Post E3 comments from Ian Cummings

[adembroski]

I was a bit concerned with the E3 build (like most of you probably were) that were a lot of times where defenders would just bounce off instead of wrapping up. I am happy to say it is much improved...just played a full game against Donny (I was Vikings, he was Cardinals - he killed me BTW), and it was WAY better ... much more predictable and reliable than the E3 build.

I dug deeper to see what happened and found out that before E3 there was some tuning being done to dictate when gang tackles could be triggered, and the primary criteria was the angle of the ballcarrier in relation to the ground. Meaning, if a player was about to fall / touch the ground, he shouldn't be able to be gang tackled (obviously because he would warp back to upright). Apparently there were a few bugs in this calculation though, so often times it would think he was leaned over when in fact he wasn't. Now it has been tuned much more appropriately, and the gang tackles are really looking great.

As a side note, the momentum in PRO-TAK is also much more pronounced as well (and also finally doesn't stop when the players engage...it keeps moving throughout the tackle) Both Beanie Wells and Peterson really felt like they were carrying those first 2 defenders when they had a head of steam...which looked and felt great. Unfortunately I don't have vids but I'll try to get some soon.

Thought you'd like the update...on to looking at everyone's other favorite issue - the pass rush!

Follow up regarding momentum...

Locomotion, momentum, acceleration, etc is all still being worked on so once we get locked in I'll do my best to let everyone know how it panned out (positive and negative). Though the game was more 'weighted' at community day than it is now, it was also the primary cause towards all of our broken gameplay (600+ rush yards per game with fast players, easy money 100% completions on curls and slants, etc). I am still definitely happy with the strides taken this year. Every single person felt the changes immediately at E3...and that was a great goal to reach.

Just so you all know, compared to the build at community day, as of right now the turn rates are about 4% tighter, and acceleration/deceleration are about 8% faster. The direction change animations (they are still there) were trimmed to be about 7% shorter.

Even with us having to slightly back away from the CD values to help fix all of our AI issues, I just thought it would help to compare the current Madden 10 values against Madden 09..
Turn rates = 46% wider than 09
Acceleration/Deceleration = 32% slower than 09
Direction change animations = can't compare, there really weren't any in 09

I am honestly the most concerned with the actual bugs at this point where players blip around and face the other direction without having to cut or slow down and follow ANY laws of momentum...it is a much more rare occurrence now but it is still happening (mostly with blockers). Momentum is still very important to me though - we are doing our best to balance the game to not have money plays and AI issues while still keeping that "SIM" feel at the fore-front. Will update soon.

Regarding CD... the CD guys and I agreed that weight and momentum felt very good in that build, but we also noted a very offensive oriented game. Defenders did not have the AI support to handle it... they'd over run assignments, generally be out of position all over the place. If a guy was moving into position. This means that next year we'll likely see some analog-speed control so that players are more capable of pacing themselves to get into position, so that's good.

[BigBucs]

They better not have any more huge glitches like that QB walk shit. Dunno why I am hoping for this. There has been a huge glitch in every madden since I can remember.