Madden NFL 15 - Player Ratings Visualized

[CM Hooe]

Not sure if this warrants its own thread but I didn't see a thread to discuss all the player ratings in totality so here goes.

If you're like me, you learn better and process information more quickly when things are presented visually. A spreadsheet full of numbers is an incredibly dense thing which is hard to gloss over. Thus, quickly making comparisons between players in the Madden NFL 15 ratings reveal was a bit of a painful exercise.

I made the following document in an attempt to aid myself to this end. First thing I did was to group together all the players at each position. Then, for each rating for each player (divided into individual position groups), I calculated the cumulative normal distribution and finally color-coded the result.

Color key is as follows:

Name	Color	Definition	Description
Elite		r ≥ μ+2σ	Player's rating is at least two standard deviations above the mean rating for this category and position; i.e. the player has a great rating in this category relative to peers at his position.
Good		μ+σ ≤ r < μ+2σ	Player's rating is at least one standard deviation above the mean rating for this category and position; i.e. the player has a good rating in this category relative to peers at his position.
Average		μ ≤ r < μ+σ	Player's rating is at or above the mean rating for this category and position; i.e. the player has an average rating in this category relative to peers at his position.
Subpar		μ-σ ≤ r < μ	Player's rating is below the mean rating for this category and position; i.e. the player has a below-average rating in this category relative to peers at his position.
Poor		r < μ-σ	Player's rating is at least one standard deviation below the mean for this category and position,i.e. the player has a poor rating in this category relative to peers at his position.

Included in the ZIP are two PDFs - one sorted by OVR per-position, and one sorted by team then OVR per-position.

Hopefully at least one person finds the product of my boredom useful, haha.

[Big FN Deal]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

....Included in the ZIP are two PDFs - one sorted by OVR per-position, and one sorted by team then OVR per-position. Hopefully at least one person finds the product of my boredom useful, haha.

Outstanding concept and I downloaded the .zip as well, so hopefully you didn't attach some virus that converts my posts on OS Madden forum into being "constructive". j/k lol

Seriously though, I would love to see this type of visual descriptor offered up as a personnel reference option in Madden instead of numeric ratings, leaving those hidden under the hood.

[The JareBear]

Nice work CM, thank you.

[Sheba2011]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Not sure if this warrants its own thread but I didn't see a thread to discuss all the player ratings in totality so here goes. If you're like me, you learn better and process information more quickly when things are presented visually. A spreadsheet full of numbers is an incredibly dense thing which is hard to gloss over. Thus, quickly making comparisons between players in the Madden NFL 15 ratings reveal was a bit of a painful exercise. I made the following document in an attempt to aid myself to this end. First thing I did was to group together all the players at each position. Then, for each rating for each player (divided into individual position groups), I calculated the cumulative normal distribution and finally color-coded the result. Color key is as follows: Name Color Definition Description Elite r ≥ μ+2σ Player's rating is at least two standard deviations above the mean rating for this category and position; i.e. the player has a great rating in this category relative to peers at his position. Good μ+σ ≤ r < μ+2σ Player's rating is at least one standard deviation above the mean rating for this category and position; i.e. the player has a good rating in this category relative to peers at his position. Average μ ≤ r < μ+σ Player's rating is at or above the mean rating for this category and position; i.e. the player has an average rating in this category relative to peers at his position. Subpar μ-σ ≤ r < μ Player's rating is below the mean rating for this category and position; i.e. the player has a below-average rating in this category relative to peers at his position. Poor r < μ-σ Player's rating is at least one standard deviation below the mean for this category and position,i.e. the player has a poor rating in this category relative to peers at his position. Included in the ZIP are two PDFs - one sorted by OVR per-position, and one sorted by team then OVR per-position. Hopefully at least one person finds the product of my boredom useful, haha.

This is awesome, looking at the spreadsheet makes my head hurt sometimes. Thanks for the effort, sound's like something I would do haha.

[raiderphantom]

I can't look at it on my phone at the moment but it sounds awesome! Thank you!

[underdog13]

Couldn't open said either file type isnt supported or it was damaged? Can anyone help?

[crenk]

Quote: Originally Posted by Big FN Deal

Outstanding concept and I downloaded the .zip as well, so hopefully you didn't attach some virus that converts my posts on OS Madden forum into being "constructive". j/k lol Seriously though, I would love to see this type of visual descriptor offered up as a personnel reference option in Madden instead of numeric ratings, leaving those hidden under the hood.

yes yes and yes.....
That would add so much to a franchise. Real player traits are subjective. We all know Larry Fitz and Megatron have great hands. Who's are better? Up to debate.... we can all see they are great but in real life we dont see a players abilities as numbers.

It would be awesome to see madden include an option to hide those numbers and give us a color code like this or a grade. In a CFM we base our decisions now on a players ratings, not past performance.

Imagine if instead of seeing that a guy is clearly the best at said position as a 99 or has the best arm in football or best route runner we only had those colors knowing they are good elite etc, Feels more like real life.

And those color codes would be based off the previous years production so we cant immediately see that player x dropped his speed or awareness or pass accuracy 3 points. In pre-season those colors can begin to change so we get a more accurate picture for cut down days.

Dont know if I explained this well but I think you get the idea.

[Big FN Deal]

Quote: Originally Posted by crenk

yes yes and yes..... That would add so much to a franchise. Real player traits are subjective. We all know Larry Fitz and Megatron have great hands. Who's are better? Up to debate.... we can all see they are great but in real life we dont see a players abilities as numbers. It would be awesome to see madden include an option to hide those numbers and give us a color code like this or a grade. In a CFM we base our decisions now on a players ratings, not past performance. Imagine if instead of seeing that a guy is clearly the best at said position as a 99 or has the best arm in football or best route runner we only had those colors knowing they are good elite etc, Feels more like real life. And those color codes would be based off the previous years production so we cant immediately see that player x dropped his speed or awareness or pass accuracy 3 points. In pre-season those colors can begin to change so we get a more accurate picture for cut down days. Dont know if I explained this well but I think you get the idea.

I get exactly what you're saying and couldn't agree more. I question if the majority of us even realize what drones we are to numeric ratings at this point and how they diminish our free thinking, in regard to personnel. For example, whenever a thread would pop up about how someone had taken a lowly rated player and had a huge statistical season, only to see their ratings remain low. This often resulted in not only complaints about the progression system, which partly lead us to XP probably but I digress, it also caused gamers to follow their heads instead of their hearts and look for higher rated players versus sticking with "their guys".

Fans, coaches, Owners, players, etc, in the NFL have "their guys" but we don't really get that experience in Madden, with displayed numeric ratings being a big reason. You remove/hide that aspect and suddenly you have Users fielding teams with their personal stamp on them, feeling really invested versus just trying to put together biggest numbers on a glorified spread sheet.

I can easily get carried away about this, so I'll stop but I think this thread needs to be seemn by UI/option teams that work on Madden. Back when Ian was in charge, they already confirmed they could easily add an option to hide numeric ratings BUT they would want some kind of informative UI to replace it, so Users aren't "flying blind" with regard to personnel. IMO, something like what's in the OP would accomplish that.