What is the problem with madden player movement

[maddenps2]

By now madden player movement should look more realistic. I remember anticipating the possibilites of nextgen football and the possiblities of more realistic player movement, graphics and advanced A.I.

When watching all the replays and highlights uploaded to the forms via easports hosting, almost immediately you can identify it isn't a real nfl game. I remember at times watching NFL2k5 being immpressed at how close the movement in that game was. Sure it had it quirks but I still impresses me to this day.


In madden the problem is the players movement is too clean and too similar. In real life players have subtle or great differences in there movements. They also stumble, trip, struggle, lean, stride differently, run/pursue at different hights, have different manerisms and emotions.

There isn't enough collision detection animations, engagements, struggles, battles etc. Animation transition animations are lacking as well as animations protray the collision, of players arms, legs, bodys etc. Line engagment and defensive back receiver animation is too clean and lacking. The speed, acceleration, tackling style, pursuit angles also are too cloned and lack any noticable differences. Basically to make madden more realistic there has to be an effort to make madden less clean, cloned and perfect looking.

[Boucher]

agree

[Cdenz]

I doubt it will ever happen....what we see is what we will get.

[RGiles36]

Quote: Originally Posted by maddenps2

When watching all the replays and highlights uploaded to the forms via easports hosting, almost immediately you can identify it isn't a real nfl game. I remember at times watching NFL2k5 being immpressed at how close the movement in that game was. Sure it had it quirks but I still impresses me to this day.

I agree completely. I recently said the same thing when watching some EA Sportsworld footage of Madden 09. It just looks completely robotic and I can't put a finger on what the issue is. Everything is just so stiff and up right once the ball is snapped. The quirkiness sometimes reminds me of one of those ol' school Electric football game boards .

[Ian_Cummings]

The OP mentioned a lot of things, but I'll talk more specifically about the actual locomotion system / animations. First, please don't use EASW videos as a judge...remember those videos are compressed up to 4X so they look pretty terrible. The longer the play goes on, the worse they get. You can see what I mean here:



(Minimal compression) ^^^^^


(Fully compressed) ^^^^^


We're trying like hell to get that fixed for '10...it makes everything look pretty gross...not representative of gameplay at all (PS3 videos compress the most too FWIW).

However I'm not going to disagree that the player movement hasn't been stellar.

Pros:
- Foot plant gets rid of sliding
- Left stick planting (when it works)
- Juke steering/branching

My current problems with it:
- Turn rate is way too high
- No one plays true 'direction change' animations enough
- Agility rating isn't important enough (i.e. doesn't scale the turn rate enough)
- Not enough variety and visual subtleties (like the OP said). Our animations were over compressed and they lost a lot of the subtle motion (like shoulder movement and stuff) that was in the animation.
- Run styles don't look urgent enough
- No prep or setup needed to make moves, especially at high speeds

[thudias]

Thanks for the explanation.

[bison160]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA

- Not enough variety and visual subtleties (like the OP said). Our animations were over compressed and they lost a lot of the subtle motion (like shoulder movement and stuff) that was in the animation.

I noticed you said "were" over compressed. Does that mean that you have that issue fixed, and the animations are now looking more fluid and realistic? Any examples you could provide?

Oh yah, i dont see any videos in your post Ian.

[Ian_Cummings]

Quote: Originally Posted by bison160

I noticed you said "were" over compressed. Does that mean that you have that issue fixed, and the animations are now looking more fluid and realistic? Any examples you could provide? Oh yah, i dont see any videos in your post Ian.

Can't answer any of those types of details just yet.

Here's direct links to the videos if the embedded ones aren't working (though today the EA servers were down for me so they might not work as well):

Uncompressed: http://www.easportsworld.com/en_US/video/155744

Compressed: http://www.easportsworld.com/en_US/video/259194