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Madden 2010 News Post



Hey guys, we thought it would be a perfect time to share something that I am personally very excited about for Madden NFL 10. We took each and every rating in the game (over 50+ player ratings) and scaled them up/down in a way that is now using much more of the scale. I like to describe it around the office like this…”We basically stretched out the ratings.” We want to use more of the numbers so we get a bigger, more noticeable affect in the game.

Let me give you guys an example….in Madden NFL 09 all of the WR’s Route Running ratings ranged from 62-99. In the current Madden NFL 10 build, WR’s now check in from 35-99. To counter this on the defensive side, all CB’s in Madden NFL 09 had a Man Coverage rating which ranged from 64-99. Now in Madden NFL 10, CB’s Man Coverage range is currently 40-99.

Every position and every rating has been re-scaled to expand the range of numbers we are dealing with. The Overall Rating for your average NFL player has dropped. Your Joe Average linebacker who was 80 OVR is now dropped down to 70. The players who were before right on the cusp of 90 in a rating category are now down around 85-88…Meaning, there are fewer superstar players out there. Before, where you could maybe get by throwing to your slot WR who had 93 SPD, with 74 ROUTES, and 77 Catching…now in Madden NFL 10, that guy is going to have like 91 SPD, 60-65 ROUTES and anywhere from 65-70 Catching. Let me tell you, these rating drops make a big difference when that slot rookie WR with 90+ speed now drops every 3rd pass or so, or just simply cannot get open.
The superstars have not been affected however, this is intentional. Peyton is still 99 OVR, Patrick Willis a 99, Larry Fitz is 99, etc. The elite players at rating categories have not been affected either (JaMarcus Russell still has a 98 Throw Power and Chris Johnson still rated 99 Speed). [Side note: One of my personal goals is to have the actual NFL players in Madden NFL 10 look like their real-life counterparts and play to their strengths and weaknesses like never before in a football video game.]

Speaking of the Speed, which is always a hot topic, we made some major changes with the infamous SPD rating as well. To give you a great example, I will again go back to WR and CB. In Madden NFL 09, the WR SPD range was 85-100…CB was 87-99.

In Madden NFL 10, WR SPD range is currently 70-100…CB is currently 75-99. So as you may or may not tell, the SPD range has been pushed down, in our opinions, to better reflect the “sim-gameplay” style that Ian and Phil have been telling you about all winter long. This SPD change has been updated for each position, so it makes a huge game play affect.

Ian and I had a game the other day where Earnest Graham broke one up the middle for a 55 yard touchdown run… and he could not be caught!…E-Grahams’ Madden NFL 10 current SPD rating….80 SPD. That should give you a good sense of what is possible with the new ratings. It’s not all about having the 90+ SPD anymore. On this particular run, Ian’s CB’s got hung up against some blockers and all I had to do was beat one safety and Graham was gone! He had Brandon Jacobs and his 85 SPD breaking some long runs as well. On the flip side of bigger/slower backs, Chris Johnson is absolutely lethal right now. You can actually get him outside with sweeps now and he is a beast to stop. But again, we are constantly tuning the gameplay, we have an entire team dedicated to that and they are some of the best people we have in the building.

So there you have it, player ratings are in for a major overhaul this year and I am really excited already with the impact they are having on the early builds of the game. And rest assured, we are well aware of the outside impacts this will have….Rookies will now come into the league based on the new ranges, NCAA Import guys are being tuned as well…Progression has been accounted for as well to better reflect breakout stars and burned-out former stars. Meaning, we want to have bigger jumps in OVR this year, both positive and negative. That’s all for now, probably gave away too much already!

Would love to hear any feedback about this big new change in the way we do player ratings. I’d be happy to answer any questions regarding the new rating ranges….please no individual ratings questions, not answering those! Stay tuned for more Madden player rating related blogs in the future!


- Donny Moore – Madden NFL 10 Designer

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Member Comments
# 61 Hotlanta @ 02/09/09 08:57 PM
I was wondering what happens to someone like Tony Gonzalez who has 85 SPD but 97 RTE faces a guy like Brain Witherspoon who has 65 MCV and 98 SPD.

Edit: I just got beat to the punch by kcarr
 
# 62 rhombic21 @ 02/09/09 09:01 PM
Also, I hope that this means that more ratings are actually going to matter on the game. It seemed to me that route running and man/zone cover in particular were both pretty pointless on this year's game. Basically it all just came down to speed, in terms of receivers being able to get open, or defenders being able to cover.
 
# 63 statum71 @ 02/09/09 09:02 PM
Mannnnn!!!!! Donny and Ian.....Thats exactly the kind of stuff I'm talking about. being able to break a long run with just about anybody really takes away from the realism of the game.

This is FANTASTIC news.

Big plays will be more exiting now because they won't happen on just about every drive.

Dang Ian its hard enough for me to wait on The Show....now Madden is torchering me too. And August is a long freaking way off.
 
# 64 DolphinDave @ 02/09/09 09:06 PM
I would give the offense live a bump in speed and accell. Seems every time i try to do a toss or sweep. the HB out runs the line and the linebackers and never blocked because the offensive line is to slow.
 
# 65 kmart2180 @ 02/09/09 09:07 PM
Ian/Donnie I would love to hear your take on what is being done to make Power/Physicality mean more in Madden 10. Because again this all sounds great and all but is it still gonna make people rather throw the ball to Devan Hester than Hines Ward?

In reality Hines Ward is the better WR hands down but in madden Hester is actually the better WR because of his speed. There has to be a downfall on Hester like bad hands/bad route running to keep Hines Ward being the better WR.

Same goes for other positions like DE. Players should not get rewarded for putting in their OLb to end. Why does a OLB become a 99 at DE when put there..............SPEED. In reality he would get eaten alive at end for being small for the position.

There's other things that are wrong with Madden that if you take a look at this example here: Manny Lawson (49ers) because of his speed in Madden he is a great outside pass rusher. But in real life even though he is fast he really isnt that good at all of a pass rusher. What can be done to make this the case in Madden 10? Speed should not matter as much as it does for pass rushing cause players like Woodly/Merrimen are not as fast as Manny Lawson but pass rush way better.
 
# 66 ProStylez @ 02/09/09 09:11 PM
One of my biggest gripes in this game the past few years has been everyone feels the same, yeah some players are faster than others or stronger but I never really "feel" like I'm the person I'm controlling. If my star QB gets hurt I never feel like I have to turn my wole game around because I can pull of the same things with my back up. I want players to play like themselves, I want to be scared when I'm going against AP, I want to feel forced to alter my game plan and hit the free agents up or make a trade if my star goes down.
I also would like the O-LINE and D-LINE to block realistically
 
# 67 marshallfever @ 02/09/09 09:19 PM
.... I love this new direction, but it not affecting Superstars? Is that really a good thing? They were already unstoppable and now it seems as if their going to be harder to stop because everyone else is now slower and dumber. (Not so much so for dumber)
 
# 68 S1ARk5 @ 02/09/09 09:19 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by bgeno
I don't know about this. Just seems like speed will mean even more now. If Earnest Graham is busting long runs, imaging what Chris Johnson or Darren Sproles are going to do in the open field if they're still ridiculously fast and the people around them are slower than before. Get my drift?
well what do chris johnson and sproles do in real life when they are in the open field with all that speed they possess in real life?...they usually break a big run and score td's with that said, just like in the nfl, the trick will be so that defensive ai for both cpu and human should be fined tuned so that they are not put in that position often, once in a while great, that is what happens in real life but 7 out of 10 runs to break big and possibily score is not realistic..

these will work like a charm only if the ai is upgraded as well.
 
# 69 CM Hooe @ 02/09/09 09:21 PM
THANK YOU! One of my biggest gripes with Madden recently has been ratings inflation; I think on the latest roster update in Madden 09 there are 17 LTs with a rating of 90 or better; effectively half the league has what I interpret to be a Pro Bowl caliber left tackle, which simply isn't true in real life.

I hope that this does have as significant of an impact on gameplay both on the field and in franchise mode as you describe, Ian.

Question though, if I may: if the average NFL player is now a 70, what is the average starter?
 
# 70 Palo20 @ 02/09/09 09:22 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by DolphinDave
I would give the offense live a bump in speed and accell. Seems every time i try to do a toss or sweep. the HB out runs the line and the linebackers and never blocked because the offensive line is to slow.
The reason why the HB outruns the line is because the OLine is blocking the same way they would for an Iso play--straight ahead. They're not trying to move with the play in Madden.
 
# 71 CW McGraw @ 02/09/09 09:22 PM
Frankly if AI pursuit angles aren't fixed, this will be the worst thing to happen to Madden since the transition to next gen.
 
# 72 Articula @ 02/09/09 09:29 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by CW McGraw
Frankly if AI pursuit angles aren't fixed, this will be the worst thing to happen to Madden since the transition to next gen.
This is huge, given proper and realistic pursuit angles the speed fix can be allowed.

Currently, anyone who runs a HB toss to the strong side with a road grater T is going to have tons of success. Hell a buddy of mine and me (I ran w/ Forte and he blocked with C. Williams) were able to get ~2000 rushing yards with 80's rated players. Imagine this with Chris Johnson and lets say a Jordan Gross combo? I bet 1500 yards of Forte's came from HB toss to the left on the strong side. TE seals the DE and the LT gets to the second level right away. This needs to be fixed. The computer needs to recognize play calls better and needs to take better pursuit angles to the ball carrier.
 
# 73 BigDuke @ 02/09/09 09:32 PM
Lowering the ratings is a good thing and you mentioned tweaking the NCAA imports to follow these new ratings. I can't stress enough how important this is for the ongoing enjoyment of franchise mode. New players coming into the league must be re-rated according to the new rating scale.

One more thing about the speed (and other) ratings in respect to franchise mode. I think you should rate players in a historical context, opposed to how they rank among their contemporaries. If you think Chris Johnson is the fastest player in the history of the league, than rate him a 99 SPD.

A 99 SPD should be a special rating, given only to those players who are the fastest to ever play the game. I don't know that Chris Johnson deserves that rating. Perhaps he does, I haven't seen him play much. But I have no problem giving Peyton Manning the highest QB awareness ratings, because he is one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game.

Rating players historically will go a long way into finding those future hall-of-famers as the franchise mode progresses.
 
# 74 kmart2180 @ 02/09/09 09:33 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon22
There needs to be acceleration.
This is sooooooooo true. More fined tuned Acceleration. You should not be able to get to full speed as soon as you hit the speed button.
 
# 75 Cdenz @ 02/09/09 09:34 PM
so how does a power back play now? able to run over people?
 
# 76 RGiles36 @ 02/09/09 09:36 PM
Paranoia is running rampant through this thread. I guess I shouldn't be suprised considering...

Still, hopefully this translates to the dominating O-lines being, well, dominant. Then of course, the average O-lines should be average. So on and so forth.
 
# 77 Tyrant8RDFL @ 02/09/09 09:40 PM
It sounds great , but Im a little concerned. I was hoping the gameplay overall would be faster. Im like having to reconize my runinng lanes, and blocking schemes quickly. Like a true NFL player.

I know some hate making fast decision but I Love having to replicate the NFL as it is.

So im going to ask, Is there going to be a option for gameplay speed? If so then ill be ok.

In MLB the show I increase pitch speed so I can only have 0.4 seconds to hit a 98mph fastball, not that I time it but trust me I have to be quessing fastball inorder to hit it lol.
I really want to experience the truth, and that is what I would like in Football also.

In the NFL alot of players are crazy fast , but the difference is when a player gets it going before the next guy. Example A wr at 90 speed and a corner at 90 speed is the same , but the wr runs a double move and gets to his 90 speed before the corner. Well now the corner cant catch him cause he got to his 90 speed to late.

Managing the speed ratings isnt as tricky as u think. U just have to add into the equation the accleration raitng, and fatigue. Those 2 ratings along with speed determine the outcome perfectly.

I dont think making the range bigger is the answer. Well for speed it isnt. Other raitngs I can see opening up the range, but not speed.

The NFL is all speed. Its the ability to quickly see your opening is the difference.

Also can players only have the ratings for their position only?

Thxs
 
# 78 Ian_Cummings @ 02/09/09 09:43 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by rgiles36
Paranoia is running rampant through this thread. I guess I shouldn't be suprised considering...
Totally.

What makes me happy is...imagine if we just dropped this in some random interview in June like the old days. It is just such an awesome feeling to be able to throw this out there, take feedback, and act on it while talking back and forth with you guys. I definitely expect some paranoia/skepticism (after all, I felt the same way after playing a game with the Titans & Chris Johnson after Donny's changes ), but that's what is so great about releasing information so early. We can provide some over-arching goals and then fine tune to the expectations and suggestions of our fans.

Community interaction rulz.
 
# 79 thudias @ 02/09/09 10:04 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA
Totally.

What makes me happy is...imagine if we just dropped this in some random interview in June like the old days. It is just such an awesome feeling to be able to throw this out there, take feedback, and act on it while talking back and forth with you guys. I definitely expect some paranoia/skepticism (after all, I felt the same way after playing a game with the Titans & Chris Johnson after Donny's changes ), but that's what is so great about releasing information so early. We can provide some over-arching goals and then fine tune to the expectations and suggestions of our fans.

Community interaction rulz.
Ahhh hair on fire, running with scissors, black heliocopters, big brother...
The more important question is what did Peter Moore think of today's build? I heard he got a demo today!
 
# 80 II IC3MAN II @ 02/09/09 10:04 PM
this seems pretty good, but doesnt this mean that people will only throw to their superstars? i mean if open receivers are just dropping passes then people will have no reason to ever throw to their slot reciever, or have one at all whatsoever

and also, what do you guys have against phil rivers? he led the league in passer rating, avg yards per attempt, and tied for the league lead in TD's yet you have him ranked like a 91 or something? thats ridiculous that peyton mannning is a 99 when he threw less TD's and more int's.
 


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