I think we can all agree that player progression in madden 12 needs work. I understand both sides of the spectrum in terms of people saying it should be unlimited and that potential should have a cap and etc. I think the main problem is how we as madden gamers have received roster updates and adjustments from madden title to madden title and in recent online updates, week to week. We are used to having a player who has a breakout season in the NFL to get the ratings love that next season when we receive our madden copies. It is natural for us to expect that when we tear it up with a guy who is a C potential or whatever to get a pretty sizeable ratings increase when we advance to that next season. It has been ingrained in our madden psyche. That is how madden ratings are determined, off of STATS and team impact. Not off of, well we think he might be this good so he can only progress this many points. But, is it possible that the progression system could be broken? Take this scenario for example: In my Bengals franchise, Cedric Benson had a career season. He rushed for over 2,000 yds and tied Ladanian Tomlinson's rushing TD record in a season of 28. Benson also won the MVP that year and started in the pro bowl and my Bengals won the superbowl that year. Now, i go to the off season after the progressions take place and explain to me how Benson goes from an 81 ovr to an 80 ovr after a season like that??? Yes, he went DOWN a point. Now explain to me how that is supposed to make sense? Dont worry i'll wait.....
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Re: My take on the Player Progression "Issue"
Because even Madden knows the chances of Cedric Benson rushing for 2000 yards and rushing in for 28 TDs in a season along with the Bengals winning a Super Bowl is like Cedric Benson going one off season without getting arrested. Slim to none! -
Re: My take on the Player Progression "Issue"
lol that made me laugh. but seriously though, as crazy as it sounds i managed to get that done. i re-tooled the offensive line, ran the ball and played tough defense. and i had young talent like green, dalton, and gresham to make plays for me. i did the best you could possibly do with my resources.Comment
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Re: My take on the Player Progression "Issue"
Yeah I feel you. I honestly think that progression should be based on stats. I really do. It should also include the scheme they have going on now about age of the player and what players at his position overall ave and stats are. If he is the most productive out of his age group then he should obviously be rated higher. I think the potential should still be there, but say a player does not live up to that potential by year 3 or 4 they should start decreasing their attributes drastically. I think that would be the best progression system for my liking. You should be able to turn a potential F in a Pro Bowler and their attributes reflect that. They should be classified as a gem even if their grade was an F. That way in a Draft you could draft anyone, but it is up to how you use your 54 overall speedy HB. If you use him a lot and start to produce good numbers he should progress accordingly.Comment
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Re: My take on the Player Progression "Issue"
Well Kevan Barlow had one good year for the niners, got the love in Madden and NFL 2K, but of course in reality it was a complete fluke season and he was quickly forgotten about thanks to the rise of Frank Gore.
But someone like Benson, who has shown in teh past he can play, a career season like that should never result in him losing ratings or stagnating...Comment
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Re: My take on the Player Progression "Issue"
My WRs get about 40-60 catches evenly with close to 900 yards with about 5 touchdowns each and they keep going down.
Only positions I can seem to get increasing Ovr ratings is HB and DL.Comment
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Re: My take on the Player Progression "Issue"
Yea i just dont get the issue here. And it would be nice if one of the developers could write a blog on here giving us some insight on how player progression actually works and how they incorporated their system into the game.Comment
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Re: My take on the Player Progression "Issue"
On another forum, I actually tackled the issue with a couple guys.
We've actually created a method to manually edit players at the end of the season.
It's ALMOST gotten to a Version 1 state.Comment
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Re: My take on the Player Progression "Issue"
To give you an idea:On another forum, I actually tackled the issue with a couple guys.
We've actually created a method to manually edit players at the end of the season.
It's ALMOST gotten to a Version 1 state.
1.) We don't touch players who are in years 1-3 because they already progress.
2.) Players that are 30 or older do not progress, unless they outperform their career average.
3.) Individual positions are edited if they statistically place in the top 5, top 10, etc. at the end of the regular season
4.) All players in groups (offensive line, passing defense, rushing defense) progress if the team places in the top 5, top 10, etc.
5.) Specific skill ratings such as TAC or AWR progress, but not physical ratings like SPD or ACC
6.) Players with an OVR of 83 and below get a bonus if they outperform their career average. (So if Alex Smith suddenly becomes an elite QB, he'll get an additional bonus)Comment
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Re: My take on the Player Progression "Issue"
Thanks. I don't know what EA was thinking. They had it right before, though they just needed to some tweaking.
But then they completely revamped the player progression model and only progressed young players.
It makes sense. Players progress mostly in their first two or three seasons. But that doesn't mean a player still can't get better as he gets older. Of course, they don't progress as much, but they still get better in terms of technique.
So frustrating. I'm just glad they let us edit player ratings.Comment
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Re: My take on the Player Progression "Issue"
The progression system could use improvement, but having players' year-to-year progression reflect their previous season is not the answer and doesn't make sense if you think about it a little more. You're trying to compare two separate things here that have a fundamentally different logic behind them.
All these changes in players' ratings from update-to-update is not player progression. When a breakout star like Arian Foster sees a huge ratings jump between updates, it's not because the developers think he improved by that much, it's because they think the past rating was plain wrong.
Think of the initial rating given to all players as the developers best guess at how well a player is capable of performing. They don't know for sure how good a year any player is going to have, so they make a prediction using the only real resource they have: past performances. And they're often wrong in their ratings because the NFL is hard to predict, so they change the ratings accordingly in an attempt to accurately reflect how well each player is capable of performing.
This doesn't happen in Franchise mode, which is why your Cedric Benson shouldn't see a big ratings improvement for having a good season in your Franchise. There are no "wrong" ratings in Franchise mode; when you start the Franchise, it takes whatever roster you have at the moment and treats all the ratings on there as infallible. Your players will perform as their ratings allow them to. Your Cedric Benson had a great year and easily outperformed what his ratings would suggest, but he still accumulated every single yard based on his ratings. There's no "adjustment" needed to his ratings like a real life breakout star, so in the offseason he shouldn't see a huge jump in his ratings but instead see player progression.
The player progression system in Madden plays it pretty safe. Players improve rapidly their first two years in the league, see a slight improvement over the next few years and then stay steady, and then start declining around age 29. Everybody more or less follows the same model.
Personally I'd like to see a little more randomness in progression so we do have breakout stars. It'd work in the opposite order of what you want with your Cedric Benson though; a random player would see a big unexpected improvement in their ratings and then have like 1800 rushing yards the following year.
tl;dr: The change in ratings for a player after a real-life breakout season is NOT intended to represent "progression" so you cannot apply this to your Franchise players.Go to hell Carolina, go to hell!Comment
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Re: My take on the Player Progression "Issue"
Actually, when I think about it, it makes sense why they reduced the amount of player progression after the first few seasons. Players reach a certain level when they get to the league. After Frank Gore broke out, he's been about a top 16 runningback, but hasn't been a top 5 runningback. He's reached a certain level in his progression.
The problem is this, users play their guys and often exceed what they would've done in real life. I have Alex Smith with a 106 QB rating in Madden. For him, that's probably a miracle for him to do that with the 49ers. My gripe with Madden is this. Players SHOULD reach a certain equilibrium with respect to their in-game ratings and the stats they put up. If they go outside their equilibrium and their stats are better than what their in-game ratings should dictate, their in-game ratings should increase until his play levels off.
If Peyton Manning puts up 3 consecutive 4000 yard, 40 TD seasons, he's probably fine staying where he is because that's the norm for him, and that's to be expected of a QB rated in the mid/high 90s.
If Alex Smith were to do that, he SHOULD get some progression going his way. For one, that's outside the norm for him, and that is not the expectation of a QB in the mid/high 70s OVR. It should GRADUALLY increase until his performance levels off.Comment
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Re: My take on the Player Progression "Issue"
@asterisk: You're right. I agree with you. It logically makes sense that only young players progress (though veterans should still progress small amounts in technique-oriented ratings like AWR and Route-running over time).
But there needs to be some sort of ratings adjustments when players perform outside the norm. For online play, there's roster updates, but no such system for veterans in franchise mode. It doesn't happen often in real-life, but occasionally it DOES happen that a player dramatically improves. Aubrayo Franklin was a virtual unknown, and then all of a sudden became a high-level NT with the 49ers a year or two ago.
And in the case of Madden, players performing outside the norm is very frequent because users can play the players better than what is expected.
The word "progression" is probably the wrong term to use for this situation. "Adjustment" would be a better one, and there's nothing in the game that truly accounts for it.Comment
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