Madden NFL 10 Blog - Improvements to WR/DB Interaction

[Deltron]

Ian,

I hope you guys are aware of how Madden's old defensive assignment feature was slightly broken and/or ineffective. If you assigned a defender to a WR, the defender would simply switch positions in order to stay covering him.

For example, if you assigned Bailey to Moss, and Moss happened to line up in the slot where a safety would usually be on him, Bailey would simply lineup as a safety (with safety depth) and your safety would be your CB. This negates defensive play calls where you want Bailey to be in a bump-n-run coverage, and it negates other types of coverage as well.

I would call this another band-aid approach to defensive assignments. If you look at the way 2k implemented this feature, the defender always maintained their coverage assignment while following the player they are matched to. In madden, if you might end up having a cornerback lined up at LB and a LB playing corner.

[Shadymamba]

man looks real good! thx for the update i love to see guys working hard for the fans! keep it up

[NYGmen56]

Ian,

while those videos do look very good, im hoping you guys put some extra animations for WR & DB like hand checks from a CB as he is running downfield with WR, and bumping or positioning battles between WR & CB within the 5 yards of play. 2K sports did a great job on those animations in thier football games which made for great realism.. Keep up the good work..

[NYyankz225]

Quote: Originally Posted by NYGmen56

Ian, while those videos do look very good, im hoping you guys put some extra animations for WR & DB like hand checks from a CB as he is running downfield with WR, and bumping or positioning battles between WR & CB within the 5 yards of play. 2K sports did a great job on those animations in thier football games which made for great realism.. Keep up the good work..

You're kidding right? Did u miss the blog?

[frozenblade]

These new animations are sick! Now if you could add alot more catch animations and some jump ball animations this madden be amazing! since you have this whole momentum thing going maybe you could add some LB/DB with WR/HB interaction where the halfback will slam into a defrender and they both sort of... well deflect away and then they both get their wits back and slam together again.

[LBzrule]

Quote: Originally Posted by Deltron

Ian, I hope you guys are aware of how Madden's old defensive assignment feature was slightly broken and/or ineffective. If you assigned a defender to a WR, the defender would simply switch positions in order to stay covering him. For example, if you assigned Bailey to Moss, and Moss happened to line up in the slot where a safety would usually be on him, Bailey would simply lineup as a safety (with safety depth) and your safety would be your CB. This negates defensive play calls where you want Bailey to be in a bump-n-run coverage, and it negates other types of coverage as well. I would call this another band-aid approach to defensive assignments. If you look at the way 2k implemented this feature, the defender always maintained their coverage assignment while following the player they are matched to. In madden, if you might end up having a cornerback lined up at LB and a LB playing corner.

This is exactly what I was talking about by not having guys swap positions. I just used different players in my examples. I hated it on the old Madden's for this reason.

[c dizzy m baby]

Ian this is huge for me, but could you make sure you add the ability to just press one WR instead of your whole defense coming up? I play with the Raiders and they have one good press coverage corner in Nnamdi, but when 09 first came out Deangelo wasn't good at it. With the improvements to the press animations I dont want to have to have my hypothetical Deangelo getting toasted just because I want to press with Nnamdi.

Im going to have so much fun with this combined with the defensive assignments since I exclusively play with the Raiders... I could have Nnamdi follow your number 2 WR with a bad release around all day and eliminate him from the game, while I double or triple team your main threat, or I could play him straight up with Nnamdi to focus on other areas of your offense.... It is starting to feel like real football....

Also Ian did you say if the double team man coverage was working correctly? The defense never brackets the receiver, they both usually end up getting toasted.

[game designer]

my maine interest would be sense this is supposed to be more realistic are the wide outs that have the abilty to go and catch the ball at its highest point and the abilty to slow down togather them self to jump? are the the wide out like larry and randy moss gong be able to adjust and slow to make the jump at the end of there route to catch the ball at it highest point?