Tested: elusiveness

I been saying for a while that trucking is better than elusiveness this year and today I plan to tell you why. I also talk about how to hit stick and tackle better in the game. I might make a separate video about it so future me apologizes to future you about having to sit through the same content twice.

Sponsor: trucking, because it pays better than eluding the IRS, my current profession.

As tested by /u/caliking805 on the MUT subreddit, height and weight play into trucking. I noticed height played into hit sticks too. Illoka threw better hit sticks than the other corners I was using like Leon Hall. I’ve linked caliking’s AKA me llamo bear on youtube’s channel in the description and you can see his great testing videos.

But anyways, I made every player on defense the same stats which ended up being overboard since I only used one or two players to test the running backs vs. hit stick and conservative tackle. But we’ll talk about going overboard in a little bit.

The defensive players all had 85 speed stats with 65 tackle and 65 hit power. Which is on the lower end of what you’d expect out of a decent defensive back.

The different running backs I tested had

99 in elusiveness, trucking and strength,

0 elusive, 0 truck, 99 strength

0 elusive, 99 truck, 99 strength

99 truck, 0 elusive, 99 strength

0 awareness vs. 99 awareness.

0 agility vs. 99 agility

I named them by their 99 attributes so you can see in the video who I’m running with each time although you won’t see much variety because this is more of a me telling you the stats video than something I can show you like my other defensive testing video.

But mostly I tested the truck vs elusiveness since I narrowed out fairly early that strength doesn’t play into the running backs at all. And that is supported by caliking’s findings.

The running back’s base stats had:

Agility, speed, accel, carry, jumping, bc vision, stiff arm, spin, juke: 90

All others 65

Traits: stock. No fights for extra yards, never cover the ball,

Height 5’10, 200 lbs

The first test I did was the one that I mentioned earlier that I went a little overboard on.

Inside zone testing

Inside zone is OP, especially against the CPU

So then I found a test that would work for what I’m looking for. A one on one where I can test the tackling vs. the running backs. I used stretch plays as you can see.

So I first tested the hit stick on the backs and here is the biggest takeaway for the video. When I hit sticked a 99 elusive back, I was successful on about 72% of my tries including a few fumbles.

When I hit sticked a 99 trucking back I was successful on about 24% of my tries.

So the trucking back controlled by the CPU doesn’t get taken down nearly as easily as the elusive back with the hit stick.

Okay, what about the regular tackle button. A on the Xbox and X on the Playstation

The elusive back got tackled by the A button 71% of the time.

The trucking back got tackled 74% of the time with the A button. Not much difference there.

I then did the awareness test

I hit sticked the 99 awareness and 0 aware about 15 times each and there was no difference in break chance. The only difference is that No aware had 2 fumbles. 99 awareness had 0. It might be a coincidence though, two is only two and it was too small of a sample and something that might need to be looked at.

I then did the agility test between a player with 99 agility and 0 agility.

My results were inconclusive here too unfortunately. The 99 agility did break slightly more tackles but not enough for me to call it in it’s favor.

I then took control of the RB to run it directly at the cornerback and see what I could get. I did not hit any buttons except for the left thumbstick, which means no sprint or jukes.

The elusive back broke 9/23 tackles and the trucking 16/25 so once again trucking beats out elusiveness. This time when it comes to open field against the CPU.

What I learned:

Strength has no noticeable impact on RB interactions.

Hit power determines tackle chance when you are using the hit stick.

The angle at which you approach and hit the ball carrier at makes a big difference.

Height and weight matter for trucking backs as well as hit sticks.

Elusiveness is when you fail on a juke and getting out of it. Trucking is up on the right thumbstick and tries to bowl guys over. But they also change the animation’s and chances of getting out of a tackle without input from the player.

But I may have been unfair to Elusiveness because I didn’t test escaping defenders when I’m juking, which is what elusiveness is for. I tested how they were solo without any player input on the sticks, basically getting out of tackles from the game engine and not under either player’s control.

And now on to How to hit stick: run up in front of ball carrier head on, stop moving (release left thumbstick), left trigger and hit stick as close to runner as possible. So you want to moving as little as possible when you hit them. You can still land them when moving I just found I’m more inaccurate with lining up the hit when running full speed.

To conservative tackle, If you are head on you are golden or if you are on the side of the runner hitting them perpendicular like an RB trying to outrun the DB for the sideline. If you can get them in your tackle cone you’ll get it nearly every time.

As a tip if you plan to test anything in the future either on Madden or anything really. Always devise your test first in your brain and write it down what you are doing and hope to accomplish with it. That way you don’t waste hours upon hours like I did doing this test trying to feel things out. I actually had this in the queue for months ago but wasn’t able to focus or find everything I wanted to. Then Calikings did his trucking testing and kind of took the winds out of my sails, I had been scooped to no fault of Calikings of course. So that’s the reason I haven’t been testing as much lately like I was a few months ago. It’s a grind but I hope to do some more in the coming weeks so be on the lookout for that.