Practice mode will ruin your franchise

[Robo COP]

I'm unsure how it works as a coach, but as an owner for every successful practice you get 2k exp to your coach AND every player. 1k to all for a failed practice (successful/failed meaning if you "won" the practice scenario you chose).

You have 21 practices available each season (17 regular season, 4 preseason). So you have the potential of getting 42000 experience points each season for EVERY player on your team, not including experience from meeting goals, etc.

What does this mean? Players who never see the field are getting a ridiculous amount of experience all season. You can have a 3rd string QB never play and get a huge attribute increase from these points. This means that backups are going to become starting caliber by years end.

Better ensure any online franchise you're in owners are banned from using the practice feature, unless you want all powerhouse teams by year 2

CONFIRMED: computer controlled teams DO NOT get practice points like human players do

UPDATE (READ!) And for all of those who are doubting what I am saying. Go test it. It takes all of 10 minutes to do so. Start a franchise, set progression to "end of season." Sim to week 16. Create a new owner and then with your new owner go to "upgrade players." Sort by experience with lowest experience showing first. You will find guys with xp lower than 100, some with 0 if they have not seen the field all season. This proves without a doubt that computer teams do not get practice points because if they did they would have thousands upon thousands of experience collected since they are set to not spend any till the end of the season.

Now recognize that during this timeframe any human controlled team could have practiced every single week. Let's say they practiced every week but "failed" every practice. Every player still gets 1000 xp for a failed practice. Let's say the human controlled team had 50 players. So that is 20 weeks of practicing with 50 players, giving you 20,000 experience per player on the team just from practices (which once again, to remind you, the computer teams DO NOT get). so...basic math

(players) x (experience per player) = (team total experience)
50 x 20,000 = 1,000,000 experience points

That is 1 million experience points that the human controlled teams get that computer teams have no chance of getting. 1 MILLION!!!! And that's failing every practice. Teams have the potential of getting 2 million.

Now before the 10th person comes in here and says "well then just don't practice." Yes, I am very aware of that. That fix works just fine for anyone doing a single player offline franchise. The problem arises in online franchises. There is no way to prevent users from practicing, so user teams will still be able to create powerhouses

To all those talking about how back ups should have a chance to develop, etc. I am not arguing against that at all. I absolutely agree that back ups should have a way to develop without having to start them in games. What I am saying is that this system does not do that effectively because no computer controlled teams have the same oppurtunity to develop talent. If computer teams could do the same thing I probably wouldn't have an issue with the system. What I am saying and have been saying this whole time is that the system is broken because of this.

Now, surely we can all agree that user teams getting one million to two million more experience points than computer teams per season is a severely flawed system. I get why they tried to implement this system, but they did it terribly. That is how practicing will ruin franchises.


EDIT:

Dear lord...

everyone just forget awr and forget ovr and just recognize that human teams are capable of earning 2 million exp more than cpu teams PER SEASON.

So don't spend it on awr. Your team is still going to have 2 million more exp to make your team better than the cpu.

And the issue isn't resolved by how much it cost to raise an attirubte past 80. The cpu teams have the same obstacle. Except with 2 millions less experience points to use

[Robo COP]

Re: Practice mode will ruin your franchise

I'm seriously dumbfounded that they put something like this in the game. I love most of what they've done with the game but this is unreal. It can completely ruin a franchise. There is no way I'm getting into any online franchises with people I don't know until they patch this.

This really does show that EA doesn't even test some of the features they throw in the game. I noticed this problem at the end of my very first preseason and an entire development team didn't catch this? C'mon man

[GruffyMcGuiness]

Re: Practice mode will ruin your franchise

Doesn't bother me too much to be honest. All the important skills usually cost a ton to level up

[CarryTheWeight]

Re: Practice mode will ruin your franchise

If people hadn't complained about backups not getting XP from games and practices last year, this wouldn't have been the way it is in M25.

Before I get criticized for what I just said, let me explain that EA also could have handled it a lot differently than the global 1000-2000 XP boost per practice. They promised (in PR pieces, mind you) that regression and age factor into practice's effectiveness. If this is the best way to handle the "backup progression" problem, then the final game must make good on the developer's philosophy.

Then again, I won't be surprised if everyone's left with a stacked roster after 5-10 seasons. As far as this series is concerned, the promises of the past aren't always kept.

[Blue&Gold]

Re: Practice mode will ruin your franchise

I'm unsure how it works as a coach, but as an owner for every successful practice you get 2k exp to your coach AND every player. 1k to all for a failed practice (successful/failed meaning if you "won" the practice scenario you chose).

After unlocking the scouting boost for my coach in last years madden I would typically stop practicing. I will do the same in this years and you should too. You should also completely ban practices in any online franchise you have, here's why.

You have 21 practices available each season (17 regular season, 4 preseason). So you have the potential of getting 42000 experience points each season for EVERY player on your team, not including experience from meeting goals, etc.

What does this mean? Players who never see the field are getting a ridiculous amount of experience all season. You can have a 3rd string QB never play and get a huge attribute increase from these points. This means that backups are going to become starting caliber by years end. I'll give my personal example

With the Bucs, Mark Barron is my starting SS. He only got about 500 Experience from preseason play, but got 7000 from my practices. I went to spend his points at preseason end. He was a 75 ovr, and by boosting only his low awr and play recognition with those points he climbed to a 79 ovr. That's an average of 1 ovr per week for a guy who only got 500 experience on his own!

Think about what this means. Come years end every low end backup can just get a mass awr boost to become starter material. I'm willing to bet that its entirely plausible to have every player on a roster at an 80 ovr by year 3. Every user controlled team will be stacked with this system.

Better ensure any online franchise you're in owners are banned from using the practice feature, unless you want all powerhouse teams by year 2

Do the CPU teams practice and gain the same amount of XP each week? If not, then im happy not to practice

[King Gro23]

Re: Practice mode will ruin your franchise

Yeah look at upgrading cost for attributes that get into the upper 80's & so on the cost jacks up a ton. Important attributes to the position are weighted. So when in CFM you might be able to have a year or two of real big development jumps in attributes, but then you'll plateau off (3rd-6th yr of development because of reaching near-elite status quo/Upper echelon of talent or your career starts its decline)
unless your a rookie in cfm season 1 your career after that span of development through that process in the NFL is practically over. Guys are hot for a year,or two. Reaching their peak when its due, but they dont stay at the top. Very very few reach the top and then exceptionally raise the bar for a season(s) after reaching eliteness originally.

[Robo COP]

Re: Practice mode will ruin your franchise

I don't think you guys are understanding what I'm saying. EVERY PLAYER on your roster gets this whenever you play as an owner or coach. That means backups. So yea, attributes tend to cost more once they hit the the 80s, but every player can hit the 80s in awr, catching etc and that means that 5th string WR/CBs are going to be 80 overall by year 2/3. That's a powerhouse. When the backups to your backups could start on half the teams in the league, there's a problem

[pmurray20]

Re: Practice mode will ruin your franchise

I don't think you guys are understanding what I'm saying. EVERY PLAYER on your roster gets this whenever you play as an owner or coach. That means backups. So yea, attributes tend to cost more once they hit the the 80s, but every player can hit the 80s in awr, catching etc and that means that 5th string WR/CBs are going to be 80 overall by year 2/3. That's a powerhouse. When the backups to your backups could start on half the teams in the league, there's a problem

isnt that how some teams are in real life though? lol 2nd string players on any team could start for the AFC North haha and thats coming from a die hard steeler fan.

[LorenzoDC]

Re: Practice mode will ruin your franchise

I don't think you guys are understanding what I'm saying. EVERY PLAYER on your roster gets this whenever you play as an owner or coach. That means backups. So yea, attributes tend to cost more once they hit the the 80s, but every player can hit the 80s in awr, catching etc and that means that 5th string WR/CBs are going to be 80 overall by year 2/3. That's a powerhouse. When the backups to your backups could start on half the teams in the league, there's a problem

I haven't seen this year's game, but last year, a bunch of high tool rookies had awareness under 30. You could keep upgrading AWR, but it would take years to get them to 80, even with practicing. The points get more expensive up the scale.

Awareness counts more than any other attribute for Overall, but that doesn't necessarily mean the player is much better relative to the value of other attributes that don't increase OVR as much but that cost more.

So actually, I don't think you're hearing what everyone else is saying: you can't make a blanket statement about the development system based on the total points you can get from practicing without looking at how the upgrade costs system is put together based on value of attribute for each position and age of player and regression of player based on age.

You may be right, it may be unbalanced. But nothing you have said proves it one way or another.

[BrianU]

Re: Practice mode will ruin your franchise

Tweets from @Josh_looman about this from another dude:

@Josh_Looman Hey Josh, just curious. Thought process on 2k XP/week for the whole team in practice? Seems like low-end XP costs scaled down

@Josh_Looman (cont.) from last year so 70 OVR guys all progress insanely fast if you do a practice each week.

@Josh_Looman Love the idea of more guys breaking out but don't necessarily want my whole team rated between 84 and 94 OVR.

@TheMattRoberts We definitely wanted to give everybody the ability to develp young players and backups since practice is a grind.

@TheMattRoberts Once those ratings get into the 80s, they'll be much harder to progress. The feedback we got last year was not enough XP.

@Josh_Looman Gotcha. I hope you look at tweaking XP costs up a bit at lower values though. Practice can take all of 5 minutes and get

@Josh_Looman ... more xp than playing a full game. One practice and bumping up zone coverage 5 points afterward seems a bit much IMO.

@TheMattRoberts The main feedback we got was that players should develop more from practice than games. I worked with the comm. guys on XP.

@Josh_Looman Just providing feedback though. I just like to see one guy breaking out rather than all my 70ish rated guys over 80 in one year

@TheMattRoberts Got it. great feedback!

[gamecocksc17]

Re: Practice mode will ruin your franchise

in the words of the great ai.......

PRACTICE?.....
practice?.......


we talkin bout practice..........


not a GAME. PRACTICE.

[dorneydave866]

Re: Practice mode will ruin your franchise

I never practice.

I channel my inner Iverson.

EDIT: DAMN Gamecocks...ya beat me by .3434234 seconds

[ajk49er]

Re: Practice mode will ruin your franchise

stuff like this, stuff like legacy score and not being able to get certain positions you draft a player at, into the hall of fame without some insane super bowl record win total.

for whatever reason, qb's have a completion percentage from 35-50 in sim stats.

there is a lot of stuff that seems like they don't even test it once, as I found about 5-10 things like this that we all sat here moaning about, that are still broken.

they really need to fix this stuff for realism sake.

most of these problems come down to ratings being the real issue, and XP points still not making any sense, and legacy score still not making sense. they have yet to figure out a correct formula here. so much for it has to be perfect before they put it back in.

[rtkiii]

Re: Practice mode will ruin your franchise

I admit I complained about the way Backup players were handled in M13. It was just far too hard to get a guy into a game..but I was complaining about Pre-season games(Like the 1st Pre-season game of the season and me as a 3rd string QB does not get a single snap - 2nd PSG and not a single snap, etc. - I KNOW that is my chance to shine and gain XP but not if I don't get any reps. I'm not thinking I can jump from 3rd to 1st but if myself and the 2nd string are rated the same but I am behind him because of our names alphebetically I think I should b able to do something in PRESEASON that gives me a CHANCE to move up to #2) and the redundant of the practices. I did not want them just to Quad the amount of XP you get for practicing. I read that a while back and thought..."Dumb...you missed the point entirely EA."

Sad to see this. I want to earn my spot but at the same time not be insanely boring. New mini games to work on your position, like running routes, etc. variations in practice types - pads, no pads, etc.

[ForUntoOblivionSoar∞]

Re: Practice mode will ruin your franchise

I don't think you guys are understanding what I'm saying. EVERY PLAYER on your roster gets this whenever you play as an owner or coach. That means backups. So yea, attributes tend to cost more once they hit the the 80s, but every player can hit the 80s in awr, catching etc and that means that 5th string WR/CBs are going to be 80 overall by year 2/3. That's a powerhouse. When the backups to your backups could start on half the teams in the league, there's a problem

Why not just limit how many times you practice each year? Once every 4 games, 8 games, or whatever?

*is that something that can be done? Would it matter?