Thoughts on new XP system in madden?

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by CuseGirl

The part you and Big FN Deal are missing is the intangible reward that a user gets from seeing a ratings boost. So if I pull a Tom Brady or even a Tony Romo (came out of nowhere, wasn't expected to be even decent and turned out to be pretty good), yes, I want to see my rating go from 70 to 82, regardless of the XP I earned because the stats I put up say otherwise. Personally, I just think it's too expensive raise certain attributes. I'm sorry, 17 thousand points to raise your throw power ONE SINGLE POINT is asinine. And while NBA 2k's My Player mode is a grind, you'll see how they've changed the mode to be more accessible. Because when you break it down, for the average sports fan, that mode wasn't fun. Every year, they had to raise base overall rating. Back in 2k11, you started out as the absolute worse player in the game. That's not fun. I don't care how you slice it.

I guess fun is relative. My view is having to chase stats to progress isn't fun "I don't care how you slice it". I would much rather have an in depth, realistic progression system. To each his own I suppose.

[Big FN Deal]

Quote: Originally Posted by CuseGirl

The part you and Big FN Deal are missing is the intangible reward that a user gets from seeing a ratings boost. These "Superstar" modes in sports games are just bare bones sports RPG modes. When you play Oblivion or Skyrim or Mass Effect and you see that your sword skill is 85 or your Warp skill is maxed out, it's rewarding. It FEELS like it matters. Even if it's just a number. So if I pull a Tom Brady or even a Tony Romo (came out of nowhere, wasn't expected to be even decent and turned out to be pretty good), yes, I want to see my rating go from 70 to 82, regardless of the XP I earned because the stats I put up say otherwise. Personally, I just think it's too expensive raise certain attributes. I'm sorry, 17 thousand points to raise your throw power ONE SINGLE POINT is asinine. And while NBA 2k's My Player mode is a grind, you'll see how they've changed the mode to be more accessible. Because when you break it down, for the average sports fan, that mode wasn't fun. Every year, they had to raise base overall rating. Back in 2k11, you started out as the absolute worse player in the game. That's not fun. I don't care how you slice it.

I think there is some confusion but correct me if I am wrong. The progression system for "My Player" in NBA2k is different from the progression system in "Association", right? XP progression would be fine IF it were just confined to "Superstar"/controlling a player mode, not spreading to "Franchise"/control a Coach mode.

[moylan1234]

It's an insult not only to my intelligence, but to the game of football as well

[Big FN Deal]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

One problem is that AWR is a huge component of the OVR rating, but the AWR rating doesn't affect a user-controlled player, thus there's a perception and half-truth that ratings don't matter. Beyond AWR, there's also a bit of a game design conundrum. Say I'm controlling a very athletic CB who just happens to have MCV and ZCV both at 70, and AWR of 40. Should my ability to control that player, to move him at all during a play, be hampered by his low MCV and ZCV ratings despite that he has elite athletic ratings? From a "the user should always be in control" standpoint, the answer is absolutely no, much to the frustration of the simulation crowd. From a "the ratings should govern everything" standpoint, the answer is absolutely yes, much to the frustration of the more casual gamer who wants to be able to run around with his fast player. This affects NBA 2K a bit as well; while the ratings do a great job of being checked for a user-controlled player with the ball (whether a shot goes in, how accurate a pass is, the success of a particular crossover dribble), the only ratings that govern user off-the-ball movement are the player's athletic attributes. This isn't as apparent because in NBA 2K the user always controls the ball-handler on offense, but the same problem exists. For example, it doesn't matter if the player I'm controlling has defense awareness of zero if I know where to put him when I'm on the sticks with him; it doesn't matter if my player has an offensive awareness rating of zero if I know when to make the backdoor cut to get a shooter open off a screen, if I know when to roll or pop when playing as a big man running the pick-and-roll with a AI- or other-user-controlled point guard. Bringing this back to Madden, there are many more off-ball interactions in football than in basketball; should the user lose some ability to control his player during off-ball interactions? It's an interesting question, I don't know the right answer. It's obvious right now that Tiburon leans in favor of giving the user control, however. All that said, there are ratings that absolutely do matter for user-controlled players beyond speed. I challenge anyone on this board to try (with any reasonable set of sliders) to truck any starting linebacker in the game with LaRod Stephens-Howling and his 49 STR and 37 TRK rating. It's not going to work. The ratings also work for any CPU player operating on his own or any CPU-CPU player interaction.

In the interest of me not typing a long wishlisty new ratings system, let's agree that ratings like AWR and PRC should be restricted to AI controlled players and overridden by User control. That still leaves the other ratings, especially the skill ratings (MCV/RTE/THP, etc), needing to be effective with both types of control, User and AI/CPU.

Now this is again where the ratings system in Madden is fundamentally a mess, imo, because there doesn't even seem to be a system in place to make those skill ratings logically translate to User control. For example, I have read it claimed that AWR doesn't matter for even AI/CPU controlled DBs because the MCV/ZCV ratings replace it, WTF? I don't get why MCV/ZCV isn't differentiated using various animations of different coverage techniques and skill levels, accessible according to the ratings value. So a 90 MCV DB would have access to different coverage animations than a 70 MCV. If a User is controlling the former DB, then it's easier to cover manually because the animations available for that player make it fundamentally easier for sudden change of direction, getting in/out of breaks, recovering if turned around, etc, versus the lesser animations available for the latter.

I read the position all the time about "User control is paramount" and I actually don't disagree. What I disagree with is the notion that User control must be equated with User success. Manually/User controlling Champ Bailey should playout differently than Adam "Pacman" Jones due to the process of coverage for each being different, not just the end result.

Madden seems to be all about "cutting to the chase" and arbitrarily getting the end results right, instead of trying to replicate football processes which organically would lead to the "right"/realistic end results.

[atc43]

Couldnt have said it any better Big. My point exactly

[TRiCKY_J]

I hate to bring in nba 2k here but I feel they have a good grasp on thier association mode when it comes to progression. For those who dont play nba 2k let me elaborate...

So every week you have so many "hours" to spend on practice. Now practice isnt in the traditional sense but in the form pf drills. Theres probably like 10 different drills and each focus on a couple attributes I.E theres a shoot around drill and you have an objective based on how you preform. You get a bronze score, a silver and a gold. By doing the shoot around drill you can get a certain amount of points in select catagories (inside shooting, med range 3pt) by what it seems like how you go about completing your objective. The shoot around drill is simple. Score a basket from various parts of the basketball court earning a zone and getting more zones than your cpu opponent. Now if I get bronze by shooting a lot of 3 pointers I will most likely (it seems a bit randomized to an extent) get one point in 3pt shooting. If i scored more from mid range and got silver I get 2 points in mid range. If I get gold I recieve a bonus point aswell. So you can see how this idea can be used in madden. Maybe I have a quarterback drill focusing on accuracy such as short, med, deep or drills based pm scheme. Now depending on how accomplish my goal in the drill like throwing more deep passes, I can get better at the deep ball.

I feel like this kills a lot of the issues with the current system. First off it simulates coaches individually focusing on a specific player and specific aspects of that players game. You can progress in a realistic way because the drill can increase only one out of three or four different stats based on your preformance in the drill you cant just get a bunch of xp and focus on thier weaknesses as many pointed out because if your qb sucks at throwing deep the only way to get better is to go into practice and succeed at throwing it deep. And for the most part if your qb sucks at throwing deep and you want to increase it its going to be tougher having low ratings so he might struggle a bit getting bronze and silver at first but once he gets better he (ideally) gets more gold. Also these drills could take maybe 5 mins at the most from loading up to finishing so its less time consuming than the current model and a nice change of pace than just practicing the exact same way you play a season game. It gets redundant. You can also use progression in a number of ways here like them earning more points here, simulating how much their understanding of whats being taught opposed to a slower development player? Or maybe they get more hours in the week than others? This is obviously a simple idea that could definatly use more depth or ideas but overall would kill hpw time consuming, redundant, and unrealistic the current model stands

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