Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

[gr18]

Re: Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

Yeah, really, what were the FGs?? With all that yardage and no TDs, I'm assuming there are at least 10 kickers with 40+ FGs for the season! Lol. Kickers breaking all kinds of NFL scoring records in madden these days.

Yeah,from looking at the video the overall points aren't too terribly low and there doesn't seem to be an unusually high amount of defensive td's so there must be a lot of kickers with stats like 55 fieldgoal attempts and 45 made.

[BigMacAttack22]

Passing numbers are obviously off. I was curious as to by how much.

The video scrolls through the top 19 QBs by yards. I wrote down their yards numbers, TD numbers, and INT numbers, and took the average. I then did the same for the 2013 NFL season. For the hell of it, I also looked at the 2004 NFL season, i.e. ten years ago.

2013 NFL avg (top 19 by yards): 4065 yards, 27 TDs, 15 INTs
2004 NFL avg (top 19 by yards): 3694 yards, 25 TDs, 14 INTs
this Madden sim (top 19 by yards): 3118 yards, 17 TDs, 13 INTs

So it's just low on everything it looks like, but yards and TDs are woefully off. There's 21% fewer yards, 35% fewer passing TDs, and 10% fewer INTs among league leaders compared to the average league leader in 2013, and 13% fewer yards, 31% fewer TDs, and 9% fewer INTs than 2004.

I went ahead and looked at rushing as well (this video scrolls through the top 12 RBs by yards):

2013 NFL avg (top 12 RBs by yards): 275 carries, 1236 yards, 9 TDs
2004 NFL avg (top 12 RBs by yards): 322 carries, 1412 yards, 10 TDs
this Madden sim (top 12 RBs by yards): 323 carries, 1335 yards, 8 TDs

Generally speaking, the rushing stats from this sim look in-line with the NFL, if the game was being played a decade ago. The CPU is running the ball with the top-rated backs about 20% more than real teams did in 2013. Also, there's a 400-carry back in this simulation; the NFL hasn't seen a RB with 400 carries since Larry Johnson in 2006, if I recall correctly.

While obviously we need more than one season's sim worth of data to draw any sort of conclusion, one might begin to assert that Madden's game simulation algorithm has not been updated to account for the de-emphasis on the running game and increase in proficiency of modern NFL passing offenses.

I would assume that this can be tuned to resemble the modern NFL to an extent. However, I do wonder by how much.

This is a lot of math and research for something that might turn out to be insignificant, so thank you for calculating. Any chance you might try this using multiple simulations when the game comes out? I would be very interested in reading what you find.

Quick edit: I love how the community is analyzing everything. Much more constructive than i expected. I wonder if EA even has a small team of developers that look into this sort of thing, or if they've ever instructed their QA people to test this kind of thing specifically.

[JayD]

Re: Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

Didn't they have to patch the rushing simulated stats a couple of years back? If so let's hope they patch the passing stats this year.

[usaaaaaa]

Re: Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

Can we stop using the word "broken"? It's overused when talking about video games. Sim stats aren't broken, they are inaccurate. Broken is where you get to a point in the game and can't progress. If the game crashed during every off season...that's broken.

Uh, broken means it doesn't work correctly. These simulated stats aren't simulating the NFL correctly, which means simming doesn't work correctly, which means it's essentially broken.

It's like getting in a car and having the fuel gauge not work. "It's not broken, it's just inaccurate!" Yep, makes sense man.

[thesillyputty1]

Re: Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

My favorite part is Darren Sproles leading the league with 13 rushing TDs despite only having 11 in the last 8 years and only carrying the ball 137 times in that sim season... awesome.

Well, LeSean McCoy was not on any list so you have to assume he got hurt and Sproles was the featured back in Philly.

[Nza]

Re: Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

So the real life NFL passing numbers are the highest they've been in league history these last few years.....and the Madden sim passing numbers are the lowest they've ever been. Good job EA.

Hey, "if it's in the game" doesn't necessarily mean "if it's in the game TODAY" :P

[Sheba2011]

Re: Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

Skyboxer has been messing around with sliders and quarter length and has a season where Peyton led the league with 35 TD's, that would have been 3rd in the NFL last year. We have one where he has 13 TD's, 27 TD's and 35 TD's. This is something that needs to be explored more in depth with sliders, quarter length and rosters.

[24]

Re: Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

This is beyond disappointing for me. I was so pumped about this years Madden. I was fully on board with the new game play changes they made, the adjustments made to CFM had me excited and then I find this. As someone who purchases sports games exclusively for Franchise gaming, this deeply saddens me. The fact that the Sim stats could be so out of whack just ruins the entire experience.

For the first time in 4 years Madden was going to be a day one purchase. Now I'm not going to buy it at all.I get it that Ultimate Team is the big seller for the game, but there are still players like me out there who buy it for the franchise experience.

[Sheba2011]

Re: Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

This is beyond disappointing for me. I was so pumped about this years Madden. I was fully on board with the new game play changes they made, the adjustments made to CFM had me excited and then I find this. As someone who purchases sports games exclusively for Franchise gaming, this deeply saddens me. The fact that the Sim stats could be so out of whack just ruins the entire experience.

For the first time in 4 years Madden was going to be a day one purchase. Now I'm not going to buy it at all.I get it that Ultimate Team is the big seller for the game, but there are still players like me out there who buy it for the franchise experience.

I would wait for the community to get their hands on the game before making a rush judgement based on one video. Skyboxer is already experimenting with it and he is getting much better (still not realistic) results. In two seasons Peyton Manning had 27 and 36 TD's for him. Wait to see what happens when people come up with good sliders and rosters for the game.

[24]

Re: Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

I would wait for the community to get their hands on the game before making a rush judgement based on one video. Skyboxer is already experimenting with it and he is getting much better (still not realistic) results. In two seasons Peyton Manning had 27 and 36 TD's for him. Wait to see what happens when people come up with good sliders and rosters for the game.

Fair enough, I got a little caught up in the moment. It just angers me a little bit, that's all.

[tdogg097]

Re: Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

I would wait for the community to get their hands on the game before making a rush judgement based on one video. Skyboxer is already experimenting with it and he is getting much better (still not realistic) results. In two seasons Peyton Manning had 27 and 36 TD's for him. Wait to see what happens when people come up with good sliders and rosters for the game.

Sliders have not impacted the sim engine for at least the last two versions and maybe even more. If they have this year then maybe that is how to get good sim numbers.


Those numbers look strikingly similar to last year's hot mess.

[Skyboxer]

Re: Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

Sliders have not impacted the sim engine for at least the last two versions and maybe even more. If they have this year then maybe that is how to get good sim numbers.


Those numbers look strikingly similar to last year's hot mess.

Yep. Which is why I fear it was a fluke or at the least maybe changing the quarter length to 10 is what helped.
Then you get into the "plays per game" issue possibly.

[Sheba2011]

Re: Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

Sliders have not impacted the sim engine for at least the last two versions and maybe even more. If they have this year then maybe that is how to get good sim numbers.


Those numbers look strikingly similar to last year's hot mess.

Do rosters effect it at all?

[ApolloKids]

Re: Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

I'll still get the game, and I'm excited but this certainly puts a dent into the enthusiasm. The one thing I can't comprehend is that the two possibilities here are A. EA didn't have anyone on their dev team simming a CFM to see the results or B. The dev team simmed a season, saw stats like this and thought "yep, that's good". Both of these options are pretty astounding in how much incompetence it shows on EA's part.

[allhailben7]

Re: Madden NFL 15 Video - Simulated Season Stats

My first problem was when I saw Stafford with only 3000 yards passing, then to top it off he completed 65% of his passes? No way that they both happen. He either throws for 4500 yards with less than 60% or he's over 60% and under 4500. All stats across the board except for sacks were low, insanely low.
How does AP all day run for 1800 yards and only 12 TDs? How does Wes Welker have over 1000 yards receiving but not 100 catches? Ratings must be way off with the players or the sim stats are broken again. Not the end of the world, but it does break immersion.

Only 5 people had double-digit rushing TDs last year. Also... LeSean McCoy, the NFL's leading rusher, was not one of them. Joique Bell, Lagarrett Blount, Stevan Ridley, Steven Jackson, Donald Brown and Rashad Jennings all had less than 180 carries and were top 20 in TDs. So, the rushing stats were perfectly fine. 7 INTs was just fine, too, as only 5 times since 2009 has a player had more than 7 in a season. Tackles were really close, I think. Passing, receiving and sacks was what I had a problem with...