Some ratings I'm thinking about changing...

[Rocky]

I'm looking at starting a new franchise to the release of Madden 11 and want to change some ratings to balance out the gameplay a little bit.

Some ratings I'm looking at:

Decreasing jumping for defensive players -20.

Increasing man coverage for S's and LB's +10.

Increasing press for S's and LB's +20.

Any more idea's?

[mburke2]

That sounds like a good idea and I can definitely appreciate where your coming from since DBs (and all defensive players for that matter) tend to jump out of the building to knock down passes and catch INTs. The problems with the press and man coverage ratings for Safeties and LBs I haven't noticed that much personally. But the jumping definitely needs to be toned down. The one issue I would bring up for you is that idk if lowering (or raising as it may be) these ratings will amount to much improvement in the gameplay and the reason I say this is because it seems that ratings don't have as much of an impact as we want to believe. Maybe it depends on the difficulty level that the game is played on or the slider sets or whatever, but I've seen videos of punters and kickers as offensive lineman that held back a defensive line comprised of Freeny, Hanseworth and other All-Pro level talent. Regardless of the skill level, this SHOULD NOT be in the game.

But you should definitely try this theory since it could work, but I wouldn't be too hopeful. Either way good luck and report back after playing some games to see if the game plays more realistically. Hopefully you prove me wrong and ratings actually DO make a difference.

[Rocky]

Alright, I finally got around to tinkering with some of these. I also changed were TE's and FB's run block ratings. I added 10-15 to each run blocking category.

The results were very promising (especially on fast gameplay). I'll post more later.

[huskerwr38]

how did you go about doing all of this?

[mburke2]

Quote: Originally Posted by huskerwr38

how did you go about doing all of this?

You can edit rosters, including players' attributes, from the main menu of the game. He must have made all of his ratings adjustments before starting his new franchise.

[reyes the roof]

The only problem I'd see with this is, what happens when you start drafting guys and can't edit them? It shouldn't be too big of a problem as long as you don't get too far into your franchise and rosters don't become full of drafted guys you can't edit

[RedZoneD25]

This works wonders. I played All-Pro, 10 min/20sec accel

EDIT: Here are most stats from the 2nd game I played on these settings, Eagles vs. Cowboys which ended up being my most epic game ever.

Score: PHI 24, DAL 23

Offense- PHI 376 DAL 321
Turnovers- PHI 4 DAL 3
T.O.P- PHI 25:30 DAL 14:30

Passing-
PHI McNabb 37.1 QBR 16/32 123yd 1td 3int (Only played 1st half, benched for Kolb due to 3int)
PHI Kolb 97.1 QBR 19/28 199yd 2td 1int
DAL Romo 68.3 QBR 8/22 230yd 2td 2int

Rushing-

PHI Westbrook 8att 35yd
DAL Jones 19att 53yd
DAL Barber 6att 38yd
PHI McNabb 2att 15yd
PHI Kolb 2att 10yd

Receiving-

DAL Jones 2rec 82yd 1td
DAL Crayton 2rec 81yd 1td
PHI Avant 7rec 75yd
PHI Jackson 7rec 71yd 1yd
PHI Weaver 8rec 47yd 2td
DAL Williams 1rec 34yd
DAL Witten 2rec 35yd
PHI Maclin 1rec 22yd
PHI Celek 1rec 19yd
PHI McCoy 4rec 55yd
PHI Westbrook 6rec 18yd
DAL Austin 0rec 0yd (Good job Asante)

Defense:

Sacks- DAL: Ware(1), Spears(1) PHI: None
INT- DAL: Sensabaugh(2), Newman(1), Ware(1) PHI: Brown(1), Bradley(1)
FF- DAL: Brooking(1), James(1) PHI: Jordan(1)
FR- DAL: None PHI: Jordan(1)
TDs: None

ST:

KR- DAL: Jones 5KR, 128yd PHI: Hobbs 5KR, 148yd
PR- DAL: Crayton 2PR, 16yd PHI: Jackson 4PR, 66yd


Summary:

Eagles score first, up 7-0 early.
Dallas takes one play to tie, on a 73yd pass to Crayton. 7-7
Eagles turn it over, Suisham gives Dallas a small cushion. 10-7
Eagles throw another pick, another FG for Dallas. 13-7
Eagles punt, Romo to Felix Jones on a 33yd TD. 20-7
Eagles throw 3rd pick of half, Suisham makes his 3rd. 23-7 HALF

-Kolb comes in for McNabb after his horrendous 1st half.

Eagles kick to Dallas to start 2nd half, and force a punt.
Kolb leads team downfield in the only score of the 3rd. 23-14
4th Q starts, Eagles D holds and Akers kicks 3. 23-17 with 3:59 left
Eagles hold Dallas to punt, but burn 2 timeouts with 2:53 left.
Weaver shines, Eagles go up 1 with 26 sec left. 24-23
Romo goes 4 and out, getting stopped on 4th and 2 on a Samuel swat.
Eagles kneel, complete improbable comeback.


A very fun game to play, but take those passing stats into consideration for a few reasons:

-For the entire 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarters I had to switch to an extremely pass heavy offense and play catch-up.

-I made a few BAD throws that were realistic picks, there were no INTs I didn't think were legit.

-Romo threw 8 times all game, thanks to good pass D and inability to shut down Felix. He had 230 yards because of 2 huge plays early on. My D was solid from there on out considering I shut them out in the 2nd half.

All in all, these "sliders" a.k.a ratings editing make it more realistic because no longer do the DBs have 3-story vertical jumps. Most of the INTs were from CB/S playing the ball very well, and Ware was on the ground on a wayward pass. Great game, great idea to edit these settings. I'm going to do 4-5 teams a day because it does get tedious.

[mikeacard]

linebackers and safties getting a bump in coverage will make the game much better. when i play online i usually have a corner at one of the saftey spots and i put a saftey at one of my OLB spots. the saftey's usually have good enough man ratings that they can stick with the running backs in the flats and the corner playing saftey really helps with the downfield coverage.


i think they went a little overboard with some of their rating's drops this year because linebackers are almost useless in man coverage on default settings.