The Confidence Mechanic

[rtkiii]

I think confidence is too easy. At least for my QB I'm always at 80-95. If I through 3 picks I get -4...not -19. Must have to do with other attributes you have set. Or maybe you were a high draft pick and does not handle failure well.
I dunno...I have not applied anything to my confidence in about 14 games I think it is too easy to get confidence.

[Shon 23]

I'm in the minority here with the confidence addition.

It could most likely be implemented a bit better, but they can improve on it in the future, as long as they don't scrap it, and I hope they don't. I like balancing out the XP for long-term gain on certain younger players, and then if I get on a winning streak that creates some "momentum," but not quite enough to start temporarily raising some of my player's attributes, then I won't.

BUT, if I have a big game coming up, that I feel I must win, and that a confidence boost to certain positions would help boosts key positions' attributes, temporarily giving me a slight advantage at those positions, I'll take it and skip spreading the XP out for developing my youth. I don't do it often, but I've done it a couple of times for positions I thought needed to play at just a tad bit higher level for the upcoming big game.. especially if that team is on a winning streak.

Sure, they can tweak it for future iterations no doubt, I agree, but don't do away with it. It adds just a bit, however small (and it is small), more complexity to prepping for games, especially when you want to develop youth, but feel you need that extra boosts in the 70-80's, even the 90's confidence range to help you with a tough upcoming opponent. I like that feel of "momentum" added in, especially when a team goes on a winning streak, or even a losing streak for that matter.

Too many times "features" have been added in previous Maddens, only to be scrapped, and I hope they continue to improve the confidence addition, instead of doing away with it down the road like a few other features that have gone that way.

[saybur]

Among the many other flaws with confidence, I have one that is really bothering me in a new CFM.

I play as the Raiders and have been doing a major rebuild. I still don't have a true #1 WR so in the meantime I spread the ball around quite a bit. In my most recent game I had 5 players with 5 or so catches for around 50 yards a piece. The starters all lose confidence because they should have contributed more.

Am I supposed to force the ball to D. Moore and J. Kerley(remember major rebuild haha) and watch them drop 30% of them just so they don't lose confidence?

Like most others, I like the idea but am really disappointed with the implementation.

[NDAlum]

Quote: Originally Posted by rtkiii

I think confidence is too easy. At least for my QB I'm always at 80-95. If I through 3 picks I get -4...not -19. Must have to do with other attributes you have set. Or maybe you were a high draft pick and does not handle failure well. I dunno...I have not applied anything to my confidence in about 14 games I think it is too easy to get confidence.

I was using Andrew Luck (star dev 91 OVR)

That's good you are having success but you don't post your record or any type of stats. Do you even take note of what impact your game performance has on confidence? Could you give examples of why you believe it's too easy?

As of right now you just say it's too easy without any information to back up why you believe that.

[Holt33]

I am also seeing an issue with confidence. In an online league of 32 owners, my friend is having a rough season with the Panthers. Most of his skilled position players are in the 0-10 range of confidence and just don't make plays. I really don't see a way he can recover from this considering that confidence doesn't reset to a normal range at start of new season. It's pretty much a downward spiral.....they don't play well dropping easy int or catches because of low confidence and then lose more confidence because of it. Then when a player has an occasional good game and it seems rare once confidence bottoms out, then gain isn't much and then next bad game loses twice as much as they gained in that one good game. Considering our league usually plays 8-10 seasons and his players confidence are in the 0-10 range, it seems pretty useless.

[howboutdat]

Quote: Originally Posted by dannibalcorpse

I think there's a lot of good points made here, but one thing that bugs me about it is how when the offseason ends and you start a new league year, there's no adjustment made to confidence. Why would a DB still be upset about not having a pick in week 17 9 months later when you're starting the pre-season? I've also seen a few cases where a player who was on my roster at the end of the year gets the "Doesn't Know the Playbook" penalty in the preseason, which is either a)bad programming or b)the game being secretly clever and telling me which players aren't focusing during the offseason.

this is one of the biggest issues with this system. For one ive heard of DBs losing 10 points of confidence just for dropping a possible int in 1 game. Thats ridikulous, Dbs play on defense for a reason, they arent great catchers. Some things like this is just not scaled correctly . I had some guys in my league ran some tests, on the opposite side of this, a qb had 4 tds and over 300 yards passing and only gained 4 points confidence. but threw a couple ints and lost 8-10 points... It just isnt set correctly, the idea of this system is great, its how its set up currently in some of these areas that is the problem.
The other issue i see is, as mentioned by some others and above. At the end of the season, i feel like any players under 50 confidence should be reset to 50 for the next season. One thing you hear numerous teams who had a bad season previously in real life say is " last year didnt turn out like we wanted , but this is a new season and we have high hopes for what we can accomplish" . The players arent still focused on last season , they have been training all offseason to regain their confidence. This needs to be reset in offseason , Mainly for this reason. In a Online CFM, if some owners have a bad season, the next season ( with system as is currently) pretty much starts them off with no real chance to compete when most to all their players are at 0 confidence and they wont make plays . This makes owners extremely frustrated and want to quit , because they see no way to ever be able to compete again. Sure you can earn some confidence in game prep. But lets be real , its not gonna be much per week, maybe what two players can gain some? Meanwhile your players arent getting any xp from game prep ,so your players arent really improving , especially since xp is so hard to come by, if your team is been doing bad already .This , to me, creates LESS competition in online CFMs instead of creating more . The confidence should reset in offseason , its the only way to give the losing teams a shot to restart next season with a true shot to compete. Otherwise they will walk away , due to feeling like they are just wasting their time playing games , when they cant win because this takes out the chess match football should be , because your players for some reason are still thinking on last season and playing like crap in current one.

[therewillbechud]

Quote: Originally Posted by Holt33

I am also seeing an issue with confidence. In an online league of 32 owners, my friend is having a rough season with the Panthers. Most of his skilled position players are in the 0-10 range of confidence and just don't make plays. I really don't see a way he can recover from this considering that confidence doesn't reset to a normal range at start of new season. It's pretty much a downward spiral.....they don't play well dropping easy int or catches because of low confidence and then lose more confidence because of it. Then when a player has an occasional good game and it seems rare once confidence bottoms out, then gain isn't much and then next bad game loses twice as much as they gained in that one good game. Considering our league usually plays 8-10 seasons and his players confidence are in the 0-10 range, it seems pretty useless.

It kinda sucks for your friend, but personally I would love that kind of a challenge. I mean honestly, if you're good at Madden you can streamroll a bad player with 60 OVR rated team. Whatever he was doing to begin with obviously wasn't working, and the confidence hit means it's working even less. It's a great opportunity to simplify the offense and start from scratch, keep grinding at get better at the game.

Some people look at adversity like just that, an opportunity, some will just panic or think it's hopeless. That's why playing sports is great, it teaches you to be an optimist. Expecting good things to happen is the only way they will happen with any regularity. But it's far easier to abandon all hope when things get bad, which is why I think the confidence system is not as terrible as people make it sound. It actually does reflect what it's like to be on a losing streak.

And as others have pointed out, being on top or being successful is by it's nature more finite and tentative. Losing always feel much more final. It only makes sense to have a scaled effect, negative performance or factors should weigh more heavily than positive ones. That's just the nature of the beast, regardless of the topic.

[ggsimmonds]

Quote: Originally Posted by howboutdat

this is one of the biggest issues with this system. For one ive heard of DBs losing 10 points of confidence just for dropping a possible int in 1 game. Thats ridikulous, Dbs play on defense for a reason, they arent great catchers. Some things like this is just not scaled correctly . I had some guys in my league ran some tests, on the opposite side of this, a qb had 4 tds and over 300 yards passing and only gained 4 points confidence. but threw a couple ints and lost 8-10 points... It just isnt set correctly, the idea of this system is great, its how its set up currently in some of these areas that is the problem. The other issue i see is, as mentioned by some others and above. At the end of the season, i feel like any players under 50 confidence should be reset to 50 for the next season. One thing you hear numerous teams who had a bad season previously in real life say is " last year didnt turn out like we wanted , but this is a new season and we have high hopes for what we can accomplish" . The players arent still focused on last season , they have been training all offseason to regain their confidence. This needs to be reset in offseason , Mainly for this reason. In a Online CFM, if some owners have a bad season, the next season ( with system as is currently) pretty much starts them off with no real chance to compete when most to all their players are at 0 confidence and they wont make plays . This makes owners extremely frustrated and want to quit , because they see no way to ever be able to compete again. Sure you can earn some confidence in game prep. But lets be real , its not gonna be much per week, maybe what two players can gain some? Meanwhile your players arent getting any xp from game prep ,so your players arent really improving , especially since xp is so hard to come by, if your team is been doing bad already .This , to me, creates LESS competition in online CFMs instead of creating more . The confidence should reset in offseason , its the only way to give the losing teams a shot to restart next season with a true shot to compete. Otherwise they will walk away , due to feeling like they are just wasting their time playing games , when they cant win because this takes out the chess match football should be , because your players for some reason are still thinking on last season and playing like crap in current one.

DBs do not lose 10 points in confidence because they should have had an int. Lets clear that up first.


Second, so confidence should reset if it is below 50 but if it is above 50 it should stay? Am I understanding you correctly? If so I strongly disagree.

I don't think confidence should carry over as is year to year, but I also do not think it should reset.

I propose one of three options:
A. During the offseason it "drifts" towards 50. The further from 50 a player is, the more drift. A guy with zero confidence might start the next season at 25. A guy with 25 confidence might start the next season with 35. For players north of 50 it moves down.

B. Unlock gameprep during the offseason so that we may work on players. This would mimic the real life offseason training camps. In future Maddens provide offseason specific options.

C. A soft confidence reset. Rather than resetting to 50 confidence resets to the closest threshold that alters ratings. I can't remember the exact number, but I think it is 35 and 65. Any player who ends the season below 35 starts the next season at 35 (or 36), while a player who finishes north of 65 drops back down to 65 (or 64). This way their attributes are not altered but if they start hot/cold they have little wiggle room. I think this is the best choice. Imagine a QB played horrible last year. Think Matt Schaub. Sure this year is a new year but if he starts off playing poorly everyone would say "here we go again."