Not to beat a dead horse, but 4thQtrStre5S is on-point.
I have been playing Madden since 1988, when it was called "John Madden Football", so I believe I can say that I have a little experience with the game, it's A.I. logic evolution, and it's numerous quirks over the decades...
But I digress... I am glad that the Hallow's Eve Slider Brew has received criticism for being an "All-Star" set, because it provides me an opportunity to discuss the madness behind prepping a slider set....
the Formula/Approach:
1) Pre-order copy and clear my project schedule for the first week that Madden is released... CHECK
2) Dust off my spreadsheets from previous years of work to have a reference from which to compare.... CHECK
3) After the first week of casual game play at all default settings, call all of my Madden junkie peeps, and man do I have a ton of them (in fact one of my peeps is an EVP at EA and works closely on the Madden franchise; to boot, I am playing against his team in fantasty football this week, with me luck!), and compare initial game play observations... CHECK
4) Drop in on the OS and VPN community and check in on the general community's observations and start forming a list of "Madden gripes" that the sliders may be able to address... CHECK
5) Touch base with other slider mavericks on OS and VPN and get a sense for the issues that they believe the Madden sliders need to address... CHECK
6) Create test teams to work with and save as roster file. Test teams are teams that are assembled to compete against each other, strength to strength, weakness to weakness to isolate and test theories with. Typically will pick a team with a nice variety in their offensive plays (power runs, pistol, multiple shotgun spreads, west coast spreads, etc.) and get their schedule so that the team that was custom assembled, goes up against, other custom teams assembled immediately in the pre-programmed NFL schedule. This is key to properly testing sliders IMO because you can isolate strength v. weakness, strength v. strength, etc, etc., and replay those match ups, over and over, ad-nausea, until you start formulating opinions and suggestions based on dozens of observations providing consistent results to debunk or support a theory...CHECK
7) Choose to build the beta slider test on ALL-STAR mode for testing purposes, since ALL-MADDEN is artificially juiced to create the illusion of a higher degree of difficulty for Madden vets, thus making it difficult to substantiate theories without creating a neutral playing field that ALL-STAR is better at offering... CHECK
8) Decide if the penalty sliders are going to be a variable that is in play to address the glitches at hand. If so, begin by leaving all game play sliders at default and simply mess with each penalty slider, at polar extremes, and observe their impact on the test teams. Then begin the tedious process of moving the sliders in increments of ten units and observe changes to game play. Repeat ad-nausea until theories develop... CHECK
9) Send the wife and your buddy's wife's to the spa, shopping, dinner and a late movie chick flick, while your boys bring their PS4's some 24" flatties, crash your man cave, pound pizza and brewski's and talk smack about Jay Cutler, Rex Ryan, the Faiders, puffing stogies and testing Madden theories. Rinse, dry and repeat cycle as many weekends as you can get away with it... CHECK
10) Since identifying IDEAL game play between the HUM and CPU on offense and defense is typically of greatest interest to Madden junkies, for the beta slider set, ignore focusing on kicking game, injury frequency and auto-subs for the time being... CHECK
11) Once theories start taking shape, start the baseline process of moving the HUM and CPU sliders from default to polar extremes to document the impact on game play. Once the quirks and burps of the polar extremes are identified in the game play, have a pow-wow with the buds about what they perceive and feel about the game play and how they interpret the glitches. Define what a cheap sack is. Pocket collapsing to quick? Pass rush to strong? DB's playing too loose? Too many missed tackles? Etc, etc, etc. After pow-wow, start formulating slider mixes, that incorporate penalty tweaks, to begin addressing game play wishes. Since how the penalty sliders impact the game has already been observed, it is easier formulating a mix of game play sliders, mixed with penalty sliders, coupled with speed thresh to start taming the game... CHECK
12) Once a working beta set has been identified, then and only then, give a copy to a different set of buds, call them the testing group (typically have about 10 buds who were not part of the man cave crew) and start playing CFM games (8 minute quarters with accel clock) with custom built teams and document the _hit (rhymes with fit) out of the game play and stats... CHECK
13) Regroup after the testing group has played ten complete games, and share notes and observations. Regroup the man cave crew and tweak the slider set mutually. Once done, provide the revised beta mix to the testing group again and repeat step 12... CHECK
14) Typically after 4-5 weeks of testing the mix in actual CFM games, a consensus is reached regarding what works, and what doesn't work as well. Build a final beta mix, and then theSliderWhisperer gets to play with it for about a week or so to formulate final opinions... CHECK
15) theSliderWhisperer finally emerges from the man cave like a groundhog in spring, hopefully with a smile across his grill, to share the final beta brew with Madden junkies that care for it... CHECK
16) Begin the process of playing with the brew on ALL-MADDEN mode and begin the process of identifying areas to tweak to maximize the game play experience for those Madden veterans that are looking for that extra "something" that All-Madden mode can deliver... PENDING
17) Once done with a working beta set for All-Madden mode, turn attention to addressing the kicking game, auto-subs, injury frequency and all other loose-ends that have not been addressed due to the lasr focus to get the core game to play smoother, better, and with some semblance of stat accuracy.... PENDING
18) Pack it up, enjoy the Super Bowl, and mark the calendar for Madden 16!... PENDING
The initial title of John Madden Football was delayed because Coach Madden wanted REALISM from the game. He did not want an arcade game. I fully buy into Coach Madden's vision.
This is why since MLB the SHOW came out from Sony, I was floored by it's realism to the game of baseball. Since then, it has been my hobby to tune Madden into a more realistic game experience for me. It just so happens that some of my peeps preferred the game play I would achieve with my slider tweaking, that it just became a yearly thing to get the Wiz to build sliders for all of us to maximize our Madden experience. One of them turned me onto the OS community a while back and I was surprised to find that, what my wife calls crazy, is not crazy at all, since there is obviously a lot of Madden junkies like myself who are also looking for better game play through custom sliders.
I share my approach so that those Madden junkies who may have thought about what could be an optimal way to test slider theories, to have a shot at achieving a truly sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet custom Madden slider set, but may not have the time to dedicate to the craft, can drop in and share in the work put in by this Madden Junkie, or for that matter, the other slider witches commonly known as: Jarrod21, Charter04, SECElit3, Armor and Sword, Schnaidt1, 4thQtrStre5S, Oraeon1224, Slim4824, JoshC1977, BlueNinja, etc, etc, etc.
Peace