Posted by mayottek on 3/1/2012 8:42:00 PM (view original):
norbert I really appreciate everything you are doing for the game, but I am against the specific plays selections. I would, however, like to see more control as has been mentioned.
For example: If I have depth at the OL and the team I am playing has a weak link along the DL I would like to have the ability to exploit it by either running outside left, inside left, inside right, or outside right. In terms of passing I am on board with the GDI type distribution, I thought that allowed for a lot of creativity in terms of setting up depth charts and tendencies for each formation.
If I have a stud LB and the other teams OL has bad GI I would like to be able to blitz inside causing confusion among the line giving my LB or DL a better chance of making a positive play for the D. If the O Tackle on my stud LBs side has no athleticism and bad technique I would like to be able to blitz him to the outside making it difficult on the tackle and thus raising the opportunity for my LB to make a positive play for the D.
Pass defense if your guys have good speed elu tech you can play tight man if your secondary is more GI driven than you will likely play zone.
I think this needs to be a "common sense" driven update. Nothing too drastic
If you don't have specific play selections, then how would you want to tell the engine that you want to run left or right or inside the tackles? I'm listening to any ideas here, but I need to ask questions to flesh out these ideas. You might be thinking how you would like something to work but sometimes it needs help in "getting from here to there". If you want to be able to tell the engine to do something, think about how you would have to tell it to do that.
For passing, one of the reasons the pass distribution was taken out was that with the new formations, certain players in certain slots would be more apt to be deep than short and vice-versa. Combined with the Aggressiveness, it would give a tendency to target one play over another depending on if you are looking deep or short. With the distribution settings, you could get conflicting options. The issue with this is that it's not very clear which receiver is which in each formation, and I've looked to try to decipher that and it's tough to read. You actually do have some control on which players are targeted, but it's so hidden in the settings that I can't really call it control.
If we add distribution settings on the plays, based on slot or player, then I'd like to see us get rid of the Aggressiveness setting. If we had some way of telling the "aggressiveness" of each player, then between that and the distribution, that would determine your overall style of play. For instance, if the main target (highest distribution) was set to run deep, the next was short, and the next medium, that would sort of determine how your play plays out. You wouldn't need an Aggressiveness setting on the play itself. I guess the question is do you pick your target first or do you pick your distance first? If you pick your distance first, like it currently does, then distribution settings can be difficult to implement.
In the old engine, it didn't matter, as there was no concept of field location or defenders. It basically just picked distance randomly from the Aggressiveness setting and then target randomly from the distribution settings and there was your receiver and how far the reception was. YAC was just one check against the team defense. There was no concept of a defender, because all defense was just one team rating, so there was no way to get mismatches on offense or defense. There was still very little control, but you could get more receptions for one player over another.
These settings are by no means locked down, so feedback is welcome.