Operation Sports Forums - 2k8's Ratings or Maddens old number system?

Sure, here.

I don't necessarily think overall ratings should be removed as they are very helpful and nearly ever required in a lot of ways from a programming standpoint. CPU roster management and depth charts really currently require the overall rating as do all contract negotiations and trades. I will however say that something needs to be done. Sure, for my team I can set the depth chart as it should be and pick up players that fit my system but the CPU has no such ability.

My suggestion would be take a lot of things from the overall rating system from head coach 09 and really if I was to have my way a couple things from the original head coach and a few additions that could really make the whole system work very well.

In HC09 the ratings were basically split up into 3 categories. There was athleticism (speed, agility, acceleration, kick power, throw power, strength, run block strength, pass block strength etc...), intangibles (accuracy, juke move, spin move, hit power, tackle, route running, awareness, play recognition etc...), and learning which was just the learning rating but worthy of its own category as it was very important. Learning is not currently in madden but I think it really needs to be added as it could really add a lot into franchise and I think it maybe should even be split into play learning and skill learning which would develop how quickly a player can learn mental and intangible ratings. Adding playbook learning along with a solid playbook editor so your playbook could evolve with your team could really add some depth.

Also, it might not hurt to split the athleticism category into strength type ratings and speed type ratings as they are very different.

Also, I think mental (awareness, play recognition, and vision along with more that really need to be added, especially for olinemen and QBs) should really be seperated into their own category.

Along with those ratings categories there was a category for size and production. The size is really a factor, especially for determining which linemen fit which system. The production one is a great answer to the progression problem of player's being stuck at a really low overall due to their potential. It allows their overall to increase some getting them the playing time and contract that they earned without falsely increasing their skills for things that should not increase said skills and actually allows their overall to become somewhat higher than their actual potential overall. Also, as far as potential and how it effects overall in madden 09 they took a very lazy approach. They just made a single overall potential, made it a hard number, and made it easily manipulatable. They need to go with a system like in HC09 where each individual rating had its own potential which really adds some very interesting variety to how different players progress and adds some variety to the players you draft. You might get a OLB with all the physical tools and even enough intangebles skills to really be a great player but who just isn't smart enough to learn a playbook or read plays and therefor despite a good overall becomes a bust or you may get that QB who dispite the lack of a huge are and only above average accuracy if exeptional at reading defenses and is very smart and learns an ultra complex playbook very quickly allowing you to open things up and add new wrinkles every week.

Each of these areas was then given its own "overall" rating and those overall ratings would be figured into the actual overall. As far as the actual overall goes there were 4 or 5 different formulas for each position dependent on that team's philosiphy for that position.

Something that really needs to be added here is balancing some of those (size/strength/mauler olinemen were usually higher overall that any other system, the speed reciever formula led to tons of high overall recievers) and also you need to be able to set multiple philosiphies for each position such as have your starting HB set to power back and your backup to recieving back. This would really help if the CPU allowing them to look for different types of specialty players. Also here they really need to look at allowing you during the scouting process to scout a player using any positional philosiphy you want so that you can search for DEs who would work well moved to OLB or corners who would be good safties or whatever. Their also needs to be more ratings differentiating 3-4 OLBs and 4-3 DEs as some players just cannot make this transition. Being able to do all this could really add to the draft strategy especially with a reworked scouting system.

The thing I think they should really take from the original HC is the ratings range idea. This would add a lot to making players not be completely consistant as they currently are in madden and could really add a lot to scouting and to personell management decisions. However, it should not be something so easily user controlled to get the player to play at the top of their range. It should be pretty much random with a small ammount of momentum played into it. Nothing as drastic as in the original HC for the momentum and mostly random though. This could allow players to have hot streaks, slumps, etc. Another interesting possibility would be not showing where with the range the player was currently playing.

As far as the scouting this could really make things easier and pretty interesting. An unknown rookie's rating could show up as a really big range (4-97) as an example. As you scout the player it should slowly narrow down to his actual range. This narrowing should be much slower than in HC but there should be more opportunities to scout. Also, they should add in things like the senior allstar game, individual workouts, and the combine from HC09 to give scouting opportunites and look at reworking in season scouting. I think you should maybe get to choose like 3 or 4 games each week to scout. These could be college games or pro games and you should gain a little info on all players involved in that game.

Even with these increased opportunities you should not really be able to fully scout any players before the draft. In season scouting should be slow enough that even if you constantly scout one player you can't fully narrow down his ratings. You should gain more during the offseason but in the offseason there is only so much you can do with each player. Basically this way there is some mystory as to how good the players you are drafting are and then as they play for you through the preseason and even the regular season your information should narrow down. This way you aren't sure exactly how good your players or your opponents are although after being on your team for a while or playing against a team a few times the ratings should be pretty well narrowed down. How much they narrow during games should be based on snaps played and not just on having played the game, normally something that doesn't have to be specified but this is EA we are talking about. They alway look for the easy way out. This whole deal would lead to things like QB contreversies and gems making their way into free agency or trades.

Each individual rating should have ranges like this as well. Potential for each individual rating should be hidden but you should be given an "upside" grade for each rating based category, the accuracy of which would depend on how well the player is scouted and the skill of your coaching staff.