Alright, Well, For You Folks That Want to Succeed on Defense, You Don't Have to Cheat

elmango30 said:

what. do you think all plays should be equally good? Having the best plays possible is a normal way to phrase that

There’s a reason EA won’t let us have custom PBs in MUT. 

YOU THINK IT IS BAD NOW 😂

elmango30 said:

I mean, some plays are gonna be better than others. They’re quite bad, they know what plays are good

The plays that aren't "better" aren't necessarily bad play designs. They just don't function well in Madden because they don't exploit the defensive AI. Spacing Switch isn't a remarkable play design. Plenty of plays get you that much spacing quickly. Spacing Switch includes juiced routes (for absolutely no football reason at all) and places multiple receivers where the default settings for defensive response from almost any personnel group or alignment will be largely ineffective.

There is a difference between a good play design in the NFL and good play design in Madden. It's one of dozens of things about this game that I find frustrating.

Thugnificent said:

Nobody runs the best possible plays everyone runs the best GLITCH plays, otherwise we would have an exponentially higher number of unique schemes/players, and an exponentially lower number of cookie cutter copy cat players AND threads here about them. 

Period.

I think very good plays get copy cats, and good players will find a wider variety of good plays

Thugnificent said:

There’s a reason EA won’t let us have custom PBs in MUT. 

YOU THINK IT IS BAD NOW 😂

Yea, because some plays are quite good or even broken. Not a whole lot of broken plays nowadays, since just about everything has a counter

phatalerror said:

The plays that aren't "better" aren't necessarily bad play designs. They just don't function well in Madden because they don't exploit the defensive AI. Spacing Switch isn't a remarkable play design. Plenty of plays get you that much spacing quickly. Spacing Switch includes juiced routes (for absolutely no football reason at all) and places multiple receivers where the default settings for defensive response from almost any personnel group or alignment will be largely ineffective.

There is a difference between a good play design in the NFL and good play design in Madden. It's one of dozens of things about this game that I find frustrating.

Here’s where we have some mild agreement. You can’t guard stock spacing switch with a stock defense except for maybe cover 2 man with good dbs. That’s an issue, imo

I am a Top 100 player that prides myself on running a unique variety of plays and formations. I find this particularly effective, because other players aren't accustomed to seeing the plays or defenses I run, and as a result aren't quick to run their meta play that counters it. If you look at Top 100 data in ranked, a lot of the top players are running 2-5 unique plays on offense and even fewer on defense. I average around 15-20 unique plays on offense and 10-15 on defense with an emphasis on adjustments from similar coverages and shells. My advice is to try your best to run your own scheme that others won't be familiar with and learn how to stop your opponent's repetitive META plays within your scheme, because they will be less likely to have answers for how you are stopping them.

phatalerror said:

Dude, the whole point of this thread was that most players aren't making football reads. You don't throw into quadruple coverage on a "read". Many of the guys I'm beating are throwing up picks running autopilot plays that always work unless you adjust zone drops. In my wins against the better players, they are taking sacks because they're smart enough to not throw to their first two gimme reads, but have no clue where to look thereafter. About half of the losses in the OT Event came on RNG: A dropped pick, or a miracle catch given up.

You give way too much credit to players who are winning with very little technical knowledge about football, and only an intricate familiarity with how Madden tends to place defenders in the wrong place, and then to make them unresponsive to the movements of offensive players. Everyone's saying how defense hardly exists this year. Well, I'm just finding that I have to babysit this nonsense more than I should have to, but when my drop selections cover my opponent's scheme, most of my opponents fall apart. These are people that were shredding me with crossers and flats passes two weeks ago, but now they are absolutely impotent on offense.

Yeah the ot event is brutal, rng cheese fest where a bum could beat a pro if he gets lucky enough lmao. what defensive formation do you use thats been working for you? I have good pass defense but when they realize my run d is swiss cheese they just under center freight train run spam down the field.

elmango30 said:

Here’s where we have some mild agreement. You can’t guard stock spacing switch with a stock defense except for maybe cover 2 man with good dbs. That’s an issue, imo

In the context of RPO's and Mesh and Double Slants concepts where man coverage absolutely fails, it's a huge issue. I played several games yesterday where every offensive play called by my opponent was Spacing Switch, with one or two hot-routes to get a guy running free. (I think I won that game, but it's emblematic of many of my head-to-head experiences.) It's absolutely ridiculous that I have to squat on a specific route just to have a defender in the same zip code as his assignment, and to have to make such specific tweaks because default Madden logic is unresponsive is stupid.

phatalerror said:

In the context of RPO's and Mesh and Double Slants concepts where man coverage absolutely fails, it's a huge issue. I played several games yesterday where every offensive play called by my opponent was Spacing Switch, with one or two hot-routes to get a guy running free. (I think I won that game, but it's emblematic of many of my head-to-head experiences.) It's absolutely ridiculous that I have to squat on a specific route just to have a defender in the same zip code as his assignment, and to have to make such specific tweaks because default Madden logic is unresponsive is stupid.

Gotta love DDA 😂

phatalerror said:

In the context of RPO's and Mesh and Double Slants concepts where man coverage absolutely fails, it's a huge issue. I played several games yesterday where every offensive play called by my opponent was Spacing Switch, with one or two hot-routes to get a guy running free. (I think I won that game, but it's emblematic of many of my head-to-head experiences.) It's absolutely ridiculous that I have to squat on a specific route just to have a defender in the same zip code as his assignment, and to have to make such specific tweaks because default Madden logic is unresponsive is stupid.

Yes this is my biggest annoyance. I don’t expect my guys to be zipping around like a user anticipating multiple routes that might be coming there way

But why is it so insane to ask my dbs or lbs to react to the 1 single reciever that is near there zone 5-10 yards beneath or above the spot my defenders are just sitting there with their thumb up their ass.

Literally just sitting there for the entirety of a play as a route developes right in front of their eyes and a guy sits wide open. All this with of course the necessary ko’s and all the abilities under the sun

jackyuh said:

Yeah the ot event is brutal, rng cheese fest where a bum could beat a pro if he gets lucky enough lmao. what defensive formation do you use thats been working for you? I have good pass defense but when they realize my run d is swiss cheese they just under center freight train run spam down the field.

I've lost many games exclusively because of Freight Train RNG. Even when I aligned my personnel and called the appropriate run fits, everything came down to pancakes and non-sheds and how many tackles are broken. A new read-option run I hadn't seen before was a problem for me yesterday, not because of the concept, which my defensive alignment should have addressed, but because of the way the quarterback hit the ground after the keeper like he was shot out of a cannon, and with my cornerbacks being mauled by receivers, even the numbers advantage didn't keep the quarterback out of the end zone. It was two yards here, four there, fourteen on another because of RNG. It's mindless trash that rewards players with zero football IQ.

When a complex game employs a mechanism where a succession of dice rolls decide the outcome, effectively disregarding strategy and tactics, it is a failure as a "competitive" game by any objective definition of the term.

phatalerror said:

I've lost many games exclusively because of Freight Train RNG. Even when I aligned my personnel and called the appropriate run fits, everything came down to pancakes and non-sheds and how many tackles are broken. A new read-option run I hadn't seen before was a problem for me yesterday, not because of the concept, which my defensive alignment should have addressed, but because of the way the quarterback hit the ground after the keeper like he was shot out of a cannon, and with my cornerbacks being mauled by receivers, even the numbers advantage didn't keep the quarterback out of the end zone. It was two yards here, four there, fourteen on another because of RNG. It's mindless trash that rewards players with zero football IQ.

When a complex game employs a mechanism where a succession of dice rolls decide the outcome, effectively disregarding strategy and tactics, it is a failure as a "competitive" game by any objective definition of the term.

fully agree. extremely frustrating playing perfect defense then the rb literally (not exaggerating) breaks 5-6 tackles and has a free run to the end zone. That omarion hampton card almost make me break something yesterday, card would not go down lmao. I just need them to reward good defense way more than they do, it shouldn't be up to luck to get a stop in this game.

jackyuh said:

Yeah the ot event is brutal, rng cheese fest where a bum could beat a pro if he gets lucky enough lmao. what defensive formation do you use thats been working for you? I have good pass defense but when they realize my run d is swiss cheese they just under center freight train run spam down the field.

I generally choose the personnel group analogous to my opponent's personnel, nickel against three wide receivers, base against two, etc. I have to make more pre-snap modifications to Cover 3, but rely on that heavily unless my opponent is attacking underneath my linebackers, in which case I'll use Cover 2 Invert or other alignments that disguise the Cover 2 shell. Especially when running Cover 2, I'll adjust safety width according to tendencies.

I used to run Cover 6 frequently, but haven't had much use for it in the OT Event. And now that I recognize guys that are winning games are not reading defenses pre- or post-snap, I'm finding that Cover 6 opens up more holes against most frequently-called cheat plays, and it's not really helping me snare more interceptions on unexpectedly dense coverage.

Plays that aren’t RPO bubbles and glitchy runs like hb direct with speed boosting are just plays that have route combos set up in advance for one hot route and a quick snap so the defensive player can not make adjustments.

You can attack any defense with hot routes and the concepts are all the same at the end of the day. Normal runs suck and you have to play out of shotgun to buy more time in the pocket. People run zone a lot so trips/bunch formations work best for flooding or attacking one part of the field at different levels. At the end of the day there are only a handful of formations that fit the criteria.

This whole conversation boils down to people that like to quick snap with plays that have solid route combos built in. I don’t see how people can view themselves as original or unique when it’s all the same shit in a different package.

Quick snappers suck, RPOs/bubble screens suck and direct snap speed boost to the outside plays suck. Madden would have to just take out speed boosting and not allow the offense to snap for ten seconds in order to fix it.

As for bubble screens, I feel like they are okay. Everyone wants to press and play aggressive defense and normal screens suck now. I haven’t labbed it, but I’m guessing the RPOs wouldn’t be as succesful if the defensive backs were in a conservative position to take a good angle on the ball carrier.