The EA guys seem to be "dodging" ratings questions.

[AuburnAlumni]

I've noticed that most all the EA guys who are now posting have been avoiding going into specifics on ratings and or the process that goes into researching ratings.

This seems to be the status quo response....

Quote: Originally Posted by BenHaumiller

I'm going to have to take the easy way out on this one. Since we don't have real players in the game, we don't have anything to base the ratings off of; we just try to represent each school's strengths and weaknesses. Now that we have roster sharing through the EA Locker it will be interesting to see what the community thinks the ratings for each team should be now that the power is in your hands to make changes as you see fit and easily share them with others.

That's all well and good but....

1. You don't have to mention any amateur athletes by name to tell us how you guys go about rating teams.

2. Editing is fine and dandy, but you can only play in online games with DEFAULT rosters (unless you are in a dynasty).

3. How is rating Ohio State and Georgia "Perfect 99s" across the board representing their strengths or weaknesses?

I'd just like a real explanation of the process that goes into ratings...

Who does it?
How much time do they research it?
How detailed is the research?
Why are returning starters, team records, etc. not given more weight in ratings? (i.e. the FSU offense that was one of the worst in the nation getting a 92 ranking on offense or Florida who finished 39th in total defense last year getting an insane 94 defensive ranking).

No, it's not gameplay, or presentation, or sound..but the actual ABILITIES of the players is a pretty big deal and I'd be very interested in hearing about how THAT aspect of the game development occurs.

[yanks26ngoin]

I would like to know how they do the ratings also, and exactly how. Wheter they use some kind of engine over the internet or they have their own engine.

[MacPlex]

I think it basically comes down to resources. (I.e the stadiums) I remember a while back(2005ish) reading that Ea worked closely w/ rivals. They were even going to have an in-game rivals magazine. If you guys check out rivals.com power ratings by team and pos you might get an idea how Ea does their rating.

Next im pretty sure no one here scouts players for a living, so it should be fairly easy to cut these guys some slack.(much to our dismay they are human.) There are 8,350+ athletes in the game Rating each one to our everyone liking is impossible. In the end I too wish they did not avoid this question.

[AuburnAlumni]

Quote: Originally Posted by MacPlex

I think it basically comes down to resources. (I.e the stadiums) I remember a while back(2005ish) reading that Ea worked closely w/ rivals. They were even going to have an in-game rivals magazine. If you guys check out rivals.com power ratings by team and pos you might get an idea how Ea does their rating. Next im pretty sure no one here scouts players for a living, so it should be fairly easy to cut these guys some slack.(much to our dismay they are human.) There are 8,350+ athletes in the game Rating each one to our everyone liking is impossible. In the end I too wish they did not avoid this question.

I'll cut them all the slack in the world. I just want a REAL answer to the question.

NOT to go into a tirade about why Johnny Schmoe wasn't rated a 95 for Podunk U...but because I've been interested in exactly HOW they go about rating the teams for as long as I've played the game.

I'm assuming laziness.

As much as I have enjoyed NCAA in the past it is quite apparent that EA is just lazy on the little details.

If you're going to do something, do it right.

HOW?

Very good question. I remember last year they had Zach Fraser as the default starting QB for ND. Needless to say...he never sniffed the field and transferred.

Laziness IMHO

[Skyboxer]

From NCAAStrategies:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fluff E Bunny
While I am a fellow Nole, c'mon man...what is with our ratings this year???

Answer:
Ben:
Yeah, as a Nole I am catching some heat for this, but I swear I had nothing to do with it. We have a procedure that gets run to determine team ratings, and certain positions get weighted more than others, so if a team is strong at the right spots their team ratings might look overrated.

[smithc6]

Quote: Originally Posted by AuburnAlumni

I'll cut them all the slack in the world. I just want a REAL answer to the question. NOT to go into a tirade about why Johnny Schmoe wasn't rated a 95 for Podunk U...but because I've been interested in exactly HOW they go about rating the teams for as long as I've played the game.

I'm wondering if the reason they dont go into much detail on how they come up with the ratings is because they dont want us to know how little work goes into it. Now this to me isnt a knock on EA, as we all know now with the interaction weve received from the NCAA devs, that they do have a finite ammount of resources. As long as they are willing to come out and state it needs work and how they are going to fix it, thats all i need to know. The hiding behind "we dont have real players" and taking the high road answers will only work for so long with us.

[NC State-31 UNC-27]

Obviously, the ratings for each individual player are based on their athletic ability and talent. In your FSU example for instance.....92 rated offense seems high for a team that has struggled a lot the last few years. But honestly, individually their talents should make for a good group. EA can't incorporate coaching into a teams rating so it is what it is. Good athletes and highly recruited players make for highly rated individual players and thus a highly rated offense or defense.

You can't dumb down the players individual abilities because their coaches are inept in real life.

Also why Wake Forest looks underrated in the game. They play very well as a unit and are extremely well coached. But their players just aren't THAT talented and thus their ratings are lower than their production on the field suggests it should be.

It's easy to figure out.