The new patch is great, and the game has improved alot since the early release.

That said the Defensive flat assignments still dont work for custom plays. I realize I have brought this up several times but it would make the game way more enjoyable for me if it worked.

Also on the defensive side it would nice to have a deep zone option for Safetys to play outside the hash. it is pretty much impossible to give your corners any help. the poor CB's have to live on an island in this game, it's not realistic, its extremely frustrating, and it has a huge impact the game.

Bump

Personally don't care about custom plays but agree with the safeties point. Would be nice to have more options to have deep safeties.

Is it an issue with the play creator, or the play creator works, but the "Flat" action isn't doing something you expect? May need more details on what you're looking for us to change, or point to a previous post if you have one... It could be buried somewhere and I'm unable to see it.

viewtopic.php?f=325&t=32624#p223585

On both custom and provided plays the flat assignment doesn't do anything. the players dont cover the flat or even really respond to the ball in a timely manner. I consider it unusable.

I realize many people dont care about the custom play creator, but it is a feature, and the base game defensive plays are very limited.

The Safety play is absolutely terrible. There is no way to have safeties "bracket" receivers, they dont cover deep between the sidelines and the hash, they don't react well to routes down the seams. they are basically just there to tackle if the play goes to hell, which they are generally completely out of position for. And for not custom plays there aren't even good safety blitz options.

Ok thanks, we'll take another look at it for PF22.

OK. sounds good.

I realize that game development is incredibly challenging and time consuming, and I'm not trying to be a jerk. BUT with a physics based simulation (which I've seen stated this is) the position (on the field) a player is extremely important.

It's not just the Safeties and bad Logic for flat and zone assignments (though these seem most egregious to me). The new motion system is full of flaws both for the offense and defense. The offense line options are a nightmare, Pulling barely works and only inaccurately, there are no options for double teams (on o-line), really just a basic zone blocking system. Route running while much better than last year is still pretty flawed.

The only reason these issues aren't more upsetting to the multiplayer community is that the game provided plays dont make use of the features (pulling, motion) or because they are willing to accept these issues as long as they apply to everyone.

I understand most players only seem to care about the offense. but the gross imbalance between the defensive and offensive features actually makes the offense less interesting and challenging, weakening the player experience on both sides.

I love this game, flaws and all, and still think it's the best sim of it's kind on the market. But I would gladly pay more money to have these issues fixed, either in dlc form, payed updates or just waiting till 22. But please tighten up the actual football and not just the UI.

I completely agree with the OP. I too love the game, but find the overall defensive play incredibly annoying...only a bit less so when I chose to take over the play calling for all games every week. Even still the defense AI weekly changes slots to put LBs in as extra DBs that would normally be replacing THEM...which I have mentioned before...but this SS/FS zone issue runs a close second in my own annoyance factor. Because of these defense issues the best defense in my league through the half point of this season is yielding "only"28.7 PPGA...half the league is yielding over 35 PPGA...and that has been with my own...sometimes subconscious sometimes intentional...calling the best defense against the offensive play I called. CBs are quite regularly getting beat with no deep help until the safety gets over there to tackle after 30-45+ yds...even DBs rated 98-100...only need to get beat deep once to change the score which is realistic...but should not be happening 10+ times a game.

Yea, these are two issues we've been working on for PF22. Hopefully we'll be able to set up some beta teams that include folks who have save files, scenarios, custom plays, etc. available to help us identify gaps in the game logic.

sounds awesome. Please let me know if I can help.