PROGRESSION: OVERHAULED
Hello all, I am seeking to revamp progression and am working on what I believe is a sim and fun method to use. We all know by now that XP is backwards, production follows progression not the other way around! It can be abused in online CFMs and creates unrealistic scenarios. However, the old potential stat made for boring and predictable franchises with no variation or challenge. You could just trade for the players you knew would become 90s and it provided no complexity. My system will solve both of those, should be rather easy to follow, and I hope it is easy to code as well (It does not sound complex to me but I do not code).
So the challenge is to come up with a progression system that is realistic, can’t be abused like XP, is not boring like being predetermined, and allows for logical features to stem from it so that franchise mode stays fresh for everyone.
My idea for progression is "controlled chaos" in a sense. Weighted percentages give a certain chance to each player to progress or regress to a certain overall. This gives the realism of player development while it is unpredictable from a coach's / GM's perspective. You may expect Leonard Fournette to become a beast, but it is not a guarantee like in the old system. You also couldn't feed him the rock 600 times so he gets rookie of the year and 150000 XP. (There would be coaching modifiers and the like so that you can still impact your players, but this is the basic system).
Weighted Potential: Each player has a certain percentage of increasing or decreasing. This applies to rookies and old players, so it effects progression and regression.
For example, Rookie A would come into the league at an overall of 75. If he is a "high potential" player, we could say he has a 50% chance of being an 80-85, 15% chance of being a 85-90, 10% chance of being a 90-95, and 1% chance of being a 95-99 after one season. He then could have a 20% to be a 70-74, and a 4% chance to be less than 70. Of course these numbers could be more specific but that is the general idea.
The same would apply to any player at any point in their career. So for an aging vet who has an overall of 85, he may have 5% chance to get better, 10% chance of staying the same, and 85% chance of getting worse. Again, it would be more detailed, but that illustrates my point.
The Layout: An illustration of how the weighted potential can be laid out. Potentials ranges in increments of five.
Individual Distribution: You can click Y (or triangle) on a potential range to bring up the
Developmental Factors: There are modifiers to the weighted potential that can positively or negatively affect it. Some examples of development factors that would affect these percentages include boosts from coaches/assistants, injuries, age, game time(can be in need of game time or vice versa, need a year to sit and learn), practice motivation, learning from a vet, and focus in practice.
Impacted Potential: In franchise mode, the impacted potential will be shown as well (In green).
Viewing Factors: Here is where you can view how your individual players are being impacted by different factors such as your staff. It would be immersion breaking to have to edit a player to see how they are being impacted.
Age regression: Physicals will degrade as players get older, but we will still have variability incorporated, so we can get the rare Steve Smith or Tom Brady. Players will have different slopes and how steep that slope is will vary. Some players fall off a cliff and some stay afloat for years passed their prime. Basically, there will first be a check to see if a player will lose physical attributes, then a check to see how much will be lost. This is independent of the weighted potential, so a player can become slower but still maintain or increase their overall, indicating that they have adapted to their degrading physicals.
Injury Regression: Injuries are a big factor in losing physical ability. There is less ability to recover from severe injury after either repeated injury (Jamaal Charles) or just being old when the severe injury occurs. When a player is done rehabbing, they may not be able to regain their physical attributes that they had before the injury. A sprained finger won’t have a permanent ratings impact, but a third torn ACL will. In¬juries will decrease your progression odds, and the longer the injury is the worse the effect is. Season long injuries will hamper your chances at progression significantly, as the best players usually hope for is to get back to 100%. This replicates the general delay in development that rookies who get injured in training camp miss out on, and other situations.
Natural regression: Not every player sustains success over their whole careers. There are countless examples of players being one year wonders, have a high but short peak, up and down performances, etc. I’ll acknowledge that some of these cases can be tied to schemes and such, but we have to replicate this not just for simming but also for playing the game, which is why the overalls should change.
So once an overall is chosen, how do the attributes go up? My solution is player types.
Player Types: There will be many player types, and they will weight attribute chances differently. The game then runs through the attributes, deciding whether or not to add +1, and cycles through until the new overall is reached.
I'll use a run blocking TE as an example, I'll simplify it to a few attributes for the sake of this example, RBK, PBK, CTCH, and Route running. The attributes may be weighted like so:
RBK .6 (60%)
PBK .5 (50%)
CTCH .4 (40%)
RTE .25 (25%)
Let's say we have a run blocking TE progressing from 80 -> 82. The game would then run through these attributes one at a time and decide if the attribute gets a +1. So RBK would have a 60% chance of going up 1, catching 40%. Then it will go through again, until the 82 overall is achieved. This provides a nice balance while still keeping players unique. I was initially concerned with player types making players too similar, but I think this keeps the variability and uniqueness. Provides a lot of potential for tweaking as well.
Attribute Weighting: Attribute weightings, which are determined by the player type, will be displayed
next to the player’s attributes. Can also be fully customizable.
If it is still too confusing, I will contrast pass catching and run blocking TEs.
Run blocking TE:
RBK .6
PBK .5
CTCH .4
RTE .25
Pass catching TE:
RBK .3
PBK .15
CTCH .65
RTE .5
These are obviously just examples, numbers can be tuned to be balanced and more accurate. To me, this is a better progression concept than XP and predetermined potential. This allows for complexity in franchise mode.
Badges: Players can have different badges, which effect progression and make them more unique. These can be positive or negative.
Negative Badge: Players can have issues with their technique or execution, which can affect the attribute progression chance. For example, a QB with a poor throwing motion may have a .1 chance for short accuracy to progress instead of .5, and you have to work on this to get rid of the penalty. Or a pass rushing LB has stiff hips, and he has a .2 for FMV instead of .7.
Positive Badge: In the same vein, players can be proficient at certain attributes, and have boosted chances. A DB with the “Studious” badge may stay up all night watching film and have .9 for Play Rec instead of .45. The possibilities that stem from the system here provide a lot of depth to the mode.
Hindrances: Some players may also suffer from hindrances. These are issues holding back a player’s physical attributes, in more of a one time fashion. For example, a QB with a “flailing elbow” hindrance may have 89 throw power, but if this hindrance is removed it will be a 92. These hindrances are of different degrees, from severe to small obstacle. The degrees determine how hard it is to work off the hindrance, which is explained in the CFM overhaul post.
Decreasing attributes: Decreasing attributes would be weighted like player type, except perhaps closer together to simulate realistic regression. The numbers can be tuned to be realistic, but would work the same way as increasing attributes, except obviously going down.
Timing: Now that everything has been calculated, when should progression occur? Currently, my best idea is that progression should occur during preseason. It is best to go through the offseason using input from your scouts, coaches, and your own intuition. It does not make sense to know exactly who is dropping off, unexpectedly increasing, or treading water, while you make your moves. This is a big layer of complexity for managing a team.
Once progression or regression has taken place, the new potential must be determined. Here, I do not have exact numbers to use, but that is what game developers are for. The idea here is that it will be a combination of two things, player situation and previous potential weighting.
Player Situation: Quite straightforward, the player situation is a large factor in determining the new weighted potential. Using data of how players have done in the same situation, a general weighting can be put together. For example, a rookie QB who goes from a 78 to an 85 after one season, how has this faired in the past? Well we can see that 50% of them became 90s in the next season, 25% stayed high 80s, and 25% regressed. So a general template is here for the player.
Previous Weighting: The player’s previous potential weighting will also be taken into account. So let’s say we have two QBs who just went from 78 to 85 as rookies. But, one was taken as the next big thing at the first pick, and had a 80% chance in the 90-95 potential range, while the other was a 7th round pick, who had a 5% chance in the 90-95 range. While they both are in the same situation, the QB taken 1st will still have a better outlook for the future, and they will not have the exact same potential ranges now.
All aspects of franchise are affected by this. Player interactions and team management are now complex and satisfying. The draft is also affected because instead of taking project players and being confident you can build them up (ex. 95 speed 50 catch 60 route running 6'3 WR) you have to value the non-physical attributes and potential more. I don't know about others but the physical freaks in this year’s online CFM would always go high and this is also an issue with gameplay that speed matters so much but I think the system could help a bit.
This also makes dealing with older players a bit more interesting because once they hit 30 they won't automatically be useless, and you'd have to make tough choices that could backfire in terms of hanging onto a player or giving the spot to the younger back up.
There are countless examples that can be made. Ultimately, I think this system makes franchise more fun to play and makes managing players more important. It doesn't have the "cheesiness" of the XP system but is also unpredictable, instead of repetitive and boring like the old potential system.
I am going to try to give a detailed example below for those who didn't get what I was saying from the above.
Draft Day: Ok, it is the big day! Your 5-star head scout says WR Pickle Cucumber has high potential and your 3-star regional scout says WR Pickle Cucumber has very high potential. You go ahead and draft him at #10. He is a 79 OVR and you look at his percentages as a rookie, 50% chance of 80-84, 10% chance of 85-89, 8% chance of 90-94, 2% chance of 95-99. He also has a 15% chance of 75-79, 10% chance of 70-74, and 5% chance of 60-69
(You would not know the actual percentages unless you looked through the player editing screen. But this is easier for the sake of an example).
Coach Development Proficiencies: Your offensive coordinator only has boosts for veterans, particularly QBs, so no help to Pickle Cucumber here. Your WR coach's specialty is young WR, so Pickle Cucumber gets a 2% boost to 85-89, and 2% less chance of 60-69.
First Progression: Pickle Cucumber has a great rookie year, does not get hurt, and you have identified he does not take practice seriously, so you have him be focused on in practice. (Perhaps practice focus decreases 60-69 by another 3% and increases 80-84 by that 3%). At the end of the season, Pickle Cucumber's potential percentages are finalized, and Madden rolls the dice. The 85-89 gets selected, and now he is an 88 (I would say this could be more specific, i.e. 13% of 85-89 = 3% 85, 3% 86, 4% 87, 2% 88, 1% 89).
Down the Road: This process continues, his career is free of serious injuries, time passes and now he is 32 years old at an overall of 94. In week 2, he tears his ACL and MCL, and is out for the year. A 32 year old WR suffering a major knee injury has a high chance of losing some physical attributes, and unfortunately after rehab, you learn Pickle has become slower. His percentages are now something like 14% chance of 70-79, 20% chance of 80-84, 50% chance of 85-89, 15% chance of 90-94, and 1% chance of 95-99. The season ends and his overall is... 87. His next season he is not as good as pre-injury, but he recovered pretty well. Or if it is chosen to be a 76, he is probably getting cut and has to find a new team or retire. Or maybe he is chosen to be a 93, and sees nearly no drop off, maybe he adapted very well to losing a step by improving other areas. You can think of infinite situations and have so many storylines for all different outcomes, but that should clarify what potential this system would have. The percentages could also be quite realistic in my opinion because the Madden devs can just look at how overalls of players have changed over the years and program the percentages accordingly. Thank you for reading my suggestion!
So the challenge is to come up with a progression system that is realistic, can’t be abused like XP, is not boring like being predetermined, and allows for logical features to stem from it so that franchise mode stays fresh for everyone.
My idea for progression is "controlled chaos" in a sense. Weighted percentages give a certain chance to each player to progress or regress to a certain overall. This gives the realism of player development while it is unpredictable from a coach's / GM's perspective. You may expect Leonard Fournette to become a beast, but it is not a guarantee like in the old system. You also couldn't feed him the rock 600 times so he gets rookie of the year and 150000 XP. (There would be coaching modifiers and the like so that you can still impact your players, but this is the basic system).
Potential
Weighted Potential: Each player has a certain percentage of increasing or decreasing. This applies to rookies and old players, so it effects progression and regression.
For example, Rookie A would come into the league at an overall of 75. If he is a "high potential" player, we could say he has a 50% chance of being an 80-85, 15% chance of being a 85-90, 10% chance of being a 90-95, and 1% chance of being a 95-99 after one season. He then could have a 20% to be a 70-74, and a 4% chance to be less than 70. Of course these numbers could be more specific but that is the general idea.
The same would apply to any player at any point in their career. So for an aging vet who has an overall of 85, he may have 5% chance to get better, 10% chance of staying the same, and 85% chance of getting worse. Again, it would be more detailed, but that illustrates my point.
The Layout: An illustration of how the weighted potential can be laid out. Potentials ranges in increments of five.
Fully customizable, and the points obviously add up to 100 for a clear percentage.
Individual Distribution: You can click Y (or triangle) on a potential range to bring up the
individual percentage chances for each rating. Also fully customizable.
Developmental Factors: There are modifiers to the weighted potential that can positively or negatively affect it. Some examples of development factors that would affect these percentages include boosts from coaches/assistants, injuries, age, game time(can be in need of game time or vice versa, need a year to sit and learn), practice motivation, learning from a vet, and focus in practice.
Impacted Potential: In franchise mode, the impacted potential will be shown as well (In green).
In this case, this wideout has a good WR coach, so his development is positively impacted, as you can see.
Viewing Factors: Here is where you can view how your individual players are being impacted by different factors such as your staff. It would be immersion breaking to have to edit a player to see how they are being impacted.
Age regression: Physicals will degrade as players get older, but we will still have variability incorporated, so we can get the rare Steve Smith or Tom Brady. Players will have different slopes and how steep that slope is will vary. Some players fall off a cliff and some stay afloat for years passed their prime. Basically, there will first be a check to see if a player will lose physical attributes, then a check to see how much will be lost. This is independent of the weighted potential, so a player can become slower but still maintain or increase their overall, indicating that they have adapted to their degrading physicals.
Injury Regression: Injuries are a big factor in losing physical ability. There is less ability to recover from severe injury after either repeated injury (Jamaal Charles) or just being old when the severe injury occurs. When a player is done rehabbing, they may not be able to regain their physical attributes that they had before the injury. A sprained finger won’t have a permanent ratings impact, but a third torn ACL will. In¬juries will decrease your progression odds, and the longer the injury is the worse the effect is. Season long injuries will hamper your chances at progression significantly, as the best players usually hope for is to get back to 100%. This replicates the general delay in development that rookies who get injured in training camp miss out on, and other situations.
Natural regression: Not every player sustains success over their whole careers. There are countless examples of players being one year wonders, have a high but short peak, up and down performances, etc. I’ll acknowledge that some of these cases can be tied to schemes and such, but we have to replicate this not just for simming but also for playing the game, which is why the overalls should change.
Attribute Change
So once an overall is chosen, how do the attributes go up? My solution is player types.
Player Types: There will be many player types, and they will weight attribute chances differently. The game then runs through the attributes, deciding whether or not to add +1, and cycles through until the new overall is reached.
I'll use a run blocking TE as an example, I'll simplify it to a few attributes for the sake of this example, RBK, PBK, CTCH, and Route running. The attributes may be weighted like so:
RBK .6 (60%)
PBK .5 (50%)
CTCH .4 (40%)
RTE .25 (25%)
Let's say we have a run blocking TE progressing from 80 -> 82. The game would then run through these attributes one at a time and decide if the attribute gets a +1. So RBK would have a 60% chance of going up 1, catching 40%. Then it will go through again, until the 82 overall is achieved. This provides a nice balance while still keeping players unique. I was initially concerned with player types making players too similar, but I think this keeps the variability and uniqueness. Provides a lot of potential for tweaking as well.
Attribute Weighting: Attribute weightings, which are determined by the player type, will be displayed
next to the player’s attributes. Can also be fully customizable.
If it is still too confusing, I will contrast pass catching and run blocking TEs.
Run blocking TE:
RBK .6
PBK .5
CTCH .4
RTE .25
Pass catching TE:
RBK .3
PBK .15
CTCH .65
RTE .5
These are obviously just examples, numbers can be tuned to be balanced and more accurate. To me, this is a better progression concept than XP and predetermined potential. This allows for complexity in franchise mode.
Badges: Players can have different badges, which effect progression and make them more unique. These can be positive or negative.
Negative Badge: Players can have issues with their technique or execution, which can affect the attribute progression chance. For example, a QB with a poor throwing motion may have a .1 chance for short accuracy to progress instead of .5, and you have to work on this to get rid of the penalty. Or a pass rushing LB has stiff hips, and he has a .2 for FMV instead of .7.
Positive Badge: In the same vein, players can be proficient at certain attributes, and have boosted chances. A DB with the “Studious” badge may stay up all night watching film and have .9 for Play Rec instead of .45. The possibilities that stem from the system here provide a lot of depth to the mode.
Hindrances: Some players may also suffer from hindrances. These are issues holding back a player’s physical attributes, in more of a one time fashion. For example, a QB with a “flailing elbow” hindrance may have 89 throw power, but if this hindrance is removed it will be a 92. These hindrances are of different degrees, from severe to small obstacle. The degrees determine how hard it is to work off the hindrance, which is explained in the CFM overhaul post.
Decreasing attributes: Decreasing attributes would be weighted like player type, except perhaps closer together to simulate realistic regression. The numbers can be tuned to be realistic, but would work the same way as increasing attributes, except obviously going down.
Timing: Now that everything has been calculated, when should progression occur? Currently, my best idea is that progression should occur during preseason. It is best to go through the offseason using input from your scouts, coaches, and your own intuition. It does not make sense to know exactly who is dropping off, unexpectedly increasing, or treading water, while you make your moves. This is a big layer of complexity for managing a team.
Determining the Next Potential Weighting
Once progression or regression has taken place, the new potential must be determined. Here, I do not have exact numbers to use, but that is what game developers are for. The idea here is that it will be a combination of two things, player situation and previous potential weighting.
Player Situation: Quite straightforward, the player situation is a large factor in determining the new weighted potential. Using data of how players have done in the same situation, a general weighting can be put together. For example, a rookie QB who goes from a 78 to an 85 after one season, how has this faired in the past? Well we can see that 50% of them became 90s in the next season, 25% stayed high 80s, and 25% regressed. So a general template is here for the player.
Previous Weighting: The player’s previous potential weighting will also be taken into account. So let’s say we have two QBs who just went from 78 to 85 as rookies. But, one was taken as the next big thing at the first pick, and had a 80% chance in the 90-95 potential range, while the other was a 7th round pick, who had a 5% chance in the 90-95 range. While they both are in the same situation, the QB taken 1st will still have a better outlook for the future, and they will not have the exact same potential ranges now.
Franchise Effects?
All aspects of franchise are affected by this. Player interactions and team management are now complex and satisfying. The draft is also affected because instead of taking project players and being confident you can build them up (ex. 95 speed 50 catch 60 route running 6'3 WR) you have to value the non-physical attributes and potential more. I don't know about others but the physical freaks in this year’s online CFM would always go high and this is also an issue with gameplay that speed matters so much but I think the system could help a bit.
This also makes dealing with older players a bit more interesting because once they hit 30 they won't automatically be useless, and you'd have to make tough choices that could backfire in terms of hanging onto a player or giving the spot to the younger back up.
There are countless examples that can be made. Ultimately, I think this system makes franchise more fun to play and makes managing players more important. It doesn't have the "cheesiness" of the XP system but is also unpredictable, instead of repetitive and boring like the old potential system.
I am going to try to give a detailed example below for those who didn't get what I was saying from the above.
Example
Draft Day: Ok, it is the big day! Your 5-star head scout says WR Pickle Cucumber has high potential and your 3-star regional scout says WR Pickle Cucumber has very high potential. You go ahead and draft him at #10. He is a 79 OVR and you look at his percentages as a rookie, 50% chance of 80-84, 10% chance of 85-89, 8% chance of 90-94, 2% chance of 95-99. He also has a 15% chance of 75-79, 10% chance of 70-74, and 5% chance of 60-69
(You would not know the actual percentages unless you looked through the player editing screen. But this is easier for the sake of an example).
Coach Development Proficiencies: Your offensive coordinator only has boosts for veterans, particularly QBs, so no help to Pickle Cucumber here. Your WR coach's specialty is young WR, so Pickle Cucumber gets a 2% boost to 85-89, and 2% less chance of 60-69.
First Progression: Pickle Cucumber has a great rookie year, does not get hurt, and you have identified he does not take practice seriously, so you have him be focused on in practice. (Perhaps practice focus decreases 60-69 by another 3% and increases 80-84 by that 3%). At the end of the season, Pickle Cucumber's potential percentages are finalized, and Madden rolls the dice. The 85-89 gets selected, and now he is an 88 (I would say this could be more specific, i.e. 13% of 85-89 = 3% 85, 3% 86, 4% 87, 2% 88, 1% 89).
Down the Road: This process continues, his career is free of serious injuries, time passes and now he is 32 years old at an overall of 94. In week 2, he tears his ACL and MCL, and is out for the year. A 32 year old WR suffering a major knee injury has a high chance of losing some physical attributes, and unfortunately after rehab, you learn Pickle has become slower. His percentages are now something like 14% chance of 70-79, 20% chance of 80-84, 50% chance of 85-89, 15% chance of 90-94, and 1% chance of 95-99. The season ends and his overall is... 87. His next season he is not as good as pre-injury, but he recovered pretty well. Or if it is chosen to be a 76, he is probably getting cut and has to find a new team or retire. Or maybe he is chosen to be a 93, and sees nearly no drop off, maybe he adapted very well to losing a step by improving other areas. You can think of infinite situations and have so many storylines for all different outcomes, but that should clarify what potential this system would have. The percentages could also be quite realistic in my opinion because the Madden devs can just look at how overalls of players have changed over the years and program the percentages accordingly. Thank you for reading my suggestion!
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