The Problem With Franchises in Sports Games

[PGaither84]

Players don't get better because they put up good stats.

Players put up good stats because they got better AND the system they play in.

Madden roster updates are reactionary. Franchise progression/decline is far more realistic. Potential should be hidden. It only has a large impact on very young players, like rookies. After one or two years in the league, the player has to PLAY and PRODUCE to take full advantage of his potential.

There is also too much of an emphasis on the OVR rating. Positional ratings are what matters.

[JDoze]

I think progression should be different for positions as well. For example, a QB who rides the bench for a few years can progress because QB is mostly a thinking position. Where as a CB who rides the bench should not increase as much because it is mostly a reactive position. Obviously this isn't the case for everyone, but it could be something that is looked at.

[zarmstead2]

Quote: Originally Posted by JDoze

I think progression should be different for positions as well. For example, a QB who rides the bench for a few years can progress because QB is mostly a thinking position. Where as a CB who rides the bench should not increase as much because it is mostly a reactive position. Obviously this isn't the case for everyone, but it could be something that is looked at.

I like that idea, however I think there are other, more important changes to the progression system that need to happen beforehand.

[woodjer]

Quote: Originally Posted by jwassel

Coaching in sports franchises are all terrible and need to be fixed. But lets address that AFTER we fix the actual players, once we can get those ratings right, then we can move on to other stuff.

See, but that's the thing...if you make the coaches and their play style matter, ratings shouldn't have the same issues because a player's OVR rating would be relative to other players for the coach/system instead of being relative to other players in general. So much of the progression is based on a player's potential and probably will be for a long time. If a guy like Tebow comes in with A potential, his OVR rating will eventually be very good to great no matter what system he's in. Instead, he should have something like an A potential for Denver and a D for New Orleans because the systems are drastically different. All of that said, the TRUE potential rating should be hidden. If you see one at all, it should be tied to a scout's ratings.

Also, like PGaither said...if my 78 OVR rookie QB throws for 5,000 yards and 40+ TDs, it doesn't mean that his OVR rating should go up to 88...that's too reactive. It also doesn't mean his ratings should have been 88 to begin with...that's too proactive. Maybe it means that 88 is the right rating for that player in that system.

I guess I'm just looking at your complaints as something that needs to be done WITH something like this, not before. Otherwise, in my opinion, it's just a band aid fix to the larger issue. In the current system, progression/regression could be implemented perfectly and you'd still have the issue that coaches don't matter...and ultimately that a player's ratings outside of OVR don't really matter.

[charliemike]

This is a great thread and it's absolutely true of just about every sports game.

I have played 400-500 games in College Hoops 2k8 (It might be my favorite sports game of all time) and I have never had a bust in that game. I've had guys that were 4-star HS players not become superstars but I have never had a guy come in as a 3-star to say, Duke and struggle and end up transferring out to a CAA school because he's just not good enough.

The problem seems to be that measuring the potential of an athlete and possible reasons he might not pan out are highly complex calibrations.

Perhaps at some point we'll have cloud-enabled processing that would allow a lot of that to take place for us behind the scenes so we can have more focus put on the game physics and less on those calculations.

[Big FN Deal]

I actually started a thread about this earlier today but canceled after realizing the OP would take entirely too much typing for me to articulate the point. lol However, I will try to sum up my take on this briefly.

First off, initial player ratings and subsequent updates from EA have to begin to be calculated using a standardized universal formula to convert statistical player data, similar to PFF's or some other entity's,(I learned about PFF through Callebro's post in another thread) into base numeric ratings and DPP for each player.

Then Madden needs coach/coordinator ratings, an individual body parts wear/tear injury system, player influencing playbooks/schemes and dynamic player potential/OVR depending on the team specifics, all of which were in HC09.

User or CPU player performance/stats should ONLY effect DPP's streaks, tendencies and traits but NOT directly change base numeric player ratings or DPP's consistency and confidence ratings. Base numeric player ratings, along with DPP's consistency and confidence ratings should ONLY be effected by injury and general exposure, with playing time factored in, under coaches, coordinators, playbooks and schemes, which become set over time, to actually change those base ratings.

For example, Wes Welker would have base numerical player ratings and DPP. If in Miami under that coaching staff and system he would have a different range of numerical trainable skill ratings (catch, route running, etc) along with a different OVR and player potential, than when going to New England. However, those trainable skill ratings ranges are initially only attainable through streaks, with every season under the same coaching staff and scheme, directly changing Wleker's base numeric trainable skill ratings, consistency and confidence, varying in degrees by playing time.

So Welker could increase his base run blocking rating and decline his base route running rating after 2 season's in Miami but still initially be capable of better route running and worse run blocking streaks in NE because of their coaching and scheme.

Voilà! Instant realism, imo.

[macbranson]

This is a great thread and a lot of stuff that jwassel brought up is right on point. After a few seasons, there is nothing but great and good players in the league. Even in free agency, there a ton of guys rated in the 75+ range. I'm only referring to Madden as that's the only sports game that I play. There is too much progression and not enough regression. But then someone mentioned how players get better not because they put up good numbers, but put up good numbers because they got better.

Here is one of the main problems. Overall ratings are an evaluation of past performances. But then in franchise mode, it's like the game tells you that players have gotten better and will have a better season. While is makes sense that players got better and will therefore have a good season, it doesn't make sense to illustrate that using the same system that is also used to illustrate that player's past performance. Overall ratings can't be both at once. They can't be an evaluation of the past and a predictor of the future. Here is an example in my franchise. These are Cam Newtons stats and overall ratings for his first three seasons.

Overall 77... QB rating:73.0 20 TD/21 INT 3297 YDS 227/431 52%
Overall 82...QB rating: 62.4 18 TD/ 30 INT 3356 YDS 234/447 52%
Overall 90...QB rating: 88.3 39 TD/ 26 INT 4361 YDS 296/522 56%
Overall 91...only in week 2 of the season, won't post stats

You see that? He went up EIGHT points after that abysmal season in 2012. Then went up all of 1 point after his best season where he was actually voted league MVP and won the Super Bowl. So he went up from 77 to 82 because he played a season and gained experience. But then did he go up to a 90 because they expected him to have a better season? What does the rating reflect? It's really confusing to me.

Madden needs to continue using player ratings as an evaluation and not a predictor. I think that's why the introduced the Potential rating. But the Potential rating doesn't make sense because the players ratings don't coincide with their performance. An A potential player will consistently progress more even if he continues to perform poorly while a C potential player won't progress at all even if he performs at an elite level. The term Potential should be replace with Expectation and player ratings should change according to how they perform, not according to a pre-assigned limiting device like the Potential rating.

Secondly, the term Progression should also be changed. Is Peyton Madden still progressing at this point? Not really. They should just call it re-evaluation. That's really what it is. That's what they do every time they release a new edition of Madden. THey look at each player and their stats and EVALUATE them. They don't progress them. If I started a franchise with Victor Cruz and his C or D potential and put up the exact same numbers he did in real life, he probably would have gone up like 3 points because of that stupid Potential rating. But when they re-evaluated him, he went up like 20+ points. If Potential is changed to Expectation, then his Expectation can still be low, but he can still improve a lot in terms of overall ratings.

This is really the main problem. Players need to be re-evaluated instead of ''progressed''. That way you will see much bigger rises and falls in overall ratings. In football, this should be done on a weekly basis and then a yearly evaluation can be done as well. This can then be used to give a player his expectation rating for the next season.

Players also need an adjustment period where their ratings rise and fall more drastically. Rookies and all players in the league under 3 years should be more susceptible to extreme fluctuations in overall ratings. That way, ''one hit wonders'' won't stay with high overall ratings. Once a player has established a pattern of performance, he their overall will still rise and fall, but not as extreme. The adjustment period should also apply to players who have never started or players who have switched teams or systems.

I would also like to see the introduction of Coaching systems that influence ratings. There were a lot of posts complaining about the lack of coach influence. This is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed. Coaches, systems and schemes can make or break a player. A simple fix for this would be to create several different offensive and defensive systems and assign them to each coach. So when a player switches teams or gets a new coach, he falls under the adjustment period and it should also affect player expectations. It should NOT affect their ratings because that would be a predictor and not an evaluation. A lot of players appear to great fits or poor fits for certain systems, then their performance proves otherwise.

I'm starting to ramble, so I'll summarize this post by saying that the whole progression system doesn't make sense and it's inconsistent with the system developers use to rate players from each edition to the next edition of their sports games. The progression system, even if they don't change the name to re-evalution, needs to become a re-evaluation system. That's the only way you'll see the significant rises and drops in player ratings that will prevent franchises from being a haven for mediocre players.

[Aftershock9958]

I like the discussion happening here, and agree with a lot of it.

My opinion is that age needs to have a direct impact on progression. Stats need to have a direct impact on progression. And there needs to be some variables behind the scenes that effect progression, that we may know exist but never know fully how to grasp.

For instance, in real life you may draft a rookie QB and he may have a terrible first season, ala Troy Aikman. His age is young, but his stats are terrible.

So the solution in this case and many like it, to me, would be to weight the age more heavily than the stats in the younger years. Something like, the young age helps you achieve a base of +11, but the craptastic stats equals out to a -6, so your QB only goes up +5. These are just hypothetical numbers because it would need more fleshing out.

As age increases, it should hold a lot less weight. Like, you enter your 6th season, and now your age is giving you +0. Your seasonal performance is now the only driving factor on if you get better or not. You go into your 11th season, and you get -2, in season 12 you get -3, in season 13 -4, which means at this point your stats need to stay high to keep your rating up now. If you're putting up Peyton Manning numbers, your rating will remain high and your age won't matter. But if you were only ever an average player to begin with, you'll see your rating decrease as you age a lot more.

Potential also need to be hidden from us. It basically gives away the end-game story of a players career from the beginning, and it makes the pre-season cuts meaningless, removing any strategy or chance from it.