Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

[cthurt]

https://youtu.be/cYdDK06H0QQ?si=xAc_op9sYbZUC-vF

Not sure if all.the effects are legit on every difficulty level but this is an interesting find, if it wasn't already known.

[roadman]

Re: Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

It's been debated for years and there is a penalty slider thread in the

slider forum discussing this same very topic.

It's the ying and yang of penatly slider discussions, besides them not working properly.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

Yeah been known since the NCAA football days. Some years the effects are stronger.

[Iteachpercussion]

Re: Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

The idea that penalty sliders have some magic impact on how ai players move, are aggressive, etc.. is complete nonsense. It has always been nonsense. Those sliders have never had an impact on player aggressiveness or anything else.

EA stated in the past that all the sliders do is increase or decrease the chance of a penalty. PC modders have found no, none, zero, nada correlation or causation between penalty sliders and any of the supposed impacts.

I watched this guy's video, and have tried many of the penalty slider theories over the years just to see and out of curiosity; but not once have a seen any indication or evidence that supports such theories.

Why would increasing offsides make defensive players more aggressive? Why would it impact block shedding? It simply makes no logical sense and there is nothing in the coding that substantiates such claims.

What the sliders do is act as a "die roll modifier" for if a penalty occurs or not. Just like a table top roll playing game. There is no other impact on ai players.

I know me saying of this will not change a lot of people's minds, but I just do not see why this keeps floating around.

[canes21]

Re: Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

Been a theory in the community for years like others have already pointed out. EA has disputed this. We've found no evidence that this is true in the modding scene, though we don't have access to every bit of code. I've personally never seen any impacts that the guy and others have talked about when testing it myself extensively.

I'd say the sliders don't impact gameplay, not like he is saying. I can have holding at 0 or 99 with my current sliders and nothing changes at all. I think theories like this simply get started because of the ambiguity in many of the games settings and the impacts they have on the game. The penalty sliders don't really tell you exactly how they'll lead to more penalties, and as we've all seen, they really don't lead to more penalties, so for many people they're going to assume those sliders are impacting something and will create theories like the one in the video.

I could see a case where the sliders dictate how often certain animations trigger which have a chance to be called for a penalty such as a holding animation and that can lead to better blocking when it isn't flagged every time that animation triggers, but, as I said, I have simply not seen this be the case anytime I have ever tested it be it in Madden or NCAA.

Plus, the examples he uses in his video, like the clip of the "aggressive play on the ball for the interception" are things I have seen consistently with my Def PI slider at 95 or 99. When I throw the ball in front of any back 7 player in zone, they break on the throw like that more often than not, so clearly having my penalty slider at or near maxed out is not having the impact he claims it does. That's been the case annually, too, so, again, I just don't buy this theory personally.

[Mike Lowe]

Re: Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

The idea that penalty sliders have some magic impact on how ai players move, are aggressive, etc.. is complete nonsense. It has always been nonsense. Those sliders have never had an impact on player aggressiveness or anything else.



EA stated in the past that all the sliders do is increase or decrease the chance of a penalty. PC modders have found no, none, zero, nada correlation or causation between penalty sliders and any of the supposed impacts.



I watched this guy's video, and have tried many of the penalty slider theories over the years just to see and out of curiosity; but not once have a seen any indication or evidence that supports such theories.



Why would increasing offsides make defensive players more aggressive? Why would it impact block shedding? It simply makes no logical sense and there is nothing in the coding that substantiates such claims.



What the sliders do is act as a "die roll modifier" for if a penalty occurs or not. Just like a table top roll playing game. There is no other impact on ai players.



I know me saying of this will not change a lot of people's minds, but I just do not see why this keeps floating around.

100% correct, and I have had confirmation in the past from EA Sports. People won't even believe it when they say it so...yeah. Just sharing for those who haven't turned into slider zombies yet. Save yourselves!

[C0883R]

Re: Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

The idea that penalty sliders have some magic impact on how ai players move, are aggressive, etc.. is complete nonsense. It has always been nonsense. Those sliders have never had an impact on player aggressiveness or anything else.

EA stated in the past that all the sliders do is increase or decrease the chance of a penalty. PC modders have found no, none, zero, nada correlation or causation between penalty sliders and any of the supposed impacts.

I watched this guy's video, and have tried many of the penalty slider theories over the years just to see and out of curiosity; but not once have a seen any indication or evidence that supports such theories.

Why would increasing offsides make defensive players more aggressive? Why would it impact block shedding? It simply makes no logical sense and there is nothing in the coding that substantiates such claims.

What the sliders do is act as a "die roll modifier" for if a penalty occurs or not. Just like a table top roll playing game. There is no other impact on ai players.

I know me saying of this will not change a lot of people's minds, but I just do not see why this keeps floating around.

This is false I challenge you to play any slider set the way it comes. Then play with the same slider set with Penalties at default 50. Then tell me if you get the same game play or not. I can save you the trouble and tell you right now the 2 games will not be the same.


It's true. You can not increase penalty count regardless of where you put them. However you can change gameplay effects like Aggression. Penalties do have gameplay effects on the sliders.

[Iteachpercussion]

Re: Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

This is false I challenge you to play any slider set the way it comes. Then play with the same slider set with Penalties at default 50. Then tell me if you get the same game play or not. I can save you the trouble and tell you right now the 2 games will not be the same.


It's true. You can not increase penalty count regardless of where you put them. However you can change gameplay effects like Aggression. Penalties do have gameplay effects on the sliders.

I have used these "theories" in the past to see for myself. Every time... no change to gameplay. None, zero, nada. It simply is not true as much as people want it to be. I have been playing Madden since Madden games have existed. I have put countless hours into slider settings, isolating specific sliders (gameplay, penalty, fatigue, speed parity). I have done immense amount of testing over the years on player ratings in combination with a wide range of slider sets. Still, through all of that, I have never been able to get penalty sliders to impact the way the ai plays.

As I stated before and has been stated by others, there is nothing in the game coding to make this true. Plus the "logic" behind it just does not make sense. It is always argued, including in the posted video that the ai players act a certain way to not get penalties if the slider is too high on some sliders (such as def pass interference) and then having offsides high creates more aggressive behavior. The logic used on one slider does not make sense compared to the logic used on another.

This is no different than the theories that you have to set your settings in a certain way in the Main Menu and then have different sliders in Franchise mode and somehow the Main Menu sliders "bleed" through into Franchise mode and magically makes the game play better. That makes no since either but plenty of people swear by it and do it anyway.

Play the game the way you want, with whatever settings you want. But until someone can show me some definitive proof that penalty sliders impact ai players in some way beyond trigger animations and frequency of penalties, I simply will not believe it. I will take the word of people who work on the game code and the modders who have sifted through the code, as well as my own testing and observations, over what people claim to "see."

I am not trying to be rude or anything of the sort. I am merely trying to provide some logic to these claims that have been thrown out here for years. I have been in these forums long enough to see all kinds of wild and crazy theories out.

[matt2053]

Re: Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

I always thought the "penalty sliders affect gameplay" theory was probably nonsense... until recently when I started trying to build my own slider set instead of using someone else's for the first time.

CPU run game was weak, so I maxed out CPU run block and zeroed out HUM tackling, to see how dramatic the change was, fully expecting it to be too far of a swing in the other direction.

But I also maxed out all the penalty sliders at the same time (because I assumed they didn't affect gameplay and I simply wanted more penalties called).

What happened was that my defense completely stuffed the run more than ever, dramatically so (against the 49ers no less). This must have been due to setting either the offsides or false start or holding sliders to 99. I don't know which one, nor do I have the inclination to try to "re-balance" things with that added layer of complication.

So I've reverted to leaving penalty sliders untouched, and only tweaking gameplay sliders (to decent and improving results so far).

[toodles2you90]

Re: Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

This is false I challenge you to play any slider set the way it comes. Then play with the same slider set with Penalties at default 50. Then tell me if you get the same game play or not. I can save you the trouble and tell you right now the 2 games will not be the same.


It's true. You can not increase penalty count regardless of where you put them. However you can change gameplay effects like Aggression. Penalties do have gameplay effects on the sliders.

A 2 game sample size isn't going to tell you anything. You could have the exact same sliders and get completely different gameplay over 2 games.

[C0883R]

Re: Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

A 2 game sample size isn't going to tell you anything. You could have the exact same sliders and get completely different gameplay over 2 games.

You know what I meant. I know for a fact penalties do effect gameplay. Aside from Agression. You can make both running and passing easier or harder if you go the route of setting the penalty values based on what each slider does This is just 1 example.



Did you know illegal block in the back allows the cpu to run better @50 vs a lower number and if it's above 50 it causes the CPU to get more INTS. With RTP putting this below 50 may reduce RTP calls. It also makes it easier for the Player DL to crash through the CPU OL.


These are just examples.

[Kramer5150]

Re: Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

Taken from someone "in the know"....

For example: I talked directly with Clint Oldenburg about Madden 16 penalty sliders (I spent a lot of time during E3 2015 at the Madden booth). He flat-out told me those sliders do not affect anything other than how frequently penalties are called. Yet somehow, this knowledge about how Madden works — relayed from a person who would actually be in a position to know — is not the prevailing opinion about how the penalty sliders work in the OS Madden Sliders sub forum, where you will get myriad descriptions of how different penalty sliders affect different things not related to penalties.

I'm not sure how much more someone needs here, but I think I would believe someone who actually is INVOLVED in the game, than just mere speculation, because in the end that's all it is....it's just another Madden black magic voodoo theory that folks like to believe in, much like the reverse sliders theory.

[Kramer5150]

Re: Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

Y I know for a fact penalties do effect gameplay.

Do you have any hard evidence to back this up? because just saying it doesn't mean anything. It's all just your opinion at this point, and not a fact.

[Iteachpercussion]

Re: Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

Taken from someone "in the know"....



I'm not sure how much more someone needs here, but I think I would believe someone who actually is INVOLVED in the game, than just mere speculation, because in the end that's all it is....it's just another Madden black magic voodoo theory that folks like to believe in, much like the reverse sliders theory.

If I could "like" your comment 100 times I would!

[Kramer5150]

Re: Penalty sliders effect on gameplay

If I could "like" your comment 100 times I would!

Just send me some chocolate chip cookies...

or heck, lets find a way to get your old school rosters on Xbox