Does CFM respect real-life slated opponents?

[T4VERTS]

Quote: Originally Posted by adembroski

Given that preseason games are skipped at something like an 88% clip, I can see why it hasn't been a priority, but I feel like at least just flat randomizing it would be an improvement.

The sad reality is it was about avoiding land mines. It's skipped so often that most don't know it's a problem and to those it is a problem it hasn't created a ton of uproar. If they point out the change as a new feature then people who would have never looked will get upset the pre season games don't reflect real life yearly match ups. Almost a damned if you do damned if you don't situation unless they can offer something similar to your first paragraph.

We are at a point where there are some decisions getting made to flat out avoid the venom that gets thrown EA's way. They know they have limited resources so in some cases they let sleeping dogs lie in order to get to more prevalent issues.

[adembroski]

Quote: Originally Posted by briz1046

The preseason SHOULD be one of the more interesting aspects of playing franchise mode , but unfortunately virtually everything that makes it interesting in real life ( for those of us who do find it interesting above and beyond not having seen a NFL game for 6 months) is absent or poorly represented in Madden

I know the last-gen position battles were a popular feature. I didn't like them much as a developer because I felt like I was forcing the player think of preseason as a burden, forcing him to play meaningless games just to make sure the guy he wanted to start got enough stats to win his position battle.

I spent a lot of time struggling with this issue as I'd hoped to address it for Madden 25.

Let me spitball a moment...

I'm going to ignore memory concerns here because I don't know what the CFM RAM situation is anymore (it was bad for '13, we had to cut a lot due to RAM budget. This is why you can't view the All Teams CFM roster and free agency has a "Top 100" tab instead of all players).

First off, if I'm going to have position battles, I'm going to make it user-definable. So I'm going to allow players to categorize players as; Camp body, bubble player (automatically in a Position Battle with other Bubble Players at his position or related position), or lock.

Next, CPU generated position battles like in '05. However, I'm going to allow the user to declare a winner at any point. If it says I've got a position battle between Josh Allen and A.J. McCarron and I already know I'm going with McCarron, I can just state it outright and end the battle, no penalty.

For the battles I want to let play out, I'm going to include substitution logic to ensure the two get roughly equal playing time in pre-season games. For example, if we're talking about the 2nd preseason game, I'll have the 2nd man in the battle come in in the 2nd quarter so he takes half the 1st team snaps.

Next, I'm going to rework the logic to be less about traditional stats and more about what I might call scouting stats. This is good plays/bad plays. Rather than saying, one guy had 5 catches for 37 yards and a touchdown s. 2 catches for 73 yards and 2 touchdowns, I'm going to track how often the guy won his "opposed checks" on the field (i.e. even if he didn't get the ball, he beat his corner on the route running vs. man cover check), I'm going to use that deeper data because it's useful data for the user.

Finally, the position battle will come down to the user's preference. Madden 05 gave the team a morale penalty if you named the loser of the position battle starter. I'll do that, but only when the difference is clear and obvious. If it's close, I'm going to let the user pick without penalty (or maybe just a penalty to the winner's confidence).

Also, "Learning" attribute and playbook knowledge. Preseason can be used to work on plays and get players familiar.

[adembroski]

Quote: Originally Posted by T4VERTS

The sad reality is it was about avoiding land mines. It's skipped so often that most don't know it's a problem and to those it is a problem it hasn't created a ton of uproar. If they point out the change as a new feature then people who would have never looked will get upset the pre season games don't reflect real life yearly match ups. Almost a damned if you do damned if you don't situation unless they can offer something similar to your first paragraph. We are at a point where there are some decisions getting made to flat out avoid the venom that gets thrown EA's way. They know they have limited resources so in some cases they let sleeping dogs lie in order to get to more prevalent issues.

The more I think about it, the more I think it's about interface and system design. I think a really interesting "mini-game" could be made out of preseason if it's presented right and it's deep. I mean, you need real-time update stuff during the game, and lots of it. It needs to feel like preseason is its own thing and has a real, tangible effect on your upcoming season.

But, again, the focus has to be different. I'd love to find a way to get CFM players to beg their commissioners not to skip the preseason. It feels like a wasted opportunity not to do something with it.

[therealsmallville]

I play every preseason game, even though the scheduling is so boring, but I'm a weird cat. Basically, a couple seasons in and I have my team where I want it, roster-wise. Which means I'm mostly drafting for depth, and picking up the oddball free agent here or there to fill a gap if needed (injury related, mostly). But I find preseason to be a blast because it's the only time I play with "new players" (i.e., guys I don't see every single game).

As I said, my roster is usually set by the end of year 2. But one of my favorite things to do each offseason is draft some random QB to see if he makes the team as my #3 (I always carry 3 QB's every season). I do this for other skill positions as well, and I create my own position battles...it takes a lot of patience, and you really have to pay close attention to things, but I think it's fun. I do the following for most positions, but I'll keep the example to the QB:

Game 1: Starters on offense play 1 drive, then they are done (if the drive is 3-and-out, I will do 2 drives). After that, I manually sub in the backups*. QB2 will play the rest of the half, and the 3rd quarter. QB3 plays all of the 4th.

*Note: at the start of quarter 2, the game auto subs a few guys I may have missed while manually subbing. So I always have to go through position by position & re-correct things.

Game 2: QB2 starts the game, plays first half*. QB3 plays all of second half.

*Note: QB2 starts the game with regular starters at other positions. Starters play all of quarter 1.

Game 3: QB1 & all starters play first half. I inow the cpu doesn't do this, but I do. QB2 plays all of second half. This is my dress rehearsal game.

Game 4: QB3 plays the entire game, along with a mix of backups and guys I want to get a better look at. No starters touch the field.

It's not entirely realistic, and the cpu certainly does not sub this way so occasional advantages for me or the cpu are there, but it is what it is. Sometimes I'll have 4 QB's in the preseason, so I will modify how I approach things to get them equal playing time. And again, I do this for all of the fun positions (I don't worry so much about lineman)...sometimes I like having a lefty QB because I always roll with righty's, or sometimes I like to mix it up on a guy just because his number looks cool with his stock equipment, or an alternate jersey I don't usually wear. I've had many instances where that QB3 became #2.

Preseason is a blast, for me, because I get a little creative with it. I wish it was big enough to get a lot of attention from the devs, but I understand why it doesn't. A few years back when they included AI subbing at different quarters in certain games was a nice step, though.


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