Accuracy of Passing, Quickness - What Do They Do?

[cuppettcj]

OK, it turns out that an NES movie will sync up even if it's started before the coin toss. I recorded another movie of a game, this time starting before I selected "Game Start" on the Season menu. I then began to change certain attributes, making sure to change only one attribute at a time, and then played back the movie. Here's what I discovered, which is probably old news to most people here:

The Receptions ability not only affects how well a receiver catches the ball, it also determines whether or not the defensive player guarding the receiver will intercept the pass. Example - during the recording of the movie, Bernie Kosar threw a pass to Ozzie Newsome that was intercepted by San Diego's safety Vencie Glenn (both players made it to the 'X' at the same time). I then went into TSB Manager and changed Newsome's Receptions ability from 38 to 100. When I played back the movie, the pass that was supposed to be intercepted by Glenn now fell harmlessly to the ground for an incomplete pass.

The Pass Interceptions ability not only affects a defensive player's chances of intercepting a pass, it also affects whether or not the receiver being guarded will catch the ball. Example - during the recording, Bernie Kosar threw a pass to Eric Metcalf while he was guarded by Sam Seale. The game went to a cinema screen that showed the ball bouncing off Metcalf's stomach for an incomplete pass. After changing Seale's Pass Interceptions ability from 50 to 6, the pass was caught by Metcalf during playback.

So this means that Pass Control, Receptions, and Pass Interceptions all have an effect on what will happen when a quarterback throws a ball into coverage.

As for Quickness and AOP, I again changed them back and forth from extreme to extreme, and at no time did it affect playback of the movie. I'm convinced now more than ever that these two abilities do absolutely nothing in this version of TSB.

[bruddog]

Yay, another convert!

[Knobbe]

I believe the reason for this is because everything in the game runs on a clock. Whether a flip will be heads or tails specifically depends on when you start a game. If everything was as random as everyone thinks, there is no way you could reconstruct a game with a movie file without it being different every time.

OK, it turns out that an NES movie will sync up even if it's started before the coin toss.

[moonwalk]

There's still dissent in the STL about the value of quickness, so here's what I think to be a good test for quickness that doesn't rely on the ability or lack thereof of Nesticle to play back a movie with stats changed.

We know that certain teams always get into the playoffs, some teams never get into the playoffs, and some get into the playoffs a measurable percentage of the time. Sim 20 or 30 seasons and record the percentage of the time that a team that sometimes gets into the playoffs makes the playoffs. Then take this team, raise all quicknesses to 100, and sim 10 or 20 or 30 seasons, recording the percentage of times that they get into the playoffs. Then drop quicknesses on that team to 0 or 6, and sim the same amount of seasons and see how many times they get into the playoffs. (To amplify any possible effect of quickness, one could drop all other teams to 0 or 6 quickness the first time, then raise all the other teams to 100 the second time.) If enough trials are done, this should pose a very, very strong argument either for or against the value of quickness.

[Knobbe]

This is irrelavent because attributes have little to no affect on simming. Sim data affects the outcome.

There really is only two options

- Those that know or accept quickness and AOP do nothing

- those that are wrong.....

There's still dissent in the STL about the value of quickness, so here's what I think to be a good test for quickness that doesn't rely on the ability or lack thereof of Nesticle to play back a movie with stats changed.

We know that certain teams always get into the playoffs, some teams never get into the playoffs, and some get into the playoffs a measurable percentage of the time. Sim 20 or 30 seasons and record the percentage of the time that a team that sometimes gets into the playoffs makes the playoffs. Then take this team, raise all quicknesses to 100, and sim 10 or 20 or 30 seasons, recording the percentage of times that they get into the playoffs. Then drop quicknesses on that team to 0 or 6, and sim the same amount of seasons and see how many times they get into the playoffs. (To amplify any possible effect of quickness, one could drop all other teams to 0 or 6 quickness the first time, then raise all the other teams to 100 the second time.) If enough trials are done, this should pose a very, very strong argument either for or against the value of quickness.

[Bad Moon Rison]

I'd like to add that these claims do not hold true for later versions of the game (SNES). I'm not claiming that all the tests that you have done on the NES version are invalid, but I want you to consider this:

NES version:

Accuracy of passing: no effect

Quickness: no effect

SNES version (TSB III):

Passing accuracy: effects the QBs ability to complete a pass in coverage

Quickness: no effect

My question is as follows:

Why would the programmers of TSB III create passing accuracy to have an effect, but leave Quickness in the game as having no effect? It was written previously in this thread that perhaps the NES version was 'rushed' and the programmers did not have time to take out the attribute. They had four years to take out or correct quickness. Why would they change passing accuracy and not quickness?

I'm by no means an expert on the subject, but would like someone to explain it further. I know that people spend hours upon hours fiddling around with code, but could there be some latent function or seemingly extraneous variable that actually might have an effect on attributes? I'm not knocking TSB Manager, but as I said before, maybe the categories appear changed, but are merely cosmetic and the attribute goes unaltered. Consider the fact that there has been a breakthrough that returners are effected by SS and RT MS, and this discovery went virtually unnoticed for years. Or perhaps there is something about recording movie files with a particular emulator?

Maybe there is a latent function of quickness. moonwalk's idea seems a little far-fetched in that it effects sim code, but what if it did take alter the player's ability throughout the course of a season? Maybe it effects how quick the COM's players become "coked up" on defense. I'm guessing here.

My main beef is why would they change one attribute and not the other?

[poorfella]

maybe it affects the special teams, like the right tackles MS does? maybe the guy made tsbm wrong?

i agree they do nothing

[Bleak5170]

Getting back to INTs, does anybody know if interception rating for defensive players does anything?

I think this is proven by the fact Reasons, (with his ridiculously high INT rating), picks off almost everything over the middle in TSB.

[Knobbe]

If I have time I'll see what changing those attributes does in TSB III

I'd like to add that these claims do not hold true for later versions of the game (SNES). I'm not claiming that all the tests that you have done on the NES version are invalid, but I want you to consider this:

NES version:

Accuracy of passing: no effect

Quickness: no effect

SNES version (TSB III):

Passing accuracy: effects the QBs ability to complete a pass in coverage

Quickness: no effect

My question is as follows:

Why would the programmers of TSB III create passing accuracy to have an effect, but leave Quickness in the game as having no effect? It was written previously in this thread that perhaps the NES version was 'rushed' and the programmers did not have time to take out the attribute. They had four years to take out or correct quickness. Why would they change passing accuracy and not quickness?

I'm by no means an expert on the subject, but would like someone to explain it further. I know that people spend hours upon hours fiddling around with code, but could there be some latent function or seemingly extraneous variable that actually might have an effect on attributes? I'm not knocking TSB Manager, but as I said before, maybe the categories appear changed, but are merely cosmetic and the attribute goes unaltered. Consider the fact that there has been a breakthrough that returners are effected by SS and RT MS, and this discovery went virtually unnoticed for years. Or perhaps there is something about recording movie files with a particular emulator?

Maybe there is a latent function of quickness. moonwalk's idea seems a little far-fetched in that it effects sim code, but what if it did take alter the player's ability throughout the course of a season? Maybe it effects how quick the COM's players become "coked up" on defense. I'm guessing here.

My main beef is why would they change one attribute and not the other?

[Knobbe]

TSBM is simply just a graphical interface to make it easy to hex edit the roms. The only way that it would not correctly change quickness would be if the attribute was hardcoded somewhere else in the rom. Given that this would cause more code and space to be needed, I think this is highly unlikely and you would notice that defensive players play above or below their stats, much like you would notice that some kick off returners act differently.

maybe it affects the special teams, like the right tackles MS does? maybe the guy made tsbm wrong?

i agree they do nothing

[Bad Moon Rison]

If I have time I'll see what changing those attributes does in TSB III

When I changed passing accuracy from 06 to 99, the movie went out of sync. It took a couple of plays before it started to go wacky. What it did was reverse a once previously incomplete pass and made it a completion. The receiver in this case was covered by a defender. So, I concluded that passing accuracy (at least in TSB III) effects how well your QB is able to complete the pass to a covered receiver.

I had fun with it afterwards (I tested it on the Cardinals) and was able to complete a whole load of passes with Mike Buck to the covered TE, whose receptions rating I believe is 25 or 31. These passes would obviously be clunkers (or maybe even interceptions).

What effects the ability to catch a pass in coverage? So far, we have found:

TSB NES

Receptions rating of receiver; Interceptions rating of defender; QB seems to have little to no effect

TSB III SNES

Receptions rating of receiver; QBs passing accuracy ability; Interceptions rating of defender is still unknown

One thing I noticed in the saved movies is that the COM plays as normal (though it changes its plays depending on the situation). It is only the player that the MAN controls that goes out of whack.

You're right that quickness probably does absolutely nothing. Either that, or it's TSB's biggest secret. Are there any defenders with high quickness and low attributes (or vice versa)? Maybe it's just a shorthand way of finding out whether or not a defender is a star or a scrub.

[cres]

I have to admit, these are sort of sad days. I mean, I always thought it was pretty cool that Tecmo had some crazy quirks to it, but it's starting to look like there was just some seriously poor programing going on.

I mean think about it, it accidently loads the wrong MaxSpeed on kickoff and punt returns, meaning all returners get the same MS, and the SS's attributes have to be changed accordingly. Quickness and Pass Accuracy do absolutely nothing. Team 2's player conditions have the reverse effect of what they are supposed to do. I mean there is a hell of a lot that is technically wrong with this game.

Not that this will really change how much I play it, but those guys sure screwed up a lot of stuff in what was supposed to be a polished finished project. Maybe it was rushed along...

[Patbeach]

Team 2's player conditions have the reverse effect of what they are supposed to do.

HI... I'm not familiar with what you mean on this.

and,

"an ang-ery dude with many tatoos, he's living his life so crud-ely rude... he's not cresent fresh, his whole life's a mess"

[bruddog]

For NES TSB QB pass control has a very strong effect. It is only passing accuracy that is worthless.

What effects the ability to catch a pass in coverage? So far, we have found:

TSB NES

Receptions rating of receiver; Interceptions rating of defender; QB seems to have little to no effect

[bruddog]

Yeah Cres it looks like they made a fwe programming gaffes. But still the finished product is still highly playable. There is never enough time no matter how polished you want it. Most of the issues are minor annoyances.

And I am acutally glad they did the KR and PR the way they did. Well not that they tied to to RT and SS but that there is a seperate variable that controls KR and PR speed.

I found even making a super jacked up PR doesn't help mcuh as PR's are very very difficult and punts are pretty rare.

To me the best Tecmo would merge the gameplay of TSB NES with the features from TSBIII......(different base defensive coverages, substitutable defense, audibles, in game playbook changing) There was something about the gameplay in future versions that just didn't feel right.

[moonwalk]

add in the control and you will have a very good test right there

[operagost]

To me the best Tecmo would merge the gameplay of TSB NES with the features from TSBIII......(different base defensive coverages, substitutable defense, audibles, in game playbook changing)

Randall Cunningham kicking punts ... Oh well, guess we can't have everything!

[Bad Moon Rison]

For NES TSB QB pass control has a very strong effect. It is only passing accuracy that is worthless.

It is my understanding that Pass Control effects the path of the ball, not the catch in coverage. Of course, this is important, since the ball has to reach the receiver first.

[hamburgler2682]

Some of y'all are just really really smart. I'm very impressed. Its good to read the various Tecmo Science Journal Articles that pop up now and then.

[bruddog]

You'd be quite mistaken then.

For NES TSB QB pass control has a very strong effect. It is only passing accuracy that is worthless.

It is my understanding that Pass Control effects the path of the ball, not the catch in coverage. Of course, this is important, since the ball has to reach the receiver first.

[Bleak5170]

I have to admit, these are sort of sad days. I mean, I always thought it was pretty cool that Tecmo had some crazy quirks to it, but it's starting to look like there was just some seriously poor programing going on.

I know how you feel. It's just like when i found out Jackie Chan doesn't do all his own stunts or fights.

[cres]

Patbeach, good to see some other S&O fans out there on the board.

Quote:

Team 2's player conditions have the reverse effect of what they are supposed to do.

HI... I'm not familiar with what you mean on this.

Basically when you play a 2 player game, the player status on the second is affected in the reverse way that it should. So an Excellent player's ability goes down while a player in Bad health actually has better stats. I haven't played as player 2 in a while, so I forget some of the exact details of how this happens - anyone else want to fill in what I'm missing here?

[LouisOliver]

Yeah, that left-handed snowboarder shot was just killer for Chan.

I've played a lot of MAN v. MAN games on the console and I've always felt that you can trust conditions and not the stat values shown (they get pretty demented sometimes)

[cres]

Are we sure that Quickness isn't really just "Kick Block" or "Injure Opponent", something that would only cause de-sync in few games, but certainly not most of the ones you would test?

[LouisOliver]

on a related note, has it been discussed why bob nelson's 69 rushing power makes him so formidable?

i mean, we all know why lonnie young's 69 running speed makes him so good at stopping sweeps and covering stationary midlevel receivers, but just looking at nelson's stats, his answer isnt obvious to me.

from just playing with him a little a few moments ago, it seems like his acceleration (not the same as young's high starting speed) is really good in that he starts out like crap but quickly gets moving.

a problem is that he clearly winds up moving faster than your average 38 MS defender and that RP is his only funny stat.

His performance (this is just from my experiences) seems to improve an unusual ammount when in good and excellent condition. ie normal condition bob can have some trouble with a good offense but good condition bob is one of the league's best defenders.

thoughts?