Shutting down the "progression is fine" arguments

[Rebel10]

Quote: Originally Posted by Whoman

Why is everyone sticking to the term "progression" ? The initial abilities are the problem, not progression.

This needs to be highlighted because it's true. Progression seems okay to me and I'd be worried that EA would spend time, release a patch upgrade progression, but it's not the real problem.

The problem is the lack of talent coming in and their odd ratings. Kickers with no kicking ability, receivers with no ability to catch or move with the ball, linebackers with no ability to be 'aware' of the field. The ratings are simply too low on these players for them to be any good, at any stage. They do progress fairly realistically... IF a player progresses from a 68 to an 80, then I've got no complaints about that... that is a player who will not start as a Frosh, but probably will start as a junior or senior, I am happy about that. However, if he progresses from a 48 to a 60, and if every player is progressing from 48 to 60 ... that is a real problem.

Whoman -- you're right about teams not recruiting to their strength, too, which is frustrating, because the game includes those recruitment strategies for players, but not for the CPU. Teams that historically run the option should seek out scrambling QBs, and if they can't get any scrambling QBs, they ought to change their playbook. As obvious as this is, I'm worried we'll never see this in an EA football game, ever.

Thankyou for pointing out, though, that this isn't a "progression" thing as much as it is a total ratings flop.

[dalecooper]

The truth is there's no easy way to summarize the problem. It's multi-faceted. Recruits come in with too low of ratings, especially certain positions/certain position ratings. But also they don't progress enough, again particularly on certain ratings. A lot of people on here have argued that new recruits should have low awareness, almost universally so - but if that's the case then that ability needs to have the possibilty of progressing more than it currently does.

I tend to agree that low starting ratings are the bigger problem, but I disagree that progression isn't contributing to it. I believe it's some of both. The main concern is EA patching this in such a way as to not overpower things the way they used to be. The patch needs to be subtle wherever it is applied. The only things I know of that need less restrained boosting are kick power and accuracy for the extremely awful kickers, and the low elusiveness/juke/spin ratings for receivers. But I wouldn't be surprised if other ratings and positions were having similar but less obvious problems.

[nitro110]

One of two things need to happen. THey need to add in-season progression back in and tie awareness rating to experience so you dont have a team full of ******s. I think this is the best option, would give you incentive to sub the lower rated guys in for experience. I doubt this is possible with a patch.

So they need to just patch the recruit generation to make the players have more awareness and position specific skills set higher.

The actual progression looks ok, its just the generation of the recruits that is so awful.

The people that are saying its ok because everyone is like that doesn't make sense. Having kickers regularly miss extra points is a FLAW not something we should be ok with because all the kickers do it. There is no argument for this, no college team would have a kicker that missed multiple extra points a game on their roster nor would they have 10 qbs. These are clear flaws that need to be addressed.

If you're ok with the above flaws then thats great but don't act like the people acting for change are being unreasonable in wanting a football game that has players which are actually useful at their position.

[mgoblue678]

Quote: Originally Posted by MSU ILLEST

If this were the case, there would be no point in playing the game. ECU would always lose to Texas, Idaho St. would always lose to Penn State, etc. These are not real examples but my point is that people play these games to better the team that they are controlling. If your team stayed bad no matter how many games you win and how high your skill level is, then what is the point of playing it? There are a lot of factors that play into why a team is good. Coaching being a huge factor. If I am controlling a team and I am a good coach (skilled video gamer) I should be able to make my 2 star team improve through winning and recruiting. The opposite should happen if a coach goes to another school and doesn't have the tools to get their team to win through their coaching philosophy ie. Coach Rodriguez and Michigan.

A bit off topic, but that is a premature statement. 2 years is not enough to determine that somebody "doesn't have the tools to get their team to win."

I agree with the rest of what you said however.

Overall though my issues are more with how the players come in and how many 1* players there are than progression. Progression is not the main issue to me.

[jmik58]

Can everyone just agree that the players come into the game with messed up ratings and that low progression is actually a good thing?

Everything keeps getting lumped into the progression discussion. Kicker ratings is not progression. QB awareness is not progression. WR juke and elusiveness is not progression.

You can't make chicken soup out of chicken s**t.

I like the fact that players progress slower and can't all be 90s by the time they graduate. What I don't like are the messed up ratings of incoming recruits. That, I'm sold on.

[mgoblue678]

Quote: Originally Posted by jmik58

Can everyone just agree that the players come into the game with messed up ratings and that low progression is actually a good thing? Everything keeps getting lumped into the progression discussion. Kicker ratings is not progression. QB awareness is not progression. WR juke and elusiveness is not progression. You can't make chicken soup out of chicken s**t. I like the fact that players progress slower and can't all be 90s by the time they graduate. What I don't like are the messed up ratings of incoming recruits. That, I'm sold on.

I can pretty much agree with that. The only thing that I may want to see altered in terms of progression is awareness going up at a higher rate each season, but I guess if the recruits came in with higher awareness ratings than they do now that wouldn't be necessary.

I would like to add though the other problem I have is how many 1* players are in the game and how many of them the weaker CPU teams sign. Those guys do not belong in D1 football. More 2* and 3* should be there instead.

[dan_457]

Quote: Originally Posted by jmik58

Can everyone just agree that the players come into the game with messed up ratings and that low progression is actually a good thing? Everything keeps getting lumped into the progression discussion. Kicker ratings is not progression. QB awareness is not progression. WR juke and elusiveness is not progression. You can't make chicken soup out of chicken s**t. I like the fact that players progress slower and can't all be 90s by the time they graduate. What I don't like are the messed up ratings of incoming recruits. That, I'm sold on.

I agree that the that recruits are too low, and I don't have a problem with actual progression, but I'll still write it just as "progression issues" or w/e, so when people say progression, they're usually not referring to just progression.

[jmik58]

Is it safe to say this problem has been aired in every possible thread for EA to fix, so if it's not fixed with a patch there is absolutely no argument from a "We didn't know it was a problem" standpoint?