Backbreaker Video: Developer Diary #1

[TheKasmar]

Quote: Originally Posted by Afrikan

also, not to lower standards, but is there a football to compare this to....I mean defensive AI is hard to implement, unless you let the CPU cheat (like in years past Madden)..

This is all very interesting. I cant wait to see what a simple swat animation will do. Most of us have seen the pre-determined animations of past football games but, I wonder what the Backbreaker engine will bring to the table? Will it be more of the same or will euphoria help make the 1-on-1 battle between a reciever and defensive back truly unpredictable? For example, A wide reciever tripping over the feet of a defensive back.

[Phobia]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dudd

Blown assignments should happen, but they should be realistic in nature. When a football player makes a mistake, he usually has a reason to do so, either he mistakenly jumped a short route and left a deep man uncovered or bit on a playfake or something like that. The footage in this trailer showed some fundamentally flawed AI routines where they were reacting to the ball instead of the man. Defenders in football are smart enough to only react to the ball when they have a good chance at actually breaking up the pass, otherwise they make tackling the receiver the number one priority, here it seemed like defensive players were programmed to respond only to the football instead of deciding whether to play the ball or anticipate the catch. Hopefully it gets fixed like the dev who responded said it was/will, but I'll believe it when I see it, too often game makers promise something in a trailer was just an old version that would be fixed before it went gold, only to see that same issue appear in the finished game.

I noticed same thing. The secondary was playing the football not the situation. Now that you said, that. That is why the Safety was off the WR 15 or so yards. He was playing the pass reading it going deep and the WR just jumped up and caught it.

I hope they fix the AI. This could be a epic game if they can pull it out. If the AI remains broken at launch I will

[Phobia]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheKasmar

This is all very interesting. I cant wait to see what a simple swat animation will do. Most of us have seen the pre-determined animations of past football games but, I wonder what the Backbreaker engine will bring to the table? Will it be more of the same or will euphoria help make the 1-on-1 battle between a reciever and defensive back truly unpredictable? For example, A wide reciever tripping over the feet of a defensive back.

That would be interesting . Seeing a true 1 on 1 battle of WR/CB would be a thing of dreams.

I am mostly interested in the secondary at the moment. Some key looking issues out there.

[jyoung]

Who knows what difficulty that video was on, so it may have played a part in the coverage being so bad.

I wouldn't jump to any conclusions about the AI until the final product is in my hands.

For now, let's just marvel at how great the player-to-player contact looks!

[Phobia]

Quote: Originally Posted by Afrikan

ummm...I just checked your post over there...and I didn't see anyone blast you... and you say "they"...can you give some examples, before calling anyone "biggest group of immature idiots" you have ever graciously neglected yourself to?

Well maybe ripping was a bad word, but being a complete immature *** is not looked at well in my eyes. Act like a child and expect to get treated like a child. That entire forum is filled with immature kids. Just reading some of the back and forth there is horrible. If you disagree then that is your own perception but I have the right to have my opinion. Just like you have the right to your opinion.

[Phobia]

Quote: Originally Posted by wEEman33

Who knows what difficulty that video was on, so it may have played a part in the coverage being so bad. I wouldn't jump to any conclusions about the AI until the final product is in my hands. For now, let's just marvel at how great the player-to-player contact looks!

That I will say looks AMAZING. The tackles, broken tackles, contacts, look phenomenal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TheKasmar]

Quote: Originally Posted by Phobia

That would be interesting . Seeing a true 1 on 1 battle of WR/CB would be a thing of dreams. I am mostly interested in the secondary at the moment. Some key looking issues out there.

Issues with a brand new football franchise are inevitable. I have high expectations of BB and will be disappointed if key elements are missing from the game however, this delevolper diary has exceeded my expectations of what the BB team was capable of. I went from 10% rental to maybe purchasable. So, while the secondary and OL/DL interaction might be suspect, I still remained impressed overall.

[Phobia]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheKasmar

Issues with a brand new football franchise are inevitable. I have high expectations of BB and will be disappointed if key elements are missing from the game however, this delevolper diary has exceeded my expectations of what the BB team was capable of. I went from 10% rental to maybe purchasable. So, while the secondary and OL/DL interaction might be suspect, I still remained impressed overall.

I have had the game preordered for well over a year now. I will buy the game regardless of how it turns out.

But the developer Diary did not impress me. If anything it made me less impressed than I have with the game. There are things that it does really well. You can quickly tell that from the video. But being that I take X and O's very serious, I went through and rewinded over and over every frame and went through each person and assignments. There is some sketchy things going on in the defense.

Granted there is still months of tweeking to do and they can improve many of the flaws possibly. But I just was expecting a little more polish from a game only 3 months away.

-The running I can deal with even though it looks so stiff.
-The catch animations I can deal with them looking strange
-The pass off the back foot I can deal with

So hopefully they can fix the AI issues and give us quality playbooks. Because the online portion of the game is ultimately what will make this game fail or a BB2. If there are exploits out the wazoo and it makes the Online not fun to play then you will see it get huge complaints and this will drive people right back to Madden or NCAA