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AFL Live 2011 Marking

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morgs640

Rookie
Mar 29, 2010
25
20
AFL Club
Adelaide
How do you mark in a one on one situation is there any trick to it or just have players with high mark stats, i almost always lose one on one marks
 
Having a player with good marking stats helps....but you can also jostle using the right stick, then press mark.
There are heaps of factors though:-
- marking ability of the player
- jostle timing
- mark button press timing
- position of the players in the contest

I'm actually terrible at it, but if you run into the BigFooty member 'Gibbsy' (PSN CycloneGibbsy) then ask for some tips off him. Absolutely smashed me in every marking contest, even when I was trying to spoil....which is usually a safer and more reliable option.
 
I'd also like to know this. Have tried almost every possible combination of the right stick and triangle with all sorts of different timing, but am yet to really get the hang of it.

Played the most frustrating game ever last night against HBK. He completely smashed me from pillar to post, from start to finish, and it just seemed that absolutely nothing (and I seriously mean nothing) would go my way.

The one area he completely dominated me in though was contested marking. According to HBK, he just presses triangle and moves into the ball, but for the life of me, I just can't seem to figure it out. I do get the occasional contested mark, and even 2 or 3 in a row sometimes, which leads me to believe I may have figured out how to do it properly, but then it stops working for me and I'm back to square one.

It doesn't help that the instructions don't really detail this area of the game very well, IMO. It says you can either repeatedly tap the mark button to mark, or for a better chance at marking, tap the mark button once at the right time....well there's no real indication of when that time actually is. Same with jostling before a mark, it says you can do this with the right stick, but again it lacks any real detail on exactly how this works or when to actually do it.

Feels like I've tried every possible timing sequence there is, yet I'm no closer to understanding what it is I'm actually meant to press, or when to press it.
 
Glad I'm not the only one who isn't sure about marking, I tend to just spoil everything in my back 50 as I have no confidence I'm going to end up with the ball.
 

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i think its really positioning, if you're slightly ahead of the falling circle then you have more chance of marking then not. But in the one on one jostle i rarely win and my players (Riewoldt and Koschitzke) who have fairly high marking ability always get spoiled/ outmarked.. thats something that has to be looked at.
 
Frustrates the hell out of when an opponent kicks in to their forward line, and i see my backman in perfect position to mark, and also has front position by about 5 metres, so i decide to mark it for a quick rebound, only to see the ball travel literally straight through my player and hit the player behind me on the chest. Regardless of who's got better stats, that shit shouldn't happen.
 
think its best not to try and mark in the backline at all unless your well in the clear, as others have said you can be in front with a bit of a gap on your opponent and he will still mark it. yet strangely doesnt happen to me in my forward line, they can mark it even when my forward is in front. WTF!
 
i think its really positioning, if you're slightly ahead of the falling circle then you have more chance of marking then not. But in the one on one jostle i rarely win and my players (Riewoldt and Koschitzke) who have fairly high marking ability always get spoiled/ outmarked.. thats something that has to be looked at.

Frustrates the hell out of when an opponent kicks in to their forward line, and i see my backman in perfect position to mark, and also has front position by about 5 metres, so i decide to mark it for a quick rebound, only to see the ball travel literally straight through my player and hit the player behind me on the chest. Regardless of who's got better stats, that shit shouldn't happen.

Positioning does jack all for me. I can be in front, clearly, and my player makes no mark attempt at all and my opponent plucks it from behind.

Or I'm going to take one of those marks where you player should jump and pluck it from over their head, like all my opponents seem to do, but he just stands there in crab position as it sails over.

Or my absolute favourite, and this is gold if you can get it to happen, is where I'm going to mark it and my AI teammate spoils me.

I've been going GCS a lot in the comp we've been running, and spoiling is like Russian roulette, because 80% of the time, any spoil (triangle or RS) sees the ball land directly in the path of the opposition who can stroll off with it. And when the AI does it to my own player who was set to mark it, all I can do is laugh.
 
+1. Marking has me totally stumped. To be honest when I win a game against a good player it's like rugby more than anything - I don't have the confidence to kick to a lead and open up the play, it's just handball handball with the odd kick when it's obvious I'm in the clear.

I guess the key issue like what some people are saying here is that it's a bit of a mystery around timing and positioning and really, it shouldn't be. We should know when you're meant to press the triangle, and why jostling works sometimes and other times it doesn't.

Maybe if we're lucky someone will come on that can shed a bit of light on what the deal is <wink/nudge/cross of fingers>.
 
Would like to see some timing tutorials in the next game. Keep the actual matches the same.... But have something in the training section where you give it a go and it tells you whether you're late/early/perfect.
 
Agree to an extent with BlackMamba, in terms of having more explicit feedback on the ideal timing for pressing the mark button and jostling, even if it isn't in the form of a tutorial. NBA 2k11's feedback on shot timing springs to mind (tells you whether you're very early, slightly early, perfect, slightly late or very late in your release of the shot).

In terms of mechanics though, I do think that the problem is heavily exacerbated by the fact that a marking contest in which two players go for the mark is guarenteed to end in a mark one way or the other (aside from those ones where the ball passes by both of them and neither makes an attempt at it, which is even less realistic).

Instead it should be possible for marking contests to be a 'draw'. This would happen if each player's timing of the mark and jostling and the marking stats all add up to result in a roughly equal attempt at a mark, and the ball would then spill off hands in a semi-random direction (influenced by the position of the players in relation to the landing circle). If this were implemented then the lack of knowledge on the perfect timing of marking would be of far lesser consequence, as the result wouldn't be so damaging (ie. a shot at goal 100% gained or lost).

It would also give players more freedom to follow their natural footy instincts and feel confident going for marks in defense, knowing that they're not quite so liable to give away a free shot at goal for going for the mark. Too many times I've seen an opposing forward take a mark from a horrible position compared to my defender, so I now constantly remind myself to punch no matter what.

Anyway, marking would certainly be at the top of my list of aspects of the game to be improved for 2012 (the others being AI player movement off the ball and adding an aspect of timing/skill to the fend off...)
 

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Agreed Mahama.... very well put.... love the ideas. Seriously got excited at the idea of something like that being in the next game!!! haha

Just wondering.... NBA2K11s feedback for shots.... Is that only for free-throws, or all shots in the game? Surely only free-throws, and not all shots at the hoop?

I feel that if you were given feedback on ALL marking contests, it'd be too much. I kinda like the lack of feedback IN the game.... i.e less info in the HUD.

This is why I'd like to only see it in a training section....where you could practice and get the feedback, and then come gameday it's down to instinct and what you've learned from training.
 
At the risk of sounding like a parrot, sensational points Mahama. Definitely need more ball spillages and pretty much everything else you've said.

If timing doesn't change based on position (I think this is a real possibility given some of the crazy leaps some forwards do), then one painless option is to just have the circle flash a different colour at the right time. You could even patch this in I would have thought, it's not changing any game mechanic or AI or anything.
 
I guess the key issue like what some people are saying here is that it's a bit of a mystery around timing and positioning and really, it shouldn't be. We should know when you're meant to press the triangle, and why jostling works sometimes and other times it doesn't.

Spot on. The manual or tutorial should clearly cover this.
 

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Just wondering.... NBA2K11s feedback for shots.... Is that only for free-throws, or all shots in the game? Surely only free-throws, and not all shots at the hoop?

I feel that if you were given feedback on ALL marking contests, it'd be too much. I kinda like the lack of feedback IN the game.... i.e less info in the HUD.

This is why I'd like to only see it in a training section....where you could practice and get the feedback, and then come gameday it's down to instinct and what you've learned from training.

Yep fair call. I guess the main difference is that in NBA2k11, each player has their own disctinct shot animation, and accordingly has a different ideal timing for their shots. The feedback can be displayed for all shots, but can also be turned off.

Assumedly though, all players have the same mark timing requirements in AFL Live, so you would only need to learn it once (in practice or a tutorial, as you said).
 
i really liked the simple marking circle in AFL 06/07. It had two rings on the ground, one orange for spoiling/speckying and a green one for marking. Another ring would overlap these rings as the ball got closer so that if you timed it and pressed X on the Green ring they would mark it.

With the one in AFL 2011 theres no way of knowing what you did wrong, whether you timed it wrong or if you just didn't get a good enough position.
 
Frustrates the hell out of when an opponent kicks in to their forward line, and i see my backman in perfect position to mark, and also has front position by about 5 metres, so i decide to mark it for a quick rebound, only to see the ball travel literally straight through my player and hit the player behind me on the chest. Regardless of who's got better stats, that shit shouldn't happen.
This happens 90% of the time with me, so I figure I'm doing something wrong and just spoil every time.

Not that that stops it from going through my opponent sometimes, either.
 
Instead it should be possible for marking contests to be a 'draw'. This would happen if each player's timing of the mark and jostling and the marking stats all add up to result in a roughly equal attempt at a mark, and the ball would then spill off hands in a semi-random direction (influenced by the position of the players in relation to the landing circle). If this were implemented then the lack of knowledge on the perfect timing of marking would be of far lesser consequence, as the result wouldn't be so damaging (ie. a shot at goal 100% gained or lost).
This is a good idea. I was actually thinking something similar to this the other day, but for ruck contests instead. Very good post.
 
This is a good idea. I was actually thinking something similar to this the other day, but for ruck contests instead. Very good post.

Completely agree. Would love for ruck contests to be a draw if all factors balanced out to be similar.
Would also make it harder for bloke to use a big punch from Sandilands everytime, as we saw pre-patch, or some other strategy to get every clearance.

I wonder how much affect these changes would have, and how much it'd affect the game balancing the designers would have to face if they were implemented.
 

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AFL Live 2011 Marking

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