Goal Line Blitz - American Football MMORPG

Catch22
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Feb 10, 2011 22:17:08

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Originally posted by MileHighShoes
Is vision directly included in the FF roll?
agility, confidence?

Is there a bonus to KL's based on coverage style (loose, aggressive, etc.)?

Originally posted by Bort
Yes, yes, yes, to varying degrees.

No.

Catch22
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Feb 10, 2011 22:17:54

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Originally posted by jrsmith099
Is the chance to force a fumble the same regardless of where the tackle is being made from? (i.e. head on, from the side, behind the ball carrier)

Originally posted by Bort
No, head on is most likely to get a quality tackle, so most likely to get the big hit fumble you're looking for. You also tend to be coming in faster when it's head on, so better chance there due to momentum.

Originally posted by tautology
On this point:

Does a HB having awareness of an upcoming tackle affect the fumble calculation? Do HBs make a vision check before they are hit? Does being tackled from behind penalize this vision check?

Originally posted by Bort
Not exactly directly on the fumble. Vision applies to their break tackle chance, which reduces the tackle quality, which reduces the chance of the fumble.

Originally posted by josephblitz
and is there a "strip" calculation made, wherein the defender chooses to go for the strip vs. trying for the safe tackle, that allows the offensive player to gain extra yardage?

(or is that obvious/implied..)

Originally posted by Bort
No, that's part of the idea of the power vs wrap up tackling tactic.

Edited by Catch22 on Feb 10, 2011 22:19:21

Catch22
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Feb 10, 2011 22:21:23

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Originally posted by Time Trial
Real Questions:

Does SYM work on a QB who is running a called pass play, but has pulled the ball down to run?
If so, does it depend on if they are outside the pocket as to which ability they get (break tackle v. Spin)?

Follow ups on those points:

Since it seems that receivers don't turn around and start blocking until the QB has crossed the LOS, I was hoping for a little help in breaking the onslaught of tackles from when the QB tucks the ball and every D player has instant recognition that the QB is running.
Also, since all of the defenders have left the receivers open down field, can the scrambling QB untuck the ball and throw it?

(Example from 'determined not a bug')
http://goallineblitz.com/game/replay.pl?game_id=1547393&pbp_id=4122961&flash=1

The bug was closed because it was determined that receivers could block, they either 'all' failed a vision check, or (more likely) they cannot commit to block until the QB has crossed the LOS, unless they were already commited to block prior to the pass.

Conclusion:

Maybe code it so that blockers can react at the same time as defenders, give the QB a chance to beat those defenders with SYM, or let the QB throw it to all those wide open dots.

Originally posted by Bort
Yes and no to the first two questions.

Defenders and blockers both have to pass vision checks to start blocking or following the QB. It may be that the vision checks for the blockers tend to be harder for most blockers (who often have less vision that defenders) to pass vs the high vision defenses out there.

The QB cannot currently exit the "run" mode once he's tucked the ball. He can scramble around until he tucks the ball, but I think if he could go back to throw mode, we'd probably see that become pretty overpowered as receivers suddenly were open due to the defenders breaking off. We'd probably have to add more logic and tactics options for likelihood of following the QB when he scrambles, etc.

Catch22
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Feb 10, 2011 22:21:52

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Originally posted by Bevo05
What goes into getting catch fake to fire. Is it more likely to fire for a WR with high agility or some other attribute. Or is it based only on the points in Catch Fake and some sort of "need to" calculation like Pump fake?

Originally posted by Bort
Just more points in the SA.

Catch22
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Feb 10, 2011 22:22:43

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Originally posted by bug03
Why can offensive players run through other offensive players and defensive players cannot do the same? Is there any chance that a change can be made to avoid defensive players from setting picks against each other like the offense does?

Yes, I fully realize that it is just a visual representation, but quite often defensive dots will run into another defensive dot who is being blocked and get "stuck". An offensive dot would have run through that if the roles were reversed.

Originally posted by Bort
Offensive players do actually try to avoid each other somewhat, though I don't think they do so when running routes. Blockers avoid each other some, though not as much as the ball carrier avoids his own guys. If we switched things up where the blockers avoided each other more, we'd tend to see a lot of holes with blockers getting in each others' way a lot, especially on pass blocking. Blitzers going through each other would make for a LOT more sacks. It's important to have some of that "clogged up" idea in place to keep nano-blitz type stuff in check. Might make some sense to lessen the avoid radius on pass coverage, though. I can't say without testing it.

Catch22
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Feb 10, 2011 22:29:05

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Originally posted by James Buchanan
Two questions:

1) Does Red Zone Freak work for punters and kickers, and which 20 yard line of the field will it work for punters? Might be a nice SA when pinned in the first 20 yards, but not if it only works 20 yards from the end zone.

2) Since the start of GLB, what do you think are GLB's three biggest mistakes and three biggest successes? I'd be happy to hear your personal opinion, or a consensus opinion from a variety of admins. I'm particularly interested because I can't recall anyone in an administrative capacity with GLB ever acknowledging a mistake. If you don't think there have ever been any, that's fine too, I'd just like to know.

Originally posted by Bort
1) It works for any position when inside the offensive red zone. A pinned punter would not get the bonus, since he's 80 yards away from the red zone. A K kicking a really close field goal would get the bonus, though I doubt he would need it.

I'll answer #2.

Biggest mistakes:

1) lack of testing when rolling out a large number of changes that were made to the game
2) allowing public opinion to alter/sway the vision of GLB too often
3) the lack of information available to new users of the game

Biggest successes:

1) the development and launch of this game. It's still going strong three years after launch because it's a good concept and a fun game to play.
2) Our Support team. They do a great job of quickly addressing user concerns and issues.
3) Age based leagues.

Catch22
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Feb 10, 2011 22:30:03

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Originally posted by Dollarbill13
During the GLB chat a few weeks ago, I believe Catch said that there were about 12-15 GLB employees and that Bort is the only programmer who touches the sim code. Do you ever foresee (specifically when the game leaves Beta) having a team of programmers working on the sim or does Bort want to keep it more of a small scale business where he is the main programmer?

Originally posted by Bort
I am not the only programmer who touches the sim code any more. I am, however, the only one who feels really comfortable adjusting it much. The others are nowhere near as familiar as I am, obviously, since they didn't write the whole thing. I usually have them deal with other projects, or fix bugs with the things they have added, etc.

Catch22
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Feb 10, 2011 22:30:50

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Originally posted by vike fan 4 life
special teams is considered run blocking, would STOP defenders set to run focus get an advantage?

Originally posted by Bort
Yep, they currently do.

Catch22
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Feb 10, 2011 22:31:24

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Originally posted by Time Trial
Does Shed Block SA work the same on Power blitz as on Evasive?

Originally posted by Bort
Yes, it's just a bonus to breaking blocks.

Catch22
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Feb 10, 2011 22:36:16

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Originally posted by tautology
On a standard modern PC with no other apps running, how long would it take for an average game to sim?

Originally posted by Bort
Depends on the players in the game. A high level team with fast players and not a lot of kickoffs and such tends to take around 3-5 minutes if running all by itself. Lower level players cause the plays to take a lot longer, which means a lot more frames to process, and they can take up to 10-15 minutes.

We run a whole bunch of sims in parallel, though, on machines with dual quad-core processors (2.8GHz iirc), with approximately 2x the number of cores running at once (16 games). That seems to be the optimal setup from trial and error I've done over the years as far as overall speed. A leagues' worth of 16 games will tend to finish in around 45 - 60 minutes.

I've been looking at some of the 12 core processors out now; I may replace some of the sim servers with those, or add one or two, to improve processing time. A dual-12 core or two would be pretty sweet...that would be the equivalent of 3 of the current servers we are using. We could easily handle the on-demand scrimmage suggestion with those.

Catch22
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Feb 10, 2011 22:38:22

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Originally posted by Rage Kinard
Is vision part of the hold block/break block roll? Also are things like momentum and/or leverage included as part of the roll?

Originally posted by Bort
Yes to vision. Momentum really only applies when the players first collide. Once they are locked in a blocking battle, there's no momentum to speak of really, unless somebody really starts winning. Leverage applies as it relates to ht/wt differences.

Catch22
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Feb 10, 2011 22:38:58

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Q & A complete. Will leave up for a couple days and then move to the archive section.

Warrior General Games