[Dmacho]

Quote: Originally Posted by deadlyCane

Hey G-Men, I’m glad you made that post. It brings to light one of the reasons why some people, like yourself, might still think ratings matter. Your posting about the difference you see in your linebackers make me think that perhaps this thread is incorrectly titled. I don’t think the OP is trying to say none of the ratings matter. Likewise, I would hope nobody would claim none of the ratings matter. That simply would’t be fair to EA and the Madden team. Ratings such as speed, kicking power, kick accuracy and the throwing ratings do matter. Maybe block shedding and tackling do as well, so you a difference in linebackers. Ratings like Route Running and, to a lesser extent, Man Coverage and Zone Coverage, don’t matter as much, but still more than the OL/DL. Anyway, that’s a different discussion for a different day. The crux of this thread is that the ratings on the offensive and defensive lines DO NOT MATTER. I SAY THEY DO NOT MATTER IN ANYWAY. I did this test waaaaayyyy before the OP posted his findings. I was in a Bills franchise and, after a couple injuries to my OL, noticed that it didn’t make a difference whether my scrubs or starters were on the OL. They generally performed about the same. Now I’m not looking for Earth moving differences. Regardless, I wanted to know if it made more sense to spend high draft picks on the OL/DL vs stockpiling cornerbacks because I suck at playing pass defense. Like any sensible general manager, I wanted to know what positions mattered the most. I wasn’t trying to break the game. I did some tests by lowering player’s weight, size, strength and block ratings to where I was fielding olinemen of 25 OVR and in some cases less. I had entire lines of such players. I played several games and found no difference. If there were any difference they were negligible. I shouldn’t be able to field an NFL team where all my olinemen are clones of Roscoe Parish yet still routinely get 3 to 4 yards running while giving up 0 to 1 sacks against a dline of 99 OVR dlinemen where all their ratings were maxed out. If we ever saw an entire OLINE of Roscoe Parrish clones in the NFL the RB and QB would be killed. I still had all day to pass unless the cpu blitzed me. I then switched things around so the cpu had the crappy line and I the monster dline. No difference than normal. This negated thoughts of slider effects. Also consider that after my tests, I decided to trade away my highest rated olinemen and replaced them with scrub backups. I did this because my highest rated olinemen were also my highest paid. Why pay them when that position is net neutral? I replaced them with scrubs from the FA pool as well as 55+ rated 6th and 7th rounders. I am about 6 games into my second season and my running numbers on average have not changed much since my first. I haven’t actually compared, just going off feel but I could post stats later. Even more surprising my passing has only gotten better. And no, I haven’t changed sliders. I do understand that I might actually have gotten better at the game, so that may account for slightly better passing numbers. But you did ask for a season full of played games, albeit only 6 games. I would think considering the NFL season is 16 games, 6 games is a good sample. The point is, the much inferior line has not set me back and Buffalo’s line was already bad to begin with. If you are someone who doesn’t get into the intricacies of franchises and building your team I can understand why it doesn’t bother you. But knowing what I’ve observed makes it really hard to get into the strategy involved in franchise mode. It’s pretty much a franchise killer if you ask me. For some people, that in itself is a game killer. I see some talk about ratings ceiling. If this is true and if it is a big contributor to what I’m observing with the OL/DL ratings then it needs to go the way of the dinosaur. Why should we have a ratings ceiling, especially when the cpu is putting players into positions that they don’t have the skill to play. Nevertheless, I still think the problem is bigger than a rating celing. And to the people who are enjoying every aspect of the game, I genuinely don’t understand why it bothers you that others are asking for improvements. I sincerely ask, why does it bother you that much? Wouldn’t your day be better served to just move on and do something better with your day, like go enjoy the game?

Co-sign 100%. Also, I don't think the ratings for WRs or CBs matter much either. I've switched the Eagles CBs with WRs and the difficulty change in completing passes was non-existent or minimal at best .

I'm no programmer, but in all honesty , I think the problem is that there are too many ratings. Maybe that's why we don't really see a difference. For example, why is there a route running rating for Olineman ? Why do they need a run blocking strength and run blocking footwork ; they already had a run block rating, why not let strength and agility take care of run blocking footwork and strength. Why do defensive lineman need a power move rating and a finesse move rating. Should strength and agility take care of that. Why do defenders need a play recognition rating , shouldn't the awareness rating take care of that ?

QBs should have speed, agility, short, med, long accuracy, throwing power, carry , strength and throw in the run.

HBs should have strength, speed, agility, short, med, long accuracy( only if they've thrown a pass in the NFL or played QB in college) breaking tackles(trucking is breaking a tackle), route running, carry catching, and pass blocking.

FBs should have run blocking and everything that HBs have with the exception of throwing ratings.

WR sould have run blocking and everything HBs have except for pass blocking.

TEs should have everything a WR has, and have pass blocking

Olineman would have strength, agility, pass blocking, run blocking, awareness and speed.

Dlineman would have agility, speed, strength, pass blocking moves, tackling, hit power, zone coverage and awareness.

LBs would have everything dlineman have and man coverage.

Dbacks would have awareness, agility, man and zone coverage, strength, tackling, catching, pass rushing moves and speed.

My theory is that all these unneccessary ratings are occupying too much of the game's resources trying to calculate who sucks worse at things they'd never do in a game.

If you put a corner at WR try to get him to run a crossing route, he should just run diagnally across the field and if you throw it to him it should hit him in the back of the head.

If you try to assign a DE to man coverage, he should run around with his thumb up his butt for the duration of the play.