Personnel and why it does not factor into Madden well enough

[GiantBlue76]

One of the most important aspects of football is personnel and correctly or incorrectly using them. The offense is trying to get the matchups they want in order to give them the best chance to be successful obviously. However, one of the biggest issues with Madden which adds to the long list of nonsense which adversely affects the realism is the fact that personnel doesn't matter. I just got done playing a game against the Patriots in which I threw 4 interceptions to linebackers. Now, there is nothing wrong with linebackers getting interceptions, but the issue was who they were matched up against. The guy I was playing refused to get out of his base 3-4. Therefore when i came out in 3 WR sets, he had a linebacker matched up with Victor Cruz or Hakeem Nicks. This is a matchup the offense should look to exploit 100 out of 100 times. In fact, if you were to have a linebacker (who happened to be Brandon Spikes on two of the plays, and Donte Hightower on the other two), Nicks and Cruz win this matchup 1000 out of 1000 times in man to man coverage. However, in madden, there is no penalty for coming out in your base defense with personnel that is not equipped to match up with the offensive personnel, because the Spikes and Hightower will run the routes for Nicks and Cruz. Don't believe it? I just had it happen the entire game. Absolutely ridiculous. It's not the fact that the passes were intercepted or what have you. It's the fact that the defense came out in ill-equipped personnel packages for what I came out with offensively. In the real NFL, the Giants destroy that matchup every single time without a double team. Instead, in Madden, Spikes is running step for step with Cruz's routes. One was even a double move. This is the kind of crap that makes you want to throw the disk into an incinerator. Where is my chess match if the defense need not adjust their personnel to cover my pro bowl caliber receivers?

The point here is not to cry foul because I wasn't successful on those plays, but rather that personnel does not factor in enough in this game. It's one of the glaring differences between Madden and APF 2k8 which made 2k8 a much better product on the field. If I tried to cover Jerry Rice with Brad Van Pelt, I would lose that matchup every single time, and lose it badly. That's how it should be. What's the point of paying attention to the matchup if the players abilities are not human and these things happen. That's for arcade games. The Madden team needs to seriously take a look at personnel. I know they keep saying they want to make the game "fun", so that people who know nothing about football can play and have "success". Keep that up and pretty soon, only those people will be playing this game.

[Smoke6]

Great post and great points, this has been an issue since forever and it bothers me to no avail at how this affects my strategy when this happens. I hate seeing Vernon Davis (fastest TE in the league) not be able to get seperation from man to man against much slower LBs who cannot cover routes as good as DBs do. This game makes LBs play routes much better than those equipped to do so!

[JerzeyReign]

I agree - even though it doesn't help by much and there may be other issues that contribute - the game's default speed threshold should be 0.

[Jimi XIII]

Yeah man, I've pretty much hit my Madden wall. They've made some progress in game play but too many things still play out too robotic, too routinely. I hate how poorly fade routes & passes play out still. The way coverage plays out in general is one of the poorest aspects in the game-play still.

Even the non game-play aspects. I pretty much draft the same and get the same outcome every draft. Don't bother drafting a CB cuz they're all gonna have about the same rankings, don't bother drafting a WR cuz I'll easily find an undrafted WR in FA with low awareness or RR that'll still play just as fine as ones with those attributes...it's just stale. So little matters & brings character to the game.

[TreFacTor]

Quote: Originally Posted by tazdevil20

One of the most important aspects of football is personnel and correctly or incorrectly using them. The offense is trying to get the matchups they want in order to give them the best chance to be successful obviously. However, one of the biggest issues with Madden which adds to the long list of nonsense which adversely affects the realism is the fact that personnel doesn't matter. I just got done playing a game against the Patriots in which I threw 4 interceptions to linebackers. Now, there is nothing wrong with linebackers getting interceptions, but the issue was who they were matched up against. The guy I was playing refused to get out of his base 3-4. Therefore when i came out in 3 WR sets, he had a linebacker matched up with Victor Cruz or Hakeem Nicks. This is a matchup the offense should look to exploit 100 out of 100 times. In fact, if you were to have a linebacker (who happened to be Brandon Spikes on two of the plays, and Donte Hightower on the other two), Nicks and Cruz win this matchup 1000 out of 1000 times in man to man coverage. However, in madden, there is no penalty for coming out in your base defense with personnel that is not equipped to match up with the offensive personnel, because the Spikes and Hightower will run the routes for Nicks and Cruz. Don't believe it? I just had it happen the entire game. Absolutely ridiculous. It's not the fact that the passes were intercepted or what have you. It's the fact that the defense came out in ill-equipped personnel packages for what I came out with offensively. In the real NFL, the Giants destroy that matchup every single time without a double team. Instead, in Madden, Spikes is running step for step with Cruz's routes. One was even a double move. This is the kind of crap that makes you want to throw the disk into an incinerator. Where is my chess match if the defense need not adjust their personnel to cover my pro bowl caliber receivers? The point here is not to cry foul because I wasn't successful on those plays, but rather that personnel does not factor in enough in this game. It's one of the glaring differences between Madden and APF 2k8 which made 2k8 a much better product on the field. If I tried to cover Jerry Rice with Brad Van Pelt, I would lose that matchup every single time, and lose it badly. That's how it should be. What's the point of paying attention to the matchup if the players abilities are not human and these things happen. That's for arcade games. The Madden team needs to seriously take a look at personnel. I know they keep saying they want to make the game "fun", so that people who know nothing about football can play and have "success". Keep that up and pretty soon, only those people will be playing this game.

I was under the impression that those were the only people left still buying the game.

Seriously though, the speed threshold is what makes the linebackers capable of covering stride for stride with the wideouts (something only extraordinary linebackers should be capable of doing). Certain teams because of their personnel and packages they run can't match up properly where as other teams can play one style of defense the entire game.

-Rex Ryan bear defense wouldn't work on the Packers so he'd have to change because of personnel mismatches on 3/4 of offensive plays

-The Packers who run mainly nickle come out of it due to injury (personnel) or against power run teams


Where Madden has gone wrong this generation is taking out the strategy and allowing you to simply run plays that resemble what you would see in the NFL. It's fundamentally flawed in execution, representation, and translation....anyone ever try to use Madden as a teaching tool? The'd be foolish to even try. Somewhere along the line it became nothing more than a toy and now there doesn't seem to be any turning back. I can't even pinpoint when it occurred or if our next gen expectations just exceeded the ability or vision of the Madden team but here we are.

*Speed threshold to equalize the playing field for head to head
*Attribute defamation to emulate difficulty
*Animation driven outcomes even though there's a supposed physics engine

What will they do to address it next year? I would wager nothing. This gen with the exception of 06 I'm certain they look at it as a success and they will move forward with their vision for next gen consoles. (Probably why M13 was a mess)

[ABR173rd]

Taz,

Interesting you bring this up. I have been playing HC09 for the last five months pretty heavily and this is one of the more noticeable differences. The players, their attributes, coaching staff, and game plan all have a tangible effect on each game and season you play.

For example I've got Brees and a 2nd year QB. Bress is rated 89 overall with a 90 POT, the second string is 85 Overall with 93 Potential. The backup has way better ratings than Brees in almost every area besides awareness, speed, and accel. I can see the difference the awareness makes when the pocket breaks down, Brees will sidestep and maneuver around defenders and typically get a throw off whereas the backup will either take a sack or maneuver into a defender before getting the throw off.

I could continue on with how coaches special skill and attributes all factor in and anyone who has played HC09 knows what I'm talking about. The bottom line is in HC09, when I'm 4th and three or 3rd and 15 on my opponents side of the 50, instead of going for a money play that I can make with any QB regardless of his overall in Madden. I will think about field position and the risk versus reward of going for a deep ball and getting it intercepted due to the team I've fielded.

In Madden nothing seems to really matter.You could have a 99 overall RE and you'll be lucky if he gets 3-4 sacks a season versus a 69 overall LE that you can break the sack record with user-ing him on All Madden same can be said about QB's. Heck think about RB's, all you need is a high speed, high accel RB and run off tackle and it's pretty much unstoppable. Madden basically made power style running right up the gut worthless.

[KBLover]

Quote: Originally Posted by JerzeyReign

I agree - even though it doesn't help by much and there may be other issues that contribute - the game's default speed threshold should be 0.

Depends.

If 0 makes the differences in speed too large, it's not realistic either. There shouldn't be a speed threshold at all. That may not be the same as setting it to 0, depending on how it works and why it's there. Players should have whatever top speed they have.

The problem is that speed is too much of the influence on how a player moves. The game is about the top speed (SPD) of a player and not enough about how fast they get there (ACC) or the fact not every is always at top speed.

I, personally, can't run a base defense against 3 WR and cover man to man. I don't see how people are doing it. R. McClain's 50 MCV would get exposed so fast it's funny. Let alone Tevin Ash's 25...I have seen both these players be significantly behind the targets they were "covering", I just don't see doing that all game and it working...but if people out there can do it, then I agree that it's incorrect.

I don't disagree that personnel can be meaningless at times, but I don't think 0 threshold is automatically the most realistic. I break away from players on 75 just fine. I don't get caught by slower players unless I'm not going full speed (cutting, having to fight through contact, etc).

The problem, imo, is that ACC and AGI likely mean too little. Same for RTE and AWR.

I also don't agree with how the game make lower RTE run slower routes. RTE should be more about selling (or giving away) the route to the defender, running it correctly and precisely, to the proper depth. It should assist AGI in the player staying balanced and maintaining speed through cuts, it should impact the success and crispness of double moves.

Instead, the player runs the route the same as a high RTE player, just slower.

[shttymcgee]

I think that the more options for "tweaking" how the game plays, the better.

Everybody who plays the game has a different idea of what "realism" is; speed threshold is a perfect example. Some say 0 is realistic, some say 50, or 75, etc.

There are no absolutes in the game or in real football. I agree with the op suggestion that personnel doesn't matter enough, but I disagree with the assumption that LB's can't ever be "matched-up" on certain receivers and expect to win those "match-ups". There are so many more variables than just who covers who; there's pressure, leverage, cushion, etc. etc.