Mistakes In Video Game Football

[TarHeelPhenom]

I was having a conversation earlier with someone regarding the woes my Tar Heels are currently having on defense. A couple of things that were suggested as issues were blown assignments and too much thinking leading to slow reaction to what is happening on the field.

This got me to thinking, specifically about Madden. How do we feel about simulated mistakes in a Madden football game? For example, lets say you go into replay to watch a play, you're on defense and your MLB is suppose to be playing an area in zone coverage...and on the play he does something contrary to what his assignment is. Would we look at it as boneheaded AI or the fact that his Awareness is 60 and Play Recognition is 65?

Is that something we really want in our football game? Mistakes happen every Saturday and Sunday; but how can that be replicated in a video game to the Users satisfaction in a way that they know the difference between bad AI and low player ratings? How hard is that for EA to replicate?

[Richie71]

Low ratings, absolutely fine. Especially play action, mis-direction, draws, etc.

What we see now though, high rated OL ignore opposite DL, deep safeties guard space not opponents. Too much bad ai rather than ratings based bad decisions.

[IlluminatusUIUC]

The problem is that there's no visual indication that it is happening. When my OL ignores a rusher, as a player I can't tell if it's because of his ratings, bad AI, or I misunderstood the playcall.

[icicle22]

I hate to say it but it would only really be addressable if there was a small popup or text that said "missed assignment" or something. That would at least allow us to know it was caused by lower intelligence and address this issue in practice or replace the player. I mean, for OL it would put more value on signing someone who is not going to miss their assignment for mental reasons.

While we are at it, shouldn't players only be able to upgraded to a certain extent? I mean, in the game a lower tier OL might have be a 67 awareness meaning he is going to make mistakes. But if I build up enough XP or just upgrade it manually, he can be as good as a star. But in reality, some guys are just not ever going to be "top level" and it seems that it would add value to the drafting and trading if you knew that your current guy is never going to be that great. I dunno. Just thinking out loud here.

[ggsimmonds]

Simulated mistakes should be present in Madden, and in fact they are. The other day I threw a 35 yard TD pass to a uncovered Mark Andrews because his man defender fully bit on the playaction.

For other types of mistakes, they should be in but there needs to be some tracking mechanism. Remember NFL Head Coach and its playbook knowledge mechanic? Something like that.

I wouldn't want the game in that moment telling me there was a blown assignment, but a tracked stat could be "missed assignments."

I'd be okay and on board with being alerted to blown assignments in-game if it was done organically and immersively. Like a replay where the commentator says "it looks to me like the cornerback was supposed to cover the deep 3rd but instead he was covering the hook zone" similar to real life broadcasts. But I absolutely would not want yet another Madden-y popup saying blown assignment.

[Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by TarHeelPhenom

This got me to thinking, specifically about Madden. How do we feel about simulated mistakes in a Madden football game? For example, lets say you go into replay to watch a play, you're on defense and your MLB is suppose to be playing an area in zone coverage...and on the play he does something contrary to what his assignment is. Would we look at it as boneheaded AI or the fact that his Awareness is 60 and Play Recognition is 65?

We already know how Tiburon feels about on-field players performing behavior different from user expectations based on how match coverage as it exists in Madden has been back-seated in Madden 23.

The specific reason all zones are spot drop by default this year is specifically due to widespread user feedback that the defensive players were not performing assignments indicated by the play art. The play art for all the match coverage plays still shows off spot-drop zones, but obviously match coverages do not spot drop. This disparity was confusing users, they complained loudly, and in the short term it means simplified pass defense in Madden.

Given this apparently widespread expectation by users that an on-player will always attempt to correctly perform their assignment from the play called in the huddle, I doubt we see things like receivers running the wrong routes, running backs missing handoffs, DBs attempting to jump route combinations in zone coverage, or defensive players flat-out playing the wrong assignment.

Additionally, until Tiburon creates better visual language for player assignments and builds better football knowledge teaching tools into Madden, I think this expectation that players always perform the assignment on the play art also limits what complex real-life football concepts can appear in Madden; not only pattern match coverage, but also banjo coverages, box coverages, linebacker fiddle techniques (albeit this is actually built in to Cover 1 Hole in Madden 23 still), cloudy-or-clear reads in run support, and so on.

[GoJags904]

Quote: Originally Posted by TarHeelPhenom

I was having a conversation earlier with someone regarding the woes my Tar Heels are currently having on defense. A couple of things that were suggested as issues were blown assignments and too much thinking leading to slow reaction to what is happening on the field. This got me to thinking, specifically about Madden. How do we feel about simulated mistakes in a Madden football game? For example, lets say you go into replay to watch a play, you're on defense and your MLB is suppose to be playing an area in zone coverage...and on the play he does something contrary to what his assignment is. Would we look at it as boneheaded AI or the fact that his Awareness is 60 and Play Recognition is 65? Is that something we really want in our football game? Mistakes happen every Saturday and Sunday; but how can that be replicated in a video game to the Users satisfaction in a way that they know the difference between bad AI and low player ratings? How hard is that for EA to replicate?

I'd love it and it's been talked about before at times under diff threads. The issue is that a 99 player will make some of the same mistakes a 60 rated player would due to how the game is coded. Until we get more separation in ratings, more animations, basically an overhaul of blocking logic and movement etc., nothing should be touched because atp they are adding more and more onto of broken foundation and calling it improvement. We need a base game that replicates better football before adding in anything else imo. Too many new cooks in the kitchen that didn't or can't clean out the old cooks leftovers and mistakes.



Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

[JoshC1977]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Given this apparently widespread expectation by users that an on-player will always attempt to correctly perform their assignment from the play called in the huddle, I doubt we see things like receivers running the wrong routes, running backs missing handoffs, DBs attempting to jump route combinations in zone coverage, or defensive players flat-out playing the wrong assignment.

I agree....I mean...people cry loudly about a pitch in a baseball game not going precisely where they aimed it or the ball not flying out of the park every single time if they hit it square. And those aren't even "AI" issues. Now....you tie something 'bad' happening with the "AI" that is completely out of the control of the player (outside of roster selection) - gamers will absolutely revolt.

And I actually find that last thing to be the biggest paradox of sports gaming. The vast majority of sports gamers tend to talk out of both sides of their mouths. They spend lots of time "building a team" of highly rated players (and that's irrespective of the mode being played); so they obviously care about ratings. But when ratings impact them adversely at all; they cry about it (the infamous cry of 'RNG' rearing its ugly head). It's the ultimate form of 'gamer entitlement' - and that is universal across gamers that play every mode.