In-Game Blocking Attribute Testing *SPOILER ALERT*

[trey31]

SPOILER ALERT. This could ruin aspects of franchise for you.

I watched this video on YouTube of Madden 17 in a game with an entire roster of Kickers. Score was 14-12 before he let it get out of hand. The thing I noticed almost immediately was that he consistently had 2.5 to 4 seconds to pass, even with an OL of nothing but Kickers (which has been about normal with Madden since the earliest PS2 days). Even when he got sacked he had 3.5-ish seconds to get rid of it and another half second when he scrambled. His big 20-yard throw on the post route to the TE (Kicker) had a decent pocket formed. On his red zone scramble to the 1 he had 4 seconds and a canyon-sized gap to run through. The rest of the attributes (especially Speed) of his Kicker team definitely negatively affected in-game play, but the blocking seemed on par with most Madden games since PS2.



But anyway it reminded me of a similar experiment I did with Madden 04 on PS2 and Madden 09 on PS3. I was having blocking issues with a custom playbook that had several deep passes, and I was even keeping two TE's in to block (7 blockers) and it made no difference as I was getting sacked within 3-3.5 seconds from even 4-man rushes (non-blitz plays).

So I tested it and watched all the instant replays each time; found out that Madden couldn't properly use two blockers to block one defender, so on every dropback one of the defenders would get through the line within 2.5-3 seconds and I'd have between 1-3 blockers who never even made contact with rushing defenders. I ended up tracking something like 100 plays and reviewed each instant replay. So then I decided to test with the best OL at each position and then compared it to backups. Same results. That's when I got the idea to test Punters as OL; same results... for Madden 04 (PS2) and 09 (PS3). The only difference was some defenders getting in untouched due to the Punters being too slow to engage blocking animations. I tested the hypothesis by using only CBs as OL (because they are a lot faster than Punters); marginally improved results but still on par with OL players.

So anyway, back to the topic. I spent a ton of time playing and modding Madden 12 on PS3. Forgot all about the Punters/CBs as OL until I saw that video. So I decided to open Madden Editor and make some quick edits and do my own testing for Madden 08.

After testing over a dozen different combinations I've come to the conclusion that regardless of PBK, RBK, STR ratings the best linemen are the fastest/quickest lineman.

One of the tests had all lineman set to SPD/AGI/ACC at 25 and STR/PBK/RBK at 99. The average run from a 4-wide formation against a 7-man front with 5 rushers was 1.5 yards. The average time to sack from a 5-wide formation against a 5-man front with 4 rushers was 2.775 seconds.

Another test had all lineman set to SPD/AGI/ACC/STR/PBK/RBK at 99. Essentially Madden Supermen. The average run from a 4-wide formation against a 7-man front with 5 rushers was 3.2 yards. The average time to sack from a 5-wide formation against a 5-man front with 4 rushers was 3.4 seconds.

That makes sense, right? 5 Supermen blocking resulted in more than double the rushing average and an extra 0.6 seconds to throw.

Well another test had all lineman set to SPD/AGI/ACC at 99 and dropped STR/PBK/RBK down to 1. Should be a massacre, right? The LT/RTs even had negative OVR ratings... Well the average run from a 4-wide formation against a 7-man front with 5 rushers was 3.4 yards. The average time to sack from a 5-wide formation against a 5-man front with 4 rushers was 3.15 seconds.

The non-athletic blockers with 25 SPD/AGI/ACC ratings but 99 STR/PBK/RBK averaged 1.5 ypc.
The athletic supermen with all 99 ratings averaged 3.2 ypc.
The athletic 99 rating SPD/AGI/ACC with 1 STR/PBK/RBK averaged 3.4 ypc.

I'm not saying the STR/PBK/RBK at 1 group was better because they averaged 0.2 more ypc; I'm just saying the STR/PBK/RBK ratings are pretty much useless in-game.

The non-athletic blockers with 25 SPD/AGI/ACC ratings but 99 STR/PBK/RBK averaged 2.775 seconds before sack.
The athletic supermen with all 99 ratings averaged 3.4 seconds before sack.
The athletic 99 rating SPD/AGI/ACC with 1 STR/PBK/RBK averaged 3.15 seconds before sack.


* HOW I TESTED: I made a pass play where the QB drops back and stands still for X amount of seconds while the receivers all ran the same bubble route. No passes were attempted. The QB did not try to avoid pressure. The same play was run for all tests and the same defense and defensive play (cover 3 Dime) was also run. Same situation with the running play I made (ran against 4-3 Under 5-man rush). I'm not claiming my methods were scientific or perfect, but they were consistent.

[JSamuel]

Wow, great job. This could be really helpful.

I also watched that video on YouTube... I like to watch those "Team of _____ vs Team of _____" Madden videos...

[trey31]

Wow, great job. This could be really helpful.

I also watched that video on YouTube... I like to watch those "Team of _____ vs Team of _____" Madden videos...

The thing that jumped out immediately was the blocking. I was like, they still haven't fixed this?!



Then I remembered its EA. Of course they haven't.


I posted a few threads here and on OS about the PLYT tag and how it controls AI and applies attributes to the game engine. Messing with it is a Pandora's box. The blocking tests are too, to a certain extent. I know I'll never pay $$$ for an "elite" offensive lineman again in franchise mode.

Maybe I should have put "SPOILERS" in the title?

[JSamuel]

Wow, great job. This could be really helpful.

I also watched that video on YouTube... I like to watch those "Team of _____ vs Team of _____" Madden videos...

The thing that jumped out immediately was the blocking. I was like, they still haven't fixed this?!


Then I remembered its EA. Of course they haven't.

EA needs to take some advice from 2K.

I enjoyed this Madden video... A guy made an entire team of 99ovr 5'5" players:

Spoiler:

[trey31]

Wow, great job. This could be really helpful.

I also watched that video on YouTube... I like to watch those "Team of _____ vs Team of _____" Madden videos...

The thing that jumped out immediately was the blocking. I was like, they still haven't fixed this?!


Then I remembered its EA. Of course they haven't.

EA needs to take some advice from 2K.

I enjoyed this Madden video... A guy made an entire team of 99ovr 5'5" players:

Spoiler:

Holy SHIT! That's a giant Aus!

[RevanFan]

The thing that jumped out immediately was the blocking. I was like, they still haven't fixed this?!


Then I remembered its EA. Of course they haven't.

EA needs to take some advice from 2K.

I enjoyed this Madden video... A guy made an entire team of 99ovr 5'5" players:

Spoiler:

Holy SHIT! That's a giant Aus!

Can one of you explain to me why my RTs in my franchise, whether they're slow, strong, fast, quick, or weaker, are ALWAYS AWFUL!? I've had so many problems with my RT position in my franchise, for most of the 47-year history of it, actually. Every other position is solid. My RT play is always subpar.

[JSamuel]

The thing that jumped out immediately was the blocking. I was like, they still haven't fixed this?!


Then I remembered its EA. Of course they haven't.

EA needs to take some advice from 2K.

I enjoyed this Madden video... A guy made an entire team of 99ovr 5'5" players:

Spoiler:

Holy SHIT! That's a giant Aus!

"Gives Kim Kardashian a run for her money!"

That guy is hilarious... I love his accent. I wish he still played Madden.

[trey31]

Can one of you explain to me why my RTs in my franchise, whether they're slow, strong, fast, quick, or weaker, are ALWAYS AWFUL!? I've had so many problems with my RT position in my franchise, for most of the 47-year history of it, actually. Every other position is solid. My RT play is always subpar.

I had some in-depth discussions with several modders on the os site in regards to the same issue in Madden 12. LE's get double the sacks that RE's get. There were several theories proposed about ratings being biased to LT's (they were in 12/13/25) over RT's; but I blew that theory up when I moved all the RT's to LT and vice versa. Same effect. It's not a ratings issue, at least not in Madden 12/13/25.

I did somewhat overcome the issue by globally boosting (slightly) some RT & RE attributes and slightly lowering the same for LTs & LEs.

My theory is that its something in the madden engine's code. No idea why, probably some non-football genius got it in his head that since LT's make more $$$ IRL, that the RT's should be giving up more sacks.

But to confirm your observation, after testing the same play over and over (100's of plays) with completely different attributes, I absolutely noticed the LE got more sacks than the RE. Usually its around the outside of the RT and the animation never triggers engagement for some reason. Probably 40% of the sacks were by the untouched LE.

[trey31]

That guy is hilarious... I love his accent. I wish he still played Madden.

I subbed. It was fun to watch. Much more watchable than pew videos....

[JSamuel]

That guy is hilarious... I love his accent. I wish he still played Madden.

I subbed. It was fun to watch. Much more watchable than pew videos....

Yeah, PewDiePie is a legend, but he's also an idiot.

This is the greatest PewDiePie video of all time:

Spoiler:

I'll leave the YouTube discussion at that... this is getting off topic. Maybe we can continue via PM.