Player Ratings: Please Hide Them! - Jimmy_Fairplay's Blog

Jimmy_Fairplay's Blog

Player Ratings: Please Hide Them!

Posted on June 10, 2009 at 04:58 PM.

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One thing I have never liked about sports games is the player ratings. My problem is not so much with the ratings themselves, but with the fact that I can see them.

In almost every single big-name sports sim released over the past 20 years, we as gamers have been able to quantify, often on a 100-point scale, exactly how good each individual player is in a myriad of categories.

This might sound like a good thing, but I believe it actually hurts the realism of these games.

The reason I say that is simple: as a gamer, we not only control the players, but also serve as the coach of our team, choosing who we put into our lineup on any given day. Now in real life, coaches have to make judgment calls every day. "Do I go with Player X today, or does Player Y give us a better chance to win?"

Real-life coaches are forced to make their decisions based on observation, experience, player histories and hunches. Terry Francona has been faced with such a decision with David Ortiz. Is this a slump? Is he ready to break out? Is he washed up? As a manager, all Francona can do is weigh all the evidence and make what he feels is the best decision for the team.

On the other hand, virtual coaches and managers face no such problem. While many games do incorporate things like hot and cold streaks, the fact remains that we simply have too much hard data at our finger tips. For example, I recently started a dynasty with the Chicago Blackhawks in NHL 09. Through 16 games, second-line center Dave Bolland has no points and is a team-worst -9. But Bolland remains in my lineup because I can look at the player ratings and plainly see that even on a cold streak, Bolland is far better player than anyone I have scratched.

I'd like to see more games follow the All-Pro Football 2K8 model, where we can't see any hard numbers. There can, and should, still be ratings behind the scenes, and perhaps those should be viewable in the roster editing function of most sports games, but once we jump into a dynasty or franchise mode, I'd prefer if we, as gamers, were left to make educated guesses just like the real guys.

Comments

# 1 RaychelSnr @ Jun 10

I'd say ratings are visible as a convenience to the gamer who doesn't have time to go through hours of practice mode to determine who is better. You kind of hinted at why it's unrealistic to hide ratings when you said coaches make decisions based on seeing the players each and every day. I think quantifying ratings for the gamer allows them to be able to make the same types of informed decisions without the hassle. I think there should be an option to hide the ratings, but they need to stay as-is for the average sports gamers sanity

# 2 CreatineKasey @ Jun 10

I agree with disliking player ratings. I feel like abilities and tiers characterize athletes better than numbers personally. I don't want to think of RB A is 95 SPD and RB B is 96 spd and debate who is better or whatever - I want to characterize them by their abilities.

# 3 deaduck @ Jun 11

Agree with MMChrisS, they're there for the ****** gamer and thats the majority of the market. Not going to go away anytime soon but you could hope for a hide ratings option.