Serious Question For EA: Player Ratings

[Guillotine 1]

By using the ratings system to grade scale the players abilities/attributes from 1-99, how does Madden account for peaks & lows in a players performence from week to week?

Even the best players in the NFL don't have signature games every game, sometimes a player will play to the level of his competition. Other players may play well early, and struggle later in the season & into the playoffs.

Are you doing anything to make the numerical values assigned to the players ratings more human, and/or subject to fluctuation during franchise play?

Please say yes...

[Jamie Mac]

That is a good question. I am wondering the same actually. Most players are consistently great throughout the year. Most players experience highs and lows, especially QBs. I know QBs like Romo and McNabb have their games in which they struggle.

[salbowski]

This might be a tad off-topic and im sorry to the op for that...my idea probably won't go down well either but...

I think player ratings should only be changed once every 4 weeks so we can get a realistic and deserved rating change... by all means do the roster update (players relsease, signed, position changed, depth chart, injured) but only update the players abilities every 4 weeks... this would allow for a dramatic change to a player... for example... LT runs for 400+ yards in the first 4 games= boost back to 97/98

BUT

if he continues his form from last year then drop him to 92/93.

less frequent changes would encourage more dramatic rating changes rather than the usual +/- 1 that seems pointless most of the time.

[Guillotine 1]

Quote: Originally Posted by salbowski

This might be a tad off-topic and im sorry to the op for that...my idea probably won't go down well either but... I think player ratings should only be changed once every 4 weeks so we can get a realistic and deserved rating change... by all means do the roster update (players relsease, signed, position changed, depth chart, injured) but only update the players abilities every 4 weeks... this would allow for a dramatic change to a player... for example... LT runs for 400+ yards in the first 4 games= boost back to 97/98 BUT if he continues his form from last year then drop him to 92/93. less frequent changes would encourage more dramatic rating changes rather than the usual +/- 1 that seems pointless most of the time.

I think this is a pretty, solid and well thought idea. I actually am not a fan of the numerical ratings system, and I think EA would be better served to not try and say at what level a given player can perform because we've seen that its far more unpredictable than that.

What about heart? Desire?

You just can't say a man can only be capable of a certain levle of performence because as a human we're able to exceed that level...and also to play far below it.

[Synkopated]

Honestly some of this would be solved with the fatigue feature. Ian talked about progressive fatigue so that the max endurance lowers throughout the game, it would be nice if endurance also affected all physical type attributes: Speed, Strength etc.

But Guillotine; people don't want to start out an online game where Chris Johnson has 95 speed instead of 99. They want to have a fair and dependable online match. I could see this as being a very innovative franchise feature, though.