Warrior General Games

Increasingly as I pump these two stats on my CB after thinking "Damn I've been ignoring these all season, I'm a fool" I notice they are both almost at the 80~ mark as a Sophmore. Every other CB seems to be following a similar pattern. In this game that seems to overly stress balancing builds out much more than the original, why is this such a glaring exception?

What are we really doing here?

Man Awareness - Determines how quickly the CB reacts to passing or rushing plays and how well he avoids being fooled by coverage fake out moves while in Man coverage.

This stat seems to be a direct opposite to the WR stat Route Elusiveness (success of cuts and fake out moves to shake a defender). Some might argue Route Technique fits as well - but I think that has a lot more to do with losing speed based on replays and the text, as well as a better fit for Coverage Tech. I bring this up because I ask you how many WR's do you know that are even hitting 50 in Route Elusiveness at this point in their careers?. Very few. Many WR's have pumped Catching. Many have pumped Speed. Some have gone more balanced (but there is a lot to take into account there), and even fewer still have gone power. I don't think every CB needs to have 80 in Man Awareness by the end of their second season to think they could consistently beat the Route Elusiveness scores of their opposing WR, but this seems to be the accepted meta right now.

Now, most people have stuck on the part of this description where it mentions the CB reacting. Somehow, this exploded into every example of poor coverage being "he doesn't have enough man coverage". Why? GLB2 was designed for games to be more watchable at the lower levels. Yet players with 60+ in Man Awareness as their highest attribute are often told "you don't have enough to react properly" when their CB seems to stand around instead of making a play on the passed ball. But isn't a more likely reason that the Man Coverage logic just isn't perfect? We see this in DLine interactions, we see this in QB checkdown when faced with blitz procedure, we see this with SA activations not showing up or generally being misleading in effect. Why are those sim issues but this is a stat issue?



Coverage Tech - The ability to keep up with the receiver when he makes cuts and changes direction.

Again, this is pretty much the WR equivalent to route technique (the ability to make cuts at the proper times) which again I infer is pretty much about losing speed (considering both positions have alternatives specifically for avoiding being faked) akin to Quickness. GLB1 had overlap like this all the time with the way Strength and Carrying for instance both affected your ability to break tackles (IIRC) so I don't think that part is unreasonable either.

But again, how many WR's are maxing Coverage Tech right now...


The point I am making here is that I think we as a playerbase have begun to skew the meta by spreading this rumor so thoroughly that nearly every CB in the game is built this way.

Does anybody have or know of a CB with less than 40~ (and thats pretty high for most other stats) in both of those stats that is Sophmore or higher?

Everybody is complaining that covering people in this game is bogus and QB's have stupid completion percentages.

But do any CB's have vertical? Do any CB's have diving (does anybody have diving)? Interception to the same level as Coverage Tech is now? Just plain being faster than you can get with 80/80 coverage tech and man awareness?

Where did this idea come from and why does everybody feel like it is essential?

Most of my CB's have vertical and Coverage Tech around 45-50. With Man Cover between 55-65.

I have a FS with 56 vert, 30 diving, 40 coverage tech and i don't really see shit from it

Eh with Safeties you have to spend tons of points just to help them get to the spot they can put themselves in position to do something. Otherwise they just look lost.

Thing I have noticed with corners is they don't seem rotate their bodies in the right direction and end up having to do full spins just to find the WR again.

http://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/36173/2563709?player_id=13974

Every interaction in GLB is a dice roll.

Every interaction between two opposing players is a competitive dice roll.

Naturally then, for every possible interaction, there are contributing factors for both sides and (with some luck involved) a winner emerges.

So if CB's have an average of 70~ man awareness and WR's have an average of 30~ route elusiveness at similar stages in their careers (approximations but I would bet the CB average is at least double) you'd expect the CB to handily win that roll most of the time.

BUT, Man Awareness specifically targets "reacting to passing and rushing plays" and "avoiding being fooled by coverage fake out moves"

To the first, what does the keyword "reacting" mean in GLB? For pass rushers reacting meant either continuing what you were doing in the first place or adjusting your path and goal to the new ballcarrier. Blitz awareness is the same stat as this part of Man Awareness in description, just not situation. So I can infer that they work similarly. Considering the CB in 95% of cases is just covering his man anyway (since nobody runs zones anymore) you are really just talking about reacting to the ball being handed off, which is negligent because you get instantly blocked by the WR and essentially forced to react anyway or helping another CB who gives up a catch which is probably measured in ticks (like how Snap Reaction works) rather than real life seconds or something.

To the second, it specifically mentions coverage fake out, which means we are NOT talking about jukes, or on-catch SA's, or any of that. It's just getting faked when running the route, which like I mentioned before few WR's have specialized in.

So what do I need 80 for really?

Originally posted by bhall43
Thing I have noticed with corners is they don't seem rotate their bodies in the right direction and end up having to do full spins just to find the WR again.

http://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/36173/2563709?player_id=13974

This is exactly what I remember people using as "you need more man awareness / coverage technique" earlier in the year, but it seems much more a product of the way defense works right now.

Unless he literally turned the CB around with a stutter step (is this pee wee?) it just seems like the CB AI doesn't have a strategy other than "try to follow the WR's vector". CB's don't bump, CB's don't try to keep WR's in front. CB's don't know how to handle a zone if there is more than 1 target or 0 targets nearby.

At the top of that play around tick 17 when everybody's first step is firing off, every single CB turns the side reacting to who-knows-what (the qb catching the ball?) and they all lose a step because of it. Who knows why?

Originally posted by Laggo
At the top of that play around tick 17 when everybody's first step is firing off, every single CB turns the side reacting to who-knows-what (the qb catching the ball?) and they all lose a step because of it. Who knows why?

Just the way it's coded. May even be scripted tbh.

Coverage is bogus right now, you could have 100 in all cb skills an wr's will still be making catches like nothing ever happened. This needs to get fixed soon as most games come down to does the wr drop the ball this time on his own since the man covering him is a non factor.

My thotz:

Man Awareness is first up, identifying pass or run. For my brand new rookie CB in his first game (which was D2.0, and hence, provided whole bunch of data on this subject) it took between 5-9 ticks to stop coverage and start towards the ball carrier. With man cover at 60, it's around 4-6, or quick enough that you can see him breaking towards the backfield before the handoff on some plays. It's possible that as a rookie my CB would not actually made this roll before a handoff. No way to tell from just watching replays.

Man Awarenesses's second job is rolling against SA's and route changes. This could take up to 10 ticks for my CB as a rookie, but was usually closer to 3-4. Lots of WR's running free back then. Now there are plays where he's able to follow WR's effectively perfectly.

Final job is identifying the ball leaving the QB's hands. It doesn't matter if it's pass or run, they're obviously getting checked here. As a rookie, it was pretty commonplace for the QB to throw a pass and not see my CB react at all until the WR caught the ball. Now, it's about 50/50 whether the CB turns before the WR's catches the ball.

(Zone Awareness has an extra roll in there just to identify WR's entering and leaving the zone. That extra required dice roll, along with some wonky AI even when you make the rolls, is why so few people use it. My rookie team has provided me with oodles of data on just how much of a disadvantage zone teams are at stopping the pass. Then again, against teams like Zorp or Air Raid, doesn't really fare that much better)

Coverage Technique, on the other hand, is what you do when you make those rolls. It's the non-physical part of turning to follow a WR or stopping and heading back on hooks. Basically, Man Awareness let's your guy know what's going on during the route. Coverage Technique (+Quickness, Footwork, and Sprinting) lets him do something about it.

Originally posted by Laggo
This is exactly what I remember people using as "you need more man awareness / coverage technique" earlier in the year, but it seems much more a product of the way defense works right now.

Unless he literally turned the CB around with a stutter step (is this pee wee?) it just seems like the CB AI doesn't have a strategy other than "try to follow the WR's vector". CB's don't bump, CB's don't try to keep WR's in front. CB's don't know how to handle a zone if there is more than 1 target or 0 targets nearby.

At the top of that play around tick 17 when everybody's first step is firing off, every single CB turns the side reacting to who-knows-what (the qb catching the ball?) and they all lose a step because of it. Who knows why?

The CB that bhall linked on that play (my CB) is a perfect example of the current problems with coverage. You can't really claim that he is lacking for his level in any coverage skill with 91 MA, 96 CT, 51 Def, 50 Sprinting, 48 Quickness, 40 Footwork, and 30 balance, but whenever a WR makes a cut, it seems that he has to make a full circle before he can follow the cut. Add on top of that the fact that Footwork says it helps with back pedaling yet CBs don't seem to be able to back pedal in this game, and you get dumb stuff like that link.

The most aggravating thing is when your CB has perfect coverage, the QB under throws the ball and the WR goes back for it...while your CB just keeps on running

Originally posted by Longhornfan1024
The CB that bhall linked on that play (my CB) is a perfect example of the current problems with coverage. You can't really claim that he is lacking for his level in any coverage skill with 91 MA, 96 CT, 51 Def, 50 Sprinting, 48 Quickness, 40 Footwork, and 30 balance, but whenever a WR makes a cut, it seems that he has to make a full circle before he can follow the cut. Add on top of that the fact that Footwork says it helps with back pedaling yet CBs don't seem to be able to back pedal in this game, and you get dumb stuff like that link.

this is the crap i am talking about, coverage is borked still!

Coverage is flat broken. Cornhole and Blart prefer it that way because they think Offense is exciting and Defense is boring.