Madden tiebreakers determined by alphabetical order!

[westgawolf]

I'm glad I found this thread. I'm up late and need to vent. The playoff seeding in Madden 11 is apparently broken too. I just spent about 11 hours simming every game from the 2010 season one game at a time in franchise mode to exactly mirror what happened in the NFL this season so I could play the real life playoff games in the playoff format since the devs only put in a super bowl mode and not a playoff mode (which I'd like to see added in the future). Anyway, I finish simming the last game of week 17 accurately and the game then goes to wild card week. Somehow, the Giants get the 2nd wildcard spot in the NFC and the Packers are out. Now either the NFL messed up and screwed the Giants royally, or the playoff seeding in Madden 11 is broken. Hmmm....I wonder which is more likely. I believe this is the ultimate test to prove this fact. I feel like I've just wasted all that time. If anyone knows how to fix this I'd love to know. (Steps down from soapbox.)

[Joshmac28]

I should be able to shed some light into this.

We are currently into week 17 in our online franchise.

The Lions and Vikings are both 14-2 Split regular season games 5-1 in the division and 11-1 in the conference.

So....

Vikings have the edge in SOV (.413 v .378) and SOS (.467 v .459)
Lions have the edge in confer net points, and overall net points.

Lions also have the edge in net points in the two games...as Vikings won by 6 and Lions won by 28.

So, we shall see..

right now, my guess is Vikings get it based on SOV

[sixzero]

well what happened? Can we get an update guys? lol...

[slickdtc]

Just finished Season #2 in a separate Buffalo Bills franchise using Madden 10. Had an interesting scenario in the NFC. Seeds all seemed right. Well, according to Madden playoff philosophy. I know division record and conference record are the big ones, but after that, it seemed like a coin toss (or alphabetical order). But I believe I found the key.

In the NFC, the order is this:
1 DAL 13-3
2 SF 10-6
3 TB 8-8
4 GB 8-8 (3-3 division, thus the tie break over CHI)
5 SEA 9-7 (5-1 division, thus the tie break over ARZ)
6 NYG 9-7 (I believe had a better conference record then ARZ. Also, were 3-3 in division though they don't play in the same one as ARZ, I think it still holds some weight)
--
7 ARZ 9-7 (2-4 division)
8 CHI 8-8 (2-4 division)
9 NOR 8-8

I was wondering why NOR did not get in over TB, despite having the same division record (won and lost a head to head game) and same conference record. NOR scored more points then TB too. They allowed a lot, I'll have to check the differential and totals but I don't think that really even factors in. NOR had a better point differential in their 2 games versus TB too.

They key lie in the division standings for the NFC South. ATL finished 7-9, CAR finished 3-13.

Since NOR and TB play in the same division, they had roughly the same schedule. I jotted down TB's wins and losses, and compared it to NOR's wins and losses. A little cross referencing and the one big thing that jumped out was this: NOR had beaten CAR twice, but lost to ATL twice. TB had beat and lost to CAR once, and beat and lost to ATL once.

CAR was the weaker opponent, thus NOR's 2-2 CAR/ATL record held less weight then TB's 2-2 record.

Or I could be 100% completely off. We may never know until someone that actually does know for certain comes out and says what the formula is.

But it did appear to smash the alphabetical order philosophy since New Orleans Saints would come before Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Unless we're going just by team name, and not city. Ugh!