Madden 17 and Beyond: Ratings vs Attributes

[tosa]

I was thinking about the future of the franchise and the possibility from statements I have read that next year might be focused towards CFM/Franchise mode and the ongoing discussions about bringing in Dan w/FBG. How can they make the game more realistic and have the CPU think more realistically? I certainly don't think I have the all the answers but I started to think, how do you make the think or operate like the real world? I propose a move from a totally ratings driven engine to one that uses a attributes as well (would require adding more most likely and haven't thought that out totally).
My initial thought has been stated/debated on these boards for a while: GM's and coaches cannot see ratings for player's- not entirely anyway, but Madden needs ratings to drive the logic. What if you have the physical ratings (such as speed, acc, strength, etc) show up as true data like 4.3 40 yard dash (and as Dan stated- show splits).... more of a scouting report.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/n...all-the-drills

While under the hood this data would be driven by a numbers of course, but not seen by the user. Secondly, use attributes (clutch, high motor, penalty) and the proposed unseen ratings such as (tackling, man coverage, zone coverage, etc) to create scouting reports which is really all NFL teams have to work with- hard data from combines + scouted data.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/n...all-the-drills

Of course this opens the door for something else to be fleshed out-- coaching staffs. How do you implement scout and GM ability to evaluate the data (using their attributes that would have to be thought out) and thus create a sense of hits and misses based on the quality of the of your staff and their ability to interpret the information they have.
I am quite sure many of you have better ideas than this or at least better detailed ways of implementing it. My hope is that a meaningful, well thought out discussion would catch the eye of the developers and lead to some much needed changes in player evaluation and how it is used in franchise mode.

[DCEBB2001]

Quote: Originally Posted by tosa

I was thinking about the future of the franchise and the possibility from statements I have read that next year might be focused towards CFM/Franchise mode and the ongoing discussions about bringing in Dan w/FBG. How can they make the game more realistic and have the CPU think more realistically? I certainly don't think I have the all the answers but I started to think, how do you make the think or operate like the real world? I propose a move from a totally ratings driven engine to one that uses a attributes as well (would require adding more most likely and haven't thought that out totally). My initial thought has been stated/debated on these boards for a while: GM's and coaches cannot see ratings for player's- not entirely anyway, but Madden needs ratings to drive the logic. What if you have the physical ratings (such as speed, acc, strength, etc) show up as true data like 4.3 40 yard dash (and as Dan stated- show splits).... more of a scouting report. http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/n...all-the-drills While under the hood this data would be driven by a numbers of course, but not seen by the user. Secondly, use attributes (clutch, high motor, penalty) and the proposed unseen ratings such as (tackling, man coverage, zone coverage, etc) to create scouting reports which is really all NFL teams have to work with- hard data from combines + scouted data. http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/n...all-the-drills Of course this opens the door for something else to be fleshed out-- coaching staffs. How do you implement scout and GM ability to evaluate the data (using their attributes that would have to be thought out) and thus create a sense of hits and misses based on the quality of the of your staff and their ability to interpret the information they have. I am quite sure many of you have better ideas than this or at least better detailed ways of implementing it. My hope is that a meaningful, well thought out discussion would catch the eye of the developers and lead to some much needed changes in player evaluation and how it is used in franchise mode.

I think it very awesome that you cite CBS Sports in your original post. Why? Because NFL Draft Scout, whom I have worked for since 2005, supplies all of their draft data to CBS Sports - they are our biggest customer aside from all of the 32 NFL teams.

That being said, I did mention that I would like to see the physical attributes represented by correlative data, not numbers from 1 to 99. This would make the analysis of your players, and others in the league, very similar to the process that real NFL teams use. They use the splits to see exactly how quickly a player accelerates, what his top velocity is, and how long he can hold that velocity and not slow down.

However, I think it is also important to note, that scouting services and teams still quantify other attributes with numbers, instead of, for instance, letter grades. The four that I personally am familiar with belong to BLESTO, National, NFLDS, and the NFL team that I have in-house numbers from. All four use a numeric scale.

BLESTO goes from 2.40 to 0.00 (high). National's range goes from 2.40 to 10.00 (high). NFLDS uses a scale from 2.40 to 1.00 (high). The team that provides my data has a scale from 0.00 to 5.00 (high). The point is that they still apply numeric values to every attribute for every position and those attributes are thrown into some sort of formula to reach the overall grade for every prospect. That is how I knew that THIS LINK was a fraud even before it was confirmed.

http://www.brobible.com/sports/artic...land-patriots/

I actually had a very good conversation with a fellow former scout when this dropped and we laughed our butts off knowing how fake it was. Belichick is the kind of guy that would give a numeric value to EVERYTHING about a player, not just 7 attributes and a total grade (that didn't even include grades for his arm strength, accuracy, reads, and other things important for being a QB at any level).

http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2014/5/1...couting-report


If EA really wants to make this game more realistic, I would recommend that they use a ratings system for attributes and overall grades similar to one of the above. Since my source material is in the 0.00 to 5.00 scale, then it is obvious which one I would push for if I get brought in to have the game better mimic the source data.

In summation, more realistic representations of skill in the game is still quantified using numeric data by NFL teams, so it still needs to be in the game if they are to make this thing as close to the real NFL as possible. The sticking point is now determining which grades to use and which sources to pull from.

[Kwarren3]

Threads probably gonna get closed. "Too early to be talking about 17"