Madden NFL 16 CFM Impressions Part 2 - Scouting and Drafting (MyMaddenPad)

[jfsolo]

Quote:

"One draft I drafted the #1 overall ranked player; WR 86OVR, a 83 OVR TE, 83 OVR DB, and a 77 FS. Those were my first 4 picks and my first 3 all had SS dev traits. Again, this was just me drafting against the CPU so I’m guessing that might not happen against 31 other teams but the scouting paid off."

Quote:

I do hear and share the concerns about it being too easy; it does sound like Shopmaster was overly successful with his scouting in a single-player setting. And again, it's not necessarily "realistic"; real-life NFL draft scouts don't enter the draft without knowing everything they wish to know about a player's skill set.

Yes, this is not good. There could be a few things at work here.

One, there are too many highly rated players. Hopefully this isn't the case because if so every team will be a super team a few years into the franchise.

Two, the CPU is too poor at drafting the best players. This is bad too of course because the User team will be the unstoppable juggernaut a few years in.

Three, too many scouting points for teams. This is mainly an issue if the CPU is garbage in drafting, because the User is always going to know with certainty who the most talented player are.

Hopefully there will be some tuning before it releases because since the core functionality isn't going to change, things need to be done to ameliorate the User advantage.

It's not going to affect me in my CFM, but it will be interesting to see how all-User CFM's play out. I bet that many of the players in the draft with the 4.3-4.4 combine numbers, will grade out with low "C" as their top revealed skill ratings, and a mid-round true value grade. Will people still go old school Al Davis and draft those dudes in the first round anyway. We'll see.

[jpdavis82]

Do you guys think the way scouting was in M15 was realistic? Where you knew every players attributes prior to the draft? Do you feel like you should know everything before the draft about a player and then there's no other factors to create risk for drafting them is simulation? The way it is now you don't know all their attributes and there's the risk they perform poorly at the combine no matter what the scouting grade shows. The draft Shop had is not the be all end all for how it works and not only that, they can still tune all of this before the game releases to make it more challenging.

[Big FN Deal]

Quote: Originally Posted by Step2001

EA didn't listen/read about wishlist Full (4 scouts) scouting staff. The scouts give the grades of the players you scout. No more opening attributes. You build your draft board based on the info your scouts give each player. That's why you pay them correct? You hire & Fire your scouts. You get some good info, other times you get bad info. I think it'd be better than same info for every team.

Exactly, same thing I was saying in the draft board thread, scouts are apparently a specific part of each teams staff so it makes no sense to be inventing some other way of doing it in Madden. Why implement scouts in Owner Mode as a modifier vs taking that same time to implement them in a realistic manner?
http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2014/3/6...cess-big-board

Each teams scouts in-game could prepare a draft board and/or ranking for players in the draft, as well as all applicable player data(combine, collegiate stats, injury history, DPP, etc), NOT actual ratings, being already available/unlocked for everyone, to allow any User the ability to search for their own gems and make preferential changes to their draft board.

JP, if you could man, whenever anyone affiliated with creating Madden brings up anything about the game for you to offer your two cent about, consider WWFD (What Would Football Do), meaning before thinking about it in a video game or Madden context, consider the real football context first, then go from there. Of course everything can't be 1:1 for realism to video game implementation but please start from that baseline, when applicable, then work from there.

Just to clarify, this is on topic, imo, because this is the slippery slope we end up on in so many areas. We're reminded that Madden has limited resources and they can't address everything at once, so we have to wait for whatever to be addressed, then when they actual address something real football based, if they do so in a drastically unrealistic and/or gamey manner, we're right back where we started, rinse, repeat. Hence where we are now with scouting and drafting, wasting, imo, resources on creating some unrealistic tedious mini-game, that the "casuals" they claim to be targeting, likely won't bother much with anyway. Instead provide a streamlined football based automated scouting/drafting process, with a UI where those that want manual influence, can do so.

Heck this concept probably applies to most things in Madden but I digress, the point is you're not going to get people that are mainly interested in just playing the games interested in most elements of weekly management by turning them into mini-games. I say "most" because I think the exceptions, off the top of my head, are practice, drills, etc, any option that allows gamers to actual take the virtual field with players and play but not for routine menu tasks. Reason being, doing so still doesn't negate the fact that most weekly management is still repetitive and tedious, which is the reason they only want to play the games in the first place. So all you end up doing is diminishing the experience of most weekly management for those that find that stuff enjoyable in its' purest form.

[m1ke_nyc]

Quote: Originally Posted by jpdavis82

Do you guys think the way scouting was in M15 was realistic? Where you knew every players attributes prior to the draft? Do you feel like you should know everything before the draft about a player and then there's no other factors to create risk for drafting them is simulation? The way it is now you don't know all their attributes and there's the risk they perform poorly at the combine no matter what the scouting grade shows. The draft Shop had is not the be all end all for how it works and not only that, they can still tune all of this before the game releases to make it more challenging.

The true draft value thing needs to go. Shop scouted 80-85 percent of a draft. So that means he knew what rounds 80-85 of those players should be drafted in. That is not good at all.

[jfsolo]

Quote: Originally Posted by jpdavis82

Do you guys think the way scouting was in M15 was realistic? Where you knew every players attributes prior to the draft? Do you feel like you should know everything before the draft about a player and then there's no other factors to create risk for drafting them is simulation? The way it is now you don't know all their attributes and there's the risk they perform poorly at the combine no matter what the scouting grade shows. The draft Shop had is not the be all end all for how it works and not only that, they can still tune all of this before the game releases to make it more challenging.

I like it better now except for the "True Draft Value part" Combine numbers, plus top 3 ratings, that would really force the User to take a risk, but knowing for certain that a guy is a first round value, makes it too easy. I'd like it if they did like NCAA Football(RIP) did at the end there and have variable scouting/drafting levels. On all-pro and above you wouldn't see the True Draft Value.

[N51_rob]

Quote: Originally Posted by jpdavis82

Do you guys think the way scouting was in M15 was realistic? Where you knew every players attributes prior to the draft? Do you feel like you should know everything before the draft about a player and then there's no other factors to create risk for drafting them is simulation? The way it is now you don't know all their attributes and there's the risk they perform poorly at the combine no matter what the scouting grade shows. The draft Shop had is not the be all end all for how it works and not only that, they can still tune all of this before the game releases to make it more challenging.

No, Madden 15 wasn't realistic and Madden 16 isn't realistic. But with madden 15 you didn't have the CPU telling you what round you should draft a player in. You still had to figure tha out yourself. You still had to take time out and identify players and positions of need for your team, you then had to sift through the players and find ones that either fit your scheme, or had ratings that made scheme irreleivent. Not everyone thought the same raitings were important, and I rarly scouted every rating.

For example speed of a NT was useless to me, and I never would scout that. For WRs I would just get letter grades on most attributes. It rather than have madden tell you what round(s) guys should go in, you had to determine that yourself. The Madden 15 drafts in my CFM were some of the best ones todate. You could tell what guys put time into scouting and what positions teams views as needs.

Not sure how this new systems will play out, but to me its a step back and no "realer" than madden 15.

[Paul Heyman Guy]

Quote: Originally Posted by Step2001

EA didn't listen/read about wishlist Full (4 scouts) scouting staff. The scouts give the grades of the players you scout. No more opening attributes. You build your draft board based on the info your scouts give each player. That's why you pay them correct? You hire & Fire your scouts. You get some good info, other times you get bad info. I think it'd be better than same info for every team.

Yep, would have loved to seen that be implemented. It would have truly made the Draft much more interesting. I was looking at the Ravens website and saw this in terms of the different scouts they have, and I assume it's the same for all 32 teams.

National Scout
Northeast Area Scout
West Area Scout
Southeast Area Scout
Midwest Area Scout
Mid-Regional Scout
East-Regional Scout
West-Regional Scout

As someone who wants a more deeper CFM experience, having those scouts added, especially regional scouts would be huge. Then having grades assigned to them on how well they are. Being able to fire and hire new scouts to improve your scouting would be welcomed. Though with the theme of simplifying things, EA at the very least can add a National Scout that you can hire/fire and upgrade to improve your scouting.

[Step2001]

Edit Draft Class - Because Schefter has audio on specific players in the draft, I would think that alone would cancel out editing.