My idea for a realistic passing mechanic

[Luke Skywalker]

Remember NFL Fever's "Read & Lead Passing" feature? You were able to move a cross hair on the field and where ever you moved the cross hair, you would be able to throw the ball to that desired spot. Pretty realistic.

Madden should take this idea and capitalize. Using Awareness, Accuracy, and Throw Power (range), and a new rating Composure.

Awareness would dictate how fast you can move the cross hair on the field. Jameis Winston's cross hair placement would be sluggish compared to Aaron Rodger's.

Composure would be how well that QB reacts under pressure. Say I am using Derek Carr aim the cross hair to lead my Wide Receiver, with a pass. I have JJ Watt breathing down my neck, my cross hair would begin to shake so the pass wouldn't be precise.

Peyton Manning in that same predicament, except his crosshair barely twitches and he is able to complete the pass.

[TexasFan2005]

Excellent idea, and sounds much better than a 'vision cone,' which I wouldn't be opposed for the sake of having some user-controlled adjustments to the passing game. Of course, the cross hair should only be visible to the user who's controlling the offense in an online game. I'd even go one step further and completely remove the different buttons on top of the receivers' heads; like having just one pass button appear the receiver whom the QB is targeting.

I think the main point is that when controlling the QB, the user shouldn't be able to have multiple receivers to throw to at once, but instead manually choose the direction in which he's looking which would narrow down his choice to just one area of the field. It makes total sense to me, as the majority of QB's in real life have just a few seconds to read the coverage, decide on a single receiver, and act upon it.

[IndyColts2]

And since it's EA the dumbed down version of this would take out the aiming target and just leave it at total control passing plus only having one button to pass while being able to switch to your WR to throw to. Which is still a good feature to have.

As you said, right now being able to throw to any WR is way too easy. It's as if everyone's "QB vision" is how Peyton's was back in the day. I personally loved QB vision because it made bad QB's play like it unless they actually took their time to read coverages and make smart throws. With this system the passing game would be way more realistic.

[Luke Skywalker]

Vision Cone can used in the same context as the cross hair; shake while under pressure (Composure), and how fast or slow you're able to move on a desired target (Awareness).

I don't like how Awareness makes your Flash Light bigger or smaller, because they're professional quarterbacks, they see the same field. What differentiates them is their skill set and my idea making the cone shake under pressure, and the ability to move the cone would show a disparity among the average and elite QBs.

[Big FN Deal]

This has been suggested before and I'm all for options yet I feel it isn't necessary to accomplish what people want out of this type system. Even going back to QB Vision, the issue wasn't the premise, which I think was solid, the issue was the arcadey visual of the actual "vision cone" and I think likewise for the passing cursor from read n lead.

NFL2k's "maximum passing" was essentially read n lead minus the visual cursor AND the added benefit of the invisible cursor being linked with an intended target/receiver. The reason that's actually better than read n lead, imo, aside from the visual aspect, is that it provided a ground zero point for the invisible cursor, by targeting a receiver or the end point of their route/RBP, which is far more intuitive and User friendly for passing in a video game, than a free hand cursor but admittedly also more limiting.

For me I look at in terms of a basketball video game, sure it would be less restrictive to have a cursor to target where to place the ball for passes and jump shots but it's much easier/User friendly to be able to target a specific player and the goal/basket with a button press and having some manual leeway on how much the User can lead or veer from that target.

[zoom zoom]

In case developers are reading, I would just like to say that this sounds like a convoluted mess of a mechanic. I'm not really looking to play Missile Command.

[TheDominator273]

I'd like to see something where you have to go through reads. Set your primary read pre snap at the line of scrimmage, and have to cycle through your reads using the left and right triggers. Better quarterbacks could cycle through reads faster than worse qbs. Using Peyton for instance you could cycle from one receiver to the last one very quickly, where as Hoyer there would be a slight delay in between changing reads to simulate the slower decision making. Now you could throw to any receiver at any time, but the further they are from the read your qb is on, the greater the chance of an inaccurate pass.

[wlucky]

I would rather them take a page from the MVP baseball franchise where they had the power gauge with a sweet spot for pitches. Make it match the animation for different qb releases like free throw animations in 2k and leave the icons so based on what receiver you choose and how much pressure on the qb plus his attributes determine how hard it is to hit that spot. Things like sacks or continuous pressure can alter the sweet spot to make it smaller thus harder to time resulting in errant or somewhat off throws.