The Importance of Madden's Attributes

[RaychelSnr]

I want to talk about attributes, And the importance of what they mean in regards to EA’s Madden franchise. In years past, Madden fans wanted speed, and why? Because you can’t coach speed, and inevitably it would counterbalance the lack of skill and talent in regards to lower-rated players. Thankfully, while speed is still important in Madden 16, it’s not the only attribute that matters.

Read More - The Importance of Madden's Attributes

[DCEBB2001]

In all honesty, EA needs to completely overhaul their attributes and bring them more in-line with what professional talent evaluators look for when grading prospects. To be clear, the grading of prospects is simply attempting to quantify the qualifiable traits that a player possesses. The big professional scouting services, as well as each NFL team's in-house scouting departments, all attempt to do this. Although what they look for can vary a little bit, most of them are looking for the same things at each position. I posit that EA needs to utilize such sources to mimic what the pros do in real life.

This all starts with the analysis of professional scouting sheets. BLESTO and National handle most of the NFL team's scouting responsibilities for college players who become draft eligible every year. However, every NFL team has their own in-house department that grades current NFL players and free agents on a monthly or even weekly basis. Once again, although the grading system may differ from one team to another, most teams are always looking for the same things from their players.

To expand on this, consider the QB position. Here are the traits that National, BLESTO, and an NFL Front Office (which supplies datat to FBGRatings.com) deem as being important for the QB position. In this example, the SAME PLAYER is used as I was able to pull his reports from each source:

National: Scale from 0.0 (low) to 10.0 (high).

Quick Set Up
Quick Delivery/Release
Arm Strength/Velocity
Judgement
Poise
Leadership
Accuracy Short/Touch
Accuracy Long/Touch
Awareness/Slide in Pocket
Anticipation/Timing
Locate 2nd Receiver
Scramble/Throw on Run


BLESTO: 2.40 (low) to 0.00 (high).

Set Up
Reading Defenses
Release
Arm Strength
Accuracy
Touch
Poise
Leadership
Pocket Movement
Scrambling Ability


In-House NFL Front Office: 0.0 (low) to 5.0 (high).

Arm Strength
Footwork/Scrambling Ability
10-25yd Pass Accuracy
Reads
Release
Holds (special teams)
0-10yd Pass Accuracy
Field General
Ball Security
25+ Pass Accuracy


As you can see, all three are not identical, but more or less look for many of the same things. What differs most is the scale for each.

When you analyze what these professional scouts look for and compare it to the attributes in Madden, you find some differences that are pretty wide-ranging. Did you notice something strange, however? One of the biggest things you will find is that professional evaluators do NOT give a value on the same scale as the technical skills when assigning value to the physical traits. Instead, nearly 100% of the time, they reference the testing results that are used to measure physical abilities for Strength, Explosion, Agility, Speed, and Burst. Such measurables include:

Strength:
1 Rep Max in Bench Press
1 Rep Max in Squat
1 Rep Max in Power Clean

Explosion:
Vertical Jump
Broad Jump

Agility:
Pro Shuttle (lateral agility)
3-cone (radial agility)

Speed and Burst:
10yd Split (during 40 yard dash)
20yd Split (during 40 yard dash)
40yd Split (during 40 yard dash)

These scouts NEVER assign a graded value to these 5 physical traits. They always reference the trial results. This leads me to conclude that if EA is really interested in making this game as true to life as possible, they would adopt such a system. They should overhaul all of the attributes by adding in ones that are not yet present (Poise, Leadership, Release for QBs) and get rid of ones that are not even evaluated (IBL, RBS, PBS, RBF, PBF, SPM, JKM, etc).

Further, EA should do away with the 0-100 scale for the 5 physical attributes and replace them with testing numbers instead. This would allow users, like real-life talent evaluators, to evaluate the physical skills as a scout would do. It would teach users how to evaluate physical talent and make them more accustomed to player evaluation more in line with how players are really evaluated in real life.

Instead of seeing a STR rating, you would see the player's Bench, Squat, and Power Clean numbers. Instead of a SPD and ACC rating, you would see his 40 time splits and could then differentiate between a player who accelerates quickly, but doesn't have great top end speed, from a player with slow acceleration, but great top end speed. If you want to know who may be good at doing a spin move about a radial center, look at the 3-cone time. If you want to know who may have a solid juke move laterally, look at the shuttle time. These are characteristics that transfer over to on field results very well and have high correlative values.

I would also like to see them use a real scouting scale instead of the 0-100 scale they currently use. Find a scale that works and adopt it. If pros use these scales to evaluate and assign values to talent levels, why can't Madden?

One final change I would like is the ability to turn off the OVR or make the OVR value better mimic real scouting formulas for which they are derived. Did you know that 32% of a QBs OVR rating is based on his THP? Yet, these scouting services give it the same value as every other trait! Why is that? The OVR either needs to be overhauled or done away with.

In summation, EA needs to completely overhaul the ratings to make them more in line with real data and metrics. This is supposed to be a next-generation game. I can think of nothing better to make this game mimic real life more than evaluating their ratings system and making changes to it outside of making this a true physics-based game.

[BlackBetty15]

DCE - Your getting deep brother and for what its worth I really...REALLY like the premise of your idea.(Or rather the norm of what happens but isnt reflected) The issue is while WE here at OS know how this is done and what NEEDS to be done, the team that is responsible for this wont do it because:

1: Its not their idea
2. Their idea is might be better

Not a slam at devs...rex is great and the team IS responsive. But the people above Rex that nix his round table ideas are terrible...Also, it seems that there is a push back for us here who want a great football game by incorporating true skills and strategy when playing madden and not that arcade Madden tourney crap always see. We are viewed as a small buying pool of the masses who prefer an "ish" final product. If it sounds disheartening, it is and I really HOPE to all things amazing you and your crew get on SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY to implement your thought process man because right now...while madden plays great...we say that because its light years ahead of previous maddens which depend on your outlook...can be a good thing or bad in terms of other sports games out there/

[SpyPirates]

Hmm with regards to awareness not mattering for user controlled players, In another thread from this week here on OS, a guy who had looked through the code "confirmed" that awareness acts as a modifier for all attributes, which implies that it does matter for user controlled players.

[DaSmerg]

Back in the day Madden (PS2 & next-gen) it wasn't so much speed. At around 89 speed, the margin of difference was minimal between say 89 and 99. It was the ACC stat that mattered.

Agree with DCEBB2001 though that the ratings system has needed an overhaul for quite a while as it's been questionable for a while what several the attributes actually do (if anything other than a new stat line on a spread sheet) and if there is that much of a difference between a C level rating and elite 99.

My experiences has been not really, other than the OP momentum effect with Madden piling on a lot of times (fumble, INT, injury, injury, special team play for TD) + the legacy predetermined outcome thang.

[onin9190]

After playing the game year in and year out I have come to the realization that the attributes don't matter and speed is rarely a factor when the AI is set up to balance the game flow to make up an imaginary "competitive" aspect to the game. I see time and time againyou 98 speed 96 agility RB gets run down by a DT the moment turbo gets hit. Have an OL that has 99 block 95 strength and 93 impact blocking but continues to miss his blocks or get handled by a DE with mid 80s in shed blocking. What about Drew Brees running like he's Mike Vick and Marcus Mariota running like he's Tom Brady.

I always wonder what makes that player have those rating. When we watch football we don't say "Aaron Rodgers is a 99 ovr player with a 96 throwing power 92 acc." We say "Aaron is the best if not one of these best QB in the league with great arm and acc who is mobile" how does that go in ratings?

The ratings need removed from the game (sorry Donny). It's going off one person's idea of how they are rated. It should be done by scouting reports. That's why the progression and regression is broken because the ratings are broken.

I guess I can't expect them to have everything right....

This why they have some terrible animations because the rating don't matter.

It's all AI animation that dictates what happens, who wins and who loses. It's all AI driven so rating dont mean anything

[phant030]

Halfbacks and Full Backs should have lower overall catch ratings. They should 'struggle' catching the ball out of the back field and especially downfield (other than exceptions). Their CIT and CTH ratings should be stretched down to the lower end of the scale.

This should create hesitation throwing bullet passes to flats, in traffic (texas), and deep down field on out wide or on wheel routes. QBs would have to throw touch passes to help them catch the ball. But this allows swarm defense to get there and slow their turn upfield. Throwing to HB/FB can be abused b/c they simply have too good hands and are able to catch too many passes in stride (this on average is too for all catches)
.

[Philosopher0]

I run the run n shoot where spec catch and height don't matter as I don't throw jump balls ever. I throw to open space. To me for wrs it goes: agi, acc, elu, rtr, release, catch, cit, speed, spc, jmp. Thp for qbs matters most to me.