Warrior General Games

Holy cow does it look like something has changed dramatically in the way RBs path find, especially on off tackle plays. Watched a level 30 HB set on power rushing not hit hole after hole.

Hole opens, lead blocking FB charges through - lots of room. HB makes a 90 degree change of direction from the LOS and gets tackled for a loss.

Has something changed?

Before anyone starts in on the It's agility, It's vision, It's confidence crap, this player is decent in all of the above and has always been a productve runner and never displayed this kind of thing before, leading me to believe it's something new.

http://goallineblitz.com/game/replay.pl?game_id=186602&pbp_id=94990

http://goallineblitz.com/game/replay.pl?game_id=186602&pbp_id=95867

http://goallineblitz.com/game/replay.pl?game_id=186602&pbp_id=97661

http://goallineblitz.com/game/replay.pl?game_id=186602&pbp_id=97731

I'm guessing he was trying to run to the outside, but tries to cut back to the interior because it is open?

It's definitely a bit odd. It seems, on some of the later plays, his "cut" damn near stops him dead and so he's never able to keep up with the FB.

Run pathing got an update this offseason (as mentioned in my announcement).

It's now a combination of the double-pass algo and new path calculation only every so many ticks instead of each tick, frequency depending on elusive/combo/power settings.

Only change I made to the off tackle play, though, is the short RB pause at the beginning to give the FB time to get moving and get to the hole.

Originally posted by Koncorde
I'm guessing he was trying to run to the outside, but tries to cut back to the interior because it is open?

Most likely.

On rushing plays, would it not make sense for the initial direction of the RB to be dictated by the play itself? Should the pathing on such a play be Pause, Run to off tackle hole and THEN the pathing kicks in and the RB makes a change direction determination? After all, that's the way it works in real life. RBs usually don't read and then start running. They start running based on the play call and then read.

For example on this play (and all of them)

http://goallineblitz.com/game/replay.pl?game_id=186602&pbp_id=94990

To me it seems, he gets the ball, for some reason makes a read to go outside immediately instead of to hit the hole and then changes his mind and decides to change direction back to the hole.

This is all kinds of backwards. Unless the hole the play is designed to run through is severely blocked, no RB should be making immediate decisions to take it outside. On these plays it's especially egregious because the hole is a good one yet for whatever reason, the outside seems more appealing.

I think you need to address this quickly or you'll be hearing a lot about this all season.

Originally posted by drifter
On rushing plays, would it not make sense for the initial direction of the RB to be dictated by the play itself? Should the pathing on such a play be Pause, Run to off tackle hole and THEN the pathing kicks in and the RB makes a change direction determination? After all, that's the way it works in real life. RBs usually don't read and then start running. They start running based on the play call and then read.

Good point. My HBs were doing some of that today, reading a 'closed hole' before they started running where if they had run first, they may have seen/noticed it opening and taken the best route.

It's a beta game guys...

Sorry, just had to say it.

It is really aggravating to see your guys change with these game changes. To some extent, I think Bort and others need to learn, it it ain't broke, don't fix it.

After all there seems to be lots of broke stuff to fix!

Originally posted by DarthVisor
It's a beta game guys...

Sorry, just had to say it.

It is really aggravating to see your guys change with these game changes. To some extent, I think Bort and others need to learn, it it ain't broke, don't fix it.

After all there seems to be lots of broke stuff to fix!

Erm, except that run pathing WAS broke.

Is this more what you're looking for?

http://goallineblitz.com/game/replay.pl?game_id=186602&pbp_id=96836

Seems like off tackle should usually end up heading outside, not inside the tackle. Maybe the play just needs a "move outside" bias to start out, or the FB needs to head outside more for the RB to follow?

Originally posted by Bort
Is this more what you're looking for?

http://goallineblitz.com/game/replay.pl?game_id=186602&pbp_id=96836

Seems like off tackle should usually end up heading outside, not inside the tackle. Maybe the play just needs a "move outside" bias to start out, or the FB needs to head outside more for the RB to follow?

The problem is the blocking scheme on the off tackle play. Typically the OT blocks left to the NT and the RG runs forward to engage a LB. Then the FB takes on the DE with the back running just outside of that block. This generally creates a blocking push to the left with a wall of blocking running in a traditional positive X,Y direction. Unlike a sweep, this allow for the runner to immediately follow this positive X,Y line and start moving up field instead of a lateral move followed by a vertical cut.

Also the LG pulls and also engages a LB on the right side.

Bort, there seems to be a lot of funky stuff going on with the new pathing on the running plays, even for blocking, guys running around like idiots all over the place:

http://goallineblitz.com/game/replay.pl?game_id=186610&pbp_id=121387 (check out the FB)
http://goallineblitz.com/game/replay.pl?game_id=186610&pbp_id=121561 (the WR?)

These are just a couple, there's also the TE running back toward its own end zone etc...

My observation so far is that agility is even more important than last year in acceleration and changing direction.