Performance Based Progression vs Potential Progression

[splff3000]

Well by now, most of us in here have had some kind of experience with this new progression system. From what I can tell, the old "Potential" system was much much better. The only thing that EA needed to do was hide the actual "Potential" rating.

Way back in 2009, when the devs told us about this new "potential" rating, we begged them to do just that ...... hide it. They said they didn't wanna do that. In fact, they wanted to show the exact number of your potential at first, but we at least talked them into just showing a letter which would cover a broader range than the exact number. A few of us also asked them to change the name of this new rating as the "potential" rating might be confusing to some. We asked them to change the name to something more finite. What the devs added was a ratings cap for each player. The term "potential" does not make someone think of a cap, but how likely they are to reach their cap. For example if you said player 1 had A potential and player 2 had D potential, it would make you think that player 1 had a greater chance of being a good player. It does not make you think that player 2 has NO CHANCE of being a good player, which was the case in previous Maddens. It just makes you think it's less likely. Hence the reason we wanted them to change the name for this rating. They didn't hide the rating nor change the name and as some of us suggested, there was confusion for some about the "potential" rating. That confusion led to an outcry of complaints from users wanting their players to be able to "exceed their potential" (which is what players do all the time IRL), which in turn led to this flawed performance based system that we have now.

Check out these threads and you can definitely tell there was some confusion with "potential".

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...potential.html

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...-thing-me.html

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...fluctuate.html

A few of us saw this stuff and tried to get it rectified:

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...ds-hidden.html

And when it wasn't, we saw what would happen with a progression based system:

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...ogression.html

Fast forward to Madden 13's release and what a lot of us thought was gonna be a problem is indeed a problem:

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...on-system.html

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...on-broken.html

As has been said in a lot of these threads, performance based progression is pretty absurd if you think about it. It's essentially the tail wagging the dog. The ratings of your player determines how he plays on the field so how can how you play on the field determine his rating? It's a paradox. As the 2nd to last thread that I posted suggests, it leads to "success breeding success". For instance, if you have a 59 ovr RB and are able to rush for 1200 yds with him, why does he need a rating increase? You can already rush for 1200 yds with him!!! This was the case in the past if the player had low "potential" ( Man, I really wish they had came up with a better name for that rating) and it made sense. Ratings progression was separate from performance because it was known that ratings DETERMINE performance, not the other way around. Now tho, you will get more progression for that 59 ovr RB because he got 1200 yds rushing, which in turn will allow you to rush for more than 1200 yds which just keeps going on and on and on.

This is why the cpu's bench players don't get good progression. Rashad Jennings is never gonna perform as good as MJD for the cpu because MJD's ratings are much better than his. That's why when you're in year 5 and 6 and 7 and later, the best players now are still the best players then. For those of you not there yet, it's discussed here:

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...-year-1-a.html

They have the ratings to perform, which is what this progression system is based on, and the others don't. I feel sorry for you guys with a lot of cpu teams in your CC.

For those of us in online CC's with multiple users it's not good for us either. Since this progression system is based on performance, the best users will always have the better players because they most likely will always perform well because of the users skills and thus progress nicely. I know one guy in our CC( one of the top 2 guys ) was talking about how he gets about 10,000-15,000 XP a game for Calvin Johnson and he's trying to raise him to 99 speed. It's not cheating or unsim. It's how the game works. He's good and plays real good with CJ so he gets a butt load of XP in every game. It's pretty absurd. Back in the old system, there would be no chance for him to do something like that.

An ideal system would be a system that had a cap for each player like "potential" was, but also allow some performance to influence how likely and how fast that player reached his cap. I'm sure most of you would agree with that. Oh wait, we had that system..... It was the system we were using. All the devs had to do was tweak how much performance influenced progression and we would probably be in nirvana. In classic EA fashion tho, they scrapped the old system completely instead of tweaking and improving on what they already have. Now we have a system that rewards the cheesers and glitchers that get insane stats and severely hinders the cpu and the less skilled players from progressing their team. *sigh* I wanna go back.

[Farmer joe]

I didn't like the old system, after a few good seasons with a team, most of the players ratings would be in the 90s OVR. I don't cheese and like for my backups to get some time when I feel it's realistic, so this new xp system works fine for me. I don't cheese the CPU. I like playing single player offline usually, just playing online solo ccm until more of the offline issues are fixed. Maybe they just need a different system for you online multi player users. I like this system just fine.

[splff3000]

Quote: Originally Posted by Farmer joe

I didn't like the old system, after a few good seasons with a team, most of the players ratings would be in the 90s OVR. I don't cheese and like for my backups to get some time when I feel it's realistic, so this new xp system works fine for me. I don't cheese the CPU. I like playing single player offline usually, just playing online solo ccm until more of the offline issues are fixed. Maybe they just need a different system for you online multi player users. I like this system just fine.

You don't mind that the cpu players don't progress well and the best players now are still the best players down the road in CC?

[KBLover]

Quote: Originally Posted by splff3000

The only thing that EA needed to do was hide the actual "Potential" rating. *snipped for length*

Hide it and make it mutable based on various factors and make it per rating, and it would have been nice, imo.

Kinda like how OOTP does it, even with scouts off. You know exactly where he is NOW, but various factors/events can come into play (like major injuries, insufficient playing time, morale, personality traits) can cause shifts in potential over time, changing how the player develops from then on.

Throw in individual growth curves/career arcs based at heart around how players of that position typically develop in the NFL, and I think that would have been a robust, easily understood system.

From what I hear - M13 has some of that with ratings that impact development? Maybe a marriage of the two systems is what's in order - replacing XP with "training focus" where the player's coaches work with him on certain areas, which help influence his growth/maintaining ability going forward.

[dirtysouth1295]

Quote: Originally Posted by splff3000

Well by now, most of us in here have had some kind of experience with this new progression system. From what I can tell, the old "Potential" system was much much better. The only thing that EA needed to do was hide the actual "Potential" rating. Way back in 2009, when the devs told us about this new "potential" rating, we begged them to do just that ...... hide it. They said they didn't wanna do that. In fact, they wanted to show the exact number of your potential at first, but we at least talked them into just showing a letter which would cover a broader range than the exact number. A few of us also asked them to change the name of this new rating as the "potential" rating might be confusing to some. We asked them to change the name to something more finite. What the devs added was a ratings cap for each player. The term "potential" does not make someone think of a cap, but how likely they are to reach their cap. For example if you said player 1 had A potential and player 2 had D potential, it would make you think that player 1 had a greater chance of being a good player. It does not make you think that player 2 has NO CHANCE of being a good player, which was the case in previous Maddens. It just makes you think it's less likely. Hence the reason we wanted them to change the name for this rating. They didn't hide the rating nor change the name and as some of us suggested, there was confusion for some about the "potential" rating. That confusion led to an outcry of complaints from users wanting their players to be able to "exceed their potential" (which is what players do all the time IRL), which in turn led to this flawed performance based system that we have now. Check out these threads and you can definitely tell there was some confusion with "potential". http://www.operationsports.com/forum...potential.html http://www.operationsports.com/forum...-thing-me.html http://www.operationsports.com/forum...fluctuate.html A few of us saw this stuff and tried to get it rectified: http://www.operationsports.com/forum...ds-hidden.html And when it wasn't, we saw what would happen with a progression based system: http://www.operationsports.com/forum...ogression.html Fast forward to Madden 13's release and what a lot of us thought was gonna be a problem is indeed a problem: http://www.operationsports.com/forum...on-system.html http://www.operationsports.com/forum...on-broken.html As has been said in a lot of these threads, performance based progression is pretty absurd if you think about it. It's essentially the tail wagging the dog. The ratings of your player determines how he plays on the field so how can how you play on the field determine his rating? It's a paradox. As the 2nd to last thread that I posted suggests, it leads to "success breeding success". For instance, if you have a 59 ovr RB and are able to rush for 1200 yds with him, why does he need a rating increase? You can already rush for 1200 yds with him!!! This was the case in the past if the player had low "potential" ( Man, I really wish they had came up with a better name for that rating) and it made sense. Ratings progression was separate from performance because it was known that ratings DETERMINE performance, not the other way around. Now tho, you will get more progression for that 59 ovr RB because he got 1200 yds rushing, which in turn will allow you to rush for more than 1200 yds which just keeps going on and on and on. This is why the cpu's bench players don't get good progression. Rashad Jennings is never gonna perform as good as MJD for the cpu because MJD's ratings are much better than his. That's why when you're in year 5 and 6 and 7 and later, the best players now are still the best players then. For those of you not there yet, it's discussed here: http://www.operationsports.com/forum...-year-1-a.html They have the ratings to perform, which is what this progression system is based on, and the others don't. I feel sorry for you guys with a lot of cpu teams in your CC. For those of us in online CC's with multiple users it's not good for us either. Since this progression system is based on performance, the best users will always have the better players because they most likely will always perform well because of the users skills and thus progress nicely. I know one guy in our CC( one of the top 2 guys ) was talking about how he gets about 10,000-15,000 XP a game for Calvin Johnson and he's trying to raise him to 99 speed. It's not cheating or unsim. It's how the game works. He's good and plays real good with CJ so he gets a butt load of XP in every game. It's pretty absurd. Back in the old system, there would be no chance for him to do something like that. An ideal system would be a system that had a cap for each player like "potential" was, but also allow some performance to influence how likely and how fast that player reached his cap. I'm sure most of you would agree with that. Oh wait, we had that system..... It was the system we were using. All the devs had to do was tweak how much performance influenced progression and we would probably be in nirvana. In classic EA fashion tho, they scrapped the old system completely instead of tweaking and improving on what they already have. Now we have a system that rewards the cheesers and glitchers that get insane stats and severely hinders the cpu and the less skilled players from progressing their team. *sigh* I wanna go back.

If someone rushed for 1200 yards in real life would he be rated a 59 in Madden. NO!!! I don't understand how anyone could like the potential system over this.

[Big FN Deal]

Great thread Spliff and I don't know what can be said about this that hasn't already but I will give it a shot. The premise behind the XP in M13 is not bad, imo, because I think it's trying to replicate that any player can improve. I would argue that if Jerry Rice didn't have the work ethic that he did AND had the variables around him, HOF coach, players, avoiding injury, etc, he wouldn't be the HOFer he is today, soley from natural talent. So I picture the XP system as allowing every player, barring injury, to have the chance to excel, like Jerry Rice.

Now the key to this is to separate a hard cap/ceiling on physical ratings, while leaving skill/teachable ratings essentially uncapped. So some people have said to add a work ethic rating but I don't think that's necessary, I think for those skill ratings, the progression should be dictated by playing time, practice, according to their confidence and consistency which is effected by the coaching staff/system and results.

All that said, again, the current XP system has a lot of potential, it just needs to be fleshed out more. Picture it like this, each player in the NFL should theoretically have the chance to improve all skill ratings, given ideal conditions. They limitation is there is only so many snaps and so much time to accomplish that and there is not enough of either for every NFL player to max out. Also every player starts from a different level. To keep from trying to type out a longer post, I will use Wes Welker as an example. In Miami he had the same raw talent, it was just nurtured in NE to make him what he is today. Likewise in Madden, they need that element of the coaching staff/system to effect a players confidence and consistency to effect their skills with playing time, practice and results. Results is key because failure can adversely effect a players confidence and stringing together poor performances should eventually effect consistency. As well as needing other variables like wear-n-tear injury system, playbook knowledge, chemistry and morale.

So essentially a player in the right environment has the "potential" to improve greatly but the more time spent on improving that or those players, the less you have for others as well as those other variables providing unpredictability. I think that is the premise of the XP progression, it just hasn't been fleshed out enough and doesn't have enough variables represented yet. Not to mention even IF the system is finally fleshed out more, along with added variables, the game play still needs to be elevated so different skill sets and ratings equate to different playstyles on the field. It's hard to discuss things like this concerning Madden because even a solid progression system in the team management is diminished by the lack of influence of ratings to differentiate game play.

It's like Josh Looman with regard to career and the game play team are making two entirely different football games at times.

[KBLover]

Quote: Originally Posted by dirtysouth1295

If someone rushed for 1200 yards in real life would he be rated a 59 in Madden. NO!!! I don't understand how anyone could like the potential system over this.

Why is a 59 OVR player capable of rushing for 1200 yds consistently?

Sounds like something other than progression is at work for that. Of course, judging players by OVR is...inexact at best.

Especially if the weaknesses of the player's skill set do not translate onto the field. So if his OVR is low because his AWR and BCV are low, but you're controlling the HB, then the things that make him a 59 are not going to show up nearly as much because his BCV becomes your eyes that can, literally given the gameplay view, see the whole field and his AWR is your reaction time and your football knowledge and your skill at hitting buttons and the sticks, etc.

And in real life - there's a lot more dynamics that goes into a player's performance. A player can indeed be a very average HB, but if he has a good line and a good blocking scheme, he can put up higher tier numbers.

Plus, one year does not a career make. I looked up some of Denver's HB during Shannahan's time there and found guys with 1100 yd seasons...and never did anything close to that ever again. I'm sure there's plenty of other examples. Should that guy get some high rating for 1 year, and then perform at that level always? Sounds like these guys would be perfect examples of scrub HB that had one good year, but are inconsistent-at-best in terms of real ability.

[Big FN Deal]

Quote: Originally Posted by dirtysouth1295

If someone rushed for 1200 yards in real life would he be rated a 59 in Madden. NO!!! I don't understand how anyone could like the potential system over this.

See this is what I was getting at. Let performance allow XP or progression of applicable skill ratings, not some wide open system for every rating. I like that progression/XP allocation is available manually for those that want it but for others that want a more automated process, allow that performance to effect applicable skill ratings. The players 59 OVR would increase but it would be due to their BCV and/or AWR rating increasing, not their SPD, ACC, etc.