How to fix Scouting & the draft

[kosarfan]

Current Scouting/Drafting - Scouting only really allows you to get good info on about 1/4 of the draft. Each round of scouting only unlocks certain ratings and it's never the ratings that really matter. Why do I care how well a QB can pass block or how accurate a arm a FS has? There are over 300 players invited to the scouting combine every year and even the general public gets the drill results of those 300 players but you are only allowed to scout 20 players and get semi-useful info. You have to hire a scouting agency but it's pointless as everyone scouts the same number and quality, there is no difference from one to the other. If you use a Madden class then you have a really high potential to draft a "bust" in the first round and even picking blindly have a high chance to get a sleeper in the 5/6 rounds. With an NCAA class it seems that everyone is a superstar and you will get A & B potential players with most of you picks. It's Goldilocks without the "just right" option.

How Scouting should be done: Each team has a scouting department and EA rates them based on how teams have done historically in the draft. The Browns would be mediocre and the Steelers would be excellent for example. You would also hire not just coaches but a GM and during the season you send your scouts to visit various teams and get basic info on carrying, catching, agility, etc. During the season those ratings would be a range not a hard number so if I scouted WR #1 at FU then I would get this: Speed = 72-89. The better the scout the tighter the range. This will never happen but if you could somehow combine NCAA and Madden you could send scouts to specific games and get reports on both teams and maybe find a hidden gem or two.

In the off season you go to the combine and get real heights, weights, bench press, 40-times, etc. These are hard numbers that you have to equate in your head to actual ratings. I'm not sure how many people teams can interview but I know it's more than the 20 Madden gives you as you only get 15min per interview over the course of 5-6 nights. Figure 5 hours of interviews over 5 nights and that equals 100 interviews. These should unlock awareness to a given range like before depending on your GM/Coaches experience. If you really wanted to take the game to the next level this would be where character flaws would be revealed as well.

Then we get into the Head Coach type scouting, School Pro Days. Each school should have a pro day scheduled and you can go look at who they have to get your physical attributes range down tighter depending on who you send (GM, HC, Scout) and how experienced that person is. Then individual workouts/interviews would be conducted and this would set ratings in stone depending on you GM/HC/Scout experience. How many of these should you get? Maybe around 20 or so, enough that you should have a really good idea of the guys you're picking with your first and second round selections. In fact only guys rated as 1/2 round prospects should be eligible for the individual workouts.

The team needs to have it's own "Big Board" that can be sorted by Best Player Available or by individual position and this should be done for you as you scout. So as you scout guys multiple times or scout new guys your Big Board is changing on a week-to-week basis. Then come draft time it much easier to figure out who you want based on your board because you can go BPA or BPA-at-Position-of-Need. You shouldn't have acces to another teams Big Board obviously but you should still have a Draft Round Grade on guys and where you think they'll go as that's how it works in real life. Again the better your GM/HC/Scout the more accurate your draft round grade will be.

There are 224 selections in the draft not including Compensatory Picks which should be in the game so there needs to be at least 300-350 players draft eligible so that, like Head Coach, you can do a "ebay" style UDFA bidding war and not get stuck with the crappy created UDFA's that Madden assigns to you. The thing I do like is the expanded rosters with cut days, this should not change and the ratings you've found out about a player would still be visible and get more specific as you play more pre-season games.

Potential, I hear a lot of people moan about how they ran for 300,000yrds with their F rated HB and he should now be an A potential player. That is stupid, if you have an F rated player and he gets amazing stats you are doing it wrong and need to stop playing the game on Rookie. Here is how it should work, no potential rating until after the first full season. If you draft John Doe in the first round to be your QB of the Future then you will unlock his attributes during scouting and pre-season but how well you do with him will determine his potential. If you decide to sit and "develop" a guy like Arron Rodgers behind Farve then you don't find out his potential until he's played the equivalent of one full 16-game season. Said players ratings, especially awareness, should increase some each season he sits the pine but the biggest ratings jump would be after he actually plays some games and gets his potential rating.

Thoughts?

[elijah53johnston]

I would love for this idea to be implemented. It would add some some great depth to franchise mode. I would be happy if they took Head Coach and mixed it with Madden's graphics/gameplay.

[SuckaRepellent]

I know for a fact they need to fix the transition from NCAA to Madden.

I remember one year CJ Spiller who was one of the fastest players came to Madden and had 75 speed. It may be even better to be able to edit the draft class once it's been uploaded to Madden before the draft begins.

I had a draft where RG3 wasn't even picked at least then you may be able to position players better to where they may be drafted.

[moneal2001]

I really liked how scouting worked in NFL Head Coach. in season scouting revealed positional ratings, the combine revealed physical ratings for all players at the combine, combine scouting(interviews) revealed mental ratings, pro days revealed the majority of ratings for all players from that school and individual workouts revealed all ratings including potential. if you removed the potential reveal from the individual workout and made it so the more you scouted a player throughout the process( in season pro day and individual workout) the closer you got to his actual ratings based on the range idea from the OP.



I really like the OPs idea of a hidden potential rating for the first full year of playtime. this would help prevent busts from being cut on the spot, and also put some sleepers in the FA pool.

i think madden should borrow the idea of editable draft classes from nba 2k. this would allow us to fix issues like ratings, equipment, and missing players from transfered classes from ncaa. you should also be able to create a complete class from scratch. it should also allow you to set up the kiper big board projection for each player(top 3, top 10, first rnd, etc.) that is the basis for all teams initial draft board.