Madden 12 QB Auto Drop Back Removed

[jpdavis82]

Just saw this on Twitter. Says you can now move backwards and laterally at any time during a drop back, also Shopmaster says QB movement is smooth. Thoughts?

[bostonsports]

little things like this are what make me thrilled. It sounds like their laying off a huge new feature( or huge overhyped feature) and adding little things that will make a huge difference in the end.

[Cre8]

I am happy about this. I just hope it means that we can hope for decent QB Sneaks now... I know it was a little bit of a cheap move back in the day, but now it is almost useless.

[bcruise]

Interesting...they must be pretty confident it's not going to be abused.

[BezO]

Not happy about this. I never controlled my QB unless I sensed I was running out of time.

What they should've done was fix 3, 5 & 7 step drops & timing for each play. And it wouldn't hurt to put the # of drop steps in the play call so we have an idea of the proper timing.

I'd love to hear the explaination for this.

[mburke2]

Quote: Originally Posted by BezO

Not happy about this. I never controlled my QB unless I sensed I was running out of time. What they should've done was fix 3, 5 & 7 step drops & timing for each play. And it wouldn't hurt to put the # of drop steps in the play call so we have an idea of the proper timing. I'd love to hear the explaination for this.

I agree completely here. I always liked how the game controlled my QB dropback because it looked more fluid. The only thing that bothered me was what BezO pointed to, the poor timing of the dropbacks. As an offline only player I'm not interested in how people might "abuse" this but I'm more interested in making sure the animations still look as natural as they did when the computer controlled the QB drop. It seemed as though when the user controlled the dropback it didn't look as natural and the QB stopped dead in his tracks when you stopped moving him rather than having a more fluid looking animation. If that makes sense.

[CM Hooe]

Am I to read this as to say that I have to manually control my quarterback's dropback now? As in, if I snap the ball and don't touch the sticks, my QB will just stand up with the ball (assuming it's a non-playaction passing play)?

It doesn't make a difference to me, but I have been using automatic dropbacks in any of these football games for a good while now. Will be a bit of an adjustment.

[TNT713]

I'm so glad I don't have to sit there with my thumb up my arse waiting to get control of the QB on pass plays anymore... On 90% of my pass drops I want to drop straight, but when my protection isn't the best in the middle, I want to be able to move IMMEDIATELY instead of waiting for someone else's idea of when I should move...

The Auto-drop feature seemed like a good idea until someone found pressure that made a CPU controlled QB a sitting duck. The concern about QB's being able to move in any direction after securing the snap only scares the most vanilla amongst us. Those with their eyes on the football are happy we are no longer handcuffed.

Quote: Originally Posted by BezO

What they should've done was fix 3, 5 & 7 step drops & timing for each play. And it wouldn't hurt to put the # of drop steps in the play call so we have an idea of the proper timing.

Arghhhh... The QB's steps become easy to see with time and experience.

As a fan of the West Coast offense, I always think of the routes in my plays based on the ideal number of steps the QB needs to complete the pass to EACH route. Sometimes there are 3, 5, and 7 step routes in a play that force players to move through a progression to find the open receiver.

After a while, it's instinctive to look at a play diagram and know exactly how the play should be executed (but maybe I play Madden too much...lol)

Later