[canes21]

Quote: Originally Posted by TarHeelPhenom

The Trench War!! In NCAA 14, OL had literally zero animations compared to DLinemen. They had the invisible wall and then the "patty cake" animation between an OL and a DL. So, if you were editing rosters, you did so in a way that would allow for more DL animations to make it "appear" that there was some variety. It made that part of the game very stale; and it also didn't matter who you put at OL, they would play the exact same. I think EA has done a better job since then at making what happens in the trenches better. Hopefully they will continue so that by the time the college game comes out, it'll matter who you recruit on the OL and DL. With what you were saying about how overpowered the Read Option was...another thing that was way off was the fact that the QB would have the majority of the carries. In games you would have the QB with 20 carries and the #1 back with 7. A lot of that had to do with how the Read Option was scripted like you said...but also Tendencies. The only way you could tone it down was to pretty much edit every QB who was a Scrambler and change them to Balanced. But that caused issues in other areas such as QB's actually scrambling on broken plays or running the Triple Option or Wishbone attack. I think maybe a separate attribute should be added in addition to Tendency for QB's to help with that...call it "Read option Awareness" or something lol...I don't know. I know that the Read Option and RPO game is apart of the NFL now...but still not as much as the college game. It needs to be on point.

Ah, yes. The QBs with the Scrambler tendency were a mess in NCAA 14. In our online dynasty we would edit the next opponents QBs to all be balanced and edit them back to what they originally were after the game was played.

All scrambling seemed to mean was that they would run into their RT and give you 8 free sacks per game.

I think QB play has improved quite a bit in Madden. It's still far from perfect, but at least in 21 the QBs move in the pocket, actually move around and run while still being able to pass. That's a big change. Remember, in NCAA 14, when a QB tucks it and leaves the pocket, they are unable to pass the ball. In Madden the CPU QB is always a threat to pass the ball when moving/running around.

CPU QBs in Madden 21 also run much smarter, they don't strictly run to their dominant hand side like in NCAA. Even the slower QBs who would never run in NCAA 14 are a threat to take off if given the opportunity in Madden 21.

Of course, like I said, CPU QB play isn't perfect. There is the issue where QBs continuously drift back until sacked. Though, I've read this is fixed on next gen. The issue seems to stem from the playcalling. I've noticed it mainly happens on plays like Curl Flats where each target finishes their route pretty quickly and even if they're covered they stay stationary and don't try to get open. This causes the QB to freak out and just drift back waiting for someone to get open.

I would like to see EA improve the WR play and have them move much more quickly once they finish their route. In real life, a guy one curl isn't going to stand still when he turns around. He expects the ball to be on the way as he turns and if it isn't, he'll run around to find space if the QB still has the ball.

OL and DL play has definitely improved. Not only has the logic been improved on, but the variety of animations is night and day. Madden is still far from perfect and I think the OL still performs too well, but the amount of animation variety at the line of scrimmage is a major plus for Madden when comparing the two games. Look, EA games are "scripted" and are very animation based. Since I know that is the case and will remain the case until EA completely changes the foundation of the game, I'll gladly take the Madden animations we have now over what NCAA 14 had.

Pocket formation and collapse is done much better. Zone blocking is infinitely better. Both games have running games that are a bit too easy, NCAA's issue was the OL always got a lot of push whenever they "won". Madden's issue is that on certain plays the OL holds their blocks too well allowing backs to get to the 2nd level untouched too easily. However, at least with Madden's new defensive AI I touched on in my initial post, that combined with slider changes can bring the running game down to more realistic levels.

The only way to really fix the NCAA running game is to completely neuter the user RBs bu making RBA have such a low value every back you use is stuck in mud and you can never have any explosive plays as a result.

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