canes21's Madden 19 Rosters (PC)
Some of you have probably seen me show displeasure in certain ratings and the lack of spread out ratings. In no way am I calling Kane bad at his job, but there are some things I personally want to see different and now that Madden is going to PC again I am going to make those changes. Since there is a chance even one other person here may be similar to me I am making this thread.
I have a few goals with this thread/Madden 19.
1) Lower ratings across the board.
No, not a mass edit. I am not setting up any formulas to make a 99 a 91 every time or anything like that. I am going through and lowering ratings for every player one position/one attribute at a time with data from the combine for things like speed, strength, etc. and with data from PFF and others to try and get some things a bit more accurate. 40 times, bench reps, etc. are not the end all for these physical traits. I am using them as a baseline and tweaking them to reflect where a player is in their career now and how they have changed.
2) Spreading the ratings out more.
Not only am I lowering ratings, I am stretching the ranges out. Out of the box an attribute like THP may have a range of 79-99, but with my lowering and stretching out my rosters may have a range of 64-95(with potential for a once in a lifetime arm getting a 99). This will make players feel more unique and allow players to fit their roles/archetypes better rather than everyone being a a jack of all trades as is a common issue with Madden's rosters at times.
3) Using the custom draft class feature so that these aren't play now rosters only.
This is a huge reason I never played as much Madden in the past as I wanted. There were some excellent rosters that spread ratings and lowered them, but draft classes ruined them after 1 season. Now I can create classes to match my roster and franchise mode will be able to work.
4) Lowering XP sliders to get a more realistic progression.
Something similar to TDawg's 30% set. I have always disliked 63 overall rookies becoming 96 overall players in their prime. That isn't how it works. In the NFL, the majority of stars were good rookies, good enough to play early. Good enough to where they need some progression to become the star they are. A lot of average players were average prospects that progressed some to become average NFL players. I like what I saw in his thread where some superstars were 84 rookies and 91 in their prime. I like a 73 overall rookie with normal development only becoming a 76 in their prime. This is a more realistic approach to progression in my eyes.
I also want to point out that my custom draft classes will not follow EA's drafts with simple edits to keep the attributes in line. I have a different vision for classes altogether. One of my biggest issues with the generated classes has always been that I feel they go too extreme in both directions of the draft, meaning the good players are sometimes too good and the bad players are often too bad.
Let's face it, the draft is a crapshoot in real life. After the first 2 rounds there is a lot of luck involved.
One major thing I am changing that will be complimented with the lowered XP and altered progression is being very stingy with development traits. This will allow me to really make a more robust busts/sleeper/gem/etc. setup. Right now a gem/sleeper is basically a random player with 1st or 2nd round talent that is programmed to fall late into the draft. You can scout them out ahead of time too easily currently. It's true for busts as well. They are just poorly players programmed to go higher in the draft.
To combat this I am going to be tightening up the classes a bit. Now the last 3-4 rounds won't be filled with such bad players they'll literally have no shot at making a team and won't just be wasted space. In EA's generated classes, unless you get a sleeper/gem type in the last few rounds you're going to be cutting the player you picked and he'll be deleted from the game within a season or two because they are so bad. By tightening the class talent this won't be the case anymore. Now guys in rounds 4-7 may be rated between 62-70, but the higher round guys will have a higher chance at having a better development trait. The same will be the case with the entire draft.
This changes a few things. First, busts are going to be a bit differently. Now instead of picking a 72 overall in the 1st round and recognizing he is a bust right away I am going to set it up to where more 1st round picks are talented and the busts are guys that have Normal development. This means your 78 overall 7th overall pick may look good as a rookie, but with his development trait combined with the lower XP/slower progression he may only progress to an 81 by his 3rd year and it may begin to look like he is a bust in a way because he never really reached the potential you thought he had as a top 10 pick. He may be an 81, still a pretty good player with the stretched ratings, but he isn't the elite player he was projected to be on draft night.
On the flip side you may get a QB in the 4th round who is a 73, but has Superstar development so you groom him behind your veteran for 4 years, focus on him in training, and he is an 81 overall by his 4th year, he's taking over as a starter and he's definitely a sleeper in hindsight. Now busts/gems are taking years to show that is what they are and you aren't instantly knowing draft night.
Now the draft won't be super easy like it is now. Now you and the AI are going to be getting a lot of players in all rounds that are actually going to make you make decisions. Since rounds 4 and on are not going to be filled with guys that are basically fillers and will get cut, you'll have more decisions to make. Do you keep the quicker developing 72 overall rookie in the hopes that he becomes an above average player at least or do you keep the 78 overall veteran who has normal progression and likely won't progress much more, but he's a more for sure thing being more polished. It's a low floor, high ceiling vs high floor, low ceiling situation that teams find themselves in in real life.
Imagine the experience of 4 of your last 5 draft picks all being Normal developing. They're not bad players, but you've "wasted" nearly 4 picks not getting even 1 potentially elite player. You're rebuild is behind and you have decisions to make now. Or imagine the opposite happens, you get lucky two drafts in a row and have a QB you got in the 4th and a WR in the 5th that both are star developers. You can now groom them, build a team around them, and get way ahead of schedule.
Simply changing the way the draft ratings are done and using the development traits as a ceiling level tool with a slower progression setup opens up the draft to being more Fog of War-esque and gives you so many more scenarios you otherwise would not get by default. Having the class be not so extreme on both ends is going to make it that much harder to scout it and figure out who you want. There will be more projecting and hoping. I aim to rid of it being a simple scout a rating or two and move on system where you can pick out the busts/gems so easily. With everyone being closer together and the backend being more talented, but slower developing it is going to be much much harder figuring out who really is going to be able to progress some and become good and who is just going to stay nearly the same as they are as a prospect and never really become true NFL material. I'll still have some players that really shouldn't gone pro like real life and I'll still have my top picks be talented. It won't be the same each class. Some classes will be weak, some strong, but minimizing the extreme ratings each way will really make the draft so much more dramatic compared to the simple way it is now.
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Last edited by canes21; 07-18-2018 at 12:57 AM.
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