What do you guys think about this sort of "lead passing" feature for Madden?

[Only1LT]

I've long been pining away for passing mechanic where you throw to areas only and not tied to an icon mapped to a button system.

QBs throw to spots in real life. I'd love to throw to the spot I want instead of throwing to a receiver and trying to guess how much I need to hold the stick to lead him.

Cursor on the field at all times. Controlled by Right Stick. One pass button. Right Trigger.

Accomplishes both, being able to throw the ball to a specific spot, and also provides a mechanism for reading where the QB is looking. Based on accuracy ratings, the ball will be more or less on target from where the cursor is when you throw it.

Probably never happen. For what ever reason, people love to play Football games the same exact way they played them 25yrs ago...

[Skyboxer]

Quote: Originally Posted by Only1LT

I've long been pining away for passing mechanic where you throw to areas only and not tied to an icon mapped to a button system. QBs throw to spots in real life. I'd love to throw to the spot I want instead of throwing to a receiver and trying to guess how much I need to hold the stick to lead him. Cursor on the field at all times. Controlled by Right Stick. One pass button. Right Trigger. Accomplishes both, being able to throw the ball to a specific spot, and also provides a mechanism for reading where the QB is looking. Based on accuracy ratings, the ball will be more or less on target from where the cursor is when you throw it. Probably never happen. For what ever reason, people love to play Football games the same exact way they played them 25yrs ago...

Did you play Fever? Although the game left a good bit to be desired BUT wasnt terrible.. The passing was fun as crap.
Really felt like you accomplished something when you had a good passing game.

[Only1LT]

Quote: Originally Posted by Skyboxer

Did you play Fever? Although the game left a good bit to be desired BUT wasnt terrible.. The passing was fun as crap. Really felt like you accomplished something when you had a good passing game.

Never played it. Never owned a Microsoft Console. Have seen videos though and it definitely looks like something I would enjoy.

I would go further and have it be totally ball placement/ cursor based as opposed to pass to an icon and then tweak it with a cursor, but I'd settle for Fever's take most definitely.

Having said that, I do like what I'm hearing about what they CLAIM to have done to Madden 13's passing game. It appears to be route based now, and I like that leading of receivers is a lot less tethered than previously.

Definitely a step in the right direction.

[mrprice33]

Wasn't this in Joe Montana sports talk?

Hardest thing would be tuning the speed of the cursor. Make it too slow and it'd be hard to get from one side of the field to another. Too fast and fine aiming would be very difficult. The good thing about FPS and their control is that it's easy to orient your character so the action is in the "middle" of the screen. In a game like madden where you're surveying 250+ square yards of field, it's a much wider area and it's usually happening much faster than aiming at that distance in an FPS or third-person shooter.

[Only1LT]

Quote: Originally Posted by mrprice33

Wasn't this in Joe Montana sports talk? Hardest thing would be tuning the speed of the cursor. Make it too slow and it'd be hard to get from one side of the field to another. Too fast and fine aiming would be very difficult. The good thing about FPS and their control is that it's easy to orient your character so the action is in the "middle" of the screen. In a game like madden where you're surveying 250+ square yards of field, it's a much wider area and it's usually happening much faster than aiming at that distance in an FPS or third-person shooter.

Tuning would be difficult, but no more so than tuning any other aspect of any game to suit a wide audience and their play styles. Definitely not impossible.

I'd allow people to adjust the sensitivity of the cursor, a la a FPS control, but within certain parameters for each QB depending on Awareness. ie QB with 100 AWR can adjust sensitivity from 100 all the way down to what ever number you are comfortable with, QB with 70 AWR can only go up to 70 Sensitivity all the way down to zero. That way, QBs with worse AWR can make as many reads as a high AWR QB. You would need to keep the cursor closer to your intended target, essentially staring him down, cause you may not have time to look off with lower sensitivity. Just a thought I toyed with.

As for it being harder to aim in Football than in a FPS, I strongly disagree.

In a FPS you have to be aware of your surroundings, 360 degrees, when it comes to potential targets. Football, only 180 degrees.

FPS is a true 3D plane. Football, with its skycam view is essentially 2D.

FPS, many targets and they can come from any unexpected direction in 360 degrees as well as on different levels (from above or below). Football, there are 5 targets MAX, and you know where they will be because you know the routes lol.

It's not even close. Aiming in a Football game with a Right Stick cursor method would be infinitely easier than aiming in a FPS. And this has already been done in John Elway's Quarterback, before there was a John Madden Football or Joe Montana Sports Talk.

[Jaaa]

Quote: Originally Posted by Only1LT

I've long been pining away for passing mechanic where you throw to areas only and not tied to an icon mapped to a button system. QBs throw to spots in real life. I'd love to throw to the spot I want instead of throwing to a receiver and trying to guess how much I need to hold the stick to lead him. Cursor on the field at all times. Controlled by Right Stick. One pass button. Right Trigger. Accomplishes both, being able to throw the ball to a specific spot, and also provides a mechanism for reading where the QB is looking. Based on accuracy ratings, the ball will be more or less on target from where the cursor is when you throw it. Probably never happen. For what ever reason, people love to play Football games the same exact way they played them 25yrs ago...

Agree with everything except it being the right stick

As for someone else (predictably) mentioning it being too hard for both us and EA to actually pull off, I'm thinking a 100 point speed adjusting scale would be an absolute essential. This could turn video game QB'ing into what real QB'ing is, which is just throwing darts at moving targets and around moving targets. So it could only work to it's potential if the player can get as close to perfectly comfortable with the mechanism as possible. Further, or this is how I would do it anyway, some sort of "snap" feature would probably be something to try, emulating a QB using his peripherals to locate a WR. Think about it. A QB coming back across the field and finding his #2 option on the back side post doesn't have any difficulty locating him with his eyes, and I wouldn't any either. I want the difficulty to come in the same form as the real QB experiences it, accurately throwing the football. I just had an epiphany.

Now that I got the juices flowing, here's exactly how I would try to make it work. Without holding LT, the cursor flows and "snaps" onto receivers it comes in contact with. When it snaps, it automatically lands on his face (acting as the most "generic" location possible of an intended receivers target area). At this point you can do one of two things. The 10 year old and under crowd can just hold RT in a meter filling fashion (there would of course be no visible meter, just the animation of your QB's specific release, ala NBA2KFTW,) and the pass will always be a pass that makes the WR break his stride. It doesn't lead him, nor is it behind him, it is directly at him. Neutral. Or, you can go the big boy route and lead your receiver manually. And the way this should be done is once you're locked onto a receiver, the cursor moves with him, but within his "target area". I don't know if I'll be able to articulate this correctly, and I'm sure some of you know what I mean, but basically the cursor automatically travels at the same speed as your receiver, wherever you move it stays correlation with your receivers path.

Beyond that, holding LT let's you freely move the cursor without it snapping, you hold RT throughout your QB's throw animation (with the ability to hold too long and overthrow), Left Stick moves the cursor, Right Stick controls the body (and dammit, allow me to start my dropback but make the game smart enough to finish it for me, cough cough kinda like that other game ), and BAM! You've got a kick *** pass game that finally does the real thing justice. Oh, and of course the pass would never go directly to where you threw it. QB accuracy would still play a major role in determining how many times you are able to put the ball exactly where you want it.

I swear, you could do a lot of cool things with this.

[mrprice33]

Quote: Originally Posted by Only1LT

Tuning would be difficult, but no more so than tuning any other aspect of any game to suit a wide audience and their play styles. Definitely not impossible. I'd allow people to adjust the sensitivity of the cursor, a la a FPS control, but within certain parameters for each QB depending on Awareness. ie QB with 100 AWR can adjust sensitivity from 100 all the way down to what ever number you are comfortable with, QB with 70 AWR can only go up to 70 Sensitivity all the way down to zero. That way, QBs with worse AWR can make as many reads as a high AWR QB. You would need to keep the cursor closer to your intended target, essentially staring him down, cause you may not have time to look off with lower sensitivity. Just a thought I toyed with. As for it being harder to aim in Football than in a FPS, I strongly disagree. In a FPS you have to be aware of your surroundings, 360 degrees, when it comes to potential targets. Football, only 180 degrees. FPS is a true 3D plane. Football, with its skycam view is essentially 2D. FPS, many targets and they can come from any unexpected direction in 360 degrees as well as on different levels (from above or below). Football, there are 5 targets MAX, and you know where they will be because you know the routes lol. It's not even close. Aiming in a Football game with a Right Stick cursor method would be infinitely easier than aiming in a FPS. And this has already been done in John Elway's Quarterback, before there was a John Madden Football or Joe Montana Sports Talk.

The ability to move the character in order to adjust the camera (along with aggressive auto aim) make shooting in an FPS much easier than this proposed system.

I like the idea of throwing to a spot on the field. Couldn't that be done another way? A more aggressive route-based passing system, perhaps? Maybe for some routes when you hit the button to pass it they automatically throw it to a specific spot on the field (within a range based on ratings) and it's up to you to read and time the route.

As I've said in other threads, the throw distance on the sticks isn't good enough to have certain things mapped to it. Imagine going from a receiver on the right sideline all the way to a receiver on the left. In reality, that's a pretty quick decision by the qb. How would that work using the sticks? How would you make sure you the user doesn't over/under shoot it? How long would it take?

This would be an ideal system for madden PC, but just like how console FPS make concessions to the controller, so too would Tiburon.

Look at what happened with Elite. They tried to do 1 to 1 control, and it failed miserably. Usability and fun should be priority #1.

[King Gro23]

My dream passing system has been mentioned in this very thread but I have my own twist

First, I feel the passing system should be much like NFL Fever's "Read 'n' Lead" passing mode. All of the modes functions would remain (Still require WR button press, and cursor controlled by R-Stick, R Trigger throw... Click in the R stick to scramble) Here is video example of system:

Twist #1 - You should be able to move the cursor any where in a radius range of the QB's Throwing Strength. So if a 95 Throwing Strength rating is used and the range is 65-70 yard heave you should be able to move the curson that distance in proximity to the QB. That alone will give the game a fresh organic feel regarding different ratings and routes as well as QB positioning. IMO it makes every movement more key and require focus.

Now the pass quality is dependent on the QB's SAC, MAC, DAC that will determine how accurate the QB is at throwing to the cursor. Once again opening up the variety in the passing game. But regarding Bullet vs Lob vs touch

Each QBs cursor to determine the touch of the ball should have the player cursors Color fill ranging from say 0-99% and have a percentage flash inside the cursor showing the strength of the pass. Which is would be the press and hold of the trigger.

I think those ideas alone would make Maddens passing game Intuitive, Fun, CHallenging & Rewarding and more importantly DYNAMIC