EA Make up your Mind

[LBzrule]

Let me preface this by saying I play online, so sliders are not important in this discussion.

Ideally as a gamer I would like for the coverage to be balanced and the ratings to mean more in some respect. But this strong man coverage this year, weak zone coverage, then the next year uber zone coverage terrible man coverage has to STOP. Several issues with the defensive backs. Let's begin with the one that has been reported time and time again.

1) Man Align defensive problems. This issue has been mentioned time and time again on countless forums and there is still nothing done about it. No matter what defensive set you call, there are some offensive formations that leave a defender in man coverage way across the field and you are stuck manually moving this guy over. Well guess what? You just tipped your hand to the person on offense what you are running. EASY completion.

2) The Curl routes are back in full force against man coverage and your CB does not matter, throw it high and the CB will always back up, no matter who he is. The WR will sky for it and all you can hope for is the WR dropping the football. You basically are forced to handicap your defense. In Cover 2 sink the CB's do not drop far enough to deal with the curl route. CB's in purples will stop it, but there are FEW plays with CB's in buzz zones in the playbooks. If you run man you better run a man/zone combo with someone dropping to a purple zone because if you leave the CB out there while running cover 1 man, cover 2 man or cover 0 it's complete.

3) Press coverage. You guys really need to deal with this and program techniques and add them to Traits. So you could have Press and Mirrors route - Tight/Balance/Loose. Gives WR position - Yes/No. The way you guys have it it ends up being bad for both defense and offense. The shading is nowhere near what I thought it would be. If I tell my guy to shade inside, that should mean he is looking for Ins, Slants and routes that break inside. As it stands they do nothing. Lastly on this, 90 + press and 90 + man coverage CB's are getting overbaked in this game. I mean like burnt baked by WR's who have very low release and route run ratings. What gives? You improved the zone but destroyed the man. Is this the only solution that can be had with respect to coverage?

Now what will probably happen is they will tune/patch it and then you will not be able to do anything against man coverage no matter who the CB is. Where is the balance?

[Nunyerbiz]

Re: EA Make up your Mind

I am primarily an offline player, but based on playing so far without slider tweaks, I agree that the man coverage isn't as good as madden 11 while the zone seems improved. Would like to see this tweaked as well... hopefully without breaking things in the opposite extreme.

[Ricanlegend]

Re: EA Make up your Mind

Cmon man step your game up , what team are you using ? If man to man is your problem pick teams that actualy run it Oakland raiders

[LBzrule]

Re: EA Make up your Mind

Cmon man step your game up , what team are you using ? If man to man is your problem pick teams that actualy run it Oakland raiders

I'm going to laugh at responses like this. My team is the Ravens. Jimmy Smith has 90 Press and 90 man coverage and gets BAKED. Secondly, I'm in an online franchise and I've played against the guys that have the Eagles and the Jets and in practice games I've baked Revis and Nnamdi. And I'm not good on offense. Third, your response shows that you are not paying attention to the full issue such as man alignment problems that have gone ignored for who knows how long and no programming of CB techniques that are not tied to the WR's route.

[Big FN Deal]

Re: EA Make up your Mind

Good thread and I would like to add that defensive assignments continue to cause some receivers to be left completely uncovered. It has been like this ever sense they brought the feature back.

Also, I wish they would put all the applicable defensive coverage adjustments available at the LOS, in the defensive assignment menu, like they are in basketball games. That way I can preset things like double team, press, off, shading, etc, instead of on the field.

Another thing is, I was watching the Jets v Cowboys game Sunday night and they were discussing "Man under" coverage. I don't think defenders in Madden actually play "under" coverage right when selecting these type plays. If they did, these would be the perfect counter to comeback/curl routes.

[raguel]

Re: EA Make up your Mind

When I try to defend against slants and such, I think the adjustment I use is called "middle zone". At any rate it sounds like something you'd use if you're in zone, but it works in man.

The first time I played it looked like they fixed the man alignment thing, but after awhile it became obvious that I was just fortunate in that game.

[twimstaxs]

Re: EA Make up your Mind

Let me preface this by saying I play online, so sliders are not important in this discussion.

Ideally as a gamer I would like for the coverage to be balanced and the ratings to mean more in some respect. But this strong man coverage this year, weak zone coverage, then the next year uber zone coverage terrible man coverage has to STOP. Several issues with the defensive backs. Let's begin with the one that has been reported time and time again.

1) Man Align defensive problems. This issue has been mentioned time and time again on countless forums and there is still nothing done about it. No matter what defensive set you call, there are some offensive formations that leave a defender in man coverage way across the field and you are stuck manually moving this guy over. Well guess what? You just tipped your hand to the person on offense what you are running. EASY completion.

2) The Curl routes are back in full force against man coverage and your CB does not matter, throw it high and the CB will always back up, no matter who he is. The WR will sky for it and all you can hope for is the WR dropping the football. You basically are forced to handicap your defense. In Cover 2 sink the CB's do not drop far enough to deal with the curl route. CB's in purples will stop it, but there are FEW plays with CB's in buzz zones in the playbooks. If you run man you better run a man/zone combo with someone dropping to a purple zone because if you leave the CB out there while running cover 1 man, cover 2 man or cover 0 it's complete.

3) Press coverage. You guys really need to deal with this and program techniques and add them to Traits. So you could have Press and Mirrors route - Tight/Balance/Loose. Gives WR position - Yes/No. The way you guys have it it ends up being bad for both defense and offense. The shading is nowhere near what I thought it would be. If I tell my guy to shade inside, that should mean he is looking for Ins, Slants and routes that break inside. As it stands they do nothing. Lastly on this, 90 + press and 90 + man coverage CB's are getting overbaked in this game. I mean like burnt baked by WR's who have very low release and route run ratings. What gives? You improved the zone but destroyed the man. Is this the only solution that can be had with respect to coverage?

Now what will probably happen is they will tune/patch it and then you will not be able to do anything against man coverage no matter who the CB is. Where is the balance?

I play online and I have not had any of these issues. NONE. Not only that, but I do not even play with the Eagles or the Jets. I play with teams that have decent corners but not outstanding. In the NFL top corners still get toasted and burned, but the safety over the top helps a lot in Man coverage. Just gotta practice more on how to properly utilize that man coverage.

[LBzrule]

Re: EA Make up your Mind

I play online and I have not had any of these issues. NONE. Not only that, but I do not even play with the Eagles or the Jets. I play with teams that have decent corners but not outstanding. In the NFL top corners still get toasted and burned, but the safety over the top helps a lot in Man coverage. Just gotta practice more on how to properly utilize that man coverage.

It depends on what you consider toasted and burned. Let's go back to Sunday night with Revis. He gave up 1 catch to Dez Bryant and completely owned him the rest of the game. From my count he gave up a slant to Ogletree in man coverage as well for a first down. But outside of that at the start of the game he shut Miles Austin completely out of the offense. Let me just say it this way. Revis in real life would never get owned like he does in this game.

Secondly, again blanket statements like top corners get toasted and burned still completely ignore the issues outlined. There are man align problems in this game. There is no programmed CB technique. The CB behavior is still tied soley to the wr route. Only this time rather than jumping every route for a pick six they do nothing. There is also a delay with the swat button.

Third, I know how to use man coverage. EA has not given the user everything they need to use it, in your word, "properly". The shading is pointless. It is exactly like it was on ps2 and old gen xbox, which means it is in the game via word only. We need more than that. We should demand more than that and for a product that claims to be true to the game we deserve a better shading system.

[seriousluboy83]

Re: EA Make up your Mind

We deserve a better football "technique" system in the entire game...pass protection G/C double down on NT or highest rated DT...LB's first step toward LOS and DB's first step backwards...on delay route's pick up free defender, if no one comes free then release to route, if engaged in a block stay with it,defender's of delay routes BLITZ!!!!...when playing cover 0/1 DB's play over the top of receiver...in 2 man under DB's use trail tech...and plenty other things

[cusefan74]

Re: EA Make up your Mind

I play with the Broncos and have Champ Bailey and he hardley ever gets beat deep, it does happen once in a while but not often.

[KBLover]

Re: EA Make up your Mind

I play online and I have not had any of these issues. NONE. Not only that, but I do not even play with the Eagles or the Jets. I play with teams that have decent corners but not outstanding. In the NFL top corners still get toasted and burned, but the safety over the top helps a lot in Man coverage. Just gotta practice more on how to properly utilize that man coverage.

Giving help to a top corner should make that corner play super aggressive. Like the play Revis made vs Dallas. He could be that aggressive partly because he had safety help.

Safety help shouldn't just be to protect an overmatched CB (and I shouldn't have to give a top corner the same amount of help as I would an average one...what's the point of having an top or elite corner), but to allow a top corner to have more latitude in defensing the pass.

At an absolute minimum, AWR and PRC should have the CB make these adjustments. If the WR they are up against is always running slants and such, they should play close and inside. If they are doing deeper routes, play off a bit (or underneath if there's a high zone on that side), things like that. At least, that would put ratings involved.

That way Jimmy Smith might miss an opportunity because his AWR isn't that high (rookie) while Foxworth might, given his higher AWR and PRC. I also agree with more coverage traits.

[Shogun613]

Re: EA Make up your Mind

If you're getting beat using press coverage, it's most likely because the QB is getting enough time for the WR's to break free, and if that happens, they always have a step or two once they get going.

[Franchise408]

Re: EA Make up your Mind

It depends on what you consider toasted and burned. Let's go back to Sunday night with Revis. He gave up 1 catch to Dez Bryant and completely owned him the rest of the game. From my count he gave up a slant to Ogletree in man coverage as well for a first down. But outside of that at the start of the game he shut Miles Austin completely out of the offense. Let me just say it this way. Revis in real life would never get owned like he does in this game.

I'm not normally one to defend Madden, but:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dRz9WCgXRU

[KBLover]

Re: EA Make up your Mind

I'm not normally one to defend Madden, but:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dRz9WCgXRU

It's happened (but Ginn only got one more catch for 4 more yds and if he stayed on Ginn all night...), but I think it's more a question of frequency instead of literally "never".

How many of those has he given up in his career so far? This is a serious question. I'm trying to find out now, but with PFF putting their stats behind a damn paywall, I'm scrounging trying to find advanced stats that might give some insight. Perhaps his only weakness in real life is not having blazing speed, so someone like Ginn might be the way to attack him. Go deep and give that speed a chance to get separation.

[LBzrule]

Re: EA Make up your Mind

I'm not normally one to defend Madden, but:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dRz9WCgXRU

LOL, 1 play. 1 play. In this game you can bake him 6 to 7 times a game. This is what I mean. Not that he never gets beat everyone once in a while. IN this game you can beat him up several times in one game.