The ground game has gotten quite a bit of attention in the past couple of years from the development team of Madden NFL. This year, its the passing game's turn -- as detailed on a new blog from EA Sports.
"Air Supremacy revolutionizes passing and catching on both sides of the ball with new user and AI mechanics. There is also a new multiplayer catch interaction system with more than 400 new two-player catch animations with a wide variety of outcomes."
What This Means: EA appears to be bringing it on both sides of the ball when it comes to the passing game. Everything about QB and WR play seems to have been reworked. This starts with a new handoff system that will hopefully fix a lot of the longstanding issues with play-action and quick passing plays. The handoffs themselves should look much better too.
Also new this year is a new quarterback locomotion system. These new mechanics are going to enable you to roll out to pass, or basically roll-out in a passing stance. This will keep you from suffering a huge accuracy drop off as throwing on the run will. You'll be able to toggle between pocket passing, rolling out, or scrambling with a single button push as well.
Computer QB AI Gets Reworked
"For many players, the most requested change for Madden NFL 16 was an overhaul to the CPU QB AI. We spent several years developing a new AI architecture called “Behavior Coordinator,” which allows us to create a more granular set of behaviors to a given situation.
This not only helps deliver the most challenging CPU QB’s to date, but also creates a clear distinction between different types of QB’s. The game you get from Tom Brady (pocket passer) is dramatically different than the behavior you will see from dual threats like Mariota or Newton. Each style of QB will now react to situations differently, based on their traits."
This not only helps deliver the most challenging CPU QB’s to date, but also creates a clear distinction between different types of QB’s. The game you get from Tom Brady (pocket passer) is dramatically different than the behavior you will see from dual threats like Mariota or Newton. Each style of QB will now react to situations differently, based on their traits."
What This Means: Hopefully there is going to be a much greater distinction running an offense with Peyton Manning vs. running an offense with Cam Newton. That's what we hope this means. We'll see, in execution, how this plays out on the field. EA is claiming this has changed how the AI calls plays, how it perceives pressure, how it manages situations in-game -- along with robo QB and a dink-and-dunk offense.
The new passing mechanic of the body-relative throws will add an additional layer as well.
What do you think of the potentially improved quarterback play in Madden NFL 16?
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