Madden 11 Catching Pt. II

Here is a transcript from a chat session with Madden 11 developers about Catch Tuning:

4:03
[Comment From Xtremedunkz]
Will receivers actually jump up for a ball, and not just wait for it to fall in their lap while the defender picks it off?

4:03
Madden NFL Dev Team: Ahhh this is the same Xtremedunkz on my twitter feed right?
Anyway, yes, that’s what we’re going for. We want guys to really be aggressive to go up when there is a threat around them, but a big goal for this year was to make sure they catch the ball in stride if that threat isn’t immediate and they have a chance to get some good YAC.
4:04
[Comment From Anton B]
As you stated in your blog, Catching has always been one of the hardest and most frustrating areas of the game to tune, what are the Primary Goals that you guys are trying to give the fans? The toe drag animation, the way the recievers break on the ball etc.


4:06
Madden NFL Dev Team: Getting awareness around the sidelines was a huge push at first. I know first hand how frustrating that is, as we’ve had builds internally that will have it working and then they’ll get broken again. It’s a challenge to find that exact spot where they should try to drag their feet vs. try to get extra yards. It’s just as frustrating when your guy drags his feet and falls out of bounds when he had just 2 more yards to go for the first.

4:06
[Comment From JBHuskers]
Will the new Catch Debugging Tool allow for opportunities to have the WR get none, one, and two feet in bounds for purposes of coache’s challenges?

4:08
Madden NFL Dev Team: The tool’s main purpose is to give us a giant list of animations that match in any given situation. So for your example, we now can see that maybe only 1 catch matched on the sideline, so it’s now up to our animators to add more variety and create those types of moments. Before it was very much guesswork and trial-and-error.

4:08
[Comment From Michael Costa]
Would the animations mentioned in the Blog be considered under the Spectacular Rating?

4:09
Madden NFL Dev Team: Definitely the spectacular catch rating determines how far up guys can go and get it, and many animations are totally cut off from players that don’t meet certain criteria within that rating. We also heavily use the ‘catch in traffic’ rating to see how often they hang onto the ball when they are hit up in the air.

4:09
[Comment From falconsfan2010]
In Madden 11 is the receiver and defender going to be able to fight for the ball in spectacular catches

4:10
Madden NFL Dev Team: We don’t have any pre-canned 2 man ‘fight for the ball in mid-air’ animations, mainly due to the complexity of that and the amount of warping that would have to happen to get the guys into position (and that was already complained about last year). We’ve added more mid-air collision animations and allow both players to get to the ball with equal opportunity, so I think we’re in much better shape this year than in years past.

4:12
[Comment From Shane]
Ian, just wondering with the newcatch tuning, will it be easierto complete long streak passes?

4:12
Madden NFL Dev Team: Pass accuracy and db coverage are kind of different from the catch tuning we’ve talked about, but that is something we’re looking at tuning separately that we’ll talk about later. The catch changes could help you turn that catch into a big play…

4:13
[Comment From sharks]
How many new animations have been added for receiving?

4:13
Madden NFL Dev Team: Hmm…would have to ask an animator to be sure but we’ve got upwards of 75+ new catch animations that we’re working through.

4:14
[Comment From passthecows]
have you removed those over the shoulder catch animations where the receiver bends back halfway to the ground?

4:14
Madden NFL Dev Team: hmm…which animation are you referring to? I know the normal over the shoulder catch that triggered a lot last year (including over the wrong shoulder) has been addressed…
4:15
Madden NFL Dev Team: don’t remember any where a receiver bent back halfway to the ground…might need a link on that one.
4:15
Madden NFL Dev Team: Raczilla isn’t paying attention everyone.

4:16
[Comment From Antonio]
Will the Catch Tuning be implemented with regards to a players’ ratings or will every player have the same ability?

4:18
Madden NFL Dev Team: Obviously with spectacular catches, we do that already and have added more in that area this year. With normal catches we tend to not and try limiting the available catch set since we had problems with repetitive animations in previous years. This year we’ll continue to push more on variety through ratings but I’m not exactly sure how deep we’ll go.

4:19
[Comment From Shelby]
My question is that if you have a tall receiver like Andre Johnson or Calvin Johnson and the guy covering you is someone like Ellis Hobbs who is about 5 foot nothing… can you throw a higher ball for Andre to catch without him having to break stride or will Ellis still interfere with his ability to catch?

4:19

Madden NFL Dev Team: Well it’s all situation-specific. In the case of a jump ball, yes, he has a specific advantage. I fully expect with Ellis Hobbs to still interfere but he’ll have a lower chance of knocking it out.

4:20
[Comment From sharks]
Will receivers take better angles to make catches?

4:20
Madden NFL Dev Team: Yes, as mentioned in the blog, a big focus was to have receivers not try and undercut routes and jump up for them when they could otherwise catch them in stride. (p.s. Raczilla still isn’t paying attention)

4:22
[Comment From Luca]
Hello! Will the over the shoulder catch animation still trigger for RBs in the flats? And also will the OTS catch animation be changed so that the receiver doesn’t jump with his legs spread like a balerina?

4:22
Madden NFL Dev Team: we’re planning on making it so that basically never plays in the flats. The ball should be coming in at a much higher angle that won’t happen in on a swing pass. Ballerina issues will be addressed.

4:24
[Comment From Patronaso]
Is the horrible last minute burst still an animation this year? (i.e. when the receiver beats the coverage on slants crosses with a last minute 1-2 yards speed animation to the ball)?

4:25
Madden NFL Dev Team: The ol’ warp. It’s the bane of our existence! Typically the warp is because of not enough catch animation coverage, so the debugging tool is what helps us track these down and remove them.





4:26
Madden NFL Dev Team: Has everyone read this btw? http://maddennfl.easports.com/blog.action?blogId=CatchTuning



4:27
[Comment From urboynelshy]
last year on all madden there tended to be an abnormal amount of no-contact drops, will this be addressed?

4:27
Madden NFL Dev Team: good question – we’ll take a look at it. Which teams are you using? Any custom slider settings?

4:27
[Comment From Blake]
you mentioned that the spectacular catch and catch in traffic ratings are heavy players with the new debugging tool, what does the original catch rating refer to?

4:28

Madden NFL Dev Team: The catch rating is used to determine his chance of hanging on to the ball with no pressure around him in a normal situation. We switch over to catch in traffic if he’s getting hit or if defenders are around.

4:28
[Comment From StayPlation]
in tunning the catches i’m wondering does the catch rating mean the same across the board. a running back’s 80 vs a cornerback’s 80?

4:30
Madden NFL Dev Team: They are all consistent, but the defender has a little bit of a disadvantage because the defender has to ‘find’ the ball (which lessens his catch chance). The more time the ball is in the air while a player can see it, the better chance he has to catch it.

4:32
[Comment From Marcus From England]
What have you done about the inability of LBs and sometimes DLine guys to intercept a ball that’s thrown right at them? They always seemed to drop it in Madden 10…

4:32
Madden NFL Dev Team: It’s all a tricky balance but it comes down to being based on ratings. Defenders in real life don’t catch every single pass thrown to them, but we want to make it extremely realistic.

4:32
[Comment From Romo9 winz]
How long did it take to come up with the Catch Debugging Tool and will it be this years Pro Tak?

4:33

Madden NFL Dev Team: Ha, well it’s not really pro-tak because the tool can’t be seen by the end-user. It did take about a month of work from a programmer and an animator to get it implemented and start fully using it to change up results in the game.

4:34
[Comment From MEL]
Will the slant play work everytime? it seems like everytime does a slant play the reciever is open.. or basically anything over the middle! are you guys doing anything to fix that?

4:34
Madden NFL Dev Team: YES. The slant will work every time. That’s how the real NFL works right?
4:35
Madden NFL Dev Team: Just kidding. We’re definitely looking to make this better – we know that slants, drags, and flats were a little too powerful with M10.

4:36
[Comment From Matt]
Fade routes to the corner of the endzone improved?

4:37

Madden NFL Dev Team: Definitely depends on the situation and what you’re going up against, but we really are focusing on improving that fade route with the 1-on-1 matchup – a guy like Fitz or Calvin should be much more dominant in that situation.

4:37
[Comment From Anton B]
Will the new catch tuning allow the reciever to hang on to the ball after contact is made by the DB? This yr alot of catches are made and then jarred out by the DB

4:37
Madden NFL Dev Team: That’s not totally related to the catch debugging tool but that is a whole separate issue we’ve been focused on for the past few weeks. We’re trying to make sure the catch in traffic rating really works perfectly here.

4:39
[Comment From maddengamer]
will yall work on the more complex 2 feet in catches?

4:39
Madden NFL Dev Team: We spent some time at motion capture focusing on getting new ones, for both the sideline and the back of the endzone.

4:40
[Comment From Robert]
Will there be one handed catches?

4:40
Madden NFL Dev Team: Definitely. Our focus is making them rare though…

4:43
[Comment From Michael Costa]
This is kinda related to the subject, but shouldn’t their be add a Chemestry Rating. Like a QB and a WR Chemistry rating would alow the QB to put the ball in places where its easiest for the reciever to make the catch.Example: Kurt Warner and Larry Fitz. Kurt always knew where to put the ball in jump ball situations. Although im not sure if that would be possible

4:44
Madden NFL Dev Team: Chemistry rating is something we’ve talked about for a long time but still haven’t added it. We have work still to do when it comes to the core fundamentals of passing and catching before we go to that depth.

4:45
[Comment From brandon]
now will the defender be able to hit stick the reciver out of bounds before that second foot comes down

4:45
Madden NFL Dev Team: Hell yes!

4:46
[Comment From dchawk90]
Is it stricly just animation changes you’ve made or have you made the AI “smarter” in deciding when to make a toe-tap catch or try to stay in bounds in the end zone

4:46
Madden NFL Dev Team: It’s definitely both. The AI changes won’t work without adequate animation variety and coverage, and the animations won’t play without any of the AI adjustments.

4:48
[Comment From passthecows]
Will the new tool limit the possible animations for defenders as well? For example will we still see LBs making routine 1 handed interceptions?

4:49
Madden NFL Dev Team: yeah the tool is applicable for all players. Anytime an animation is playing that we don’t want to we now have a very scientific and straightforward way of removing and replacing it.

4:49
[Comment From Jetsown08]
Will we be seeing “normal catch” animations on Out Routes? Because with me, I tend to see ALOT of over-the-shoulder ballerina catche animations, and the reciever ends up flipping over and dropping it. Is that going to ever happen again?

4:50
Madden NFL Dev Team: That’ exactly one of the main problems we wanted to solve. We want them to catch it in stride and not leap up in the air so they can’t get flipped over. FYI we removed all the flip tackles as well.

kool!