Rex's Reflections on Madden 18 and the Future

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by Nunyerbiz

Even if a EA Dev was reading this, and they desperately wanted to improve player progression, that quoted sentence is so vaguely worded as to be meaningless. What is a real life variable that impacts how actual football players progress? How can these variables be measured? How can these variables be insolated as to prove correlation to a performance gain / decrease?

Those real life variables have been listed on OS many times. You've been here since 2010. My guess is you've seen them listed. Just look down a couple of posts and Big listed some of them for you.

If you're unable to answer those questions you've asked above, I'm glad you're not a game developer.

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by Nunyerbiz

You can add as many additional abstraction layers on top as you like... Mental ratings and the progression of mental ratings can only be guesswork on top of some more guesswork. Nobody knows why players perform well for Bill Belichick

Nobody is suggesting mimic real life. That's impossible. But there is a difference between Tom Brady/Aaron Rodgers football IQ and Johnny Manziel. Abstract them somehow. Maybe open up the playbook to better QB's and limit the playbook to the Manziel's. A feature from Head Coach. How about Manziel never progresses in football playbook.

We do know that players perform better for Belicheck. Simulate that. If Belicheck is a good teacher, then have his players progress better under him. If he is a better talent evaluater, then have perceived player ratings be more accurate for Bill. Then you would need some way to display inaccurate player ratings. Maybe like Head Coach did with ratings ranges.
Does Bill do a better job of hiring assistants? Oh, how about hiring a coaching staff with their own teaching, player evaluation attributes.

There are a ton of things to add that would make progression much more realistic. Simulation and mimicing are two different things. I'm not looking to mimic players and coaches progressing in the NFL. Just looking for a more realistic control over how players progress in my NFL video game world.

[jfsolo]

Maybe it isn't this way for some of the people who only play in 32 man leagues, I can't speak for them, but I feel like I can safely say that most single player CFM players strongly desire an immersive Franchise experience. A little thing like a player improving his Route Running 10 points during the off-season, because of a "work ethic" rating and having a top flight WR coach, pumps you up way more than just adding those points yourself, because your guy caught X number of passes during the season. It's about the perception of what constitutes real life development rather than it trying to be some absolute mimicry, or being an omnipotent developer of players. All that is to say, it's just more fun.

[roadman]

It's all about options and more options for the players.

I play single CFM offline controlling just one team and all I want to do in between games, (with the exception of negotiations) is automate and keep clicking to the next game.

People that want to spend more time in CFM, want a deeper immersion and I applaud, endorse and stand behind that.

There is plenty of room for all of that.

[T4VERTS]

One of the issues with the current xp structure is that xp, and in turn the rating increase you get from it, is the reward of performance where as most people expect the performance itself to be the reward of improved player ratings. It's almost a self fulfilling prophecy when you reward people for throwing for 4k yards with xp, as those 4k yards arguably are the result of having good enough ratings to throw that well.

The idea of ratings increasing and decreasing organically is ideal. How we go about doing this is up in the air, and honestly it has no right or wrong answer. I do agree though that the concept of being able to force singular improvement in one skill through xp dumping is a bad system.

[Devaster]

Quote: Originally Posted by mjd113

In regards to the CPUs usage of XP I think it’s a big part of the AI team building concept. Try starting a CFM without Cincinnati cutting Joe Mixon and replacing him with a 68 ovr RB. Watch KC going into the offseason with 78 ovr Mahomes, 80 ovr Smith, and then sign 82 ovr Teddy Bridgewater. The entire AI Team Building concept is non existent. And people ask for teams to play/build like they do in real life. The flip side of that is when Manning would leave the Colts and the next QB would act the exact same way as he did in regards to the playclock and audibles. My opinion of XP is not positive. In real life. Players get better, and then preform better. In Madden, players preform better, and then in return “get better”. I don’t know what the right answer is, I don’t even know what my answe would be anymore. All I know is what’s going on right now isn’t it. Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

Funny enough a lot of the NFL moves made have also been made in my Cloud CFM without me touching CPU teams. The Bengals cut/traded Jeremy Hill at the start and kept Mixon. The Chargers traded away Gates because he was old. And after Alex Smith's contract was done they didn't re-sign him. Now the Chiefs have been starting a mid 80's OVR Mahomes. The Chiefs also still have Ware backing up Hunt and just signed hunt to a monster extension after his rookie contract ended.

The Vikings have cut Bridgewater and moved on to a young future QB after he played behind Bradford for a couple seasons.

Saints found a young stud QB to develop after Brees retired. Chargers have done the same after Rivers retired. The Steelers have a young stud QB that sat on the bench behind Ben for a few seasons and is now the starter. Big Ben moved on to a QB needy team like the Jets in his twilight.

The Giants signed Jimmy G after he became a FA and Eli retired. I thought about moving him to the 49ers, but the 49ers just drafted a young QB with Quick development in the recent draft so I decided against it. At least the Giants have their QB of the future now.

Patriots are starting Hundley after Brady retired. They didn't prepare for Brady's retirement, just like the Patriots in real life aren't after trading away Jimmy G. The Patriots did go to 3 straight SB's in Brady's last 3 seasons in my CFM. I imagine if the Patriots weren't as good as they were Brady might have retired earlier.

The Browns are still the Browns, although they do have an abnormal amount of players with Quick/Superstar development. Don't know how that happened, but I think a lot of them had the development traits to begin with. The Browns also had a lot of cap space to spend in FA and have players like Landon Collins on their team and some other expensive FA's. They finally moved on from the ****ty Kizer and just drafted a 78 OVR Normal development QB. Maybe the Browns finally have a QB?

Bears struggling with Trubisky as their starter.

Overall I have been pretty pleased with the team building in my CFM. Very realistic so far. And luckily the CPU hasn't been drafting a lot of unnecessary players, especially at QB. The Chargers do have two young studs, but it is because their back-up QB started at 74 OVR with Quick development. Took him a few seasons to reach 78 or 79 OVR. But I think it made sense for the Chargers to draft the 80 or 81 OVR Superstar QB last season, because now that QB is around 90 OVR after winning OROY, OPOY, and Best QB.

I've started toning down some XP sliders, especially at RB because there are far too many 80-84 OVR HB's in my league. I think once you find good settings it plays very well. Which is all I can ask for right now.

[Nunyerbiz]

Quote: Originally Posted by Aestis

Philosophically, you are 100% on point. But there are ways to get closer to the mark using only the tools at a dev team's disposal, which is effectively just building a framework for controlling ratings movement over time. Don't let the impossibility of perfection paralyze you from improvement.

I'm not against improved AI logic or different progression methods or adding complexity or depth or any other changes at first blush. I've been an OOTP guy for the last 12 or 15 years or however long it's been. I enjoy management sims. I'd guess that OOTP probably has more math under the hood for how mental traits impact player progression then say The Show... doesn't mean one or the other can lay claim to more realistic results. That was the only point I had to make.

[Big FN Deal]

@bucky60, Aestis and whom every else it concerns, that poster knows wtf people are referring to, they are clearly just trolling and as the saying goes "don't feed the trolls". I thought that might be the case from the jump and looking at the post history confirmed it. It's a consistent shtick that's seen in the post history, going back to at least 2012.

In terms of XP, if removing it isn't an option, it would be nice to at least have an option to have it's allocation dictated by coaching/staffs, limitations/caps based on injury history, system, chemistry, etc and a way to hide it all. At least then there is a more realistic context to how in-game players progress/regress.