How EA can bring fun back to the passing game - johnnyg713's Blog

johnnyg713's Blog

How EA can bring fun back to the passing game

Posted on February 9, 2012 at 12:52 AM.

(23)

EA NEEDS TO BRING FUN TO THEIR FOOTBALL TITLES!

To do this we need to talk about controls -
for me the passing game is boring because it doesnt take that much skill. You hit the recievers icon button and the qb throws him the ball. You can have a much simpler system without any icons over the receivers head.

To take a page from just about every other sports game, you move passing to just ONE button (right trigger). Where the qb throws the ball is based on his body position (left stick) and where he is looking (right stick). For rookie difficulties bring back the qb vision to get the hang of the qbs vision. Where you are looking is where the qb is going to throw the ball (this will obv be easier and more forgiving for higher rated qbs, If you have a poor qb, you have to time your throws perfectly. Also for higher rated qbs the quicker and easier it is for them to turn their head and get themselves into the position to throw, but remember the better the receiver you have the better he makes you look).

The trigger is the best option because it is the most pressure sensitive (think of it as taking the page right out of NHL and again arm strength is obv tied to ratings). The longer you hold down the trigger the harder you throw the ball. To finally fix the lob pass and long bombs? Just hold L trigger before you throw and the qb will put air under the ball. This may seem complicated at first but i garuntee will be second nature. A qb usually knows before the play he's going to lob it or go long. L trigger will even make you hesitate the long pass (think of it as calking the arm back which is very realistic). How to dump the ball to the Running back? Hit RB (you have to be facing him of course or else it can be intentional grounding). Under pressure? Hit LB to throw ball away (again make sure your facing sidelines and hold it down long enough so it gets out of bounds, it could potentially be picked off or intentional grounding). Scrambling would b a face button.

Quick list of all possible throws:
Standard throw or Bullet pass - RT (pressure sensitive)
Lob or Hail Mary - LT (puts touch on) then RT (pressure sensitive)
Dump pass - RB
Throw away - LB

Take a step back and look at other EA games like fifa and nhl. Do you guys ever complain about passing being too hard or not being able to pass it to the right guy? No because 99% of the time its user error, the pass wasn't aimed properly or you put too much or too little on it. One example that I can quickly explain is when you are charging up a pass in NHL and you have your man lined up but you pass it too hard and he has a bad "puck handling" rating and he has trouble receiving the pass. This can be implemented the same way and make a lot of sense as opposed to a perfectly thrown ball that the receiver just randomly drops.

Here are some ideas for some risks and rewards for each throw you make. Say you see a receiver coming across the middle but a line backer is there, hold LT before you throw and try and lob it over his head. If you have a poor rated QB you risk throwing a duck. Or you see a wide receiver streaking down the side line and quickly decide to air it out to him, LT will make you lead him but takes more time. However just using RT might cause poor qbs to under throw their receivers resulting in an incomplete pass or getting picked off. This is much more realistic and players won't notice certain AI bugs if they can accept that part of the gameplay was user error.

I think this would make the passing game feel extremely fresh and unique to different qbs and recievers based on their ratings.

How ratings will tie in
What this game needs is route based passing. I know this has been a huge topic on these forums so I won't go into any detail.

What I want to talk about is how to make route based passing relevant and actually mean something in terms of ratings. Pretty simple. The qb has a route passing rating. The higher his rating, the better he places the ball.

Same goes for the receiver, A route running rating (pretty self explanatory) and a "ball awareness" rating. If its a elite reciever, he will know more often than not when the ball is in the air and can sometimes make plays even when he hasn't completed his route. If its a receiver with a lower rating, he will never catch the ball unless his route is complete and he's ready to look for the ball.

Expand on this a little more and you can start having a qb/receiver chemistry rating. If they play together long enough and a receiver becomes a qbs favorite target, then it will boost his ball awareness rating and the qbs throwing rating.

Comments

# 16 Elgin2311 @ Feb 10

I appreciate innovative thinking, especially when it comes to football games. People want innovation out of developers, but want certain things to stay the same. I love your ideas on playing the qb position and I agree it should feel more meaningful. Just because I have tom brady doesnt mean everthing should be easy. Good write up...got any ideas regarding anything else football related?

# 17 tril @ Feb 10

I like your idea but I say you can simplify passing by,
using the left stick to move around the pocket and the right stick to pass.
I like your pressure sensitive timig aspect but that all should be tied into the the stick you throw with.
deeper passes means you **** the right stick back for a longer period of time and to put some zip on the pass you just push in the direction of the receiver harder.
basicically youre hoilding the throw stick back while some sort of icon indictates where youre throwing.
you are basically checking down and throwing with the right stick. if you want to throw the ball away just throw in a vicinity where there isnt a reciever.
another plus to this is that intentional grounding penalty would be more accuarate and clearly based off of user error and not some random flag.
timing patterns would benefit from this also because it would be more about accuaretly throwing a pass in a vicnity instead of a receiever.

very similar to back breaker. that had so much potential

# 18 tril @ Feb 10

TV SPORTS Football The passing game is similar to what you mentioned. its a combo of your idea and my previous post.

# 19 schnaidt1 @ Feb 10

1. amazing idea...this needs to be sent to someone at tiburon right away!!

2. whoever said it would be hard to implement this in a football game is smoking crack because did you not ever see back breaker?? hell even 2k football games had maximum passing where you used the sticks to lead a pass at least...

# 20 johnnyg713 @ Feb 11

Elgin,
Thanks a lot man for appreciating my ideas. As for my other thoughts on football games, I actually have put a lot of thought into game planning and scouting in dynasty mode, particular online dynasty. I thought of writing a blog on it, but decided it wasn't worth it. 1. because it would be pretty long and 2 because i don't really feel my input will make any difference so why waste my time.

Tril
I like that idea. In all honesty i think anything is better than the current controls. If EA implemented anything like this i would buy their game.

schnaldt
I agree back breakers controls would be fun if they were implemented in madden, however i didnt like the over the shoulder cam too much

# 21 knighthawksfan @ Feb 11

I agree with this blog but idk if ea sports will because they have no rivals anymore so they can care less about there game.

# 22 BlackRome @ Feb 11

I loved the passing Icon. Most people hated it. I doubt they would like to pass with the stick.

Take 2k for example. They can't even get the passing stick to work correctly in a basketball game.

# 23 johnnyg713 @ Feb 12

here's a link to my other blog on my idea for game planning in franchise mode:
http://www.operationsports.com/johnn...ake-it-simple/

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