Beggest complaint

[sanonymousc]

The biggest issue with the game is pretty simple:

It is the development from Freshman to Sophomore year. For example, a true freshman (ex. Sammy Watkins - Clempson) comes onto the 2012 game at probably a 78. He has a ridiculous season including making the All American team. Rightfully so, he is probably around a 92 on the 2013 game.

This progression just cannot happen within the actual game. If you recruit the best overall Fr, say has an 83 rating, start him for the first year and have those same stats. He will progress maybe 4 or 5 points. There are no 12-15 point jumps in this game.

I would not want it to happen very often because that is a lot of progression but in real life true Sophomores can be 93 caliber player.

Just my thoughts.

[dudo670]

That's what Madden tried, but its too hard to do in a video game imo. What if a player does nothing? Does he regress or still go up 4-5 points?

[The_Wise_One]

I just wish progression would have a lot to do with on field production

[thedudedominick]

Quote: Originally Posted by The_Wise_One

I just wish progression would have a lot to do with on field production

At the same time how many times do you see a guy in college who has a successful freshman year take steps backwards going forward?

Then there are other times when a RS SO or a JR come out of nowhere and are one of the best players on a team.

I agree progression should be somewhat tied to on the field production, but you would never be able to replicate those two things that make the college game so unique. Do you want guys to get worse if they play bad? Do you want guys to only progress through production? It's tough to find a balance in a performance based progression system that can replicate what really goes on.

[mattokeol]

That's what Madden tried, but its too hard to do in a video game imo.

[jhunt26]

Why is it so hard? FIFA does it. If a player plays well (or is in good form), the CPU rewards them by giving them a performance boost, and I believe that European football is harder to judge "good form" than American football. American football has a lot of stats that the Dev team could use in their algorithm (i.e. sacks, TFL, Completion %, rush AVG, etc.), so I find it would be a lot simpler than Euro football which has very few "stats" to go on.

The biggest complaint I have is that certain ratings affect a player's overall too greatly. Yes, I understand that speed kills in sports, but so do smarts, "juke moves," catching, etc. The Devs should fix their algorithm so speed only boosts certain positions' ratings (WR, HB, DB, possibly LB and QB), whereas, with the other positions, it would be just an added bonus that would not boost their overall too greatly. Doing this would help distinguish players from others as ratings would(should) be more distributed.

For example, nobody can say Jerry Rice was not one of the greatest WRs in history, however, he *only* ran a 4.71 40 (which would be about an 83 rating); Randy Moss ran a 4.25 (99 rating). Jerry Rice is known for his great hands and route running, however, EA would only raise Jerry's OVR every 1.5 points of route running gained (per PocketScout's chart). This doesn't seem very fair to players who made their living on being great route runners.

Sorry, if that was a bit jumbled, but hopefully my point was made: Speed is not always the best tactic in football (European or American).

[goalkeepr]

In the real world, having a huge season doesn't mean he gets better progression the next season, it means he is making the most of the abilities he already has.

The thought that performance begets progression doesn't seem to make sense when you look at it objectively.

[BenGerman]

I don't think it has to be all about on field production, but that should be part of it. I think there needs to be a system set up where you divide up the reps in practice. After that, the development should be based on a mixture of potential and on field production. So something like:

40% potential
30% on field
30% practice reps

So then when a guy like Watkins comes in at 78 with A potential and has a good season with a lot of reps with the first string, he should have a dramatic increase in skills to the next year. I also believe the higher a player is rated, the harder it is to move up in skill. So once Sammy Watkins gets up to a 92 his Soph. year, he probably isn't going to improve more than 1 or 2 points a year.