My Idea for Revamped Progression in CFM!

[triplechin]

Hello all, I am seeking to revamp progression and am working on what I believe is a sim and fun method to use. We all know by now that XP is backwards, production follows progression not the other way around! It can be abused in online CFMs and creates unrealistic scenarios. However, the old potential stat made for boring and predictable franchises with no variation or challenge. You could just trade for the players you knew would become 90s and it provided no complexity. My system will solve both of those, should be rather easy to follow, and I hope it is easy to code as well (It does not sound complex to me but I do not code).

My idea is that each player has a certain percentage of increasing or decreasing. This applies to rookies and old players, so it effects progression and regression. For example, Rookie A would come into the league at an overall of 75. If he is a "high potential" player, we could say something like a 50% chance of being an 80-85, 15% chance of being a 85-90, 10% chance of being a 90-95, and 1% chance of being a 95-99 after one season. He then could have a 20% to be a 70-74, and a 4% chance to be less than 70. Of course these numbers could be more specific but that is the general idea.

The same would apply to any player at any point in their career. So for an aging vet who has an overall of 85, he may have 5% chance to get better, 10% chance of staying the same, and 85% chance of getting worse. Again, it would be more detailed, but that illustrates my point.

Factors that I would imagine affecting these percentages include boosts from coaches/assistants, injuries, age, game time, performance and focus in practice.

An example of injury would be Peyton, before he hurt himself he may have had a 75% chance of maintaining his overall, but after his injury combined with his age his play got significantly worse.

Factors of franchise that could be transformed include all player interactions, as well as team building and more. You could have scouts who either have different thresholds for what they believe is a high potential player (ex. Two 75 ovr players but one has 20% chance of 90+ while other has 10%, one scout may say both have high POT while other only likes the 20%), maybe they can even get the percentages wrong.

The draft is also affected because instead of taking project players and being confident you can build them up (ex. 95 speed 50 catch 60 rte running 6'3 WR) you have to value the non physical attributes and potential more. I don't know about others but the physical freaks in this years online CFM would always go high and this is also an issue with gameplay that speed matters so much but I think the system could help a bit.

This also makes dealing with older players a bit more interesting because once they hit 30 they won't automatically be useless, and you'd have to make tough choices that could backfire in terms of hanging onto a player or giving the spot to the younger back up.

There are countless examples that can be made. Ultimately, I think this system makes franchise more fun to play and makes managing players more important. It doesn't have the "cheesiness" of the XP system but is also unpredictable, instead of repetitive and boring like the old potential system. Please discuss aspects of this system that you like and what you think can affect the franchise mode. Any flaws you see or suggestions you have to make it better would also be welcome! I am going to try to give a detailed example below for those who didn't get what I was saying from the above.

Ok, it is draft day. Your 5-star head scout says WR Pickle Cucumber has high potential and your 3-star regional scout says WR Pickle Cucumber has very high potential. You go ahead and draft him at #10. He is a 79 OVR and you look at his percentages as a rookie, 50% of 80-84, 10% of 85-89, 8% of 90-94, 2% of 95-99. He also has a 15% of 75-79, 10% of 70-74, and 5% of 60-69. Your offensive coordinator only has boosts for veterans, particularly QBs, so no help to Pickle Cucumber here. Your WR coach's specialty is young WR, so Pickle Cucumber gets a 2% boost(IDK what a good number would be here) to 85-89, and 2% less chance of 60-69.

Pickle Cucumber has a great rookie year, does not get hurt, and gets focused on in practice. (Perhaps practice focus decreases 60-69 by another 3% and increases 80-84 by that 3%). At the end of the season, Pickle Cucumber's potential percentages are finalized, and Madden rolls the dice. The 85-89 gets selected, and now he is an 88 (I would say this could be more specific, i.e. 13% of 85-89 = 3% 85, 3% 86, 4% 87, 2% 88, 1% 89). This process continues, his career is free of serious injuries, time passes and now he is 32 years old at an overall of 94. In week 2, he tears his ACL and MCL, and is out for the year. His percentages are now something like 14% chance of 70-79, 20% chance of 80-84, 50% chance of 85-89, 15% chance of 90-94, and 1% chance of 95-99. The season ends and his overall is chosen to be... 87. His next season he is not as good as pre-injury, but he recovered pretty well. Or if it is chosen to be a 76, he is probably getting cut and has to find a new team or retire. Or maybe he is chosen to be a 93, and sees nearly no drop off, maybe he took roids but he recovered from that injury like it was nothing. You can think of infinite situations and have so many storylines for all different outcomes, but that should clarify what potential this system would have. The percentages could also be quite realistic in my opinion because the Madden devs can just look at how overalls of players have changed over the years and program the percentages accordingly. Thank you for reading my suggestion!


Update


A special thanks to SyncereBlackout for helping me talk through some of the points, as well as deu22ces and adembroski for providing ideas.

My idea for progression is "controlled chaos" in a sense. Weighted percentages give a certain chance to each player to progress or regress to a certain overall. This gives the realism of player development while it is unpredictable from a coach's / GM's perspective. You may expect Leonard Fournette to become a beast, but it is not a guarantee like in the old system. You also couldn't feed him the rock 600 times so he gets rookie of the year and 150000 XP. (There would be coaching modifiers and the like so that you can still impact your players, but this is the basic system).

So my problem here was that once an overall is chosen, how will the game actually progress the player to that overall?

My solution is player types. There will be many player types, and they will weight attribute chances differently. The game then runs through the attributes, deciding whether or not to add +1, and cycles through until the new overall is reached.


I'll use a run blocking TE as an example, I'll simplify it to a few attributes for the sake of this example, RBK, PBK, CTCH, and Route running. The attributes may be weighted like so:
RBK .6
PBK .5
CTCH .4
RTE .25

Let's say we have a run blocking TE progressing from 80 -> 82. The game would then run through these attributes one at a time and decide if the attribute gets a +1. So RBK would have a 60% chance of going up 1, catching 40%. Then it will go through again, until the 82 overall is achieved. This provides a nice balance while still keeping players unique. I was initially concerned with player types making players too similar, but I think this keeps the variability and uniqueness. Provides a lot of potential for tweaking as well.

So for another example, let's contrast pass catching and run blocking TEs.

Run blocking TE:
RBK .6
PBK .5
CTCH .4
RTE .25

Pass catching TE:
RBK .3
PBK .15
CTCH .65
RTE .5

These are obviously just examples, numbers can be tuned to be balanced and more accurate. To me, this is a better progression concept than XP and predetermined potential. This allows for complexity in franchise mode. Some concepts that I already have thought of or other members have suggested that I have applied here include,

Players can have issues with their technique or execution, which can affect the attribute progression chance. For example, a QB with a poor throwing motion may have a .1 chance for short accuracy to progress instead of .5, and you have to work on this to get rid of the penalty. Or a pass rushing LB has stiff hips, and he has a .2 for FMV instead of .7.

In the same vein, players can be proficient at certain attributes, and have boosted chances. A DB who stays up all night watching film may have .9 for Play Rec instead of .45. The possibilities that stem from the system here provide a lot of depth to the mode.



Some questions I am still thinking about and would love to hear back from. Regression - how to handle the attributes going down for regression. Both due to age and not due to age.

Occurence of progression. I like the idea of training camps/preseason being the time when progression/regression occurrs, but could use more thought. Here is a link to a previous thread that didn't get much traction
Help me refine a realistic progression system

Thanks for reading! I hope we can get some attention to franchise mode soon

Another thought

I was also thinking about coach specialties. I don't know if it makes enough sense to specialize in certain attribute progressions as a coach, but if it does the formula could be something based on the difference between 1 and the current player's percentage. So if a player had a .4 for catching and the coach had a catching specialty, the formula would be

1 - .4 = .6 --> .6/2 = .3 --> .4 + .3 = .7

The player, being trained by this coach, now has a better chance to have catching increase if the player progresses. Does this make sense, or is that too specific for a coach to effect?

[yotileintruder1]

Quote: Originally Posted by triplechin

I hate XP. I don't like how you get to choose to increase speed, and a lot of other problems but I'll leave it there. I also didn't like the old system where basically every franchise you knew who would be good because of their potential stat. Here is my idea for a better progression system and how it effects other parts of franchise as well. My idea is that each player has a certain percentage of increasing or decreasing. This applies to rookies and old players, so it effects progression and regression. For example, Rookie A would come into the league at an overall of 75. If he is a "high potential" player, we could say something like a 50% chance of being an 80-85, 15% chance of being a 85-90, 10% chance of being a 90-95, and 1% chance of being a 95-99 after one season. He then could have a 20% to be a 70-74, and a 4% chance to be less than 70. Of course these numbers could be more specific but that is the general idea. The same would apply to any player at any point in their career. So for an aging vet who has an overall of 85, he may have 5% chance to get better, 10% chance of staying the same, and 85% chance of getting worse. Again, it would be more detailed, but that illustrates my point. Factors that I would imagine affecting these percentages include boosts from coaches/assistants, injuries, age, game time, performance and focus in practice. An example of injury would be Peyton, before he hurt himself he may have had a 75% chance of maintaining his overall, but after his injury combined with his age his play got significantly worse. Factors of franchise that could be transformed include all player interactions, as well as team building and more. You could have scouts who either have different thresholds for what they believe is a high potential player (ex. Two 75 ovr players but one has 20% chance of 90+ while other has 10%, one scout may say both have high POT while other only likes the 20%), maybe they can even get the percentages wrong. The draft is also affected because instead of taking project players and being confident you can build them up (ex. 95 speed 50 catch 60 rte running 6'3 WR) you have to value the non physical attributes and potential more. I don't know about others but the physical freaks in this years online CFM would always go high and this is also an issue with gameplay that speed matters so much but I think the system could help a bit. This also makes dealing with older players a bit more interesting because once they hit 30 they won't automatically be useless, and you'd have to make tough choices that could backfire in terms of hanging onto a player or giving the spot to the younger back up. There are countless examples that can be made. Ultimately, I think this system makes franchise more fun to play and makes managing players more important. It doesn't have the "cheesiness" of the XP system but is also unpredictable, instead of repetitive and boring like the old potential system. Please discuss aspects of this system that you like and what you think can affect the franchise mode. Any flaws you see or suggestions you have to make it better would also be welcome! I am going to try to give a detailed example below for those who didn't get what I was saying from the above. Ok, it is draft day. Your 5-star head scout says WR Pickle Cucumber has high potential and your 3-star regional scout says WR Pickle Cucumber has very high potential. You go ahead and draft him at #10. He is a 79 OVR and you look at his percentages as a rookie, 50% of 80-84, 10% of 85-89, 8% of 90-94, 2% of 95-99. He also has a 15% of 75-79, 10% of 70-74, and 5% of 60-69. Your offensive coordinator only has boosts for veterans, particularly QBs, so no help to Pickle Cucumber here. Your WR coach's specialty is young WR, so Pickle Cucumber gets a 2% boost(IDK what a good number would be here) to 85-89, and 2% less chance of 60-69. Pickle Cucumber has a great rookie year, does not get hurt, and gets focused on in practice. (Perhaps practice focus decreases 60-69 by another 3% and increases 80-84 by that 3%). At the end of the season, Pickle Cucumber's potential percentages are finalized, and Madden rolls the dice. The 85-89 gets selected, and now he is an 88 (I would say this could be more specific, i.e. 13% of 85-89 = 3% 85, 3% 86, 4% 87, 2% 88, 1% 89). This process continues, his career is free of serious injuries, time passes and now he is 32 years old at an overall of 94. In week 2, he tears his ACL and MCL, and is out for the year. His percentages are now something like 14% chance of 70-79, 20% chance of 80-84, 50% chance of 85-89, 15% chance of 90-94, and 1% chance of 95-99. The season ends and his overall is chosen to be... 87. His next season he is not as good as pre-injury, but he recovered pretty well. Or if it is chosen to be a 76, he is probably getting cut and has to find a new team or retire. Or maybe he is chosen to be a 93, and sees nearly no drop off, maybe he took roids but he recovered from that injury like it was nothing. You can think of infinite situations and have so many storylines for all different outcomes, but that should clarify what potential this system would have. The percentages could also be quite realistic in my opinion because the Madden devs can just look at how overalls of players have changed over the years and program the percentages accordingly. Thank you for reading my suggestion!

If you have a solid veteran maybe it could boost players potential at that position

[BleedGreen710]

I'm not a huge fan of the current progression system but I don't really like this idea. You said 'then Madden rolls the dice' to determine each players progression. That doesn't sound realistic or fun to me. I dont want my player to gain or lose attributes cause I won or lost a dice roll I want it to be based on his performance on the field or in practice. The current system, while far from perfect, does achieve that for the most part.

[Mauer4MVP]

Quote: Originally Posted by BleedGreen710

I'm not a huge fan of the current progression system but I don't really like this idea. You said 'then Madden rolls the dice' to determine each players progression. That doesn't sound realistic or fun to me. I dont want my player to gain or lose attributes cause I won or lost a dice roll I want it to be based on his performance on the field or in practice. The current system, while far from perfect, does achieve that for the most part.

That's realistic though (admittedly I've been pushing for this idea for maybe a decade now).

Think about how often players randomly have peaks and lows and ups and then downs. Doug Martin is the perfect example. LT fell off a cliff (wouldn't happen in any sports game).

I do agree that the majority wouldn't like it.

Sent from my HTC Desire 626 using Operation Sports mobile app

[ggsimmonds]

Quote: Originally Posted by BleedGreen710

I'm not a huge fan of the current progression system but I don't really like this idea. You said 'then Madden rolls the dice' to determine each players progression. That doesn't sound realistic or fun to me. I dont want my player to gain or lose attributes cause I won or lost a dice roll I want it to be based on his performance on the field or in practice. The current system, while far from perfect, does achieve that for the most part.

I'd say it is as realistic as any other progression system.

My own idea for progression is no more XP, and have potential and development speed in the game.

Potential is entirely hidden. Development speed is partially revealed. On the roster screen there would be a lighted icon for each player. The icon would look like "-" with chevrons on top and bottom. Two or three up and down.
The central "-" would mean overall is stable and would be lit yellow. The chevrons pointing up could be lit green and would signify that player is progressing, and the number of chevrons indicate magnitude. Down would be lit red.

Aside from a player's development speed, there would be other factors such as minicamps, practice, game performance, etc that could influence development. So it will take time to gauge if a player has fast development or is just on a hot streak.

And because ultimate potential is entirely hidden it would force some tough roster decisions on your part. Lets say its preseason and I got a veteran QB rated 84ish and a rookie rated 77 or so. The vet is stable, the rookie has two lit chevrons. Playing time will factor in to development.
So do you play for the future and start the rookie or stick with the veteran who is basically an average QB. Remember, if you play the rookie he could top out at 81 overall.

Then you can expand upon the system by adding things like hidden traits. Maybe something like "late bloomer." Suppose in the above situation you went with the rookie and released the vet, only for him to have a resurgence and become a 88 overall.

Redone scouting would compliment this as it would carry over into camp and preseason. Long story short you don't magically know everything about a guy after the draft. Your knowledge of his attributes would be a function of how much you scouted him. Now preseason matters. Play your young guys so you get a good picture of what you got.

The idea is that nothing is for certain, and in order to get an idea of what kind of player you got you need to see him on the field.

I think this system strikes a good balance between user control and the unknown factor in real life.

[BleedGreen710]

I would love to see more traits effecting progression and regression. But I don't wanna just see (or be able to tell exactly) 'this guy has 60% chance to progress to X and 40% chance to progress to Y' - for example.

Sent from my HTC Desire 625 using Tapatalk

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by BleedGreen710

I'm not a huge fan of the current progression system but I don't really like this idea. You said 'then Madden rolls the dice' to determine each players progression. That doesn't sound realistic or fun to me. I dont want my player to gain or lose attributes cause I won or lost a dice roll I want it to be based on his performance on the field or in practice. The current system, while far from perfect, does achieve that for the most part.

Actually, what you want is unrealistic.
In real life, what is realistic,

Performance follows progression.
Progression doesn't follow performance.

A players attributes gain or loss following statistics in game or during practice is actually very unrealistic. What you're doing is re-evaluation, not progression. There is a significant difference. A players ratings in Madden are abilities not evaluations.

[triplechin]

Quote: Originally Posted by ggsimmonds

I'd say it is as realistic as any other progression system. My own idea for progression is no more XP, and have potential and development speed in the game. Potential is entirely hidden. Development speed is partially revealed. On the roster screen there would be a lighted icon for each player. The icon would look like "-" with chevrons on top and bottom. Two or three up and down. The central "-" would mean overall is stable and would be lit yellow. The chevrons pointing up could be lit green and would signify that player is progressing, and the number of chevrons indicate magnitude. Down would be lit red. Aside from a player's development speed, there would be other factors such as minicamps, practice, game performance, etc that could influence development. So it will take time to gauge if a player has fast development or is just on a hot streak. And because ultimate potential is entirely hidden it would force some tough roster decisions on your part. Lets say its preseason and I got a veteran QB rated 84ish and a rookie rated 77 or so. The vet is stable, the rookie has two lit chevrons. Playing time will factor in to development. So do you play for the future and start the rookie or stick with the veteran who is basically an average QB. Remember, if you play the rookie he could top out at 81 overall. Then you can expand upon the system by adding things like hidden traits. Maybe something like "late bloomer." Suppose in the above situation you went with the rookie and released the vet, only for him to have a resurgence and become a 88 overall. Redone scouting would compliment this as it would carry over into camp and preseason. Long story short you don't magically know everything about a guy after the draft. Your knowledge of his attributes would be a function of how much you scouted him. Now preseason matters. Play your young guys so you get a good picture of what you got. The idea is that nothing is for certain, and in order to get an idea of what kind of player you got you need to see him on the field. I think this system strikes a good balance between user control and the unknown factor in real life.

I don't think this idea is too different from mine tbh