Madden 2010 News Post

Madden NFL 10 Blog: Player Ratings - A New Philosophy, A New Era

06:53 PM - February 9, 2009 by Ian_Cummings

Hey guys, we thought it would be a perfect time to share something that I am personally very excited about for Madden NFL 10. We took each and every rating in the game (over 50+ player ratings) and scaled them up/down in a way that is now using much more of the scale. I like to describe it around the office like this…”We basically stretched out the ratings.” We want to use more of the numbers so we get a bigger, more noticeable affect in the game.

Let me give you guys an example….in Madden NFL 09 all of the WR’s Route Running ratings ranged from 62-99. In the current Madden NFL 10 build, WR’s now check in from 35-99. To counter this on the defensive side, all CB’s in Madden NFL 09 had a Man Coverage rating which ranged from 64-99. Now in Madden NFL 10, CB’s Man Coverage range is currently 40-99.

Every position and every rating has been re-scaled to expand the range of numbers we are dealing with. The Overall Rating for your average NFL player has dropped. Your Joe Average linebacker who was 80 OVR is now dropped down to 70. The players who were before right on the cusp of 90 in a rating category are now down around 85-88…Meaning, there are fewer superstar players out there. Before, where you could maybe get by throwing to your slot WR who had 93 SPD, with 74 ROUTES, and 77 Catching…now in Madden NFL 10, that guy is going to have like 91 SPD, 60-65 ROUTES and anywhere from 65-70 Catching. Let me tell you, these rating drops make a big difference when that slot rookie WR with 90+ speed now drops every 3rd pass or so, or just simply cannot get open.
The superstars have not been affected however, this is intentional. Peyton is still 99 OVR, Patrick Willis a 99, Larry Fitz is 99, etc. The elite players at rating categories have not been affected either (JaMarcus Russell still has a 98 Throw Power and Chris Johnson still rated 99 Speed). [Side note: One of my personal goals is to have the actual NFL players in Madden NFL 10 look like their real-life counterparts and play to their strengths and weaknesses like never before in a football video game.]

Speaking of the Speed, which is always a hot topic, we made some major changes with the infamous SPD rating as well. To give you a great example, I will again go back to WR and CB. In Madden NFL 09, the WR SPD range was 85-100…CB was 87-99.

In Madden NFL 10, WR SPD range is currently 70-100…CB is currently 75-99. So as you may or may not tell, the SPD range has been pushed down, in our opinions, to better reflect the “sim-gameplay” style that Ian and Phil have been telling you about all winter long. This SPD change has been updated for each position, so it makes a huge game play affect.

Ian and I had a game the other day where Earnest Graham broke one up the middle for a 55 yard touchdown run… and he could not be caught!…E-Grahams’ Madden NFL 10 current SPD rating….80 SPD. That should give you a good sense of what is possible with the new ratings. It’s not all about having the 90+ SPD anymore. On this particular run, Ian’s CB’s got hung up against some blockers and all I had to do was beat one safety and Graham was gone! He had Brandon Jacobs and his 85 SPD breaking some long runs as well. On the flip side of bigger/slower backs, Chris Johnson is absolutely lethal right now. You can actually get him outside with sweeps now and he is a beast to stop. But again, we are constantly tuning the gameplay, we have an entire team dedicated to that and they are some of the best people we have in the building.

So there you have it, player ratings are in for a major overhaul this year and I am really excited already with the impact they are having on the early builds of the game. And rest assured, we are well aware of the outside impacts this will have….Rookies will now come into the league based on the new ranges, NCAA Import guys are being tuned as well…Progression has been accounted for as well to better reflect breakout stars and burned-out former stars. Meaning, we want to have bigger jumps in OVR this year, both positive and negative. That’s all for now, probably gave away too much already!

Would love to hear any feedback about this big new change in the way we do player ratings. I’d be happy to answer any questions regarding the new rating ranges….please no individual ratings questions, not answering those! Stay tuned for more Madden player rating related blogs in the future!

- Donny Moore – Madden NFL 10 Designer

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Member Comments

# 101 RogueHominid @ 02/09/09 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcarr


	Really, 1 out of 10 is not realistic. Actually, of the 2 players being mentioned this last season johnson only broke a 20 yard run one out of every 27.88 times he touched the ball. He only hit 40 yards one out of every 83.67 times. As for sproles he only hit 20 yards one out of every 20.33 times and never had a 40 yard carry. That said spoles did make 20 yards one out of every 5.8 catches and hit 40 one out of 29 times. Johnson however only hit on one out of every 21.5 catches and never hit 40 on a catch. Actually out of players with at least 60 carries correll buckhalter was the "most explosive" in terms of 20 yard carries making one every 15.2 carries. Tyler thigpen had one every 15.5 and ahmad bradshaw one per 16.75 were the only 2 real close to that. For backs who carried the ball at least 100 times one per 18.15 by AD was the top mark. Deangelo williams and brandon jacobs at one per 18.2 and one per 18.25 were the next best. For players with at least 60 carries top makes for 40 yard runs were one per 25.33 by leon washington and one per 31.67 by jerious norwood. For 100 carry backs Earnest Graham who was mentioned earlier actually led with one per 44. Slaton had one every 53.6 and williams had one every 54.6 as number 2 and 3. In madden if you have a fast player they already break these 40 yard runs every game. I hope this will not extend their power by making them faster than everyone else around them.

That's a really great post. I love that the ratings are "stretched out" and the star players are more highly individuated as a result, but I am wary of statements like "Chris Johnson is lethal now" and "every back is lethal to a degree" if they're not balanced out with stronger defensive AI that allows for proper gap control, pursuit, etc.

Don't get me wrong, Chris Johnson is lethal, but as you show, statistically that translates to big plays at a far lower rate than video gamers are accustomed to.

# 102 thudias @ 02/09/09 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adembroski


	For most players, it's a formula that weighs the 40 time at about a 2-1 split between speed and acceleration, based on the player type. I used to have a chart I'd use to plug the combine numbers into and I'd know within 1-2 what each player's speed and acceleration in Madden would be. Wish I could find the ****in' thing. I wanted to show it to whoever was doing rookie ratings at the time. I think they'd flip on how accurate it was. It wasn't exact, but it was so close that it couldn't be a coincidence. They have a system, and it is based primarily on combine numbers.

From the sounds of the blog you may have redo your formula.

# 103 MidnightPyro @ 02/09/09 11:29 PM

A great step in the right direction. I think 70 really should be an average player in Madden. In past years, players less than about 80 overall wouldn't even make my team as a backup in Madden. That's just how it was. One of my (younger) friends was recently complaining how I took some guy in a fantasy draft at 80 overall because he "sucked". I think 70 overall as average is a good baseline, that way you can truly distinguish good from great.

The thing to look out for though is rating inflation. I haven't played Madden 09 (just bought it actually because of all the Madden 10 hype and I needed my fix), but it used to be where after a few years you'd effectively have 99 overall guys at every position. The salary cap would be horribly inflated, so you could keep signing your 99 overall guys. Bleh.

# 104 gabs485 @ 02/09/09 11:30 PM

Do players speed resembles real life speed? For instance if I take a player that runs 4.2 like Chris Johnson to practice and run a 40 yard dash would he run around that? I think players are too fast or the field is to small?

# 105 kmart2180 @ 02/09/09 11:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil_Frazier_EA


	Peter Moore is in the office on Wednesday. We're still chipping away on the Peter Moore build, trying to add as many bells ans whistles as possible. He'll love it. We are going to show him a feature he plans to announce on his blog really soon. It will likely be the first screenshot of Madden NFL 10 that gets released. Phil

Im getting a strong vibe off this post and the recent posts that the feature has something to do with players having their real life likenesses (facial/build/skin tone) . Just a guess

Cannot wait.

# 106 adembroski @ 02/09/09 11:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thudias


	From the sounds of the blog you may have redo your formula.

Hope so... it wasn't really a formula. I tried to do it that way at first, it didn't work. After that, I created a chart.

Anyways, the chart covered everything from a 4.2 (99 SPD, 99 ACC) to 6.0 (35 SPD, 35 ACC). It wasn't perfect, you had to use scouting reports to determine whether to weight the 40 time toward speed or acceleration (once again, figure about 2/3rds of the 40 time was considered speed while the other third was acceleration). If you read a scouting report that identified a player as "more quick than fast", but he ran, say, a 4.35, then you'd move toward the acceleration side. Otherway around for a guy with great breakaway speed but not much burst or explosiveness.

I think I remember where I have that Excel. When I get a chance to dig through my old backup disks, I'll post it somewhere.

# 107 roadman @ 02/09/09 11:43 PM

This sounds real encouraging.

Is it August, yet?

# 108 Chi Dynasty12 @ 02/09/09 11:44 PM

So would this mean Devin Hester/Chris Johnson/Jeremy Maclin's speed will be more noticeable? That would be awesome.

I like this idea if that's the case

# 109 Donny_Moore @ 02/09/09 11:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Details


	Great change! It makes sense to "stretch the ratings." My immediate concern would be that an average CB would never be able to cover a star WR. Also, if the new ratings philosophy somehow makes the Cowboys into an even bigger juggernaut, then that's not good. However, I trust you guys to find a way to make it work. Here's one way: defensive assignments. Thanks for the blog and tune with care!

Cowboys a juggernaut?? Doubtful in 10! Romo is down, TO is down, Marion Barber down....all of those guys had worse 2008's than they did 2007's, so we will be sure to reflect that in Madden 10...some of the Dallas OL like Gurode and Leonard Davis will still be elite...same thing with super stars like Jason Witten, Terrence Newman, and DeMarcus Ware.

Big Roy Williams in Dallas is an 82 after my first pass. Hard to like anything about Roy after last season.

# 110 Donny_Moore @ 02/09/09 11:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by splff3000


	Actually this is a valid question. If you slow everyone down, but keep the fast players fast, that's gonna make them extremely fast. Having said that, I do agree Chris Henry should be fast as heck, but I don't wanna see him trucking too many people. That has been the problem in the past. You have a fast player, but he is over rated because he's doing things that he's not known for, like trucking people in Chris Henry's case. As long as Chris Henry is fast as heck and that's about it, then it should be close to accurate. EDIT: Chris Henry(above) should say Chris Johnson

Chris Johnson currently in Madden 10:

99 SPD

64 Trucking

He goes down after first contact about 90% of the time right now. He's still elusive, but don't run many HB Dives with Chris Johnson...bring in LenDale for that.

# 111 Vikes1 @ 02/09/09 11:52 PM

[quote=Ian_Cummings_EA;To counter this on the defensive side, [/quote]

I take comfort in this part. Because to me it speaks of balance.

At first reading about breaking big runs with 80 speed backs...and "All I had to do was beat the Safety, and I was gone!"...had me a bit worried. In my experience[franchise mode] with the Madden game, a big play is a big play...because it doesn't happen repeatedly. My last franchise game was a 17-12 loss to the Cards...and I loved it.

Overall I'm happy with the news about the changes to the player ratings. I do think there were too many players just simply rated too high. As long as these changes don't upset the all important balance to the gameplay, I'm all for it. Donny did mention something along the lines of..."In order to achieve sim..." So I trust we'll be fine.

# 112 BSherrod @ 02/09/09 11:55 PM

Great idea, I was wondering what y'all were gonna do to separate star players this year. Please pass this awesomness to NCAA as well. =)

# 113 Donny_Moore @ 02/09/09 11:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adub88


	This is even better than the first anouncemnt. Ian can you talk a little bit about the Jump rating. I just don't feel that it really has had an effect in the game as it really should. Are guys like Larry "Fitz" gonna be a problem in '10? Also I hope the jump button is made more responsive. There's nothing more frustrating than pushing the jump button and the reciever just throws his hands up.

Yes, Larry Fitgerald is staring 99 JMP right in the face for Madden 10 and is saying "Hello"!!!!! Sorry, what else can we do there, the guy is sick.

I will let others speak to any perceived gameplay issues concerning the JMP rating, I can only speak to rating related issues.

Let me also throw a defensive bone as well here...Mr. 3 Name...Dominique Rodgers Cromartie will join Mr. Fitz at 99 JMP in Madden 10.

# 114 cowboy_kmoney @ 02/10/09 12:00 AM

This is big and I mean big news,Because now will know who to play and see what the backups we draft can do under pressure

.EA we still have a long way to go but it sounds good enough to fill us up till our next meal.

Stay tune madden fans...

# 115 Ram209 @ 02/10/09 12:00 AM

Ian

Dont know if this has been asked? BUT in 09.....lets see how I can put this.........RATINGS DID NOT MATTER. You could drop a guys jump rating to 0 and he would still jump upto bat down passes. Same thing with trucking, I am sure you saw the Youtube video of the guy who created a 5-6 170 rb with 0 trucking and 0 break block and he still trucked guys like T. Suggs and Ed Reed. In theory all of this sounds great. BUT and its a big BUT (|) this is assuming ratings will matter now correct?

# 116 Donny_Moore @ 02/10/09 12:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Krioniq


	THANK YOU! One of my biggest gripes with Madden recently has been ratings inflation; I think on the latest roster update in Madden 09 there are 17 LTs with a rating of 90 or better; effectively half the league has what I interpret to be a Pro Bowl caliber left tackle, which simply isn't true in real life. I hope that this does have as significant of an impact on gameplay both on the field and in franchise mode as you describe, Ian. Question though, if I may: if the average NFL player is now a 70, what is the average starter?

Just did a first pass of LT's today, you will be happy to know...there are now only seven 90+ LT's in Madden 10.

# 117 strong safety @ 02/10/09 12:05 AM

This sounds great. Reminds me of what I used to do with the NFL 2K5 editing! Larger gaps between the ratings of star players and scrub players.

# 118 Rocky @ 02/10/09 12:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Donny_Moore


	Yes, Larry Fitgerald is staring 99 JMP right in the face for Madden 10 and is saying "Hello"!!!!! Sorry, what else can we do there, the guy is sick. I will let others speak to any perceived gameplay issues concerning the JMP rating, I can only speak to rating related issues. Let me also throw a defensive bone as well here...Mr. 3 Name...Dominique Rodgers Cromartie will join Mr. Fitz at 99 JMP in Madden 10.

If Fitzgerald is a 99 at JMP, then Calvin Johnson needs to be a 109. As high as Fitzgerald gets, NOBODY(except for Moss circa 1999) can go up and get a ball like Johnson as far a pure jumping ability.

That's why I think numerical ratings need to go. They're so mundane and ugly to me. Whose faster between Peterson and Chris Johnson? Who knows? They're both have world class speed at the RB position and that's all that matters. I would venture to say that Leon Washington is probaly faster than them both anyways.

# 119 cedwebb @ 02/10/09 12:31 AM

This is really another great piece of info that we are getting. The way I see it, any way we can individualize and differentiate players is a good thing. The one thing that I can't stand in Madden is when in your franchise mode you can just go and sign all these 70 rated CB's with 90+ speed to cover top recievers. It just isn't going to happen. I don't care if a CB has 90+ speed because when he is going against a great WR with great route running ability he is still going to get dusted. Thats the way it should be in Madden.

My question to the guys is since the rating changes what kind of CB/WR interaction are you seeing that is different from last year? Has anyone put one of these average CBs with good speed up against Moss or Fitz to see what happens? Just curious!

I am really pumped to hear Ian say that you don't need a 90+ speed guy to break a big run..In the NFL speed is important but there is so much more that a running back must posses in order to break the big one. Any back in the NFL can take it to the house with a clear path to the endzone, especially if he gets behind the secondary, but the real work is done before he hits the line of scrimmage and into the second level. I like that IF a back with 80 speed gets loose he can take it all the way. I am real excited to see what ADRIAN PETERSON is going to play like? If Chris Johnson is dangerous what does that make AP?

# 120 KRS-One @ 02/10/09 12:41 AM

Finally!

That's all I have to say, but I'll say more anyway.

It's always bothered me greatly that so little of the ratings scale was actually in use. It never made sense to use only 10-20% of the scale, when doubling, or even tripling it would make the game so much better. This alone should make Madden 10 a game worth buying, and this is coming from someone who was as much anti-EA/Madden, pro-2K as you can get.

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