Madden NFL 10 Blog: Player Ratings - A New Philosophy, A New Era

[ch46647]

Quote: Originally Posted by Donny_Moore

NOBLE my friend, safe to say you will NOT be disappointed in the least with the Arizona Cardinals offense of Madden 10! That is, as long as Old Man Kurt Warner doesn't retire on ya! If you guys have to go with Leinart back there, it might be ugly.

I am surprised this statement was not more commented on by the community. This IMHO means that the QB position is getting alot of work. Hopefully there will now be a MUCH bigger difference between quaterbacks, other then just the arm strength.

[TDKing]

Quote: Originally Posted by Donny_Moore

Calvin Johnson should be fun at least. You are talking about an 0-16 team, first of it's kind. I believe the expectation (and rightfully so IMO) from most people who care to dabble in this kind of thing, I think that expectation for the Lions in Madden 10 the video game is for them to be the very worst of all 32 teams in the league. I'm talking clear-cut, 32 of 32. And on paper, aside from Megatron as mention above, the Lions will be pretty bad. Kevin Smith will get a nice bump, he shows signs which is OK, but then you have first round pick Gosder Cherilus....he had a Joe Average year, so he's not much to build around. Ernie Sims is the one nice thing on defense, not much else to get excited about. Name the Lions Corners. See what I mean... Your turn, now you tell me. If you had two average, evenly matched All-Pro Mode players playing against each other....And they went heads up Steelers vs Lions....each getting to be the Steelers 5 times...what would you EXPECT/WANT the Madden 10 results to be? Would you want a 50/50 (5-5) Detroit/Pittsburgh split? A 10-0 Steelers sweep? I have a very strong opinion on this one (as you may or may not tell from this post). Would love to hear where everyone stands on this!

10 - 0 Steelers. I can't wait to start my Madden 10 franchise with the lowly lousy Lions and try to turn them around.

[BezO]

Quote: Originally Posted by burnwood

The point that I'm trying to highlight in the imperfections of assigning a numerical OVR value to player is what really separates the 99 players across positions? A 99 QB, WR, LB, RB. Is it speed, catching, throwing? I just think it would be better to highlight that specific player's abilities and throw in their weakness as well. I know behind the scenes numbers are in play. We are dealing with 0's and 1's.

I could do without the overall rating since it doesn't mean much. 2 99-rated QBs are going to be 99s for different reasons. I'm only interested in those reasons. Is my QB a 99 because he's very aware & accurate? Is it because he's mobile with a strong arm? The overall doesn't tell me much other than the formula EA used to combine individual ratings resulted in a certain number.

But eliminating the numerical rating for individual ratings should not happen. I think the point someone was making was each skill will always be governed by a number whether its shown to us or not. They weren't talking about programming 0s & 1s, they were talking about the 100 point scale.

Example: 2 extremely fast guys, one runs a 4.2 & the other runs a 4.3. Both would end up with the Speed Ability, but how would you make the 4.2 guy a bit faster than the 4.3 guy? You have to do it with some sort of scale. Slapping a Speed label on the fast guys doesn't differentiate them. EA & most other sports game companies use a 100-point scale because it gives you the potential of 100 variations of speed. The only thing that could be more accurate is to stretch the scale, not eliminate it.

[thudias]

Quote: Originally Posted by TDKing

10 - 0 Steelers. I can't wait to start my Madden 10 franchise with the lowly lousy Lions and try to turn them around.

Yup.. that is the challenge I will want to take as well.

[burnwood]

Quote: Originally Posted by BezO

I could do without the overall rating since it doesn't mean much. 2 99-rated QBs are going to be 99s for different reasons. I'm only interested in those reasons. Is my QB a 99 because he's very aware & accurate? Is it because he's mobile with a strong arm? The overall doesn't tell me much other than the formula EA used to combine individual ratings resulted in a certain number. But eliminating the numerical rating for individual ratings should not happen. I think the point someone was making was each skill will always be governed by a number whether its shown to us or not. They weren't talking about programming 0s & 1s, they were talking about the 100 point scale. Example: 2 extremely fast guys, one runs a 4.2 & the other runs a 4.3. Both would end up with the Speed Ability, but how would you make the 4.2 guy a bit faster than the 4.3 guy? You have to do it with some sort of scale. Slapping a Speed label on the fast guys doesn't differentiate them. EA & most other sports game companies use a 100-point scale because it gives you the potential of 100 variations of speed. The only thing that could be more accurate is to stretch the scale, not eliminate it.

Fair enough. If you wouldn't get rid of the numerical values then I'm sure you think some of the attributes should not be included for certain positions.

For example an offensive lineman doesn't need a attribute for KP, THA, CTH. It's this type of stuff that I'm really drilling down on that probably formulates into their OVR rating.

[thudias]

I still prefer HC's approach to ratings. In HC ratings were determined on a value system to each team. So am undersized Tampa 2 linebacker had a higher numerical rating on the Colts than he would on the 3-4 Patriots.

[Golden28]

All this talk of player ratings got me thinking.

As so much effort is obviously going into the ratings, when Madden 10 comes out, what skill level should we be using to create a true ratings based game?

What I mean by this... at the moment, if you aren't a particularly good player then you can select rookie skill, which in effect, will make your 75 rated reciever catch, run routes and juke like a 99 rated reciever.

If I want my reciever to play to his true ratings against the CPU doing the same, what is the 'level playing field' skill level? Pro? All Pro?

I wondered as I want a true sim style game where the only thing that matters is the ratings, not the sliders.

[BezO]

Quote: Originally Posted by burnwood

Fair enough. If you wouldn't get rid of the numerical values then I'm sure you think some of the attributes should not be included for certain positions. For example an offensive lineman doesn't need a attribute for KP, THA, CTH. It's this type of stuff that I'm really drilling down on that probably formulates into their OVR rating.

Absoulutely! Hide them, something, but I hated scrolling through unecessary ratings. And if they do include these irrelevent ratings in the overall formula, they should remove them.

Quote: Originally Posted by thudias

I still prefer HC's approach to ratings. In HC ratings were determined on a value system to each team. So am undersized Tampa 2 linebacker had a higher numerical rating on the Colts than he would on the 3-4 Patriots.

I think I'd prefer absolute ratings that stuck with a player from team to team so I could determine his value on a particular team and in different schemes.

What exactly governs the ratings? Would that undersized LB have higher ratings on all Cover 2 teams? Will he hold his value if his current team changes their defensive philosophy? Does he maintain that higher value when I run man defenses with that Cover 2 team? Are all of his ratings boosted on teams that value him more? Does he cover better, have more speed, ect?

I never played HC if you can't tell.