on every play. First press of the X (or A) button would go right to the "hot" receiver. Meaning if you read blitz before the play you could set any receiver to be the hot route and audible his route to what you read. Then, as soon as you snap the ball you can hit X followed by the right stick (maybe even have a way you can just right stick up without the pull back for a quick, less accurate throw?). As for the meter, I would probably set it up to where it could be on or off. Having it on would be a plus until you get a feel for the system, that way you'd have something visual to go on if your pass is off target.

[Helios12787]

I don't think it's too hard to read the throw as of now. Playing online a lot really gives you the feel of tendencies a QB / player tends to take. If you add in a visual effect you take more importance off of the player itself and put it onto a feature that is hard-coded in the game.

While in some cases this is needed to keep the game in line with good simulation play, the more you take from a player the more it becomes a bore to play.

The vision cone (imo and in many people's opinion) was a feature that gave a good balance of making a QB's skill more important without taking too much away from the player. It is a shame (again in my opinion) that EA didn't try to do more with it. It really helped differentiate the 99 rated QBs and the 70 rated QBs (as of now the only differences come in regards to when you are trying to thread the needle on a pass, throwing the deep ball, and other minor situations.).

By giving a visual representation to the defense you are basically making the passing game even harder and making it fall back into the common trend of throwing to HB's and TE's every other pass.

On the other side of things, I just don't trust EA to bring out a system involving that much importance to the passing game and do it right. I think that is an idea that needs to be mulled over for a couple of years or more to really get an idea of what they should do.

Analog passing I think is a good step in the right direction for bringing Madden back to the quality we are all looking for. I think focusing on getting that right first would be a better idea. I think there would be too much possibility of completely ruining the pass game with the idea you are providing and taking us back to the old days of constant passes to the hb / TE to the flats if a person user controlling a linebacker can just hawk around any receiver we are looking at. I understand you could use this to your advantage to make the user shade a side but then you have to hope that your other receivers are getting open. This can be an extremely hard deal with teams that don't have much talent at WR.

[guaps]

I have to disagree. I don't think analog passing is the key for any football video game. I like that you incorporate an analog system for controlling the player when running the ball, but you only have seconds in the pocket to make your decision, so fumbling with both the buttons and the right stick could prove disastrous. I never cared much for Backbreakers throwing mechanism, because I felt out of sync with the game. Controlling the pass using the right stick is much like Fight Night's analog punching system. Too often you end up doing something you never intended on doing.

While I don't believe in an analog passing system, I do want to see improvements for the current passing system, which is very last-gen IMO.

First, I want to see the correct drop backs after the snap of the ball (3, 5 or 7 steps according to the selected play), and I want the QBs vision towards either the first read or a receiver selected pre-snap (like you could with the vision cone) so you can then throw instantly or pump fake towards him to draw defenders. If that receiver is covered then you (the user) do the reads and select to throw to another receiver by pressing the receiver button, but before that happens your QB needs to realign his shoulders. So if you are looking left and want to throw right it's gonna take a little time for the QB to set his feet right and align his shoulders. Current Madden passing is basically shoulders towards the endzone and poor throwing animations on top of that - very last-gen.

And if you tied that with route-based passing so you could throw to spots and before the receivers made their cuts, then you'd have a simple, yet detailed passing system that would last for ages.

[lordnate]

I really don't like analog passing. I did love the QB vision feature that EA took out. The only issue with QB vision, which I think a lot of people had problems with, is that it was a little clunky. Either, you had to use the R-Stick or you had to hold RT and push the button to select your WR. I didn't find this hard at all, but a lot of people did.

It would make more sense, if you just pushed the button of the WR you wanted to highlight, and then pushed it again to make the throw. Instead of varying QBs by size of cone, you would vary QBs by the speed of the cone. This would simulate the QB's ability to cycle through reads.

[JMD]

No offense but I think this system would go more like this: "you hike the ball then hit X which will highlight your "hot" reciever, hit X again and your primary reciever is highlighted," Then your QB is on his back. You've got 3 to 5 seconds to get rid of the ball, there is just no time for this type of control system.

[TNT713]

Um... Before I get into the ways this system is wrong for Madden, lemme ask some questions...

1) Who sets the receiver progression?

2) How many buttons will players need to press if they see their 4th receiver open immediately off the line of scrimmage to get him the ball?

Now that I've asked these two questions... I'll discuss why this won't fly in Madden...

1 Button that activates the throw, receiver selection, and controls the velocity and trajectory is far better than any system that requires more than one button.

As it stands NOW, Madden players can easily overthrow passes when they activate the button too softly, activate the stick too far ahead, or throw without setting their feet properly to deliver the ball on the run. ALL WITH ONE BUTTON.

From the system you describe, it will be killed by pressure before players get a chance to even look at the throw meter.

As I've often said, this may work magnificently on ANOTHER FOOTBALL GAME, but it would be horrible for Madden.

In no instance should the direction a QB's head is turned be more important than the throw itself. We don't need separate control mechanisms to control the QB's head. It's called the "PASSING GAME" because the throw is important. There's a reason it's never called the "looking game."

Just my 2 cents...