Donny Moore, the 'Madden Ratings Czar', Leaving EA

[RACZILLA]

Quote: Originally Posted by GiantBlue76

I have never been a Donnie Moore fan. That being said, I won't put the blame on the ridiculous ratings that madden has traditionally had, on him. We all know that marketing plays a massive role in the ratings of players. There is very little objectivity with fans of the game. They all want their favorite players to be rated WAY higher than they should be. Marketing is well aware of the power of the ratings announcements and how much it does for the game. Like I said, I never felt he was all that good at what he did either, but it's not as much him as it is the "machine" there. Also, I have zero faith that anything will change in this area. it will be business as usual most likely with someone else handling it. Good luck to the guy and hope he does something he enjoys.

I don't think there many examples where people say "hey, can you knock this dude down a little?" At one point there was a ratings forum (there might still be, not sure) for every team and people would generally go in there and do exactly what you're saying.

The marketing part seems off to me. That wasn't my experience at least.

[GiantBlue76]

Quote: Originally Posted by RACZILLA

I don't think there many examples where people say "hey, can you knock this dude down a little?" At one point there was a ratings forum (there might still be, not sure) for every team and people would generally go in there and do exactly what you're saying. The marketing part seems off to me. That wasn't my experience at least.

Well, from what Dan from FBG posted here a while back, he disclosed in his interview for a ratings job there that he would have to cater to marketing to make changes to ratings even if they weren't "right". That seems to be invasive to me, assuming Dan was telling the truth, and I don't see why he wouldn't be.

EDIT: Will - thanks for the response. I would love to hear your perspective on this since you worked there. You would know better than any of us. It sure would be nice to have a more realistic option for ratings. Maybe even make it a part of a simulation setting where ratings are adjusted more realistically for simulation style players.

[fballturkey]

Short of reworking the entire system I doubt whoever takes over is going to do any better than Donny. He did very well with what he had to work with, which sounds like a backhanded compliment but I don't mean it that way. Hopefully next year they take this as an opportunity to do that and have hidden/fuzzy ratings and a new, realistic progression system.

[RACZILLA]

Quote: Originally Posted by GiantBlue76

Well, from what Dan from FBG posted here a while back, he disclosed in his interview for a ratings job there that he would have to cater to marketing to make changes to ratings even if they weren't "right". That seems to be invasive to me, assuming Dan was telling the truth, and I don't see why he wouldn't be.

Gotcha. I've been out of the loop for some time so it's not super helpful for me to speculate, anyway. Just had that gut reaction to the post since we did a lot of stuff with ratings and it seemed unusual.

[Iceman87GT]

Quote: Originally Posted by crenk

can you tell me the two second version of how it improved the gameplay? Not doubting, I just have no experience with these ratings

The game plays more realistically the bummer is it doesn't work part year 1 in CFM because the Rookies come in with the regular rating system.

The FBG ratings are based on how the ratings actually work in Madden as opposed to having a ratings system that works but is hampered in an attempt to please fans and players. They also modify the tendencies which manages to create more diverse QB decisions (hopefully this aspect won't be necessary this year as they have touted an improvement in this department). .

With the way the rating system is actually set up top players should be in the high-80s, low-90s range with truly elite players at 95+ (I.e. the spread of ratings should look more like it does in MLB: The Show or even FIFA, where high-70s players are actually good despite our conditioning to think that's low).

I'd like to see them truly embrace a more diverse ratings spread (I don't think a new ratings system is necessary, considering the success that can be had by plugging in the FBG ratings), or at the very least evaluate players every other week instead of every week. Way too much fluctuation in ratings increases and decreases with how it's currently done, a bad day results in a ratings hit but a return to normal form the next week really results in a return to the original rating because normal performance isn't worth increasing stats over (except they should have been increased because they were penalized for an abnormal performance last week). One prime example of this is Mason Crosby, before 2012 he was seemingly automatic on anything inside 50 yards (he could hit it from 50+ yards but want add automatic, and he alwaysv had the leg but struggled with the angle), but he was rated a 79, then 2012 cane and he went into a slump and instead of realizing he was already underrated and was now playing like Madden said he does he got dropped even further down, and then in 2013 when he went on a 19+ make streak nothing happened, it wasn't until he posted a similar make streak this past year that he finally started to climb up in the ratings. I know you're thinking he's a kicker why does matter, but this is indicative of his other least players get ignored. Have a huge fantasy day? You're gonna get a ratings boost, have a bad day? you're going to get dropped, have an above average or 6+ weeks of play consistent with how you played before that bad day (or even a good day because players rarely get normalized after those either)? Sorry but you won't be returning back to where you were before unless you really wow some people.

[DeuceDouglas]

Best of luck to Donny and whatever he decides to do.

Quote: Originally Posted by fballturkey

Short of reworking the entire system I doubt whoever takes over is going to do any better than Donny. He did very well with what he had to work with, which sounds like a backhanded compliment but I don't mean it that way. Hopefully next year they take this as an opportunity to do that and have hidden/fuzzy ratings and a new, realistic progression system.

I agree with this. It doesn't really matter who or how the ratings are done when seemingly there's little more than a handful of ratings that actually have a noticeable enough affect on gameplay. That being said though if they're reworking speed this year hopefully that means that other ratings reworks are on the agenda but who knows.

[crenk]

Quote: Originally Posted by Iceman87GT

The game plays more realistically the bummer is it doesn't work part year 1 in CFM because the Rookies come in with the regular rating system.

It seems like all roads lead back to the need for us to edit ratings on every player at any point in our cfm.

Users could come up with some generic deduction of points from rookies in certain categories to bring them down to earth.

[Playmakers]

Quote: Originally Posted by 4thQtrStre5S

Will be interesting to see what happens from here...I do not believe consolidating ratings would be good as it would just further make players the same; they need to utilize the ratings they have and give them true value, thus allowing for more diversity between players.

i agree....i think biggest issue with the ratings was the lack seperation amongst players

for example a small speed back often didn't have much seperation in his break tackle ability vs power back.

ea just never takes advantange of the full 0-100 ratings scale