Interview w/ Josh Looman: Franchise Mode

[BezO]

Quote: Originally Posted by spfhelmiii

Yeah, they had the draft backwards and it blows my mind that they just now realized it. For fully scouted players, it is more realistic that you know their speed, acceleration, throw power, accuracy, etc., but NOT their potential. There is simply no way to measure whether a guy can take his talents to the star level.

Potential is based on those physical attributes. We don't know if a player will fulfill his potential, but we know what that potential is.

[roadman]

Quote: Originally Posted by Flamehead

Glad they are working on Franchise, but the one thing that bothered me from the article was when Josh had been lobbying to get rid of the easy "potential" scouting and make it more challenging, the rest of the team was against it, saying (paraphrasing), "no, keep it easy, we want the players to feel a sense of satisfaction". What? Come on, those guys should know better than that by now. EXTREMELY disappointing. Hello EA, the satisfaction and fun comes from having to actually scout and do a little digging and then winding up with a good draft. Not "Ok, I'll take all these guys with high potential...Whee, I got a good draft!" If I were alone in a room with Phil, I would severely take him to task on this one. They should know better by now. They just should. This speaks to the whole "the consumer can't handle anything, we should hold their hands" mentality so that they can get little Timmy to bug mommy and daddy to buy the game. Thank goodness for Josh. I wonder what other battles he's had to fight, and what we're getting now DESPITE the rest of the team.

FH;

I'm not privy to what goes on in meetings behind closed doors at Tibouron and I don't think you are either.

All he talked about was the team wanted it one way and he wanted it another way. Happens all the time in business meetings.

Tibouron isn't the lone ranger in this area.

I'm sure other developers at Tibouron have fought for things and have a losing battle until a few years down the road. It's not uncommon at all.

[LiquorLogic]

"He said the that he thought the draft has been too easy in recent years, you would just look at a player’s potential bar and that pretty much took all the skill out of it. Josh says that he actually been trying to get it removed for the last few years. He wanted the whole draft process to be more challenging and to make the draft as hard in Madden as it is for teams in real life. The team wanted the fact that you ran a good draft and identified good prospects to mean something, they wanted players to have a sense of accomplishment when it was all said and done. "


Does this mean that the potential rating is gone, or that they've drastically changed the way that it will be revealed to us. I ( for one) have always hated the potential rating. There should never be something that reveals how good a player can be. Now if they made some potential ratings wrong, and some players with a D potential ended up becoming Hall of Famers, that would be different.

[booker21]

Quote: Originally Posted by AirborneRanger1

Interesting article. One major issue that I've had with franchise for years is the un-realistic resigning bonuses and the amount of money it takes to sign rookies and FA. I'm not sure the process needs to be harder. It just needs to be more realistic like the value's of certain players based on age and other players at their same position relating to their monetary worth (Reggie Bush). Obviously some players are willing to stay with a team for less money because they are driven by championship hopes. It sounds from the interview like they know there is a problem with the salary cap but they don't know how to fix it?

too bad i thought the fixed the salary cap issue.
Why they want to get as realistic as it is in Draft and FA and not on the salary cap ??

[mirrored32]

Quote: Originally Posted by LiquorLogic

"He said the that he thought the draft has been too easy in recent years, you would just look at a player’s potential bar and that pretty much took all the skill out of it. Josh says that he actually been trying to get it removed for the last few years. He wanted the whole draft process to be more challenging and to make the draft as hard in Madden as it is for teams in real life. The team wanted the fact that you ran a good draft and identified good prospects to mean something, they wanted players to have a sense of accomplishment when it was all said and done. " Does this mean that the potential rating is gone, or that they've drastically changed the way that it will be revealed to us. I ( for one) have always hated the potential rating. They should never be something that reveals how good a player can be. Now if they made some potential ratings wrong, and some players with a D potential ended up becoming Hall of Famers, that would be different.

I like the idea of potential either being 'hidden' or 'shown but not perminant'. I like the idea of the player being dynamic with the new system but having the idea that a F or D player could end up as a C or a C end up as a B or A or a A. I mean in the real world how does the 'hype' work to potential? what makes a player have the possibility to be considered potentially an A? Tom Brady? What would he have been considered when he entered the leauge? Brett Favre?

probably a C.

So I would like the idea of not being able to predict the future. I think the DPP will help this but I still like the idea of changing potential to 'grow' with the player 'if' the player grows or has a breakthrough.

[ABR173rd]

My best example of the salary cap is using the Saints. After two or three seasons keeping all of the players on the roster the game ships with and some rookies drafted late in the first round due to a good record- It is almost impossible to maintain their roster even though the Saints do it in real life.

Usually by the 6th or 7th season in every franchise I run into major salary cap issues were I'm having to cut a quarter of the team and all the talent just to get under the salary cap. I've read a couple different articles on this now and it seems I'm going to have to wait until the game ships to actually see the new salary cap logic. Making it harder to get free agents and good rookies is fine but don't do it using the salary cap as the main tool because it's already a flawed system.

[ABR173rd]

Quote: Originally Posted by mirrored32

I like the idea of potential either being 'hidden' or 'shown but not perminant'. I like the idea of the player being dynamic with the new system but having the idea that a F or D player could end up as a C or a C end up as a B or A or a A. I mean in the real world how does the 'hype' work to potential? what makes a player have the possibility to be considered potentially an A? Tom Brady? What would he have been considered when he entered the leauge? Brett Favre? probably a C. So I would like the idea of not being able to predict the future. I think the DPP will help this but I still like the idea of changing potential to 'grow' with the player 'if' the player grows or has a breakthrough.

I've mentioned this before where potential can change based on certain parameters. Like it can only go up or down one grade level max and its based on the players stats in his first 2 or 3 seasons in the league compared to other players at the same position. So after season three a players potential is locked permanently.

[Flamehead]

Quote: Originally Posted by roadman

FH; I'm not privy to what goes on in meetings behind closed doors at Tibouron and I don't think you are either. All he talked about was the team wanted it one way and he wanted it another way. Happens all the time in business meetings. Tibouron isn't the lone ranger in this area. I'm sure other developers at Tibouron have fought for things and have a losing battle until a few years down the road. It's not uncommon at all.

No I'm not privy, but in this context, I didn't have to be. Straight from the article:

"He said the that he thought the draft has been too easy in recent years, you would just look at a player’s potential bar and that pretty much took all the skill out of it. Josh says that he actually been trying to get it removed for the last few years. He wanted the whole draft process to be more challenging and to make the draft as hard in Madden as it is for teams in real life. The team wanted the fact that you ran a good draft and identified good prospects to mean something, they wanted players to have a sense of accomplishment when it was all said and done."

In your attempt to be noble regarding EA, you're missing the forest for the trees (at least with my comment). Now whether or not you are willfully doing that, I don't know. It's not that they have disagreements (trust me, I've been in plenty of business meetings), it's what is consistently disagreed about (or dismissed) within this particular context as evidenced by the article above and past results.