Improving the qb position in madden and making ratings matter more to seperate qbs

I know that it is kinda early to be discussing suggestions and wishlists for madden 11, especially since there are still things we don't know about madden 10, but we do know enough to know some areas that are in serious need of improvement. One of the big complaints about madden, especially in regards to the passing game is the lack of difference in how qbs play. The addition of some ratings and the spreading of the scales should help some but I feel there is room for even more improvement next year.

TARGETING SYSTEM

The first area they improved this year, and one that was in need of improvement, was the targeting area of the qb. What they did was a very safe step in the right direction moving from an oval shape to basically a chopped off triangle type shape. I think this is a pretty good start in situations where you are throwing a lob pass where the target is more of a point on the ground.

When you are throwing more of a bullet pass however you are targeting the player more than a spot on the ground. The best way to express that is to rotate it 90 degrees perpendicular with the ground rather than flat on the ground. This would make more sense in both the targeting of the pass and in the use of the precision passing. It will probably be best with this one to go back to the oval shape but maybe make it smaller in the throwing being the receiver area. Also, it will come into play later on in my ideas on differentiating qbs.

Another important part in terms of improving targeting is the percision passing system. There is some debate as to whether this is the best system to control targeting of the pass with some favoring nfl fever's read and lead and others favoring apf's maximum passing. The main thing that these systems had over madden's precision passing are the ability to throw the ball to a spot and let the reciever go get the ball.

My suggestion for this is basically to stick with the precision passing system but rather than making is go in reference to the where within the targeting area the qb aims. This way with the bullet passes it will be similar to the current system aiming high, low, in front of, or behind where the targeted player will be. In these situations where you are throwing the ball as hard as you can or close to it there wouldn't be time in real life for the wr to make the adjustment.

When you are throwing a lob however, the wr will have much more time to adjust. The percision passing should set an aiming point in the targeting area on the ground. Also, the longer the ball is in the air the larger the aiming area should be allowing you to throw further from the designated route and allow the receiver to run the ball down.

Passing Ratings

Currently considering accuracy being phased out in favor of short, mid, and long accuracy, the accuracy rating is still there but really doesn't do much anymore, but anyway, considering that there are basically 5 ratings that determine a user controlled qb's ability to pass and 6 for a cpu controlled qb. There are the 3 accuracy ratings, throw on the run, and throw power, and for a cpu controlled qb awareness.

The major problem's with this are 1) awareness has no real effect on user controlled qbs making a qb with the physical tools such as romo or cutler just as effective and considering their mobility probably more effective than guys like manning, brady, or brees and 2) awareness for the cpu controlled qb cover's pretty much every mental aspect of the game and therefor doesn't allow as much differentiating as you would need to make the game as sim as possible.

In dealing with the first problem mentioned there, the user qb not being effected by awareness, there are 2 fixes that they use in the current system. Either then give the smarter qb higher throwing ratings such as brady's extremely overpowered arm strength or they lower the throwing ratings of the lesser qbs to make them closer to their real life effectiveness. Either way you are giving a player a rating different from that which they deserve and therefore although it somewhat fixes the problem it doesn't really completely fix it or fix it the right way. The second probem can also be fixed by properly fixing the first problem.

My suggestion in fixing these is to first off vastly reduce the importance of awareness rating in determining the overall rating. Awareness is really outdated at least in terms of being a major determining rating and for the most part can be removed from any qb formulas with the addition of some more specific ratings. Actually, it can pretty much be removed from all positions and I plan on covering that in future blogs.

The first new ratings that need to be brought in are coverage reading ratings. There needs to be a rating for reading man coverage and one for reading zone coverage. While these will have a greater effect on cpu qbs than human qbs as they will determine the qb's ability to find the right target, there will also be effects applied to the user qb. These will be discussed in a later section.

There needs to be a pocket presence rating as well. This should determine when the vibrating begins under pressure as well as the success of evasion moves. Also, there needs to be a qb footwork rating. This should determine how quickly the qb sets up after his dropback and after making an evasive move as well as how quickly and smoothly you can tuck the ball away and get away from pressure as well as how quickly you can set back up and negate the throw on the run modifier.

Next, there needs to be a rating for throwing while not set. While this is probably currently set under throw on the run it can be different and should cover throwing while dropping back without setting or throwing off of your back foot while the throw on run should determine accuracy penalties while actually running.

There needs to be a throw under pressure rating that determines how well a qb maintains his power and accuracy while the qb is sensing pressure. Also, higher ratings in this area should be able to speed up releases for shorter chechdown type passes when under pressure allowing the qb to make the quick dumpoff before the defender gets ahold of him more often. A throw in grasp rating should determine how well the qb maintains his accuracy and power while the defender has ahold of him.

A release rating should determine how quickly the qb can get rid of the ball when not being sped up due to pressure.

Composure needs to be added for all positions to determine performance in clutch situations but is especially important for a qb.

Finally, there should be an audible rating and a play learning rating. The audible rating would for cpu qbs determine how well they make the correct audible and for user players determine how likely they are able to make audibles and adjustments without messing up the call. The first one should be pretty much garunteed unless these ratings are really low but then the more audibles are made, the lower the success chances. The learning rating would work similar to HC09's learning but a little more in depth. I will discuss these further in another blog.

Chemistry

Chemistry is a big part the qb's game. Chemistry between the qb and receiver is probably the most important and should help in determining how well the qb reads how far to lead a receiver as well as how well the receiver adjusts to percision passes from the qb.

Bringing the targeting and ratings together

As was discussed in the first section I feel for bullet passes the targeting reticule should be verticle rather than the horizontal one currently used. That is the one I will use for most of the following diagrams but the throwing to a spot with the lob will work under the same principles. Basically it would work as follows:
The guy on the right represents the receiver's current position. The guy in the target is where the qb, based on his chemistry with the receiver, thinks the receiver will when the ball gets there. This should leave some room for error allowing for under leads and over leads and the longer the pass and the longer the ball is in the air the further off it could be. Also, the size of the target is based off of how well the qb can determine what the receiver can get to based on his jumping, height, agility, etc. Each of the 8 sections of the target are the areas where, using percision passing you can try to throw the ball and the inner circle is where you would throw without using percision passing trying to hit the receiver in stride.


The 2 new guys represent a safety playing a deep zone and a linebacker playing underneath the receiver. Now, in previous madden's this was a nearly impossible pass to throw against the cpu on all madded as the lb would leap up and make the pick most of the time. In the '10 vids we have seen it looks like this may have somewhat been fixed but here is a great example of where you can bring in accuracy as well as the read coverage ratings I suggested.



Now we will assume that you attempt a throw the ball high and ahead of the receiver to ensure the lb can't get to the ball as well as because it allows me to bring in the read coverage part of the ratings.

The 2 new circles show where the qb thinks the defenders can get to based off of his read coverage ratings. This can be too small or too large especially with lower read coverage ratings forcing bad passes by qbs who can't read coverages as well. The area where the qb thinks the defender can get to is then removed leaving, for this example, the area colored in red. An aim point is randomly determined in that area.



The X shows the random aimpoint. The little circle around it shows a qb with great accuracy.
Notice, with a high read coverage and accuracy he is able to put this pass on the money and keep it away from where he thinks the db can get to. There is very little chance of the db making a play unless he reads it perfectly and sells out on that route. The medium circle is a qb with average accuracy, giving the db a chance but keeping it where the receiver has the best chance at it and a great receiver can probably make the play even on a bad throw. The bigger circle is a bad qb. His throw could be perfect, could even drop in and hit the receiver in stride allowing a big play after the catch where the others won't but also he might completely miss and hit the ground or he might put it where the db is the only one who can get to the ball.

This will allow qbs who are great in any of these areas to use it properly but also allow those who are weak in those areas to really show through making mistakes truly seperating the elite qbs from the average ones from the weak ones and allowing those with all the tools but weaknesses in reading coverages to be rated as such.