"Zone defence is broken" (Long (and actually thought through, I hope))

[hampshire2012]

I keep reading a lot of posts saying things along the lines of "zone defence is broken". And after playing this game a lot, I'm inclined to agree.

In real life, the skill against man coverage is to identify a favourable match-up, and then the receiver making a play on the ball. Timing, and the QB-WR relationship in general, are the keys here.

However the aim against zone coverage is to find the "soft spot in the zone"; essentially to throw it to where the defence isn't. This requires a quick identification of the defence, and then the ability to deliver the ball to the correct spot.

Now when this is translated to a video game, man coverage becomes an exercise in tapping the receivers button and then watching/user-catching your way to a completion. Which is not badly represented in madden: if you correctly identify the best match-up the game does a good job of realistic outcomes, and with minimal slider tweaking, you can get man-coverage to play VERY realistically in my opinion.

Against zone coverage however, things start to come apart in the video game world. You can fling the ball around endlessly and pick apart zone defences with ease. The problem is, putting the slider difficulty up doesn't really help matters - the defence is now able to stop you, but only by making ridiculous plays (or cheating as some people put it). Things like unrealistically high and well-timed jumps by the D-line, defenders in zones sliding rapidly across the turf to swat the ball down, defenders reacting as soon as you press the button on your controller rather than when the animation actually plays in the game and WR dropping an insanely high number of accurate passes. All this leads to a pretty unsatisfactory, or downright annoying, experience.

The reason this is is because, with the camera angle as it is, it is unbelievably easy to read a zone defence. And that, simply put, is why I don't foresee this problem ever being solved without, at the very least, the camera angle being significantly lowered. That way you at least include some of the elements that make zone defence hard to beat in real life. Because I firmly believe that any NFL QB could tear apart a defence if he was able to read it from such an elevated position.

Interested to here your thoughts on this.

[lofeazy]

Yes Its the camera that makes zone defense suck in football games.(madden and 2k have the same problem.)Its to easy to read the zones with the camera angle.

[kehlis]

So is zone defense broken or do we just need more camera options?

Very misleading thread title if I am reading your post right that the only problem is the camera angle.

[oneamongthefence]

I agree. The god camera for qbs makes it way too easy to read defenses in general. Since height is essentially negated. Usually a zone defense is good for disguising your plays but being able too see where defenders are at all times is not realistic. Maybe a more zoomed in camera but then the flats and outside recievers can't be seen. I don't see a way to effectivly eliminate the problem unless you put in a first person qb cam.

[tlc12576]

I agree that the game uses "cheats" to get AI players to make plays but I disagree that this is to compensate for the "gods view" cam. Zone defense allows defenders to cover certain areas on the field and offensive players if they enter that area. The ultimate goal is to hopeful make it take more time for the offense to execute their play because they have to read these zones and find the open "windows" in it. To a defense the more time a QB holds the ball, the better. Offensive players counter this by trying to find the "gaps" in this coverage between each defenders coverage area or they can try to "flood" a defenders area with multiple receivers.

That said, the "gods view" while allowing you to see these gaps during the play rather easily, does not show you these gaps presnap or make it any easier to get your players into these gaps during the play. Even using motion to reveal that the defense is in zone presnap, does not show which zone they are in.

I am all for different POV options in Madden but this has nothing to do with the zone defense's unrealistic execution in the game, IMO. Many of Madden's issues are a domino effect of certain football foundations being poorly implemented or missing. In the case of zone defense and defense in general, the view wouldn't much matter if the OL/DL interactions were implemented in a way to make the passing pocket necessary and add risk/reward for the passer holding on to the football.

[s38s38s]

IMO the default "zoomed" camera is the best for playing fairly realistically without crippling your perifreal (sp) vision. I wish it could be made slong with slider apart of a default set to OLF's.

If you haven't tried it play a game, I think you'll like it.

[BFL3RD]

I don't think the zones are as bad as you think post patch they are very much improved. The problem is still pressure you can't call zones and not have any pressure on the QB, not in the NFL, pee-wee football or much less a video game. Zones and pressure are to confuse the QB and when you don't get pressure the level on confusion is low and thus the QB has time to pick a zone apart.

One of the things on the game you may want to try is mix zones with man this does create some confusion for most people on the game. Example call a Defense like Nickle Strong Under-smoke and drop all the LB into Zone coverage. You will have the view of Man coverage mixed with Zone and you will still have a nickle back bringing additional pressure. Just one example you are going to have to mix it up. People play so many games and they see the same Defense over and over again they are prepared for it...However the mix well that is another story....

[whoRweNATION]

The camera angle does make zone defense easier to beat.

But I don't believe it's just the camera angles. Zone defense truly is broken. Defenders do not make the necessary reads to make plays. Safeties do a horrible job at keeping plays in front of them. Linebackers don't read the over-the-middle throws as well as they should. Because zone defense is ineffective, zone blitzes are ineffective too. It makes passing way too easy. You can't play zone and if you play man coverage, you get owned by the HB and TE.

They not only need to reduce the elevation on the camera angle. They need to actually improve the defensive A.I.'s awareness in zone coverage as well.