Primis

So I was playing with Carther's Rose Bowl ROM against the CPU and I had something really weird happen that I've never seen before in TSB. I was playing as Michigan State against Wisconsin. I had them backed up in their own end on 3rd down, and I came at Russel Wilson with Denicos Allen off the top OLB and sacked him *right* dead on the goal line. I thought it might be a Safety but then saw the game just considered it a Sack, so I was expecting a 4th Down punt deep in his own endzone. Instead the game apparently decided that the goal line = the 50 yard line, placed the ball there for 4th down, and WISC punted from the 50 and through the back of my endzone. Needless to say I wasn't amused to go from possible Safety to taking the ball on my own 20, especially in a game where i was already playing without Cousins, Le'veon Bell, and Keyshawn Martin. Has *anyone* ever seen this before? Might this be ROM-specific, or has anyone seen it in another ROM? And why.... did the game decide it didn't have enough room to put the punter in? I never have seen this is the base TSB game or ROM before, and... I've been playing the game pretty much nonstop since the original NES cart released. I'm pretty sure I've gotten guys on the goal line before as well.

I'm just thinking out loud here... putting the trap focused on your chosen player and not the ball might be pretty cool. If you're a LB blitzing and the ball is thrown downfield out of your camera view, that's the risk you run. For offense it wouldn't matter much though I guess, as the focus auto-changes from QB to RB on a hand-off say. The ball-carrier is who you control on offense, so... it'd only really affect defense, and maybe defense doesn't need to be any more difficult. But it'd be a different feel and kinda' fun. And there are the hacks out there where you play locked on at WR if I'm remembering correctly, so changing the trap on that could be pretty awesome in conjunction with it. Though again, playing defense would suck... These would be single-player roms because boy... it'd completely wreck multiplayer. I'm not sure what havoc would ensue if the trap were taken off the ball. It'd be fun to find out though. Probably a dumb question: can the rom be hacked to support something non-NTSC, non-PAL? Thanks for this stuff jstout. I know some of these are things that have undoubtedly been covered over the years, but this forum has been here so long and it never hurts to ask, especially since the game knowledge changes. There are a number of us here that have been on this forum for a long time (like me) but don't necessarily post much. So this stuff is being seen by far more people than feedback would indicate. There simply isn't a game out there (not just ROM, any game period) that has gotten the attention and research this one has. And every time we think something might be impossible, we find otherwise. It's much appreciated, and it's part of why my Nintendo DS still is solely platform to emulate and play TSB roms & have them portable.

I delurked here to just say that I am not a programmer or hacker of any level, and I have found these docs extremely interesting. The Camera Window one in particular, and Traps, answered a long-standing question of mine about scrolling in these kind of games. I assume the trap would then just be oriented in a different manner in an up-down game like, say, 10 Yard Fight? Can you "trap" on something other than the ball in TSB? I know there are hacks to control other off-the-ball players, but can the camera be trapped onto them instead of the ball (AFAIK all these hacks still keep the "trap" on the ball)? So you could control a WR downfield and have the camera locked on him instead? Or "trap" on whatever defensive player you control? The Controller one? Interesting as well to see how that's mapped. So it flips a value rapidly between 1 and 0 for "on"/"off" in order to constantly check for button status, is the gist I get. I also have enjoyed the Collision Detection one, I always wondered how that worked in general in a game. Wait, so are you saying that NTSC technically displays less than PAL? Why? And does PAL display those rows? This forum is such a repository of NES knowledge in general.

Guys (I was gone yesterday, couldn't reply) I'm not trying to diss everyone or the tourney with my comments. Sorry if it came across that way I guess. I guess I should also keep in mind that some players were probably quite lubed up already. And I know there's a Live factor that's going to put pressure on guys or make them make different decisions. I saw a couple of games though that were quite good. I also saw a couple complete stinkers honestly that made me shake my head. I dunno'. Playing super-conservative seems almost anti-Tecmo to me. The game's not even built around that gameplay idea. To me, Tecmo is as much Style as Result. I always imagined Madison as a place where, unlike playing online where you're removed and so victory is a bit more important, you have a chance to impress and show off in front of a live audience and that the "winner" was almost secondary. Thus why you had mini Grappling matches and the like.

Scared? What do you mean by that? I'm amazed at how uber-conservative guys are on returns and rushing. Yet they'll heave the ball reguarly into triple coverage. I mean, an INT is just as bad as a Fumble usually, yet guys seem far more scared of the latter. That's ok. There was that one DET-SD game where SD refused to pass even once they got far behind I guess, which is going too far the other way. Did anyone record the final? I'd like to see that...

I watched the feed of some of the Field of 64 games. Some great games in there, and some real duds. Wish I'd had more time to watch games. Had a busy day though. Please stream and livechat it again next year. The Facebook layout was awesome, it had the live feeed, the live chat, live scoreboard with voting.... It's great stuff watching the comments as the game on the feed progresses. I'm dumbfounded though at how scared some of ya'll play.

Bah, Denard Robinson is always overrated. Defenses cna reliably beat him by making him throw. He's just plain not a good passer. He's not at all comparable to a Vick or QB Eagles. He's more like a faster, smaller, weaker Tim Tebow with even worse throwing ability (or inclination even). Even a lot of Michigan fans hate the guy and are sick of seeing them try to trot him out as a QB (fall Saturdays on my Facebook feed are hilarious to read as Michigan fans groan at everything Denard does). Especially then when Hoke trots out a different QB for a play or two and defenses just pin their ears back and all come knowing it's a pass. I'm a Spartan fan but even I agree on Maxwell that we really don't know what the kid can do yet. He's super smart (Academic All American twice now) and I believe he's involved in some athletic Christian ministry stuff so he's probably a low-maintenance guy on-campus... but his sample size is small and when he has played it's been clean-up duty against the Florida Atlantics of the world. I also don't know who the heck he's going to be throwing to either, IIRC MSU lost 3 of their best receivers that graduated along with Kirk Cousins. He has a tall task ahead of him.

I used LB's (OLB and ILB/MLB), CB's, S', and even linemen once or twice. The problem is even if you can get to the spot where the RB turns the corner before he does, he has guys still leading him. CB's get absolutely rocked if they stick their nose in there, S's a bit less so, but still usually aren't a match for the 2 or 3 guys there. And LB's did have a bit of success getting through but still didn't stop anything. And I'm keeping in mind this was the DOLPHINS running this, not a powerhouse team. Every single other play they tried was a miserable failure for loss of yards or Incompletion. It was just an absolute money play for them. No they just ran it and were blasting 20 yards a carry at least. It got to the point where I stopped trying to attack it at the line, and simply hung back and played angle to minimize the gain to merely a big one and a first down, and not a huge one. I've never encountered anything like that in the game before, and I've played several season games since and saw nothing remotely like that. In fact, last game I played tonight I injured 2 DET RB's in one half because they kept thinking they'd try cute running on me and so I'd just run up and hit them in the mouth (BTW that quick pass play to Megatron can be wicked to deal with as well, but isn't unstoppable. Nice play though). Maybe it was just a confluence of some guys' conditions being just right or something though, because for all the cheap playoff things I've seen happen with the CPU in TSB I've certainly never seen a play gouge anyone like that.

Hey buck. I am a version old right now, I'm still playing through a season. When I complete it, I'll get the newer one with the SNG's. And anyhow I ran into something that became a real problem. I was playing the Dolphins and I'm going to say over 90% of the time they called the 2nd running play to Daniel Thomas (Left-A). The problem is, there is no defense to stop that running play. He busts it wide open every single time. Oddly enough, the Dime came the closest to stopping it (aka "actually stopped it once"), and that was possibly a fluke, and it was still for a First Down. It's the running play to the left side with everyone pulling with him. I'm not joking when I say that no base defense was capable of stopping it. I managed to win by simply scoring last (28-21) so time luckily ran out. But that run play is ridiculous, it needs tweaked or something. I've had some running games gash me so far but... for 238 yards and 3 TD's even though I had the huge majority of time of possession... and for them to just call that single play over and over...

So I started a season, Buck. Picked a random team. Gawwwddd. I got the Broncos. Why me? I almost cheated and picked someone else, but stuck with them. I have the passing game going a bit more now. Things are a bit more balanced. I'm finding I get a *lot* of injuries. Orton's has been hurt twice now in only 5 weeks and oddly enough Tebow once as well (the one week I was losing anyways so I said "WTF put him in" and he promptly got hurt on the 2nd play. Weakling.). I've also had both McGahee and Moreno hurt at times. Man, it's tough. I wanted to talk about some of the misdirection running plays and I guessed I hadn't noticed before in the few scattered hacked ROMs I've played of recent. I missed the running plays where there's a fake handoff and the cursor stays on the fake back an extra second or so. When did that happen and how in God's name did it get pulled off? Brian Leonard gouged me twice with huge runs before I caught on to WTF was happening. Now I play scared of it happening and plan accordingly. I'm guessing there's also an INT hack so that the dude making the INT gets juiced a bit, there are WAY more Pick 6's. With having played a good 12-15 games now total, I have to say I *love* the Defensive plays. Please don't get discouraged on them. In pure TSB I simply pick Down+B all the time against CPU (and by all the time I mean 100% of the time, I'm not kidding) because I know it makes it pretty hard hard (not impossible at all, but hard) to burn me with a pass play then and I trust myself to snuff out the run. I can even do it on juiced ROMs still. I can't do that in this ROM, I have to strategize actual defenses even against the CPU and I love that about this ROM. If you do nothing else, please stick with the defensive plays. I can't stress just what this adds to the game.

do you recall your run playbook, and who were you playing? I was TB vs MIN. Default playbook for TB. I suppose MIN's ineptness may have played a role. I genuinely wasn't trying to rush much, Blount just kept breaking these enormous runs... I was actually trying to get a passing game going instead.

It's an adjustment to this, where throwing into coverage won't give the expected JJ, but can still reliably result in a reception that the receiver can get some YAC still. It may just be more of a "feel" thing, but I often feel like my options are all well-covered and I check-off to either TE or a RB because I just don't feel comfortable throwing downfield. I don't know what level of INT/REC hacks are involved, but I have noticed a difference and it could just require some more mental deprogramming from pure TSB's way of handling INT's and such. I thoroughly enjoy moving a receiver to get him more into the open though, and having to scramble to make throws. I'm just still trying to figure out how I can run for 356 yards (without trying to) when in original I could barely ever crack 200 in a good game. Fluke maybe for me?... Different gameplay + juiced = still a mostly-confused me, even though I'm now winning a lot of my games I'm playing (mostly because I now have a better feel for defensive playcalling). That's fine. It was a suggestion more for others, I know what they all mean with no problems myself. Keep up the good work.

Buck, I played some more games on this last night and once you've deprogrammed yourself from still just picking the offensive play (don't you guys sit there and lie, it's so second-nature by now that we all do it and it takes a while to stop doing it), and once you've got the hang of the feel for the ROM, it's still amazing. I was randomly selecting teams blindly (down and right randomly on the selection screen) to force myself to learn things and go outside of my comfort zone. I still think the running game is just a bit overpowered (I friggin' ran for 356 yards with the guy from TB on default settings, but passing numbers are so hard to come by and in a good game I'll only get 50-60 yds in the air) but... the defenses definitely work like they are supposed to. Buck's right, don't look at the spreadsheet and descriptions and decide, actually play the different defenses and see how they work and feel. Sometimes a Nickle will still snuff out a good run, and sometimes a run defense can still take out a pass. However, they *feel* right, and in an obvious passing situation playing a Dime pretty reliably destroys a CPU pass play. I have to say, I thought the offensive run plays were ugly when I first saw them. I have always been a Sweep Left, Sweep Right kind of guy, but these plays... the inside running game can be lethal and honestly when I first snap the ball on a lot of them I still sometimes panic because in the first 2 seconds of the play it looks like it's all gone to hell, but the blockers still do their job and if you hit the hole, you're golden. Running-wise, the game feels a lot more real. I say this as a compliment, so take it as one... I don't know that this is really TSB anymore. This is perilously-close to being a different game entirely, given the hacks in place, the magnitude of their effect, and the overhaul of player ratings to work with them. About the only thing missing for me would be the holy grail of running an option. If you're considering doing anything with this going forward but are concerned with the "sanctity" of TSB's feel or look or something, don't be. Please push forward. Purists will hate the ever-loving crap out of it because it's not really TSB, but I think we need this more. Buck, is there any way to add a third character onto the defensive play designations on the left side of the offensive plays? I think that'd clarify them for a lot more people. What I mean is, can you make "DM" into "DIM", etc??? If you're playing a TSB ROM, odds are you know football games well enough to know what those defenses are and do, you won't need Dime, 4-3, etc explained to you or charted. I could see some getting tripped up by deciphering the two characters though on a couple of the defenses. Small thing, might make a big difference and appeal to a larger crowd though (if there is such a thing for completely rebuilt TSB ROMs). Anyhow, I'll play some more games later today and see if anything else strikes me.

What's wrong is that you, for whatever reason unbeknownst to most of us, apparently took his joke reply about $40 seriously.

I really don't know what to do given how the ratings system works on this but... I guess I'll echo the Backup QB's Need Help sentiment. Not all of them of course, but not every single backup in the league is so bad either. Losing your starting QB should not be the death blow that it currently is. I was playing as CAR and Cam Newton went down, and no possible amount of planning, management, and playcalling was going to then save me. Especially some of the real vet QB's should be a slightly better option than they are now or something. Not saying CAR is a perfect example of that because, well... yeah, they're not. Just using them as an example. It's tough though I guess, it's a fine line. I remember years ago some buddies and I were having a Madden tourney with partners, and my partner and I were the Vick-led Falcons. In the First Quarter we lost both Vick AND the second string, fell behind by 21... and somehow still managed to rally to win behind the 3rd string. That obviously is bad the other way, that shouldn't happen either, you don't want that. But man.... it's brutal right now. If your starter goes down, you may as well just hit Reset.