Locomotion, Real Assignment AI, & ProTak

[Valdarez]

Quote: Originally Posted by spankdatazz22

I'll preface this by saying I think the NCAA demo is mostly enjoyable, but I think both Madden and NCAA are being looked at far too favorably because the games have been so bad. I think what many people forget is last gen the NCAA had tuned the game to have a great system of momentum/acceleration/pursuit - it was just lacking in the player interaction dept. Because of those factors, it was possible to recreate a run where the runner cuts against the grain and uses a defender's momentum against them, for example. Locomotion imo is primarily to cover up for what Tiburon got away from next gen. It's easily the best system of movement Tiburon has delivered this gen, but it feels players aren't really running on the turf to me. There's still noticeable warping and sliding that occurs. I've gotten used to it, but I don't see Locomotion as being some "real deal". I think people have had bad so long that anything competent/good is elevated that much more. Real Assignment AI is a nice/logical improvement. Where it doesn't quite live up to what it should be is w/the player interaction. Lacking a physics system the game doesn't convey what football is, a collision sport. For all the talk about responsiveness/movement, the second a tackle is occurring it's just a matter of what animation is going to play out. But again, it's much better than Tiburon has done previously next gen so it's going to be looked at in a more positive fashion than it should. I'm most disappointed with Pro-Tak, it's a completely inadequate system of contact/tackling. And the only "improvements" seem to be making those weird rugby scrums occur with less frequency - when they shouldn't have been there to begin with. In NCAA you rarely see a player engaged in contact affected by another person - it's all 1-on-1 interaction. Which is exactly where we were in 2004 with Madden/NCAA. In APF/BB/2K5 for example, you'd see second players come in and finish off a tackle for example. So this will be the year where NCAA and Madden garner high ratings simply for... getting the game's to near where they were 6 years ago.

Hey Spank, I know you're one of the posters that does an excellent job of breaking down the little things in a football game, like the small custom animations and the incidental contact (if you remember, I used one of your posts to create an article on 2kfootballstrategy once about backbreaker/APF2K8 and whether real physics or canned animations is the future of the sport), so I not only appreciate but agree with your sentiments. Have you ever taken the time to diagnose the speed differences between the the two games? Speed is something I felt APF2K8 did well, though it is very slow and is not for all gamers. When I play NCAA it feels way to fast, and when I play Madden on the slower speed settings, the players seem to move fast even though the animations play out slower. It's a small thing, something that Rocky I believe pointed out months ago that got wrong (PM'd him about it, but never got a response back). Might be worth more analysis and a new thread on the subject. I really enjoyed APF2K's speed tradeoff, and M10's just feels all out of kilter to me.

With regards to the incidental contact, and contact in general, I have to admit that I was hoping that ProTak had evolved this year. I felt they created a good concept with ProTak 1.0, but that it didn't play out realistically. As you said, the 9 man scrums, and then an HB breaking out of it looked odd at best, and just plain wrong most of the time. I was hoping to see players fall off while trying to make a tackle, more tackle animations for multiple player engagements, and the engaged players movement impacted by a 2nd, 3rd, even 4th hit. That doesn't appear to be in NCAA and while Ian says they are tuning ProTak in one of his Tweets, I have low expectations of seeing anything new in Madden 11.

[Valdarez]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rashad19

There are a few instances in a game I played last night where I felt like they expressed football as a violent collsion sport. Case and point, I threw a screen to my RB on a 2nd and 2 play which caught the D in a blitz. My RB caught the ball with two linement in front of him and a tiny DB out in space. My guard absolutely decleated this CB in a VIOLENT fashion! I actually felt and heard the grunt/thud through my speakers. I jumped off my couch with excitement when I saw this! The NCAA team is starting to get that football is organized VIOLENCE!!

This is a small enchancement, but something that I felt made the game feel far more realistic, and that's the screen pass. In M10, the HB takes off so soon that he's actually stopped and turned around looking for the ball. If you throw before he sets, there are typically lineman right there to make the play. NCAA did a very good job of timing the play as the HB takes off right as the lineman break through, and you can hit the HB in stride on the screen which is what you want to do. Throwing a screen in NCAA felt more authentic than any previous version of an EA title that I can personally remember, and that's something that I really hope translates to Madden 11.

[Valdarez]

Quote: Originally Posted by at23steelers

I like the locomotion a lot, but still feels like you're on skates.

This is one thing that realistically fans are just going to have to live with this generation. Locomotion does not appear to have fixed the problem with the players feet properly engaging the turf. I don't know what the deal is with the EA football games in that area, but they have all been very poor at it this this generation. If an entire new Locomotion system built on player movements, and more importantly, footwork, is unable to address the foot relation to field issue then I seriously doubt we'll see a solution.

[Rashad19]

A little off topic Valdarez but what are your thoughts on passing in the demo? I'm going to test out myself when I get home.

[Valdarez]

Quote: Originally Posted by C3B

What i think this is, is the games example of not being able to make every block. Instead of the player going in the right direction and at the right player, having him fail at a block and get smoked, the blocker will just go off into his own world. I mean, obviously if the player blocked every single time it would be unrealistic and hard to stop offense, i think this is the way the player uses his AWR. I'm not saying it's the right way, but i can just imagine how hard it would be to code that.

APF2K8 has this exact same problem, the thing is that many times it happens in APF2K8 it's the players fault as the player controls the movement of his lead blockers. Some gamers don't like this, as they feel it's not 'sim', but I personally enjoyed it as it allowed me to set the direction of the play and the players to follow me once we made it past the initial line and it also played out well on interception, kick off, and punt returns, items that aren't addressed by the new real assignment AI. I'd love to see them implement the lead blocker control mechanism used in APF2K8, tied with awareness with regards to how well they follow your movement, for the situations that don't fall under the current real assignment AI implementation (long rungs, interception returns, kick off returns, and punt returns).

[Valdarez]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rashad19

A little off topic Valdarez but what are your thoughts on passing in the demo? I'm going to test out myself when I get home.

Good question. I mainly focused on the locomotion and the items that we knew were in the game, though I did notice that it looked like I could read some of the players setup prior to the snap of the ball such as inside/outside coverage (referring to the AI's call, I didn't mess with it myself), but I didn't pay attention throughout the course of the play to see if the defensive coverage stayed the same as the defensive player covered/defended my player. I'll fire up the demo and try it out again, and pay close attention to the coverage and the passing game (route based passing anyone?).

One thing I did note was that it was easier for me to read the field now because players didn't move unrealistically like in previous versions of the game. Passes that I had thrown, based on player location/movement, were actually completed passes now, which for me is awesome. It was extremely frustrating in Madden to read the field, make a good read, throw the ball, only to have a player somewhere make an extremely unrealistically play, and then have to spend time learning how to pass in Madden, not based on football reasoning but on Madden logic/limitations. At that point I'm not learning/using football strategy, I'm learning Madden arcade gameplay, which isn't even remotely interesting to me.

[Rashad19]

Good points Val! Passing felt like I had more control in placing the ball in the right spots in the demo. Trajectory and ball speed felt good just not sure it's true route based passing that you showed in your videos. Like I said I'll play with it tonight and let you know my thoughts!

[Only1LT]

i agree mostly with spank.

Don't get me wrong, locomotion is better than what we have had, and it is noticeable. The running animations also look better as well.

Having said that, it isn't all that it could be. There is some foot planting, but it happens too infrequently and even when it does, it happens very quickly with little deceleration so it is really just window dressing. There does seem to be some good use of acceleration as a strafing LB will not be able to just turn on the jets and catch a sprinting WR crossing in his zone. I also noticed on cuts that there was more separation, but I'm not sure if that was accel/ decel or just bad AI.

While the game feels a little better with loco, it isn't a revelation at all. When changing direction you can see the player visually leaning, but iut didn't feel like there was much if any decel. It is like loco is mostly for visuals sake and not practical.

An example would be 2k, how there is a visible penalty for changing directions too quickly. You will slow down a lot if you go from holding the stick all the way in one direction and then pushing it all the way in the opposite. I didn't get that in the demo. Further more, I think that how momentum is tied to the stick in NCAA/ Madden is backwards and counter intuitive. You stutter step and see a lot of foot planting when you subtly move the joystick let to right, keeping it close to the neutral position. Huh? Why would they think that you would need so much foot planting when you are barely changing direction, but when you abruptly change direction, it's like you are gliding with the greatest of ease. 2K gets it. EA still doesn't.

Overall the game is improved, but if I am being honest, I am really disappointed with how subtle loco is. Being a PS3 owner only, I haven't had the opportunity to play the Backbreaker demo yet (it is supposed to drop today, but who the heck knows) so I don't know how loco is or feels in that game, but I have played 2K5 and 2K8 pretty extensively (and still do on occasion) and they have locomotion done proper. I didn't think that NCAA/ Madden would match them in their first go round (or even their tenth to be honest) but I thought that it would be something that is at least in that league. From what I've seen so far, loco is a nice and welcome addition, but not nearly as prevalent as I think it needs to be. At this point it's more visual flair (and slight at that) than anything else.