Why not get rid of potential?
 

Potential is not realistic. It is something that is subjective to each individual. In real football there isn't a limit on how good a player can become. If a player plays well, he is considered "good." If he plays poorly, his stock drops. This forms a majority of the decisions regarding their salary and trade values, etc.

I think a realistic way to keep potential and incorporate it in the game is to have your scouts give their opinion on a players potential. This may or may not be accurate.

There many examples of guys coming out of college being viewed as no more than a backup at best, then after consistently playing well, are viewed as one of the best players in the league. That's how real life works.

I've seen people post saying that "You will have all 99-rated players if you don't have potential caps." That is not true. Every player can't play great and put up big numbers. If your players are valued at what actually happens on the field, then everything will balance itself out. Every game, every play, has winners and losers. Some guys won't put up the numbers, won't win games...and like in real life, their value will drop as a result.

Re: Why not get rid of potential?
 

Potential is not realistic, yes. It is, however, still a LOT more realistic than only performance-based progression, which is simply ridiculously unrealistic. Players have peak season every year, only to regress the next year because they just got a few lucky breaks, had some things go their way, whatever. Something like that would NEVER happen with pure performance-based progression, a player has a good season, he gets a huge boost and has an even better season the next year. Completely unrealistic.

Potential the way Madden uses it is just too simple, I really don't know why they haven't improved that system yet. I love how PES handles player progression, each player has a "progression curve", the gives him a kind of "soft cap" in every year. If a player is below his curve, he'll gain "XP", albeit slowly, helping him catch up with his curve slowly. If a player is actually playing, he gets XP, too, improving him even further (for every skill, there's a separate XP bar, once that bar is full, the skill is raised by a point), but the further a player gets above his curve, the slower progression gets, so no player will be significantly above his curve for long.

In this way, you can have young players who peak early, but then regress after a couple years, as well as "late bloomers", who will only be mediocre in their first few years but peak out in their late 20s. Still not realistic, obviously, because no system will ever be realistic, but it's a lot more flexible than what Madden has at the moment, is a lot more transparent because with time, you notice whether your player is right now playing above or below his current potential by the amount of XP he gains. Additionally, I personally find it a LOT more motivating to see my players progress a little after each game, instead of having to wait for the end of the season.

Re: Why not get rid of potential?
 

I would prefer an option to hide ratings completely.

The only way to judge other players is with your scouts in franchise mode.

Re: Why not get rid of potential?
 

To make it realistic we need to finally have a GM in Franchise mode and the players ratings you see in relation to how accurate they are compared to their real hidden ratings are dependent on the skill of the GM. The better GMs are going to be able to give better advice to you on the ratings of a player on your team, in the draft pool, and in free agency. The poor GMs are going to give Ryan Leaf and Jamarcus Russel 80 ovr ratings as rookies and A potentials. The good GMs will probably give these guys B or A potential with a very low ovr rating and maybe have a scouting report along the lines of "this guy has the potential to be very good if given time and a good supporting cast. Conversely, he can quickly bust if not motivated correctly or put into the wrong system." From there his future can be completely dependent on you or something.

It would be nice too if progression was based on something more tangible. Give players maybe three ratings that determine progression such as: Work Ethic, Intelligence, Self Discipline. The higher these ratings the better their progression will be season to season. Intelligence will help players increase their Awareness Ratings, Ball Carrier Vision, things like that. Work Ethic and Self Discipline can determine how well their physical skills develop (Speed, Acceleration, Catch, Route Running, Man Coverage, etc. etc.).

These would be the most realistic ways to model how the NFL works and it would really help teams pick up those late round gems and cause the human player to draft a few busts in the 1st round here and there. As it is now I can draft an A potential player every pick if I want. Putting a GM in there where I have to rely on his reports, along with combine scouting, and maybe a little more in-depth scouting like combine scores, or pro day reports, can allow me to model my own opinion of individual players and actually have to sit down and make a draft board throughout the season.

Re: Why not get rid of potential?
 

Donny Moore uses stat based progression, so Franchise should as well to maintain some continuity between year 1 and year 20.

Re: Why not get rid of potential?
 

Donny Moore doesn't progress players though he just changes their ratings to replicate how they are playing in real life. Progression is something that is more of a prediction than an evaluation.

Re: Why not get rid of potential?
 

Yeah, wasted space if you ask me.

Potential is nothing but someone's guess based on a player's size, speed, agility, strength, frame and knowledge of the game. A player more physically gifted with room to learn has more potential than a player less physically gifted with less to learn. We don't need a virtual scout to grade that for us. I'm guessing it would be more fun analyzing this ourselves any way.

Re: Why not get rid of potential?
 

I think it would be fun to have both.

Have scouts give guesses on the player like a real GM would get opinions on guys from the team's scouts. Have veterans be typically more easy to scout (use the games played or downs played as the "real" experience, not just years in the league).

Then the GM/Head Coach decides which kid/player looks most likely to be a good fit for what the organization wants to do.

Why only have an either/or situation? Why not put in better scouting, hidden and per-skill potential that could change due to injury/age, etc, multiple development curves and career arcs, and have that partially accurate information with which to make a decision?