My observations on pass defense - agree or disagree

[dreamtheatervt]

I've been playing quick plays with my plays vs my plays in order to see what worked, didn't, etc., and after the first quarter I started noticing how dominant man to man pass defense was, and that zone was a 50-50 proposition when the defender was close to the receiver. I charted pass plays versus defense types, and I found that 5 defenders playing M2M was more effective than eight men dropping into zone. Against man defenses in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarters, the QBs combined for a horrendous 3 for 13 on read passes, and all 3 were swing passes to a RB. The reason so few passes where thrown was because the QBs just held onto the ball and wouldn't pull the trigger.

I even tried using the typical (at least IRL) man-beater routes: slants, hooks, crossing routes...the result every time was either a QB sack or a QB scramble after sitting in the pocket for a long time.

Are the rest of you seeing the same thing? I'm trying to figure out if it is the plays or the AI.

[Mykal]

Cant say I've ever noticed this
but its very interesting none the less

have you tried other play books other than your own with M2M on passing plays
if so was the outcome the same or similar ???????

Mykal

[Deft]

dreamtheatervt, you are correct.

M2M is much better, most of the time. There are a few exceptions:
Any motion plays
Any lateral movement behind the line of scrimmage after the snap

Even better is under coverage because QBs are reticent to throw into under coverage.

Using my play analyzer, the five best pass plays over time are almost always man coverage. Against the run they are about split.
Example:
Best Pass Play Defenses
NK MAN3 CVR2 S
NK MAN4 CVR2 S
43 MAN3 ROB RUN
NK MAN5 ROB W
43 MAN5 MS

Worst Pass Play Defenses
53 JAM2 RUN CVR1
NK MAN4 CVR2 W
43 CVR2 WS ZB
43 CVR2 MS
43 CVR2 ROB

A couple reasons:
Zone defenders pick up the man in their zone rather than playing the ball
Zone defenders do not drop coverage well when a receiver leaves their zone

[quixian]

While the zone defenses have gotten better, with the user-made zone defenses being overall more effective than the stock plays, I overwhelmingly agree that M2M is FAR and away more effective vs the pass in MaxFB.
 
I've removed most full zone plays from my custom "Frankenstein" playbooks made up of plays from a variety of sources in order to make the CPU call a competitive defensive game.  I only typically will use zones to combat long yardage situations or will use zone blitz plays in shorter yardage situations.  M2M with deep zone help seems to work pretty well overall - rather, it's the LB zone coverage in particular that seems to be the most problematic.  Having used and tested a wide variety of playbooks, I don't think it's a play design issue either.
 
It hasn't really affected my enjoyment of the game, but I do think it certainly warrants some attention and improvement for Max 3.0 down the road.

[dreamtheatervt]

I agree with Deft, under coverage is crippling; to the point I would define it as a broken game mechanic.  It is "too good".  The two things I would like to see done to fix it are 1) make the QB more willing to "thread the needle" in man coverage, and 2) put some variance into coverage ability.  Right now man defenders are never fooled, and never make mistakes.  A slower WR should still be able to shake a top CB on occasion with route running, in particular the hook route.  A corner playing under coverage should overrun the route when the receiver cuts most of the time, and most of those overruns would be slight with the occasional blown coverage and occasional route jump resulting in at minimum a batted pass.
 
I also agree with Deft's zone observations, I'd like to see the zone players play the ball more and better; that is actually the ADVANTAGE of zone IRL, it allows the defenders to read the play as it develops and play the ball, whereas in man the defender plays the man to the ball (when the receiver turns his head the defender turns and looks for the ball).
 
I disagree with Quixian that this needs to be looked at down the road.  I think it's one of the more important aspects of the game now.  We have a stable system (can't remember my last crash - thanks David [:)]), and while there appear to be some stat bugs, I think good gameplay is more important than generating perfect stats (I know you sim people disagree).
 
I don't know how the programming works, but I would think (hope) that the willingness to throw into man could be as simple as tweaking a constant.  The perfect coverage problem would probably be significant coding though.

[quixian]

If the fix is as easy as tweaking a key or two in the QB read programming, then by all means, I'd sure prefer to see it implemented sooner rather than later.  The way a defender reacts in zone coverage to key on the ball as DTVT and Deft mentioned is what I too would like to see fixed in the zone coverage. 
 
As a football purist, I'd prefer to see the true advantages and disadvantages we see in the implementation of zone vs man-to-man coverage in real life.  As it stands now, my experience has been that a zone-heavy playbook in MaxFB is vulnerable to the pass. 
 
As I mentioned, to enhance my enjoyment of the game, I've removed many zones from my playbook to improve the CPU's ability to defend the pass.  I must admit, however, that since around the jump to 2.0, that the receivers DO have major difficulties getting true separation on routes as opposed to simply seeing a blown coverage of some kind. 
 
The DBs do mirror the WRs a little too well in man-to-man at present unless there is a MAJOR mismatch between the speed of the receiver and the speed of the defender...which of course, results in more QB sacks and scrambling.  This in turn leads one to lean towards using more short range passing plays, which leads to a lack of deep completions, etc.  
 
All the constant tweaking of plays, constants, etc can be a real pain trying to keep up with trying to get the gameplay to a reasonable ideal, but the good has outweighed the bad enough for me to keep playing...and tweaking.    

[redwolf1]

ORIGINAL: dreamtheatervt



I disagree with Quixian that this needs to be looked at down the road.  I think it's one of the more important aspects of the game now.  We have a stable system (can't remember my last crash - thanks David [:)]), and while there appear to be some stat bugs, I think good gameplay is more important than generating perfect stats (I know you sim people disagree).

Completely agree. This absolutely needs to be looked at. Good, solid, on-the-field play is fundamental to the sim. It's not playing nearly as well as I would have hoped by this point, partly because of the man and zone coverage dichotomy mentioned above.

[micvik]

I have noticed that man coverage is tight but DB's in zone tend to react slowly and not as intelligently