[Old Man Nathy]

Loads of posts to reply to, will try to address it all here if I can:

Quote: Originally Posted by czechman89

Absolutely, I'm happy to help provide feedback for this tool. Glad that this same issue is on your to-do list. I will mention that I tried modifying the unprotected version of the spreadsheet to include Skill Requirments for the G-Column "Must have at least one", but it didn't seem to work the way I was hoping/expecting. I added a B for the MLB, but it did not change the MLB in my example to a Do not draft status. I'm wondering if the current logic looks at the Tackling req. of B and the Block Shedding req. of B- (going from memory on that one, might be a different skill) and says if one of them is met, then it won't necessarily rule them out as a Do not draft. And only once both skill req. are not met does the Draft Status switch to Do not draft. Any feedback on that one?

The tool isn't designed to let you edit everything on that sheet. If you use the protected version, you'll find that only cells that already have a value in are editable. I'd like to provide an interface to allow users to freely edit all criteria themselves and add new criteria, but I fear this is probably something for version 4 or 5 as it would be very difficult and time-consuming to build.

Quote: Originally Posted by czechman89

This is odd to me, as I read the skill requirements as an all-or-nothing requirement, as opposed to an at-least-one-of-these requirement. Am I correct here? For instance, I think QBs need an A- in Throw Power, and Bs in TA Short, Mid, and Deep to be considered draftable, correct?

No, suggest you refer to the blog post linked in the OP for the actual logic. Some of the criteria are "at least one from X Y and Z", not all of X Y and Z.

Quote: Originally Posted by czechman89

Also, after scouting all the MLBs, there was not a single one who garnered a Draft Status of DRAFT...is this what you've been seeing in general? Maybe it was a particularly weak MLB class. It seemed that there were a number of very nice prospects, who happened to have a B- in tackling. Perhaps that skill requirement is a bit too "harsh". I had similar results with TEs and DTs; not a single one garnered a DRAFT status. For TEs, it was the 3-cone and Shuttle combined time requirement; for DTs, it was their Strength (Bench Rep) requirement that made the majority of them Do not draft simply from those traits alone. Possibly something to tinker with for v2.

If you review the OVRs after the draft, you'll find that there probably aren't any/many players who are 75+ for these positions. Some draft classes are very weak at certain positions and you may not find any players in a given class at some positions. For example, in my CFM it took me 3 years to find a draftable MLB and in that time, there weren't actually any 75+ MLBs available. You'll also find that the total number of draftable prospects varies by class. I've had a class so weak that only about 20 players were draftable in total, but I've had others where about 40 were pretty good (this is post tuning update BTW).

Quote: Originally Posted by czechman89

As for you toying with the idea of making the draft status less black and white, this is absolutely something that would take this tool to the "next level" in my opinion. Once I had scouted the majority of available players, I had a total of ~26-30 DRAFT-able players (I did run out of Scouting Points, did too much scouting of projected Undrafted players early on...), which I don't think is enough. The majority of them were projected 1st round talents, so many were gone after Round 1. If we had a tiered Draft Status system that wasn't either Draft or Do not draft, our draft boards would have a lot more options. My suggestion here would be to have the Draft Status to output something similar to the following: Tier 1 - Draft, and don't think twice (Highest graded players, perhaps those above a 90-something True Value Rating) Tier 2 - Draft, should be quite good (Next grouping of players, perhaps lower 90s TVR, into high 80s) Tier 3 - Draft, but lacks in something (Good players, one of their Skills may be at the threshold for Skill Requirement, TVR a bit lower in 80s) Tier 4 - Draftable, but probably not a star (Solid players, not elite in any categories, one or more of their Skills may be at the threshold for Skill Requirement, probably contains more players than Tier 1, 2, and/or 3 combined) Tier 5 - Draftable, but low end of spectrum (Risky player with some nice traits but others are just below Skill Requirement thresholds) Tier 6 - Risky, buyer beware (Risky player with fewer nice traits, probably not draftable) Tier 7 - Do not draft (Does not meet more than one Skill Requirement or Combine requirement, stay away) I think some combination of this kind of Tier system with the risk rating based on a percentage of checking criteria passed or failed would help to make this the ultimate scouting tool for Madden CFM. What are your thoughts on a Tier system and how feasible it would be to implement, Old Man Nathy?

I'm thinking something along the same lines, though it wouldn't be based on TVR, it would be based on number of criteria passed/failed. I'll see what feedback other people have about this. At the very least, I'd like to have a tier for 70-75 OVR players so that there are more late round prospects to choose from.

Quote: Originally Posted by czechman89

I'd be interested in assisting in this process going forward and providing continued feedback on what I'm seeing with the tool. So count me in as at least one tester of v2 or any intermediate modifications you'd want to have help testing out!

Thanks, I'll take you up on this offer!

Quote: Originally Posted by GoSeahawks

I just finished my first draft class using this tool, so I thought I would share. Round 1 Pick 4 LE Dijon Hollis 81 OVR Super Star Development Ranked #2 on the board with a 93.96 True Value Rating He was my targeted first pick and luckily he fell to me at the fourth pick. The top rated player in TVR was LOLB Ray Steitz, but I didn't need anyone at the position. Steitz ended up with a 77 OVR and a Normal Development, so I hit a home run with this pick. Round 1 Pick 32 RT Charley Cooley 78 OVR Normal Development Ranked #6 on the board and a 93.10 TVR The guy I was targeting here was CB Delen Coffee who was projected as an early second round pick, but the Seahawks snagged him at 24 overall. Coffee turns out to be 81 OVR with SS development Round 2 Pick 4 C Austin Lafleur 73 OVR with Super Star Development Ranked #20 on the board with an 88.47 TVR There were a couple RBs available that were ranked higher, but I knew a good ranked RB was going to be available later, so I took the highest rated non RB here. Although he's not ranked high, I am happy with the development trait. Round 2 Pick 29 QB Tannon Kern 76 OVR with a Normal Development Trait Ranked #19 on the board with an 88.92 TVR He had the highest TVR of any QB and was projected as a late 3rd round pick. There was one other QB worth drafting with the same OVR and he went in the first round. His development trait was quick, so he has the edge here. Not bad though for a late 2nd round pick. Round 3 Pick 28 HB Deandre Enzor 73 OVR and a Quick Development Trait Ranked 21 on the board with an 88.42 TVR There were eight RBs in this draft that the scouting tool suggested I draft. Six of them had overall ratings between 75-79 and only one was rated lower than Enzor. Enzor was the only one projected to go after the second round. Round 5 Pick 28 RG Jarius Peerman 75 OVR and a Normal Development Trait Ranked 23 on the board with an 88.14 TVR Highest ranked player left on my draft board. Round 6 Pick 28 RE Trey Paige-Moss OVR 72 and a Normal Development Trait Ranked 34 on the board with an 82.67 TVR At his point in the draft I only had two players left on my draft board with the other being DT Felix Rudolph. Both of these players were considered risky picks, so I just chose the higher of the two. Rudolph ended up with a 69 OVR and a slow development trait. Conclusion This is definitely better than the draft classes I have had in the past, so the tool worked well. It might have been better had I allocated my scouting points more efficiently. I kind of screwed up and only was able to scout about two rounds worth of CBs. Also, risky picks really are risky. The 6 lowest rated OVR from my board were considered risky picks. The two highest risky picks were rated 78 OVR. Anyway, thanks a lot for making this tool. It should really help me turn whatever team I use into a dynasty.

Great stuff, thanks for sharing. Solid draft class, I'd say that's about par for the course post tuning update. Sometimes you'll find you do better than that, other times you might find you do worse.

Quote: Originally Posted by tdawg3782

Have a little time on my hands and am really going to take this thing for a test drive. Plan to use save points to scout every pick and run them through this tool. Then maybe adjust some values or formulas here and there just to see what happens. Will report back my findings. Again great tool man. I love this thing.

Awesome, looking forward to hearing your findings. If you could capture the actual OVR against each prospect afterwards (just add a new column) from the draft recap screen that would be awesome (and then send it to me obviously!). The more data I have, the better I'll be able to tweak the criteria in the future.

Quote: Originally Posted by brandon27

So, I take it this only works in newer versions of excel? Or am I doing something wrong? I have the dropdowns in the position, rounds, draft story columns, but when it comes to ratings, there's no dropdowns. I'm pretty sure there were in the newest version of excel I used at work to check this out on my computer there, but here on my older laptop running Excel 2007, they don't exist. Tried it from Google docs online too, no go there either unfortunately. Any help would be great.

The only one I can guarantee it works with is Excel 2013 or newer. I'll ask some people to beta test new versions on other spreadsheet applications and older versions of Excel though.

Quote: Originally Posted by bonerjohnson

Any reason you can't have a Throw on Run category for QBs? Does this just not like mobile QBs?

There is one... It's called Throw on the Run I think. Definitely in there.