QB pass ratings edits

[baa7]

Some observations for those who like to tweak…

I’m getting excellent results in both User and CPU games now that I’ve raised all QB’s Pass Read and Composure to 85 and up. It’s totally gotten rid of all the “passes thrown several yards sideways” throws. So now I use Accuracy, Arm Strength, and Consistency to define who’s who and how they play.

And you can still get a great spread of overall ratings because with Pass Read and Composure @ 85, Accuracy can be lowered way down into the 30’s and still be somewhat effective. And Arm Strength can be lowered into the 40’s. But to compensate it’s important to give weak-armed QB's a little boost in Accuracy, as Arm Strength tends to cause more incompletions by virtue of the ball taking all afternoon to get there. That same theory can be applied in reverse to counter-balance the effectiveness and ratings boost a strong-armed QB gets by virtue of having a high Arm Strength rating. A strong-armed guy will complete more passes, just because he can wing the ball into tight coverage. So you can lower his Accuracy to compensate as well.

So one guy can be, say, 45 Arm Strength and 95 Accuracy, and one guy 85 Arm Strength and 55 Accuracy, but they’ll still both be a 73 overall rating and effective in their own way.

(Note: I’ve also dropped everyone’s Leadership to 0 in my roster, which could also be a reason I’m not seeing those phony passes. Leadership affects the players around a player, and I’ve suspected for some time that it’s maybe playing havoc with the game engine – making it act idiotic at times (too much ratings info = conflict). Before people guffaw, I’m just basing this on something one of the lead programmers who worked on Tiger Woods 2K3 mentioned on a forum a couple years back. TW 2k3 was having game play issues, and he stated that with any patch they might put out, it was impossible to predict how and if the rest of the game play – the stuff that worked – would be affected.)

[sportsgeist]

Doesn't arm strenght effect how far a QB can throw the ball? If you lower it to 40 on a person who can atually throw it far (say the high 80s and up) the passes don't go as far as they need to on deep passes and you end up under throwing the ball on deep routes. They also don't hit receivers in stride when lowered too.

One thing I do is adjust their ratings where they need to be not really worrying how high their overall rating ends up. If we had a better understanding of how VC's attributes worked and work together it would make it easier as to how to adjust them accordingly and to our liking.

[baa7]

Quote: Originally Posted by sportsgeist

Doesn't arm strenght effect how far a QB can throw the ball? If you lower it to 40 on a person who can atually throw it far (say the high 80s and up) the passes don't go as far as they need to on deep passes and you end up under throwing the ball on deep routes. They also don't hit receivers in stride when lowered too.

Below 55 Arm Strength, there are plays and patterns where the QB simply won’t throw the deep ball. But the default roosters themselves have some QB’s with Arm Strength @ 30, so it’s even programmed into the game if one looks at it that way. The experimenting I’ve done seems to indicate that by raising Accuracy as well – by compensating a bit more than one might with someone else with a stronger arm – the QB with a weak arm can be fairly effective. I guess I just like to see different styles of QB’ing, and I don’t mind that some guy that goes out there and throws 15-25 yard passes, instead of 25-35 yard ones. I’d even suggest that’s realistic.

[sportsgeist]

I think even with Plummer rated around an 80 arm strength is too low for him because he actually completes 50 and 60 yard passes in real life where in the game hes only good for 10-15 yarders and the receivers have to get the rest. He needs to be rated a 85-90 in arm strength to be rated right.

VC has too many attributes tied into pass accuracy. The Arm strength attribute determines how accurate a QB throws deep. The scrambling attribute determines how accurate they throw on the run. I'm guessing the Pass accuracy attribute is for short range passes. Plus the Read coverage attribute has something to do with accuracy too at least for the CPU anyway.

[baa7]

Quote: Originally Posted by sportsgeist

I think even with Plummer rated around an 80 arm strength is too low for him because he actually completes 50 and 60 yard passes in real life where in the game hes only good for 10-15 yarders and the receivers have to get the rest. He needs to be rated a 85-90 in arm strength to be rated right.

Actually, I was talking about the game, not the NFL. In the game, nobody throws more than 45 yards, and that's only a Chuck and Pray. The longest pass in this game is usually 35 yards. Watching a game with the demo camera, it's clear nobody's arm should be rated higher than 90. Vick @ 99 is too fast. An average arm like Plummer or whoever should be in the 65-70 range.

Quote: Originally Posted by sportsgeist

VC has too many attributes tied into pass accuracy

And some of them don't work properly.

Quote: Originally Posted by sportsgeist

The Arm strength attribute determines how accurate a QB throws deep.The scrambling attribute determines how accurate they throw on the run.

I didn't know that.

Quote: Originally Posted by sportsgeist

Plus the Read coverage attribute has something to do with accuracy too at least for the CPU anyway.

It determines how many stupid INT's he throws from what I've observed.

[drustrk3]

I agree about the edits improving the gameplay. It's making the game look great. What about franchise stats though? Whenever I raise pass read coverage past 85 I get 20 qbs with ratings over 100 at the end of a season and over 10 quarterbacks with 400 yards. Is this what we have to take if we want the gameplay improvement? Or has anybody seen reasonable stats with this?

[sportsgeist]

Quote: Originally Posted by baa7

Actually, I was talking about the game, not the NFL. In the game, nobody throws more than 45 yards, and that's only a Chuck and Pray. The longest pass in this game is usually 35 yards. Watching a game with the demo camera, it's clear nobody's arm should be rated higher than 90. Vick @ 99 is too fast. An average arm like Plummer or whoever should be in the 65-70 range.

I'm talking about the game and the NFL. If my QB can throw 55 and 60 yard bombs w/o the receivers getting any YAC in the NFL I want my QB in the game to do the same. IMO Plummer's arm strenght is better than average not great like McNabb's but better than average. Actually McNabb threw the ball over 70 yards in the recent Minnesota game easily w/o any struggle. Plummer can throw it 60 yards because he threw a 60 yarder to Lelie last year against Indy (The Sunday Night game on ESPN where they won 31-17) where he almost over threw Lelie and Lelie fell after catching it and was tagged down by a defender so he couldn't get up and run afterwards. We can dedate this forever but this game needs more and more specific attributes.

I'll try and find the thread it was in over at ESPN videogames but one of the programmers said the scrambling attribute had to do with how accurate the QB throws on the run. It has nothing to do with QBs being able to run the ball or how much they run.

[baa7]

Quote: Originally Posted by drustrk3

I agree about the edits improving the gameplay. It's making the game look great. What about franchise stats though? Whenever I raise pass read coverage past 85 I get 20 qbs with ratings over 100 at the end of a season and over 10 quarterbacks with 400 yards. Is this what we have to take if we want the gameplay improvement? Or has anybody seen reasonable stats with this?

It messes up the franchise stats for sure. There are two games going on with this game. You can play as a User and play franchise and leave ratings more or less at default. If you play that way, franchise simmed games have realistic results. But if you’re interested in CPU vs CPU or Coach games, 2K5 doesn’t work without serious ratings edits, which messes up franchise simmed game results.