An example of the value of hidden ratings

[fballturkey]

I've posted a few times about how I would like ratings to work but here's a quick version and then an example of what they would add to the game. Basically at the beginning of a franchise players ratings would be randomized a bit. Veterans wouldn't change much from their "stock" (play now, online, etc) ratings but rookies and relative unknowns could go up or down quite a bit. Then the rating that was displayed for each player would also be randomized. Again, we all know what Tom Brady can do, but Dak Prescott might show as a 75 and actually be an 82 (or a 68, etc.) Then as you scouted players (you could choose to have coaches watch game tape on existing players as well as college players) your rating of them would get more certain.

What happened today kind of reinforced for me how big this would be. I hit a bit of a jackpot in the draft and landed a 77 OVR MLB in the 5th round. My starter was 78 OVR (with worse physicals but better awareness). I immediately packaged the starter with a third stringer and traded him for someone's first round pick next year, because I knew for certain that the drop off between my veteran and rookie would be small and short lived.

That should never be able to happen. I shouldn't know the day he's drafted that a 5th round rookie is ready to step in and start. Maybe I spent a ton of time scouting him and think that he will be able to, but actually knowing it for certain makes decisions like whether or not to start him, or whether or not to shop around my other guy, not a fun bit of risk taking but a simple x>y equation. It would add the ability to have actual busts and actual surprises when a guy you thought was a rookie 73 OVR WR turns out to be a monster.

I really hope they'll consider overhauling franchise in the next couple games and add a system like this. They'd need a non-user-controlled (although it could be user directed, like "put this guy in the gym, have this guy watch film, do pass blocking drills with this guy," etc) progression system as well, which would be another thing that would get franchise back closer to resembling what it's really like to run an NFL team.

[mcavner]

Yeah, it'd go against the usual design to be sure - but it'd be interesting. Maybe a ratings ON/OFF option? I had the same thing happen to me. In the first season of my Raiders cfm my starting HB Murray went down and missed the season but Taiwan Jones came in and really played well and ran for some 1200 yds. Murray regressed and at 'only' an 81, regressing due to injury, and asking for a new big money contract I figured it made sense to move on. But, knowing Jones was only a 72 I drafted two HBs in the draft and both turned out to be 79's... and Jones was back to return duties. In fact the 5th rd gem I kept and traded the 1st rounder. I have to wonder how it would have all played out w/o ratings driving decisions - it seems silly to ignore Jones' breakout season... but I am and did b/c of ratings.

[wordtobigbird]

I like what FIFA does with viewing players not on your team/scouting. "???"s to rating ranges that start very wide then narrow down until you finish scouting completely then you get the exacts and overall. Some veteran/well known players are already scouted but you can't just scroll through players and pick out based on ratings who you want to sign. This isn't for the draft, since there isn't one, but for all players which is pretty realistic.

From what I've seen from Madden recently they are taking a lot of cues from FIFA (which is a good thing), so maybe they go this route eventually. I can definitely see the backlash already from people not being able to know exact ratings though so it's a big maybe.

[fballturkey]

That's great that a similar system is in FIFA, that makes me more hopeful that the Madden team will consider it.

[NDAlum]

No ratings mean players can't complain about their ratings so less pressure to overrate guys


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[CM Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by fballturkey

I shouldn't know the day he's drafted that a 5th round rookie is ready to step in and start.

The OVR rating alone doesn't inform this, IMO. You made a decision to start the younger player based on better physical abilities or technical skills which better fit how you wanted to deploy a player at that position, presumably. I personally don't consider a defensive player "ready to start" unless his AWR and PRC are above certain thresholds, and I've got several players on my team who get playing time over their higher-OVR backups on account of these two ratings alone. How do I inform myself of this distinction without seeing player ratings? How do I decide where spend my players' XP to increase their ratings without actually seeing their ratings and knowing their strengths and weaknesses? How do I determine that a player is regressing without the game telling me that my player lost 2 points in SPD, 2 points in ACC, etc.?

NFL teams and professional scouting agencies grade every player's measurable and technical skills numerically down to the hundredth of a second and tenth of a point (respectively). Taking away visible player ratings to that end isn't "sim". Heck, if we want full-on "sim", teams should share scouting information and we should have full access to all player ratings before they are even drafted. This isn't even to start on the game design problem of quickly informing a user how good or bad his team is, where his roster's strengths and weaknesses are, and how he stacks up compared to his opponent, etc. etc. without requiring tons of busy work. Busy work isn't fun.

Building a better front-end which allows me to more quickly know what kind of player a person is without using the spreadsheet - for example, differentiating between Lavonte David and Clay Matthews quickly to know one is a better coverage LB and one is a better edge rusher without my having to deep-dive into the numbers to determine this distinction - is something I am absolutely behind. But taking away all the numbers entirely so I don't know anything about the players I'm looking at? No way.

[mcavner]

It might be nice to switch to a rating system that is entirely based on your staff's ability to assess their own talent and scout your opponent's and the prospects.

If we're to add coordinators the skill of your coaching staff could impact those decisions. So you can see why a franchise like, say, the Browns continues to struggle despite years of high picks b/c they can't identify and groom talent - whereas the Patriots have the admin in place to reload continually and find players other teams overlook.

So we'd still, as gamers, have the set of numbers. And maybe we'd have our staff ratings - and they could even vary based on your coaches; maybe your QB coach has a lower opinion of your QB's mechanics than your offensive coordinator? One staff member might lean towards older players... have some coaching bias to consider. And you could have an NFL central/media report on each player - which would be more general - perhaps a letter grade so it's info but not necessarily enough for a tie break in a position battle.

I think there's for sure something there worth considering - but again I think it might have to be an option. I could see a lot of gamers not wanting to deal with it and then it'd go the way of the passing cone. Because sometimes even if it's more real - it's not always more fun.

[DeuceDouglas]

Quote: Originally Posted by fballturkey

I shouldn't know the day he's drafted that a 5th round rookie is ready to step in and start.

This is the same issue I have with the current system. It was brought up in another thread an issue with this that, let's say your team needs a new QB, you draft a first rounder and then you immediately find out he's a (for example) a 65 with slow development. So what do you do? You probably draft another scouted QB in one of the next couple rounds because before the draft is even over, you already know that the first one you drafted isn't worth a damn. Whenever this type of discussion comes up I always bring up M12 because they had setup a system that could have been extremely fun for roster building given more time to grow but it unfortunately got destroyed with CFM. It made preseason actually somewhat interesting and had it been expanded to the entire roster it could have been really cool. I'd also much rather see an option to have something like this for ratings inside of CFM instead of static numeric ratings but that's a discussion for another day.