Player Potential

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dwaresacksqb

I'm not sure. I couldn't find one. But I personally hate player potential.

W/O it, progression based on stats with unlimited potential is HIGHLY unrealistic. Stats based/unlimited potential is very ARCADY, not realistic.

Quote: Originally Posted by Dwaresacksqb

Why madden feels this is realistic and even considers putting it in the game Is beyond me.

It's essential, if we want realism. Everybody has a potential max. Everyone having unlimited potential is highly unrealistic.

Quote: Originally Posted by Dwaresacksqb

Arian foster could have never been rated as high as he is in last years madden because of it.

There are Arian Foster's in the game. They are the lower rated players with high potential. These are your Arian Fosters. W/O a potential cap, EVERYONE in the league IS AN ARIAN FOSTER.

Quote: Originally Posted by Dwaresacksqb

If my two starting running backs get injured and I need a 60 sum overall player to take over the whole year, I should beable turn the kid into a star if I somehow put up monster numbers.

Being able to take any 60 rated player and turn him into a superstar is by definition unrealistic.

Quote: Originally Posted by Dwaresacksqb

How can they not see the flaw in this? Isn't guys like Tony romo, miles Austin, Matt Shaub, arian foster and so on and so on proof enough that u can't put that type of restriction on a player.

Because it's not a flaw if we want realism. Tony Romo, Miles Austin, Matt Shaub, Arian Foster all have a potential in real life. There potential is fairly high, but none of them have unlimited potential. The game, having limited potential for every player does provide for all these examples to happen. In the game, there are high round (4-5-6-7) draft picks and undrafted free agents with A potential. These are your Romo's, Austin's, Shaub's and Foster's. What you are looking for, with your examples, is for the game to completely MIMIC what happens in real life. The game, with a capped potential, will do progression from year to year. What you are looking for is the game to re-evaluate a player based on there real life stats. The only way you will get that is with Roster Updates. Unlimited potential, with a stats based progression will not guarantee that player A in Madden will get the same kind of progression that he will get in real life next year.

Quote: Originally Posted by Dwaresacksqb

Atleast give us a option to turn it off. All they are doing is hindering the quality of the game for something that is flawed anyway. Sorry for rambling on but this feature is my least favorite by a mile.

I could go with an option. If you want an unrealistic, arcady, stats based progression then that's what you want. Just, please, don't muck up my realism for your arcady. And it's not hindering the quality of the game, limited potential is enhancing the quality of the game. It's needs to be greatly expanded to be much more realistic. Actual potential, actual ratings (both overall and individual) should be hidden, and we should only see perceived potential, and ratings. The perceived ratings should only be as accurate as how well your GM, Coaching Staff and Scouts are at evaluating players. The perceived numbers should get more accurate the longer the player is in the NFL and on your team. Progression should be based on things like players ability to learn, players work ethic, coaching staffs ability to teach, team mentors at the players position, playing time, the players potential, etc. But most definitely, it SHOULD NOT BE BASED ON STATS.

Realistic Capped Potential and Progression should be enhanced, not scrapped.

[xblake16x]

If player ratings are based on stats every year, how can potential not be related to stats at all?

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by xblake16x

If player ratings are based on stats every year, how can potential not be related to stats at all?

First, potential isn't generated by stats, stats are generated by achieving potential.

Next, as far as the game goes, potential IS RE-EVALUATED every year by the game developers. It's no different than the RE-EVALUATING of players ratings every year. Re-evaluation and progression are two different things. Developers Re-evaluating have the luxury to be able to MIMIC what happened in real life with the advantage of hindsight. We don't want the game to MIMIC real life, we want it to perform a realistic view of player progression. And not EVERYONE in real life goes from scrub to HOF. Not EVERYONE in real life has the POTENTIAL to become a HOF'er.

If you want the game to MIMIC real life, then just do Roster Updates.

[ghostlight85]

Quote: Originally Posted by xblake16x

If player ratings are based on stats every year, how can potential not be related to stats at all?

Here's the problem. There is a fundamental disconnect between exact ratings and stats based progression.

Donny Moore's ratings that he gives to the players are his best estimation of their abilities and sort of a best guess projection of how they will play in the future (potential.) When he decides those ratings and puts them into madden they become an EXACT evaluation of the player. Not a guess.

Madden's game engine is not guessing how good Julio Jones' hands are when Matt Ryan throws it to him. It knows exactly how good Virtual Julio Jones' hands are. So, he should not perform as if he has better hands than Donny Moore guessed that he had.

Often those guesses are wrong. When a player changes drastically from Madden 12- Madden 13 you are right, it will be because of stats. His stats will show that the estimation that Donny Moore turned into an EXACT rating in Madden was way off. At that point, Donny Moore will give him a higher number for next year's estimation, and make that an exact rating.

The game is not RE EVALUATING a player when it does progression. It is simulating growth. An exactly rated player should not be capable of straying significantly from his skill level BEFORE his ratings have changed.

Real players can not be quantified into exact overall ratings. That is why things like dynamic player performance and streaks introduce some fresh air into the game. But they don't do enough. Progression and regression are still necessary. But they should drive the stats, the stats shouldn't drive them. Again, progression is not reevaluation. It's growth or decline.

I know I'm saying some of the same things as Bucky here, but I think this is an extremely important thing to get right to make a deep franchise mode capable of generating a realistic league for more than 1-2 years.

[macbranson]

I think quite the contrary to those of you who think the Potential rating is realistic. It's actually very unrealistic. It's like putting a limit on a player and saying he can't progress past a certain mark. There are tons of players who were rated low and progressed to All Star status in one season. Tom Brady is probably the best example. Ratings on Madden reflect performance. If someone performs very well, their rating should indicate how well they played. That's how it works from each version of Madden to the next, why shouldn't it work that way in franchise mode?

Here's an example. I have Jimmy Clausen with a Potential of C and he's rated 73. If Cam Newton got hurt and Jimmy Clausen played like 15 games and threw for 4000 yards and 30 TDs with 8 INTs, then goes to the playoffs and wins the Super Bowl, shouldn't he be rated well over 90? If that happened in real life, I assure you that he would be rated well over 90 in Madden 13. But that can't happen in franchise mode because of Potential capping his overall rating. That doesn't make sense and it's inconsistent with the game's method of assigning overall ratings.

What makes even less sense is that you'll have guys who did little to nothing progress a lot, like 8 points, while players who have great seasons don't progress at all. This game should just have progression during the season and get rid of this Potential nonsense.

[Haze88]

The thing is real life has no ratings, even though a player may be a "99" in real life, there is no convinient guide that lays out a player's strengths and weaknesses like in madden. Besides if a 60 rated running back puts up 1500+ yds, why does he need a rating boost anyway, it's only done this way in real life because there is no other gauge with which to rate someone.

[Argooos]

I think the main problem with potential is that it was called potential in the first place.
Every discussion I have ever seen about potential always becomes about semantics.
Potential is just a name that was given for a ratings cap. A ratings cap of some sort is necessary so that you don't end up with an entire league of superstars. That is, unless you manage to balance progression in such a way that only a realistic number of players could ever progress to superstars. Such a system does not exists in the current game. The reason? There are far too few variables on which to base progression in Madden when compared to real life. Madden has only stats, age, and potential. Real life has those things in addition to personality, work ethic, coaching, practice time/quality, and life events. To have a properly balanced progression system, in which you would not need a ratings cap (potential), you would need to increase the number of variables, and write some really good code to balance it all out.
As it stands now, though, the cap on ratings (potential) should not be a hard one. A soft cap would more accurately simulate real life and would be the next best thing to a properly balanced progression system. Sadly, they went and named their cap potential, which by definition is a hard cap. Had they named it something else, these debates might not have to become about semantics so much.

[goravens2052]

I wish they just get rid of the Potential and go back to the old Progression system where you could see the progression and decide who to keep based off that. Now with this potential system, as long as you cut your F, D, and C potential players and keep your B & A potential players your going to win easily.