An epiphany about penalty sliders

[Blazzen]

I think myself and many others have been thinking of penalty sliders backwards for a while now. You can't use RL logic, you have to use EA programming logic when thinking about penalty sliders.

Raising/lower a penalty slider does not increase/decrease the referee's chance of calling the penalty. In the real NFL, defensive holding becomes a focus and now referees begin calling plays that weren't defensive holding last year but this year they are more sensitive to it and call it more often.

That is NOT how things work in Madden.

Increasing/decreasing a penalty slider does NOT increase/decrease the CPU referee's sensitivity to or likelihood of calling a penalty.

Increasing a penalty slider increases the chance that the animation/action that may generate a penalty will occur.

Offsides - causes the D line to "jump" a lot more often if on a higher setting. Causes the D line to get off the ball a lot faster.

False Start - causes the O line to "jump" a lot more often if on a higher setting. Causes the O line to get off the ball a lot faster.

Holding - causes the O-line to hold their blocks longer the higher the setting.

Face Mask - causes more violent hits and face mask tackles to occur the higher the setting.

Defensive Pass Interference - the higher the setting the more aggressive the defender will play the receiver. I could see it also making defenders jump routes more often.

Offensive Pass Interference - the higher the setting the more aggressive the receiver will play the ball.

KR/PR Interference - this is an odd one but I really believe this causes defenders to rally to the ball faster and you'll see more gang tackles.

Clipping - higher setting should result in better blocking for returns and in the run game too I imagine.

Intentional Grounding - this one is especially interesting because many people think you should set this lower so the CPU gets rid of the ball to avoid sacks. I actually think it may be the opposite. At a higher setting the CPU is more likely the throw the ball away which would possibly generate a grounding penalty.

Roughing the passer - a higher setting will cause blitzers to go after the QB more aggressively, likely resulting in more sacks.

Roughing the kicker - at a higher setting you see defenders get through the line and play more aggressive when trying to block kicks. At 100 I've come very close to having kicks blocked. Still haven't seen this called or had one blocked yet though but I'm sure it'll eventually happen.

[bubs3141]

so what settings do you suggest?

[MarketingWiz]

Interesting. I am curious.


Let us know when you have played half a season on CFM mode in a placebo mode and then separately dial in your theory into the slider tuning and track the statistical data points, plot them, and have stopwatch numbers to objectively measure pocket presence and decision making in relation to the DE's collapsing the pocket. Compare your placebo against your theory through data analysis. Eager to see your data.

[rushinplayallgame]

Perhaps this is why my sliders gave people wildly different results, interesting, musst..... test....

[4thQtrStre5S]

At this point I agree 100% with the OP's premise....Would seem the animation that would trigger the penalty would have to happen so a penalty could be called...

I believe it is safe to say that NFL players don't change play style because they have an official in game that is more likely to call a certain penalty more often; therefore, I am willing to believe that EA/Tiburon programmed penalties so that a player is more likely to initiate the animation for a call...

Thus, to get a holding call, raising the slider higher, to increase calls, would logically mean, that blocks would have to be held longer, or at least attempted to be held longer, to increase the chance of initiating the holding animation; not held shorter in fear of a penalty call.

[Last Gunfighter]

Quote: Originally Posted by 4thQtrStre5S

I believe it is safe to say that NFL players don't change play style because they have an official in game that is more likely to call a certain penalty more often

Ummm, actually they do. Sean Payton said after Sunday's game against the Bucs that the team has meetings and reports every week regarding the refs that will be doing the game and make adjustments accordingly. For instance, they knew the crew who was doing this Sunday's game were more likely to call penalties, almost twice as many, than any of the other crews. As a result they were particularly aware of this on Sunday and it paid big dividends. He even said it was most likely the difference in the game and was the only thing that offset the turnover differential. Saints had 6 for 50 yds, Bucs had 15 for 113 yds!

[brak]

This is all good information, but the fact is that certain sliders don't work. Someone said on Clint Oldenburg's twitter that he hadn't seen holding called in 40+ games. His response? I'm not surprised.http://tinyurl.com/k92eqsn He also says penalties are a "feature, not a patch item." http://tinyurl.com/kot3utj So certain penalties not working and not being called is a design choice by the developers?? SMH

If increasing the holding slider to 100 should make OL hold their blocks longer and should trigger more holding animations (which you're right, it should), and I significantly lower OL AWR, RBK and PBK, I should see holding penalties galore. I tried this. I saw none. I put my copy up for sale after reading the patch notes & Oldenburg's comments. It is frustrating to see this year after year, especially since the issue with the holding slider didn't exist in M25 (same engine), and I know OPI and DPI haven't worked right for years. An NFL football game that only calls false starts, encroachment, and facemask penalties at a realistic rate is not a realistic representation of football.

[KingV2k3]

Nice post, OP!

I esp. concur with your take on IG and RTP, which IF they were as responsive as they had been in past iterations, could be used to take on the sack issue...

I'd also suggest raising False Start and Holding, while lowering Offsides should give the OL a chance against the rush...

I've been advocating something like:

Offsides 40 (less jump for DL)
False Start 60 (more jump for OL)
Holding 60 (longer duration of block)
Mask 55 (actually gets called around this number)
DPI 100 (knocks receivers off their route in press coverage, like real life)
OPI 100 (keeps up with the aggressiveness of DPI)
KR / PR 50 (too hard to quantify, so default)
Clip 55 (actually gets called)
IG 80 (tested extensively with past iterations and NCAA...best overall pocket presence, IMO)
RTP 5 (slow the bull rush)
RTK 50 (too hard to quantify, default)