Quantum Theory and ESPN Football 2K5

[famousmortimer]

Though, I must add, there have been very few trades in my Franchise. But I have read enough to know this is a problem for many people. Could possibly be a glitch. Who wants to live in a glitched reality?

[NoleFan]

Great initial post MagicUser! I couldn't agree more if I tried.

[Heelfan71]

Through week 6 and only 1 trade.

[MartinDihigo]

everyone has a different view of the reality of football

when it comes to the trades/ draft selections / etc.. ---> there are basically 2 categories of gamer the ones who don't mind what the heck happens , and the ones who would like it to be within the accepted "rules" of real football.

the game operates as a sort of a model , a model of the real football world. For this type of game (simulation) , we deserve and expect the A.I. to operate as close to the actual NFL as possible.

There are certain things in this game that do not reach the level of quality and the precision that they should when trying to simulate the NFL.
It isn't a philosophical question for these instances , it is simply a matter of quality. No matter what your expectations or opinions of what is real , there are "rules" that any high quality model should work within , and 2k5 breaks a few of these rules.

Now I should say that i view this game as the best football game of all time and that my customer satisfaction is over 90%. However, I do have high expectations and i do believe that improvement is possible (as it has improved every year) , and that we should discuss and ultimately ask for improvement where it is necessary.

Who would have thought Jamal Lewis would have run for over 295 yards in one game like he did last year? Still it would have been foolish to accept the near impossibility of making a solo-tackle(one on one tackle) on a running back and the exagerated ability of runningbacks in last years otherwise very good game.

We SHOULD insist on quality. The game is about fun and the formula of offering the best nfl simulation year after year is the reason the NFL2k series has actually made a dent in the sports videogame market despite the presence of a giant competitor who has a near Monopoly on the industry.

NFL2K6 will probably have improved A.I. trade and drafting logic and an overall "smarter" franchise.

Until then I will enjoy 2K5 - the best Football game ever made

[RoyalBoyle78]

Heelfan71 what have you done differnt, what are your settings, seeing you only had one trade in 6 weeks?

[HMcCoy]

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Kanobi said:
Good post Magic. Very thought provoking.

However, the fact remains the trade logic overall amongst cpu teams is quite poor in 2k5 thus forcing those who want realism in their franchise to go to such extremes as Playing "Paul Tagliabue Mode" and/or turning injury sliders all the way down just so they can babysit the cpu teams and prevent these foolish trades from happening.

And whats hilarious is that VC has all these laughably unrealistic trades happening DURING the season but didn't add the ability for CPU teams to trade during the draft which , in REALITY, is when Most of the trades between NFL teams actually occurs. Plus you rarely if ever see NFL teams do player-for-player, player-for-multilple player or Multi-Player/Multi-player deals ...ESPECIALLY without any draft picks involved. Thats the main issue I have with it....its not realy about SuperStars being traded for no-name bench warmers (although thats a problem as it happens way too often in this game)...its the TYPE and FREQUENCY of the trades in nfl2k5 that absolutely sucks in terms of realism.

I mean Sure its a videogame but its meant to be a simulation of the NFL. So you can't point to the shaq trade or any other HIGHLY questionable trade as a means of justifying the b.s. that occurs in this game.

Now, of course its not realistic for anybody to expect PERFECT trade logic but its VERY realistic and reasonable for one to expect much better trade logic than what is currently in the game.

I've been browsing the forum and I'm seeing some of the most ridiculous "fix-its" for this problem as well as a few posts not unlike yours ...the usual "Look at it this way" posts that attempt to justify what is CLEARLY a flaw in the game.

Now is there a way around it? yes. Can somebody change or morph their way of thinking so that it doesn't seem like a flaw? Yes.

Does that make it accpetable? Hell no!

Hopefully there is somebody else working on Franchise Mode next yr for VC if there isn't a new guy there already. Trade AI isn't the only area lacking in nfl2k5's franchise mode.

Anyway...again, good post, Magic, and I look forward to more.

peace

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I think I'm in this camp.

Excuses only hold so much water and I'm not really up for pretending my franchise is run in the Bizarro world. Plus, like Cooger said, we hold EA accountable for alot of BS, and it would be very biased to not do the same for VC.

The theory that better appies in this case is my own theory of "temporary denial", which goes as follows:

"Avid fans of a particular game or company will passionately deny, defend and or justify any flaw in said game......






until its fixed next year. "

Then you'll hear the same avid fan celebrate the "fixing" of that flaw that according to them....uhhhhh.....never existed in the first place?

Nice topic.

[spin16]

I think the original poster is pretty far off base. It strikes me as severe apologetics.

"Reality" in the context of football gaming doesn't mean that the game reproduces precisely what will happen in the real NFL. Obviously that's far too strict a standard, and I don't think anyone, anywhere, considers this as their standard of "reality". Yes, the game is in some sense an "alternate reality", but it's an alternate reality that is supposed to simulate the real reality.

To be real, the game should, on average, produce events that are nearly identical to the NFL. It would be perfectly acceptable for ESPN to be generating blockbuster trades, so long as they happened once every few years. As it is, it seems like they're happening a few times each year, which is several standard deviations away from what happens in the real NFL.

This is why ESPN's trading fails to be realistic, and that's why people are justifiably complaining.

[spin16]

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MagicUser said:I think it is not possible to create a realistic football game (or any other sports title) because there is no one, single model of "real" to follow.

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Um, sure there is. You can find average stats over the last 5-10 years, and that pretty well defines what's "real" in the context of gameplay. You can take data of all trades over the last 10 years (say, since the start of free agency) and determine the frequency of trading as a function of the "size" of those trading.

There is some objective reality that is NFL Football. That's pretty undeniable. Yes, we all have our subjective experiences with the league, but when you average over those subjective experiences, you're going to get something very close to the NFL. And a game that claims to be a "simulation" should mirror that reality as well as the technology can handle.

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MagicUser said:Well he was traded. And traded for reasons (personal, emotional) that just aren't programmed into our sports titles. We can't get that real.

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Perhaps you should check out Madden this year:

http://www.easports.com/games/madden...inecentral.jsp