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Comeback AI is the worst thing in video games

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Old 08-27-2003, 09:59 AM   #49
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Re: Comeback AI is the worst thing in video games

My useless 2 cents on the subject.
There is some sort of comeback logic but it also seems variable.
I can hold good teams to 3 points while I score 30+ and have no problem as long as I mix up my defense.
But there are teams that must have the comeback on.
When I (as the Bucs) play Farve as the Packers, he never makes a mistake, throws with a 2 step drop perfect to Driver, their defense gets oppurtunistic turnovers when they need them, etc.
The Rams are another team. I was beating them handily but Warner was like 8 for 8 completing everything.
When I knocked him out of the game, Bulger did the same thing. When I was in scoring position late in the half, my HB fumbled and the ball stayed on the ground for an eternity, none of my AI teammates even looked at it, a slow Rams LB picked up for 83 yard touchdown.
Only one guy was able to attempt to tackle him and he was shrugged off. Not another player was in a mile of him as he ran 83 yards.
So that tells me none of my speedy offense players could catch this lumbering behemoth?

The thing that drove me crazy in 2003 seems to be toned down in this one, where the AI needs a time out so one of your players magically get injured.

Still, I love this game, I hated it compared to 2003 at first but now I couldn't never go back.

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Old 08-27-2003, 10:04 AM   #50
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Re: Comeback AI is the worst thing in video games

Yea, I agree with you Zimmy. I put down 2003 because it was even more evident, especially if playing with a weaker team.

In 2004, its toned down but its still there. With the right slider settings, you can tone it down even more, so I'm not really as pissed as I would be in 2003. Its just eventually I know I'll have one of those games where everything will just go wrong for me.
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Old 08-27-2003, 11:22 AM   #51
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Re: Comeback AI is the worst thing in video games

Quote:

Catman24 said:
Quote:

bigeastbumrush said:
Quote:

Fine. Play Madden til your fingertips bleed and keep on beleiving that that the infamous "catch-up" doesnt exist.

Ignorance is bliss....













Dont worry. I will play it until my fingers bleed. Because I know how to play the game. Maybe you guys need to purchase yourself a Sega Genesis console or something. Then you can score your 100 points per game. Maybe that will make you happy. You are not ready for the BIG LEAGUES yet.




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Old 08-27-2003, 12:23 PM   #52
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Re: Comeback AI is the worst thing in video games

Ok. I've seen enough these threads that I only had to read the first couple of posts to know the arguments:

1. Comeback mode exists (lots of detailed examples).
2. No it doesn't, just call the right plays.

I'm gonna approach this from a different angle. When I play these games, I play in what I call 'GM Mode'. I do everything for the team except take control or call plays in the game. I'm in it for the franchise/dynasty aspects but also like to see the players I recruited or drafted perform on the field. Therefore, a realistic looking game of football with good stats is most important to me. Just so everyone's clear, when I 'play' a game, I put the controllers in the middle, and the only time I might take control is to make a depth chart substitution for a player that's doing terribly. What this does as far as the argument over whether there's a comeback mode, is remove the "Just call the right plays" argument. Let's look at a few games from the past two years:

1. Sega NFL 2K3: They come right out and announce that there's a 'keep it close' mode, and you have an option to turn it on or off. Obviously I keep it off. Games ranged from 6-3 scoring fests, to close 21-14 games, to the occasional blowout of 48-10, to 37-35 shootouts and even an amazing comeback or two... over the course of a couple of seasons (and this is what made those comebacks so amazing and believable, they occurred very rarely). And these seemed to happen in the correct proportion. Close games that were back and forth never felt contrived. Now, this isn't a 'I love Sega post' because I ended up playing Madden longer than I did Sega because of a couple of other major issues I had based on the way I play the game (lack of sacks, weird time compression sliders, not able to watch any game and the CPU always knowing what the best player at a position in the draft was). Nevertheless, if the gameflow model stays the same and they fix the above issues in 2K4, I may switch to that and use Madden 2004 as my 'career continuer' for NCAA 2004.

2. Madden 2003 (PC Edition): In GM mode with quarter lengths that gave the correct number of plays, almost every game was 38-35 or somewhere in that range. The game could look realistic through three quarters at 14-10 or something, and then the teams would go on scoring binges where the team that was behind broke long gains consistently and the score flipflopped the whole way. Upping the Awareness slider seemed to help, but screwed with the statistics in other ways. The other variation was the 35-10 lead going into the 4th quarter. Sometimes this would hold up. Usually the team that was behind suddenly started playing much better in the 4th quarter (literally as soon as the quarter started). The key areas seemed to be 3rd and 4th downs and long passes. A defense could sack the QB a couple of times, and bring up 3rd and 19 but then the offensive line would become a brick wall, give the QB 5 - 7 (I counted 12 seconds once on a replay) seconds to throw the ball, and even if it was into triple coverage, the pass would be complete. If the losing team had to punt, there were more muffs than usual, and if the winning team safely held onto the ball, a fumble would almost always occur in the first two plays, or there would be a three and out. This wasn't an isolated occurrence. In at least 3/4 of games in which a team was up by 14 or more points I could start 'calling' events with good accuracy (gonna convert on 3rd and 15, 3 and out or a fumble), etc. Now, Strausser said it was an artifact from the way that the CPU calls plays more aggressively and tries to strip the ball when it's down and so it just looks like comeback code. I actually could buy that, almost, but even if I could the effect is still the same and pointed out serious deficiencies in the simulation model.

3. NCAA 2003: This one had not only the 'come back mode', but its end of half 'cheats' were ludicrous. Overall I feel that NCAA 2003 was more realistic than Madden, partially because teams have widely varying skill levels. However, this very increase of realism made the parts that weren't even more obvious. Two of the most extreme examples: In one game, my team had been crushing the other team the whole time. Last play of the half, score something like 20-3, the other team has the ball after the kickoff and chooses to run the ball to the fullback to run out the clock. Wham... 80 yards later, the speed 63, OVR 60 (I checked after the game) fullback had broken 4 tackles at the line of scrimmage of mostly mid 80's players, and outran an entire defense faster than him, including the 95 SPD cornerback who seemed to decide that 5 yards behind was close enough for 50 of those yards. In another game, my team was up 24-10 in the 3rd quarter. 4th quarter starts just after a punt to the other team. My team had kept them from getting anything deep all game. QB drops back, tosses a pass to a receiver who's wide open and promptly goes 80 yards. Ok, so it happens.. but when I checked the replay, the two cornerbacks flanking the receiver on that side did not move until after the receiver was 5 yards behind them and the ball was almost all the way there. Let's put it this way, when it came to the 4th quarter and my team was only up between 2-3 touchdowns against an inferior team, I would stop watching because I know it was more or less a coin flip who would win.

4. NCAA 2004: Except for end of the first half, comeback mode seems gone. At the end of the half, teams still score way more easily than they should, and 80 yard passes, often tipped, on the last play of the half are not uncommon. They don't happen every time, but more than they should. If a team is up by a couple of touchdowns in the 4th quarter, the defense of the winning team seems as likely to step up as the offense of the losing team. The games look much more real than 2003, and I'm a happy GM player with this game.

Madden 2004: I haven't played this one enough to be honest, 4 watched games so far and the last was a 52-10 blowout by Chicago over Detroit. However, this isn't really proof because in Madden 2003 if the blowout was huge (it was 45-10 after 3 quarters) comeback mode didn't occur. My gut feeling from watching a couple of games is that it exists, but that defensive tweaks have made it less noticeable.

Ok, if y'all have read all this you might be asking one simple question. "So what? He plays in a different mode than we do, it can't possibly apply." Well, the fact is, this is as unbiased a look as you can get. I've seen the comebacks and 1st half miracle scores happen for both my team and the opponent and would get just as POed by the lack of realism if it was my team. What this means to me is that comeback or 'keep it close' mode is real. It's just that some players are better at keeping the CPU down than others are.

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Old 08-27-2003, 12:41 PM   #53
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Re: Comeback AI is the worst thing in video games

Great post. The comeback AI has always been my biggest gripe in all EA games.

Like I said before, my theory is that since EA makes thier games so offensive minded, (Meaning that the offense is given a higher priority than the defense) then you would need some way to counter the offense. And since EAs defensive engine is always weak, then some cheating has to occur to make up for lack of a good defensive model.

Thats why in mostly all EA games, a begginer can pick up a controller and probably beat a die hard veteran, because when you're spanking a beginners ***, they usually can comeback on some lucky BS play.
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Old 08-27-2003, 12:48 PM   #54
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Re: Comeback AI is the worst thing in video games

Actually, you just reminded me of another great gaming experience.. I think it was Madden 2002 on the PC. Played a buddy who can't believe I play GM mode, so we played a 'real game' where I at least called the plays even if I didn't always take control. The point is, he was up something like 24-10 and I was getting frustrated by the 4th quarter because it seemed that when I tried to play realistically by running the ball going for 10-15 yard passes on 3rd down and 8 or whatever, that I'd get stopped and he would just chuck it up at some point in a drive and score.

So in the 4th quarter I basically said "I could just call a random play and it wouldn't make any difference. I'd probably do better." And so I proceeded to do just that. I won on the last play of the game when my halfback broke three tackles from the 40 yard line (I called it randomly, the wise choice would have been a pass) and ran it in. I was in dime defenses at times on 3rd and short during this comeback and my players stuffed him time and again. Yes, it was really poor sportsmanship on my part (and one of the reasons I'll never play online because I'm _not_ a good sport in sports games head to head), but if I could win by calling an entire 4th quarter randomly... well, there's something not quite right there.
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Old 08-27-2003, 01:10 PM   #55
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Re: Comeback AI is the worst thing in video games

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gambler said:
Ok. I've seen enough these threads that I only had to read the first couple of posts to know the arguments:

1. Comeback mode exists (lots of detailed examples).
2. No it doesn't, just call the right plays.

I'm gonna approach this from a different angle. When I play these games, I play in what I call 'GM Mode'. I do everything for the team except take control or call plays in the game. I'm in it for the franchise/dynasty aspects but also like to see the players I recruited or drafted perform on the field. Therefore, a realistic looking game of football with good stats is most important to me. Just so everyone's clear, when I 'play' a game, I put the controllers in the middle, and the only time I might take control is to make a depth chart substitution for a player that's doing terribly. What this does as far as the argument over whether there's a comeback mode, is remove the "Just call the right plays" argument. Let's look at a few games from the past two years:

1. Sega NFL 2K3: They come right out and announce that there's a 'keep it close' mode, and you have an option to turn it on or off. Obviously I keep it off. Games ranged from 6-3 scoring fests, to close 21-14 games, to the occasional blowout of 48-10, to 37-35 shootouts and even an amazing comeback or two... over the course of a couple of seasons (and this is what made those comebacks so amazing and believable, they occurred very rarely). And these seemed to happen in the correct proportion. Close games that were back and forth never felt contrived. Now, this isn't a 'I love Sega post' because I ended up playing Madden longer than I did Sega because of a couple of other major issues I had based on the way I play the game (lack of sacks, weird time compression sliders, not able to watch any game and the CPU always knowing what the best player at a position in the draft was). Nevertheless, if the gameflow model stays the same and they fix the above issues in 2K4, I may switch to that and use Madden 2004 as my 'career continuer' for NCAA 2004.

2. Madden 2003 (PC Edition): In GM mode with quarter lengths that gave the correct number of plays, almost every game was 38-35 or somewhere in that range. The game could look realistic through three quarters at 14-10 or something, and then the teams would go on scoring binges where the team that was behind broke long gains consistently and the score flipflopped the whole way. Upping the Awareness slider seemed to help, but screwed with the statistics in other ways. The other variation was the 35-10 lead going into the 4th quarter. Sometimes this would hold up. Usually the team that was behind suddenly started playing much better in the 4th quarter (literally as soon as the quarter started). The key areas seemed to be 3rd and 4th downs and long passes. A defense could sack the QB a couple of times, and bring up 3rd and 19 but then the offensive line would become a brick wall, give the QB 5 - 7 (I counted 12 seconds once on a replay) seconds to throw the ball, and even if it was into triple coverage, the pass would be complete. If the losing team had to punt, there were more muffs than usual, and if the winning team safely held onto the ball, a fumble would almost always occur in the first two plays, or there would be a three and out. This wasn't an isolated occurrence. In at least 3/4 of games in which a team was up by 14 or more points I could start 'calling' events with good accuracy (gonna convert on 3rd and 15, 3 and out or a fumble), etc. Now, Strausser said it was an artifact from the way that the CPU calls plays more aggressively and tries to strip the ball when it's down and so it just looks like comeback code. I actually could buy that, almost, but even if I could the effect is still the same and pointed out serious deficiencies in the simulation model.

3. NCAA 2003: This one had not only the 'come back mode', but its end of half 'cheats' were ludicrous. Overall I feel that NCAA 2003 was more realistic than Madden, partially because teams have widely varying skill levels. However, this very increase of realism made the parts that weren't even more obvious. Two of the most extreme examples: In one game, my team had been crushing the other team the whole time. Last play of the half, score something like 20-3, the other team has the ball after the kickoff and chooses to run the ball to the fullback to run out the clock. Wham... 80 yards later, the speed 63, OVR 60 (I checked after the game) fullback had broken 4 tackles at the line of scrimmage of mostly mid 80's players, and outran an entire defense faster than him, including the 95 SPD cornerback who seemed to decide that 5 yards behind was close enough for 50 of those yards. In another game, my team was up 24-10 in the 3rd quarter. 4th quarter starts just after a punt to the other team. My team had kept them from getting anything deep all game. QB drops back, tosses a pass to a receiver who's wide open and promptly goes 80 yards. Ok, so it happens.. but when I checked the replay, the two cornerbacks flanking the receiver on that side did not move until after the receiver was 5 yards behind them and the ball was almost all the way there. Let's put it this way, when it came to the 4th quarter and my team was only up between 2-3 touchdowns against an inferior team, I would stop watching because I know it was more or less a coin flip who would win.

4. NCAA 2004: Except for end of the first half, comeback mode seems gone. At the end of the half, teams still score way more easily than they should, and 80 yard passes, often tipped, on the last play of the half are not uncommon. They don't happen every time, but more than they should. If a team is up by a couple of touchdowns in the 4th quarter, the defense of the winning team seems as likely to step up as the offense of the losing team. The games look much more real than 2003, and I'm a happy GM player with this game.

Madden 2004: I haven't played this one enough to be honest, 4 watched games so far and the last was a 52-10 blowout by Chicago over Detroit. However, this isn't really proof because in Madden 2003 if the blowout was huge (it was 45-10 after 3 quarters) comeback mode didn't occur. My gut feeling from watching a couple of games is that it exists, but that defensive tweaks have made it less noticeable.

Ok, if y'all have read all this you might be asking one simple question. "So what? He plays in a different mode than we do, it can't possibly apply." Well, the fact is, this is as unbiased a look as you can get. I've seen the comebacks and 1st half miracle scores happen for both my team and the opponent and would get just as POed by the lack of realism if it was my team. What this means to me is that comeback or 'keep it close' mode is real. It's just that some players are better at keeping the CPU down than others are.






Great post.

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Old 08-27-2003, 02:54 PM   #56
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Re: Comeback AI is the worst thing in video games

All I gotta say is it's been there since the game's inception. On the very first one for the Genesis (no year attached) You could do Dime/Cover/CB blitz ALL DAY LONG with the 49ers or any team with fast DBs. On offense you could hit the B receiver with Cross Pass every time. EVERY TIME. So just to see how many points I could score, I did the same play every down on Offense and defense. I sacked the Elway on every single play. I had like 20 sacks at halftime. Anyway, with a few seconds left and me leading 98 or 99 to 0 (seriously) I needed a safety to break the century mark. What did I call, dime... cover... corner blitz of course. I hit Elway in the endzone, he didn't fall, I hit him again and again with several players and he didn't fall, I literally hit him at least 6 times IN THE ENDZONE and he didn't fall and then he scrambled out of the endzone and was tackled. No safety.


I know they didn't comeback, but the fact that he was suddenly unstoppable when I was goin' for 100 points was ridiculous. They probably have just been tweaking the comeback cheat from that year on.

It's the timeliness of all the junk like the fumbles and the o-line brick walls, defensive ineptitude etc. That's what's bad. That's what's scripted.
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