Madden NFL 18 Video - Franchise Mode Player Progression Tips & Regression Changes

[timhere1970]

There seems to be a lot of confusion on speed regression. The speed rating is tied to how fast players run the 40. The difference between a 4.25 and a 4.4 is five points. A drop from 98 to 93. Another mistake is confusing exceptions with the rule. Just because a player holds a lot of speed into old age that is not indicitive of regression for evrybody. Most players lose speed at different times and different degrees. A player may lose a step at 30 and not get any slower till 38. It is inconsitent.

The minus two a year was ridicoulous as it would put a person with 84 speed at 30 to a 24 speed at 60 and unable to move in their mI'd 80's. I have seen people in their 80's walk so it can't be right. There simply needs to be some added traits to determine regression. Regression needs to be separate from progression to get different career arcs. Some players need to be dominate at older ages while most retire as nobody will sign a 30 year old 78 overall player and then have that player block their first round pick from getting on the field except for qb sometimes. Cpu teams need to be able to factor age into their decision making when signing free able gents ablegentsnd especially when setting depth charts.

I am glad to see they are going the regress awareness as that will drop overall more than speed regression in most instances. Last year i was manually regressing awareness up to 50 points depending on overall and age to wash players out and giving others speed, agility and acceleration back depending on age and overall to have some players productive to later ages. To me that mimiced the nfl better with the constant influx of younger talent and most older players retiring by choice or lack of interest.

[young22]

This is better than 17 for sure. Hopefully QB THP doesn't decline the same as 17.

But what's crazy to me is that I just simmed a couple years of an old franchise on M12, and the progression was varied. I think guys progressed a little too fast, but there would be guys that regressed at 29, guys that got better at 32, some guys would even drop off at like 25 and be out of the league at 27. I don't see why they went away from that.

Also, I think guys should never lose more than 3-4 points off speed anyway, unless they get injured. Fast guys are still fast into their mid 30s.
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[Brightline]

Here is how I would do this:

1) Group attributes into 3 catgories: athleticism, skills, football is
2) Athleticism includes things like speed, acc, agility and can never go up, it can only stay the same or go down. Each player has a hidden age between 28-33 when their atheltic decline begins and the speed of that decline is randomized
3) Skills includes things like route running, pass blocking, and man coverage. These ratings can go up or down due to performance, a hidden potential risk rating, and coach attributes. The rating can only go down due to age but this decline can be offset by performance. So for example if a wr keeps going to the pro bowl into his mid 30s he gets slower and less agile but not a worse route runner or catcher
4) Football Iq includes things like awareness , play recognition and pursuit. These attributes can only go up and never down. They are tried to coaching attributes, individual performance, team performance and the hidden potential rating. So it should be rare but possible to have a 38 year old wr with 80 spd and acc but 99 route running, catching, and awareness...Think late career Jerry rice, he finally had to retire because his atheltic ability dropped so far (say into the 70s) that the skills and football Iq couldn't offset it:

[Sucram7777]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bradohan

IMO, regression system last year was fine, it just came too early...should have started regressing -2 down the line at 31, not 29

I agree with this. Especially on the age issue.

They had a decent system; just make it more dynamic - a.k.a. less predictable.
It almost felt like an iron clad rule that, once regression began to set in a specific player - that player would be guaranteed the -2 to all relative attributes at his position every year. That's not realistic when you have guys who begin to descend at 29~30, and some guys still being probowler/star talent even at 34-35.

[strife1013]

In the franchise blog they made special considerations for QBs to play into 40s and maybe beyond. Would be good to see the same added for kickers and punters. In fact I wonder if each position should have their own regression/retirement scale.

I wonder if they should have the Age regression effected by not age alone but years played. For example Brandon Cooks came into the NFL at 20. This will be his 4th season played. He won't be hitting regression well into what the 9th or 10th season playing while players like Malcom Butler came into the NFL at an older age 23/24 and this will be his 4th season. He'll be hitting regression sooner than Cooks just based on age and they played the same amount of football.

[patsfan1993]

Quote: Originally Posted by strife1013

In the franchise blog they made special considerations for QBs to play into 40s and maybe beyond. Would be good to see the same added for kickers and punters. In fact I wonder if each position should have their own regression/retirement scale. I wonder if they should have the Age regression effected by not age alone but years played. For example Brandon Cooks came into the NFL at 20. This will be his 4th season played. He won't be hitting regression well into what the 9th or 10th season playing while players like Malcom Butler came into the NFL at an older age 23/24 and this will be his 4th season. He'll be hitting regression sooner than Cooks just based on age and they played the same amount of football.

This is an important point. I stopped scoouting and drafting players that were 23 or 24 because because of this. I got more serviceable seasons out the players I drafted.

Why can't every position have a regression range that is triggered by a hidden regression rating for each player?

[Sucram7777]

Quote: Originally Posted by strife1013

In the franchise blog they made special considerations for QBs to play into 40s and maybe beyond. Would be good to see the same added for kickers and punters. In fact I wonder if each position should have their own regression/retirement scale. I wonder if they should have the Age regression effected by not age alone but years played. For example Brandon Cooks came into the NFL at 20. This will be his 4th season played. He won't be hitting regression well into what the 9th or 10th season playing while players like Malcom Butler came into the NFL at an older age 23/24 and this will be his 4th season. He'll be hitting regression sooner than Cooks just based on age and they played the same amount of football.

And then we got James Harrison - the Steelers LB who is about to be 40.

That's quite a feat, given that position.

[Sphinx]

Quote: Originally Posted by brza37

This article from 2016 states that there are roughly 750 employees at EA Tiburon: http://www.floridatoday.com/story/en...ando/84279988/ http://www.orlandosentinel.com/busin...0605-post.html Those employees are divided amongst Madden, Live, PGA and some sports mobile games. No clue how its divided between development, marketing etc. though.

Assuming that the 750 employees is a total sum I would then assume that among that 750 many positions are comprised from this. For example, the company I work for as of the end of 2016 we have roughly 22000 employees. This number is divided up among 4 divisions with each division having 6-10 separate product lines. I know for my specific product line our development team consists of about 65 people and that's out of 22000 employees company wide. Now of course our company is run different and develops and supports software for completely different users than EAsports/EA does. But I would hazard to guess that the development team for madden is probably in the 20-30 range. I would also guess that their sqa (software quality assurance) team probably does their internal testing for all of their sports games and therefore doesn't count towards the development team.

Given these assumptions it makes a lot of sense for their new initiative of sharing resources from their other sports titles. That in itself could add an additional 10-15 people into the development process. These numbers might sound small but speaking from experience, 10-15 really good developers can get a ton of things done compared to 50-60 average ones.

Just my insight and in no way do I know for sure if any of these assumptions are accurate or true. But if they are close then it makes sense why we aren't getting the improvements and advancements we might want.