Mistakes In Video Game Football

[TarHeelPhenom]

I was having a conversation earlier with someone regarding the woes my Tar Heels are currently having on defense. A couple of things that were suggested as issues were blown assignments and too much thinking leading to slow reaction to what is happening on the field.

This got me to thinking, specifically about Madden. How do we feel about simulated mistakes in a Madden football game? For example, lets say you go into replay to watch a play, you're on defense and your MLB is suppose to be playing an area in zone coverage...and on the play he does something contrary to what his assignment is. Would we look at it as boneheaded AI or the fact that his Awareness is 60 and Play Recognition is 65?

Is that something we really want in our football game? Mistakes happen every Saturday and Sunday; but how can that be replicated in a video game to the Users satisfaction in a way that they know the difference between bad AI and low player ratings? How hard is that for EA to replicate?

[Richie71]

Re: Mistakes In Video Game Football

Low ratings, absolutely fine. Especially play action, mis-direction, draws, etc.

What we see now though, high rated OL ignore opposite DL, deep safeties guard space not opponents. Too much bad ai rather than ratings based bad decisions.

[IlluminatusUIUC]

Re: Mistakes In Video Game Football

The problem is that there's no visual indication that it is happening. When my OL ignores a rusher, as a player I can't tell if it's because of his ratings, bad AI, or I misunderstood the playcall.

[icicle22]

Re: Mistakes In Video Game Football

I hate to say it but it would only really be addressable if there was a small popup or text that said "missed assignment" or something. That would at least allow us to know it was caused by lower intelligence and address this issue in practice or replace the player. I mean, for OL it would put more value on signing someone who is not going to miss their assignment for mental reasons.

While we are at it, shouldn't players only be able to upgraded to a certain extent? I mean, in the game a lower tier OL might have be a 67 awareness meaning he is going to make mistakes. But if I build up enough XP or just upgrade it manually, he can be as good as a star. But in reality, some guys are just not ever going to be "top level" and it seems that it would add value to the drafting and trading if you knew that your current guy is never going to be that great. I dunno. Just thinking out loud here.

[ggsimmonds]

Re: Mistakes In Video Game Football

Simulated mistakes should be present in Madden, and in fact they are. The other day I threw a 35 yard TD pass to a uncovered Mark Andrews because his man defender fully bit on the playaction.

For other types of mistakes, they should be in but there needs to be some tracking mechanism. Remember NFL Head Coach and its playbook knowledge mechanic? Something like that.

I wouldn't want the game in that moment telling me there was a blown assignment, but a tracked stat could be "missed assignments."

I'd be okay and on board with being alerted to blown assignments in-game if it was done organically and immersively. Like a replay where the commentator says "it looks to me like the cornerback was supposed to cover the deep 3rd but instead he was covering the hook zone" similar to real life broadcasts. But I absolutely would not want yet another Madden-y popup saying blown assignment.

[Hooe]

Re: Mistakes In Video Game Football

This got me to thinking, specifically about Madden. How do we feel about simulated mistakes in a Madden football game? For example, lets say you go into replay to watch a play, you're on defense and your MLB is suppose to be playing an area in zone coverage...and on the play he does something contrary to what his assignment is. Would we look at it as boneheaded AI or the fact that his Awareness is 60 and Play Recognition is 65?

We already know how Tiburon feels about on-field players performing behavior different from user expectations based on how match coverage as it exists in Madden has been back-seated in Madden 23.

The specific reason all zones are spot drop by default this year is specifically due to widespread user feedback that the defensive players were not performing assignments indicated by the play art. The play art for all the match coverage plays still shows off spot-drop zones, but obviously match coverages do not spot drop. This disparity was confusing users, they complained loudly, and in the short term it means simplified pass defense in Madden.

Given this apparently widespread expectation by users that an on-player will always attempt to correctly perform their assignment from the play called in the huddle, I doubt we see things like receivers running the wrong routes, running backs missing handoffs, DBs attempting to jump route combinations in zone coverage, or defensive players flat-out playing the wrong assignment.

Additionally, until Tiburon creates better visual language for player assignments and builds better football knowledge teaching tools into Madden, I think this expectation that players always perform the assignment on the play art also limits what complex real-life football concepts can appear in Madden; not only pattern match coverage, but also banjo coverages, box coverages, linebacker fiddle techniques (albeit this is actually built in to Cover 1 Hole in Madden 23 still), cloudy-or-clear reads in run support, and so on.

[GoJags904]

Re: Mistakes In Video Game Football

I was having a conversation earlier with someone regarding the woes my Tar Heels are currently having on defense. A couple of things that were suggested as issues were blown assignments and too much thinking leading to slow reaction to what is happening on the field.



This got me to thinking, specifically about Madden. How do we feel about simulated mistakes in a Madden football game? For example, lets say you go into replay to watch a play, you're on defense and your MLB is suppose to be playing an area in zone coverage...and on the play he does something contrary to what his assignment is. Would we look at it as boneheaded AI or the fact that his Awareness is 60 and Play Recognition is 65?



Is that something we really want in our football game? Mistakes happen every Saturday and Sunday; but how can that be replicated in a video game to the Users satisfaction in a way that they know the difference between bad AI and low player ratings? How hard is that for EA to replicate?

I'd love it and it's been talked about before at times under diff threads. The issue is that a 99 player will make some of the same mistakes a 60 rated player would due to how the game is coded. Until we get more separation in ratings, more animations, basically an overhaul of blocking logic and movement etc., nothing should be touched because atp they are adding more and more onto of broken foundation and calling it improvement. We need a base game that replicates better football before adding in anything else imo. Too many new cooks in the kitchen that didn't or can't clean out the old cooks leftovers and mistakes.



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[JoshC1977]

Re: Mistakes In Video Game Football

Given this apparently widespread expectation by users that an on-player will always attempt to correctly perform their assignment from the play called in the huddle, I doubt we see things like receivers running the wrong routes, running backs missing handoffs, DBs attempting to jump route combinations in zone coverage, or defensive players flat-out playing the wrong assignment.

I agree....I mean...people cry loudly about a pitch in a baseball game not going precisely where they aimed it or the ball not flying out of the park every single time if they hit it square. And those aren't even "AI" issues. Now....you tie something 'bad' happening with the "AI" that is completely out of the control of the player (outside of roster selection) - gamers will absolutely revolt.

And I actually find that last thing to be the biggest paradox of sports gaming. The vast majority of sports gamers tend to talk out of both sides of their mouths. They spend lots of time "building a team" of highly rated players (and that's irrespective of the mode being played); so they obviously care about ratings. But when ratings impact them adversely at all; they cry about it (the infamous cry of 'RNG' rearing its ugly head). It's the ultimate form of 'gamer entitlement' - and that is universal across gamers that play every mode.

[GoJags904]

Re: Mistakes In Video Game Football

I agree....I mean...people cry loudly about a pitch in a baseball game not going precisely where they aimed it or the ball not flying out of the park every single time if they hit it square. And those aren't even "AI" issues. Now....you tie something 'bad' happening with the "AI" that is completely out of the control of the player (outside of roster selection) - gamers will absolutely revolt.



And I actually find that last thing to be the biggest paradox of sports gaming. The vast majority of sports gamers tend to talk out of both sides of their mouths. They spend lots of time "building a team" of highly rated players (and that's irrespective of the mode being played); so they obviously care about ratings. But when ratings impact them adversely at all; they cry about it (the infamous cry of 'RNG' rearing its ugly head). It's the ultimate form of 'gamer entitlement' - and that is universal across gamers that play every mode.

This is true but if ea really does the sim, comp, and arcade settings correctly, complaints about this would fall on deaf ears. Simulation is about realism. No gamer in simulation should even be taken seriously if they complain about realism. If it was a one mode suits all game then cool. This is supposedly a game with options Now pertaining to the op wanting realism with the negative happening, i assume this would be under sim.

Regarding game entitlement....The meters are the cause of this. Giving a user a non realistic way of delivering perfect pitched throws etc is the problem. U say press this an u should get a near perfect result so yes, gamer pressed it sn then gets upset if result isn't near perfection every time. Thats not entitlement its the expectation set by the developer for including the mechanic.

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[ggsimmonds]

Re: Mistakes In Video Game Football

I agree....I mean...people cry loudly about a pitch in a baseball game not going precisely where they aimed it or the ball not flying out of the park every single time if they hit it square. And those aren't even "AI" issues. Now....you tie something 'bad' happening with the "AI" that is completely out of the control of the player (outside of roster selection) - gamers will absolutely revolt.

And I actually find that last thing to be the biggest paradox of sports gaming. The vast majority of sports gamers tend to talk out of both sides of their mouths. They spend lots of time "building a team" of highly rated players (and that's irrespective of the mode being played); so they obviously care about ratings. But when ratings impact them adversely at all; they cry about it (the infamous cry of 'RNG' rearing its ugly head). It's the ultimate form of 'gamer entitlement' - and that is universal across gamers that play every mode.

One of the things I roll my eyes over in the franchise threads.
Reach the SB with the Lions = Game is playing great and realistic
Limp to winning 4 games with the Lions = Tired of the scripted nonsense

[xCoachDx]

Re: Mistakes In Video Game Football

If they aren’t going to have an IQ/playbook knowledge stat, then to me, a player should never do the wrong assignment. I’m so sick of seeing a blitzing player get halfway through his gap and run somewhere else for no reason. That makes zero sense.

Awareness and play recognition feel like they should essentially be combined into one stat at this point. Lower recognition should mean they are slower to get to where they are supposed to be.

[reMicXz]

Re: Mistakes In Video Game Football

yall done made me log in.

When it comes to Madden it should be noted that up until recently (Madden 20 i think) Awareness and Play Recognition was the same attribute. The number values were identical for every player until it was maybe changed with an upgrade from XP. I even noted this to one of the devs that i noticed this. Having both of these attributes is pretty arbitrary. Amongst many other attributes like tiered route running. Either you're a good route runner or you're not, However tiered QB accuracy is a good thing but i digress.

The problem with the analogy of The Show: Madden is with Madden even the most basic of basic fundamentals aren't being respected. Someone with 90 PRC/AWR will dumb out just as badly as someone with 60 PRC/AWR. At the end of the day these players are still NFL players so when they do something in game that goes against what a high schooler would do its a problem. On the flip side that very same player under CPU control no matter the attributes will play the position perfectly, which is why it's infuriating.

Now for The Show, sure you can have "perfect perfect" hits or a perfect release on a pitch however you just like real life do not control where the ball goes afterwards. The ball can be hit perfectly and go foul just like the ball can be hit poorly and end up a hit. It's a necessary evil to have just like how a perfectly timed swing is not actually the best choice for every pitch, which is something anyone that has swung a bat at a breaking ball would know.

Moral of this word salad above is, it would be totally fine as long as it's consistent across the board whether user or CPU kinda like how 2K has it. Play LeBron too loose? you're getting dunked on, Play Harden too close? Goodbye ankles. But you can rest assured if you leave Westbrook or Simmons alone at the perimeter and they take the shot there is a HIGH probability they're putting up a brick. Personally I think Madden needs to streamline and rebuild their attribute pool

[Momoney168]

Re: Mistakes In Video Game Football

One of the things I roll my eyes over in the franchise threads.

Reach the SB with the Lions = Game is playing great and realistic

Limp to winning 4 games with the Lions = Tired of the scripted nonsense

Exactly!!! Why can’t I go 7 step drop and launch 4 verts with my 72 OVR QB and OL lol. We get a game this year that forces you to make in game decisions around your personnel (or lack of personnel) and nothing but “we need this patched.”


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[ggsimmonds]

Re: Mistakes In Video Game Football

Exactly!!! Why can’t I go 7 step drop and launch 4 verts with my 72 OVR QB and OL lol. We get a game this year that forces you to make in game decisions around your personnel (or lack of personnel) and nothing but “we need this patched.”


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I'd say in general it is more nuanced than that. Its not so much about sim vs casual or people that cheese. Its deeper like a psychological bias that everyone can fall victim to.

I remember when I was on the Madden board regularly and was a loyal and hardcore Madden fan that with every year and release there would be a lengthy thread of people complaining that the game seemed scripted. Now the curious thing was that evidence of scripting was always in one direction only -- against the user.

"My RB with 90 carry fumbled 3 times in a game"
"I use the Packers and Aaron Rodgers threw 3 interceptions"
"The game is scripted."

But when its flipped it becomes
"My defense played lights out, we forced Henry to cough it up 3 times/we forced Tom Brady to throw 3 ints, just a great game by the D to step up"

Its what Josh alluded to when he mentioned the paradox of sports gaming. When RNG lands in your favor your team played a great game. When it lands in the AI's favor its scripting the game as a way to artificially boost the difficulty.

[Darth Aegis]

Re: Mistakes In Video Game Football

One of the things I roll my eyes over in the franchise threads.
Reach the SB with the Lions = Game is playing great and realistic
Limp to winning 4 games with the Lions = Tired of the scripted nonsense

Exactly or the dolphins.

Destroy teams & go to the SB - Game is playing amazing
Win 6 games - waiting for a patch.

Problem is even sim gamers don't want random mistakes on their team.

User gets pick 6 after pick 6 - My drafted 70 overall CB is a beast!!!

CPU gets a pick 6 = restart/need patch