QB Vision

[TNT713]

Quote: Originally Posted by Argooos

Personally, I'd wager that a large part of the reason QBV was removed was because of the way it looked. Madden is first and foremost targeted towards casual audiences, and I know from experience that casual players felt the vision cone looked downright silly. Another major problem with QBV I felt was that there was the option to move it with the right stick. Moving the vision cone should have been a matter of holding a trigger and pressing the appropriate receiver button and that should have been the only way to do it. One of TNT's major arguments against QBV was that you have to "see a receiver twice", but that is a misrepresentation of the system. You only have to see the receiver once. What you have to do twice is press the appropriate button for the receiver. This is more realistic than a single button press because it does take longer for a real QB to throw to a receiver they had not been looking at. There is a delay as they adjust their stance to face the new receiver. The delay is miniscule, but so is the amount of time it takes to press one extra button in Madden. The really sad thing about all this is that the QBV system would have been so easy to fix. I think it would simply be a matter of removing the cone and replacing it with another mechanism. I think the best way to do it would be to simple highlight the receiver in some way (a circle under the player, or the receiver's button highlighted in some way), but don't have anything coming out of the QB's eyes. The important thing here in my mind is that until there is some form of QBV in the game, Madden will be very unrealistic. If listening to football commentary has taught me anything, it's that NFL defenders often look at the QB's eyes and base their decisions on who the quarterback is looking at. You hear all the time about a QB "looking off a defender" or an inexperienced QB "staring down a receiver". Without some form of QBV, those things will never be in the game and Madden will continue to be unrealistic. Edit: I'd also like to add this: Of course competitive Madden players weren't using QBV! It makes passing more realistic, and thus more difficult. If you're trying to win, you're not going to voluntarily use a system that makes passing more difficult. If there was an option to somehow to allow opponents in online games to intercept passes, I'm sure most competitive Madden players would use that option. Does that mean interceptions should be removed from the game?

Good post... I don't agree with all of it, but good nonetheless... Where we agree is that the functions could have been simpler and more efficient without tying the user to unnecessary actions just to turn the QB's head.

I agree that the 'cone' should only be visible when a ground camera is used - ala Superstar mode. From that angle, the cone is more relevant. Not so from the coordinator camera.

Regarding the Toggle Button method of moving the cone - I wouldn't have chosen it either. I found that method to be a waste. Why bother with holding a toggle button to turn the QB's head if you still have to hit the button twice? The toggle button seems extraneous with no real benefit. Why not just hit the icon button twice without a toggle button to move the cone? Same function, same action, with one less button. Eliminate the toggle and that button can then be used for some other relevant function without being inefficient.

As I've stated before the purpose of the paper was to highlight all the reasons QBV was controversial - not just my issues. Regarding 'my' major argument of seeing a receiver twice - this was not a personal issue. This was an issue brought up to a sports writer from "The News & Observer" from an article where a former college QB mentioned his reason for not liking QBV.

Typically, people who disliked QBV identify with at least one of the reasons in the paper - even if they don't mind all of them.

Later

[Argooos]

Quote: Originally Posted by TNT713

Good post... I don't agree with all of it, but good nonetheless... Where we agree is that the functions could have been simpler and more efficient without tying the user to unnecessary actions just to turn the QB's head. I agree that the 'cone' should only be visible when a ground camera is used - ala Superstar mode. From that angle, the cone is more relevant. Not so from the coordinator camera. Regarding the Toggle Button method of moving the cone - I wouldn't have chosen it either. I found that method to be a waste. Why bother with holding a toggle button to turn the QB's head if you still have to hit the button twice? The toggle button seems extraneous with no real benefit. Why not just hit the icon button twice without a toggle button to move the cone? Same function, same action, with one less button. Eliminate the toggle and that button can then be used for some other relevant function without being inefficient. As I've stated before the purpose of the paper was to highlight all the reasons QBV was controversial - not just my issues. Regarding 'my' major argument of seeing a receiver twice - this was not a personal issue. This was an issue brought up to a sports writer from "The News & Observer" from an article where a former college QB mentioned his reason for not liking QBV. Typically, people who disliked QBV identify with at least one of the reasons in the paper - even if they don't mind all of them. Later

Thanks for the compliment good sir.

The reason for the toggle button, in my opinion, is that with QBV, you should still be capable of throwing to any receiver on the field with only one button, regardless of whether or not you are "looking" at them. The difference though is that if you try to throw to a receiver you're not looking at, your accuracy would go down and the chances of an incompletion or interception would go up. The way I think it should work is that the amount your accuracy suffers would be based on the QB's awareness. A QB like Peyton Manning would essentially be able to throw to anyone on the field regardless of who he is looking at* and only suffer a little bit in terms of accuracy. A weaker QB would throw wildly off-target if they tried that.

What I would like to know though is whether you agree with the idea that without QBV, Madden is not a realistic representation of football. Where the QB is looking is a big part of real football, so should it not be represented in the game? I'm not even looking at this from an offensive perspective either. Where the QB is looking has the greatest effect, I think, on defensive players. Without QBV, playing defense is completely different in Madden than it is in real life.

*Keep in mind, the throwing animation would involve the QB looking at the receiver. I'm using the idea of who the QB is looking at in terms of which receiver is being targeted with QBV.

[michapop9]

"The bold is where we start to misrepresent the feature. QBV, despite what the name implies [VISION,] it is not what they QB can see. QBV is a representation of how QBs of various skill sets read defenses and make plays. A common mistake for quarter backs at all levels in to stare down a receiver, or suffer from tunnel vision. It is not a measurement of your eye sight or peripheral vision, but rather your ability to focus and react properly. Elite QBs, like Peyton Manning, Joe Montana, and Dan Marino are said to have been able to "read the entire field." they didn't have better eye sight. They had a better understanding of what was going on on the field. Not many QBs in the NFL have this skill, nor did they in Madden"


BAM. Couldnt of said it better, this needs to be brought back as an option, period.

[DJ]

The new passer ratings were a step in the right direction; you can't throw bombs with a guy like Tebow and expect to do much of anything. So, EA has taken steps towards differentiating how QBs play with the expanded ratings.

I just don't think we'll see an overhaul of the passing system. There'd be too much backlash and with sales already stagnant, the last thing EA needs is to tick off more gamers.

Personally, I'd love to see EA try something different, even if it didn't work. As long as you had the option of going back to the old control scheme, no harm, no foul.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the vision cone, but like the idea behind it.

[jmurphy31]

Quote: Originally Posted by Argooos

Personally, I'd wager that a large part of the reason QBV was removed was because of the way it looked. Madden is first and foremost targeted towards casual audiences, and I know from experience that casual players felt the vision cone looked downright silly. Another major problem with QBV I felt was that there was the option to move it with the right stick. Moving the vision cone should have been a matter of holding a trigger and pressing the appropriate receiver button and that should have been the only way to do it. One of TNT's major arguments against QBV was that you have to "see a receiver twice", but that is a misrepresentation of the system. You only have to see the receiver once. What you have to do twice is press the appropriate button for the receiver. This is more realistic than a single button press because it does take longer for a real QB to throw to a receiver they had not been looking at. There is a delay as they adjust their stance to face the new receiver. The delay is miniscule, but so is the amount of time it takes to press one extra button in Madden. The really sad thing about all this is that the QBV system would have been so easy to fix. I think it would simply be a matter of removing the cone and replacing it with another mechanism. I think the best way to do it would be to simple highlight the receiver in some way (a circle under the player, or the receiver's button highlighted in some way), but don't have anything coming out of the QB's eyes. The important thing here in my mind is that until there is some form of QBV in the game, Madden will be very unrealistic. If listening to football commentary has taught me anything, it's that NFL defenders often look at the QB's eyes and base their decisions on who the quarterback is looking at. You hear all the time about a QB "looking off a defender" or an inexperienced QB "staring down a receiver". Without some form of QBV, those things will never be in the game and Madden will continue to be unrealistic. Edit: I'd also like to add this: Of course competitive Madden players weren't using QBV! It makes passing more realistic, and thus more difficult. If you're trying to win, you're not going to voluntarily use a system that makes passing more difficult. If there was an option to somehow to allow opponents in online games to intercept passes, I'm sure most competitive Madden players would use that option. Does that mean interceptions should be removed from the game?

I might have to agree with the part about the presentation of the vision cone. I can even remember one year on April Fools Day making fun of the cone itself with some even worse presentation

[KBLover]

Quote: Originally Posted by Argooos

The really sad thing about all this is that the QBV system would have been so easy to fix. I think it would simply be a matter of removing the cone and replacing it with another mechanism. I think the best way to do it would be to simple highlight the receiver in some way (a circle under the player, or the receiver's button highlighted in some way), but don't have anything coming out of the QB's eyes.

Yeah, if they would use a Tecmo Bowl-style switching mechanism, it would look more seamless and still achieve a similar idea. I don't think it would have been all that cumbersome and probably a lot of subtle ways to represent QB AWR with that kind of system (lesser QBs are one tick slower with the switch, and in the NFL, that can make all the difference, etc).

[XXL78]

Quote: Originally Posted by TNT713

Depends on the player. Some people have still had tremendous trouble beating zone defenses - no matter how they have been programmed since Madden '06. Others can torch a zone and have struggle against man coverage. Furthermore, some guys can beat you with just two routes - some people can beat you with 10. Personally, I use about 6 basic routes (hooks, ins, outs, posts, slants, and streaks) that I throw all over the field in various combinations based on coverages I read pre-snap... Good question. Unfortunately one I don't have a definitive answer for but can take an educated guess based on my experience playing randoms online in about 300 PS3 Madden '08 games: 1) Usage numbers Madden '08 was where I the first experienced QB Vision as a voluntary function in ranked online games. Instead of changing the game's options to select QB Vision, users simply needed to press down on the right stick (R3) to activate the cone. If the user didn't press R3, the cone wouldn't appear. That year I faced only one player more than once (BlondeTom2000 x3) and discovered that less than 10 players that chose to use the cone by pressing R3 for a majority of their snaps. Most players would activate it for less than 4 snaps a game (I'm in this group), with an the overwhelming majority (>80%) never activating it at all. Specifically, I remember only 2 opponents all year that used it on every pass play. Given the choice between QBV or the traditional system, we weren't using QBV. Since we know that EA can and does collect data of each button we press during a game, they could pull data about how often players consciously chose QBV by pressing R3. I can't confirm it, but I think the low usage numbers I saw in my games was mirrored in EA's metrics and that's what I believe ultimately got the function removed. The paper just explained why people weren't using it. Later

Don't you miss being able to look off the safties? Don't you miss being on defense and being able to read the quarterbacks eyes? Don't you miss having draw plays that look like passes because you can see where the quarterback is looking? Don't you miss the route combinations like the deep in and a post where you could stare down the deep in and open up the post pattern behind him? It was not always the case that we had to flood zones with receivers to be effective against it. We used to be able to move zone defenders where we wanted by looking them off.

[kmart2180]

IMO Madden will always take the "Let little timmy be able to throw 10tds and 1000 yds in 1 game" over little timmy struggling to get 1 td. The easier the game is the more the casuals aka the mass buyers like the game.

The vision cone was one of the best and probably only sim/harcore madden feature ever implemented into the game. But it was too hard for the rest so out it had to go......instead of keeping it as a option for the diehards like myself. I cannot stand playing qb with Alex Smith cause if i accuracy normal i make him a 40+ td qb .......if i drop accuracy down to a point where i cant throw for 40 tds.....then the game makes me throw wild errant passes that lead to 20+ interceptions....its like you can win either way.

With the cone I feel like it just evened it out beautifully, I would struggle with the bums and do awesome with the better qbs. Without the cone, I could care less if im controlling P Manning or Nate Davis.....who I could put up the same numbers with.

Truthfully i hated the cone when i first started using it cause it was tough but after taking the time to understand it and even more so now. I wish we still had the option.