Madden 22 Scouting Update Impressions

[PhillyPhanatic14]

Quote: Originally Posted by btvs

I don’t want to sound negative and ungrateful for something new but it’s very underwhelming. I feel like it’s just boring and we really don’t do much… it’s really just a waste of time. I wonder if we can go use other scouting

Perfect summary. The old system wasn't good, but this isn't necessarily better - it's just different. It's better in some ways and way way way worse in other ways. I've gone through 2 seasons with it and I'm just unimpressed and bored. Scouting went from a year round thing in Madden to something that has the same results whether you touch it or not... you could ignore it all year, hop into the draft and see the prospects for the first time, and have just as much success as you would by watching players "move up and down the board" all year long... There's basically 0 player involvement in this new system.

[Grey_Osprey]

Not impressed. You really don't "do" a heck of a lot, but it seems more time consuming and has questionable draft logic.

In a test franchise, the Falcons (#1), Eagles (#2), Jets (#4), and Lions (#5), all drafted QB's in the 1st rd. So I guess the EAGLES, Jets, and Lions all gave up on their QB's after 1 year. Browns picked a HB at #29 with Chubbs and Hunt still on the roster. I guess it could have been a "best available" scenario, but it would have been nice to see them trade out if a need position wasn't available. Assuming the cpu is capable of trading.

Saints let all their QB's go. Winston ended up in Pittsburgh, while the Saints ended up with a 63 OVR f/a as their top QB. Not scouting related, but the cpu ai leaves a lot to be desired, especially when it comes to roster management. Would have been nice if they addressed cpu ai roster management and draft logic in conjunction with the scouting update.

Glad I saved a base file under the old scouting system. It does get "patched" when you open it, but the scouting doesn't change.

Sent from my SM-S205DL using Operation Sports mobile app

[coachmac75]

Quote: Originally Posted by spfhelmiii

Meaning that you play with 31 (or so) other users? A lot of us don't have much time to game, so being able to keep up with the pace of online leagues and schedule user vs. user matches is tough.

I appreciate that and i know it is frustrating.

This just highlights how bad the AI is and they may fix it one day.
But I have been playing a lot of sports games offline for a very long time (FM, OOTP, NBA2k, MLB the show, NHL, ...) they absolutely all have that issue and often it is very bad. Football Manager AI to manage/develop team is garbage.

BUT unlike most of these games Madden (because of 17 games season) has THE perfect format for a good online franchise.

Now i dont want to digress from the topic. I have done a deep dive in the scouting. I dont get what people complain about.

• We used to know 3 (best) attributes per players often totally irrelevant (i.e. OL).
• Now we get a picture of each single prospect physical potential at the first step.
• Then we get minimum 4 attributes (40%) for each single prospect.
• We get a description of each single prospects profile and fits can be used to determine prospect archetype.

So we have a pretty good view of the draft class from week 1-2 instead of waiting for combine results.

Now it is not fed directly in the mouth anymore you have to do your due dilligence and you need to work out these data but all information is there.

The way scout reports are writenm is very very good.

Then:

• You can get an improved view for some prospects based on scout skills and position focus
• And we can go much deeper for a very few prospects (6) but it is not 100% for these 6 it depends on scouts.
• A LOT of information are there and you always have access to these information including PO and any offseason step (thank you EA it was so dumb before to loose visibility on rookie class).

The huge change is since disclosed attributes are random you have no clue what are the top 3 attributes and it makes more difficult to figure out the "real" value of a prospect.

This opens inherent uncertainty of any real draft.
This makes the game more challenging and closer to what building a team from the draft is.

"the key is not to acquire draft picks, the key is to use these draft picks to draft good players" Jimmy Johnson

And it is not straight forward otherwise 3-5 years after a draft you would not see half of drafted players out of the league.

Nobody can argue that this change makes Madden much closer to what a NFL scouting is.

There is room for improvement with position breakdown (having edge or off ball LB isntead of LOLB/ROLB etc) or simply UI they could give indeed more sort /filters features. but the core scouting/draft is there. They could give us college stats to help assess the value.

This is the best game change ever done since passing cone.
Like vision cone it is an ambitious design decision to make the game closer to am immersive simulation.

Thank you EA for giving football fans a feature which favours football IQ/immersion vs click and win.

[Cory Levy]

Quote: Originally Posted by coachmac75

And it is not straight forward otherwise 3-5 years after a draft you would not see half of drafted players out of the league. Nobody can argue that this change makes Madden much closer to what a NFL scouting is.

I feel like I'm going to be a worn out record having to reiterate how nonsensical it is to put forth the notion that this idea of scouting is in any way, shape or form realistic. What teams are sending scouts out to report back on a CB's block shedding ability first and foremost? What team doesn't want to know a WR's route running ability and catching ability alongside his athletic traits before anything else?


Modern NFL teams know every last bit of information about every single prospect in every single draft class regardless of where they're coming from. To think they go in blind in any way into the draft is honestly absurd. Restricting prospect information reflects no amount of realism.


Again, the draft being a crap-shoot and prospects not panning out has little to do with the draft or the scouting process. There's a mountain of things that go into an NFL player's career and how successful it is and all of those things start the minute AFTER they're drafted. Unfortunately, Madden replicates very few of those things.



Forcing that idea into the draft and scouting process by hampering players is neither a well thought out or well executed idea at all.

[m1ke_nyc]

Is it possible for scouts to miss on their evaluations ? Say they scout a CB and give him an A for coverage but it turns out he’s really a C. Is that in the new system ?

[tyler289]

This is pretty terrible/underwhelming considering it's a copy of NHL's scouting system, which is way, way superior in every way. Sad that this is going to be their gift to franchise mode for a couple years when it's really boring, easily ignored and mostly non-sensical.

It does help me even out the league by not getting sleepers all over the draft but I'm also drafting players almost entirely blind. I get a WR scouted to 99% and I don't even know their catching ability. So dumb.

[coachmac75]

Quote: Originally Posted by Cory Levy

What teams are sending scouts out to report back on a CB's block shedding ability first and foremost? What team doesn't want to know a WR's route running ability and catching ability alongside his athletic traits before anything else?

Before you did not necessarily knew SRR either but you knew from the value of the other top 3 what it could be and in 2s you could figure out the value of that WR.

This is where in my opinion the game goes much closer to what scouting is. You dont get an attribute value you get a bunch of information and by combining you get a sense of the WR value.

Agreed you may not know the SRR attribute value but looking at:
- the scout report
- figuring out archetype from fits
- and the few attributes you get

you can have an assessment of the player value and this assessment has uncertainty in it.

Before it was impossible to mess up now it is just like it is irl.
That is why for me they made a massive step in the right direction for suimulation football.

[ktd1976]

Quote: Originally Posted by PhillyPhanatic14

Yup and you can't rearrange the players, you can't add players to your "favorites" once the draft starts. It's very poor.

You can rearrange them before the draft.