Fixing Madden: Diversifying Scouting - Broncos86's Blog

Broncos86's Blog

Fixing Madden: Diversifying Scouting

Posted on September 7, 2011 at 12:46 PM.

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Hello again everyone!

I've been playing Madden with one mode exclusively: offline franchise. One of the biggest draws for me, in any sports game, is the ability to grow my franchise team and build it into a perennial champion. The two series I play the most are the Madden series and the NHL series.

This year, we've been graced with new franchise mode additions. Today, I want to go over why I think scouting, despite improvement, needs some work. I'll bullet-point the issues:

In-season is a crap-shoot
Potential is entirely unknown
No variance in scouting
The draft gives little feedback from scouting

These issues limit scouting greatly and have many in the dark on how to even approach scouting. Let's go over, in further detail, each of these bullet-points and how they can be improved by Josh Looman.

In-Season Scouting is a Crap-shoot

With this, we're talking about the scouting that starts on week 1 and continues through the regular season. When you begin scouting, unless you're importing NCAA draft classes and made yourself well aware of the incoming kids, the initial list of kids is a blind shot of who you want. So you figure out what positions you want to focus on, and you begin selecting kids to scout. Perhaps you just go down the list, maybe you spread out your selections throughout the rounds. The problem is that from this point onward, all you're really doing is marking kids for later scouting. Why is that? Because during the season, you are obtaining almost NO information that you find pertinent in making an educated decision. In your scouting efforts, you will discover:

WRs ability to shed blocks
RBs ability to tackle
QBs zone and man coverage
CBs throwing power

These mean nothing, they're a waste of scouting time. It's a pointless part of scouting that offers NOTHING to the experience of scouting. At best, you're merely tagging players, based solely on positional need, for future follow-up. However, when the time comes for the combine and pro days, you're STILL at a point of largely being in the dark. Who do you choose to scout, the DT who has a stronger throwing power, or the DT who has better catch-in-traffic? That's not very helpful, and it leads into our second bullet-point.

Potential is Entirely Unknown

With the exception of using an individual workout to scout a kid, you have no means (unless you cheat, but I'm not mentioning that here) of even gaining an idea of the potential a kid might have. You can spend your entire season scouting a kid who looks like he could be a great project, only to find out he's an F potential. I understand that in life, nobody really knows what a kid's potential might be. That being said, scouts aren't always in the dark entirely. They have a general feel for what the kid can do, but we don't get that in Madden. Because of this, we're left with ignoring potential entirely (again, unless we either cheat or give the kid an individual workout) and looking solely at his current attributes.

No Variance in Scouting

Throughout the season, you're just tagging kids and moving on. Once you've scouted a kid once, you don't think much about him until the off-season. It's click and go. Then the off-season hits and you simply repeat the process during the combine. From there, you whittle down a bit and repeat the process. Pick your top 5 and move on the draft. There's nothing different, there's nothing changing. At no point do your scouting reports change beyond what's already been revealed (sweet, this punter has a better pursuit than that punter!).

The Draft Gives Little Feedback from Scouting

So now that you've finally finished the grind of scouting (and pondered the disappointment of seeing that "sure-fire" pick turn out to be a C potential) it's time for the draft. So... where's your war room? Where is the mountain of information I just spent ALL SEASON gathering? Where's the quick access to kids I've scouted, with an ability to sort by the abilities I've scouted? How is Al Davis supposed to draft for speed with THIS user interface? Al Davis does NOT approve!

All smarmy comments aside, the UI is bland and lacking. There's little feed back and very little in terms of useful tools. Never mind the fact that the draft itself is a poor, mundane representation of the real thing. I just spent all year scouting a kid, plus the combine, and even a pro day, and the game is offering me a total of TWO ratings on the side window? You're telling me we know next to nothing about this kid? This isn't helpful, nor is it very fun.

Let's Fix This Stuff!

So let's talk about how we can get this stuff right and make scouting a game in its own right. Before I get started, if you've played the NHL series, keep some of the scouting system from NHL 2011 in mind as I talk.

Scouting during the season needs to be an on-going process. I'm not sure why they decided on this one-and-done idea with players, but I don't like it. There is great value in following a kid. Moreover, scouts hardly ever enter a season knowing zilch about a kid. There needs to be a generic "nationally known" idea about the kids. it's not as if the star QB from Stanford is flying under the radar and nobody in the NFL has any idea about his skills.

Scouting needs to start with a general frame of potential along with ranges in skill. Scouting a kid brings up a scouting card that shows the ratings that matter (e.g. block shedding and power/finesse moves for DTs) along with a potential range and some intitial comments on his traits. Let's give an example:

__________________________________________________ _______________
Joe Smith
QB
Taxidermy Tech

Potential: C+ to A- (Accuracy: 50%)

Ratings:
Throwing Power: 80 - 86 (50%)
SAC: 80 - 90 (50%)
MAC: 78 - 88 (50%)
Etc etc

Comments (traits):
"Consensus is the kid has eyes in the back of his head"
"Doesn't appear afraid to take off with the ball"
"Keeps taking sacks, won't throw the ball away"

__________________________________________________ _______________

Each week, you can choose to scout a kid and ask a scout to watch specific aspects of the kid. For one "scouting period" you can ask your scouts to focus on the QB's throwing mechanics or his athleticism or his decision-making. All of this will help narrow down the range of each rating. If you really scout a kid well, all the way through the pro days and work outs, you should see rating ranges of only a few points, and a potential of something like "B to A." As you go along with your scouting, the comments can change. Perhaps at the beginning of the year, Joe Smith above had a bad wrap as a guy who panics in the pocket. But from scouting, that turns out to not be true and the comment changes to reflect that. Those comments (you're remembering this from last gen, right?) give you a picture for what his traits will be. A comment like "takes a lot of sacks" would be derived from the QB's trait of not throwing the ball away.

This all creates a scouting system that keeps you actively involved whenever scouting opportunities arrive, whether tuning the system decides weekly is too much for each player or not. Perhaps scouts require "multiple weeks" in order to complete their scouting.

Lastly, the draft needs to bring this all together. Players need a war room. During the actual draft, fans will hear teams talk about "their board." Madden needs to replicate this. Allow players to make their own draft board. We choose the order of the top players we want to draft. The board should be sort-able in general. When a player is highlighted, a side card, on the right, should show the player's scouting report. Of course, players can still go "off their board" and draft as they will from a main list of players. Lastly, it'd be nice to regain that draft magic with some better atmosphere. Let's hear some crowds yelling and booing, at the very least. It might be fun to be in the war room, with white boards, and a TV in the upper right of the screen depicting Mel Kiper, Berman, etc "talking" about the draft (in simplicity).

So there you have it. This is an initial draft, and I'm open to comments and suggestions. I'm linking this to my signature, because I want some exposure to this list throughout the year. So if you like what I'm suggesting here, help it out and spread the word however you see fit. I'm going to edit this as I go (and I'll note the changes as I go), so this isn't my "magnum opus" of scouting.

Comments

# 1 thescoop @ Sep 7

I like your ideas and agree. The scouting system as it remains is a true waste of time. They need to give us real scouting answers. I mean why would any scout going to see that stud quarterback and give a report about how well he is at covering a receiver. That scout would be out of a job. Great write up. I couldn't agree more.