the CPU doesn't progress players based on scheme

[triplechin]

Re: the CPU doesn't progress players based on scheme

It wouldn't take that much effort, I'm just saying it would be drastically different. If I were doing it, I'd probably re-purpose the XP system since it's already there, but it would be completely unrecognizable from what it is now.

I did the progression for Madden 12 (and I'm proud to say the best sports game reviewer of the time, Bill Abner, said it was the best progression in Madden ever). It was very, very simple but it worked because it was mathematically predictable at a high level, but highly variable at a focused level. Effort was made to specifically engineer the results, not the process. The XP system in Madden now is built on what someone thought would be a good process. Thats backasswards design. One can see the XP system as a tool available to them, and design around results and make perfectly good use of it.

That said, it's left a bad taste in a lot of mouths, so a designer might consider scrapping it just to not carry that stink forward.

What was that system?

[adembroski]

Re: the CPU doesn't progress players based on scheme

What was that system?

Every player had a "potential" rating, which wasn't exactly a hard cap on the rating, but effectively was.

Players were divided into 3 categories; progress, plateau, and regress. Typically progress was the players in their 1st 3 years, regress was 32 or older (this varied by position).

At the end of a season, you were ranked according to certain criteria within your position and assigned a percentile score.

For players in progress category, it looked as follows;

NewOVR = OldOVR + ( Percentile * ( Potential - OldOVR ) )

The great thing about this formula is you might only hit 25% of it year 1, but then you have a great year in the 2nd year and make it all up. It was really dynamic and because it was a linear percentile (we used the potential rating to make sure the distribution was right), it seemed like a player had a chance to reach his potential.

The formula for the others were basically the same but was altered to have people in plateau simply go up or down by 0-3 points per year, and regression would only stay the same or go down.

There were definitely weaknesses with this, and it's very passive, but it could be fit into a system with strategic development through practices and coaching staffs too. You can create almost any system to feed into what percentile rank players get. The idea is this system produces results that work, regardless of what data you feed it to create those results.