Madden 10 Blog on Ratings Philosophy
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The new EA Sports community blog has provided another interesting entry this time from Madden 10 Designer Donny Moore. In it he goes over some significant changes to how player ratings are going to be structured next year. You can read the entire blog posting here.
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.
This is pretty big news and a very welcome change from the stagnant way ratings shaped game performance before. We saw the beginning of this in the final roster update of the year. Something that has plagued Madden for years has been the lack of separation between great, good, average, and poor players. You could get by with low rated players in general, especially if they had high speed ratings. It now appears other categories will carry more importance which should produce results more true to life.
I’m not sure if this is a way to make the importance of “team” come across more rather than a collection of individuals though. That is really the next step, to come up with a way that the Cowboys aren’t the best team in Madden just because they have big name talent at skill positions.
February 10, 2009 at 12:03 am
Awesome they needed to do this for a long time. It was frustrating to have so many in that 78-85 range that all played the same way.
February 10, 2009 at 12:25 am
If a team like the Cowboys with big names starts underperforming in real life because they're not a team, they could just lower their ratings in the game, so you'd still have the big names, but lower ratings.
February 10, 2009 at 12:31 am
Well that's one way but I'm not sure you should penalize the individual players because their team is bad either. Its a dilemma, maybe it isn't a ratings issue but instead they need some sort of team unity type feature that allows for those units to outplay their base ratings or underperform to their ratings.
February 10, 2009 at 6:56 am
that sounds good pasta but we kno EA will never put that much work into a game
February 10, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Pasta: One of my biggest pet peeves with the Madden ratings has always been the speed rating. They never seem to incorporate a players speed with his stamina rating which resulted in exploits like Julius peppers being able to cover wide receivers on fly routes because his speed rating was so high.
They have to take into account that speed needs to be factored in with a players size, weight, position, and stamina level. Julius peppers is a fast guy but he plays DE for a reason and not CB or DB.
February 10, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Is the rating system going to be linear or exponential?
February 12, 2009 at 12:53 am
Pasta, in the OS topic, Donny Moore stated that almost every Cowboy went down and they will defenitly not be the best team in Madden 10.
February 10, 2009 at 12:29 am
ok now im excited about Madden
February 10, 2009 at 12:37 am
as long as the CPU is able to recognize speed mismatches and able to correct them it will be good
February 10, 2009 at 12:42 am
I am impressed with how EA is responding to community requests. We asked for ratings changes and we got them. This is great information to get being 7 months until the game even releases.
February 10, 2009 at 12:45 am
I wonder what made Madden finally open their eyes and make all these big changes. You would think they would whip out all the stops for their anniversary edition right? I'm still loving 09, but looking forward to 10 even more now with their increased emphasis on SIM play.
February 10, 2009 at 1:17 am
Yes this is what im talking about make madden for the hardcore
February 10, 2009 at 1:27 am
I like hearing that these changes are coming! I always disagreed with there being so many high 90's guys. A 99 rating should really only be reserved for those who are absolutely dominant. Such as Jerry Rice in his prime, Barry in his prime, Terrell Davis after his 2000 yard season, Brady, Marino and Manning after their record breaking seasons. There being so many 99 guys just diminishes a true 99 kind of guy like those I mentioned.
February 10, 2009 at 1:45 am
Yeah i really like the sound of this.
Be interesting to see if it really does affect the speed issue thats there now though.
Doesn't really sound like it will, but you never know how they'll combat that
Hopefully it does make the game more challenging.. I think they need to just add an extra rating to the game..
ie, you are scrolling through the teams menu and you see Cowboys have a skill rating of say 97 (most skill in the game) but a team rating of only 84..
im sure it would be quite tricky to think of a way to do this, but perhaps it would be best done in a way that reflects the awareness of each player on their own team.. not the opposing team.. not sure.
February 10, 2009 at 1:50 am
I'm not a big fan of fifa, however i like they're idea of a team chemistry rating and they should have that on madden. Thus making a team like dallas still being a 97 but performing at about a 90 and vice versa
February 10, 2009 at 2:09 am
Why people hate on the cowboys people act like them dudes can't be beat or something.It shouldn't be no team concept it should be based on the players rating it self.We are controlling the teams we put the players in the right spot to make the plays. Not my fault that my play calling on madden is way better then jason garrett or wade Philips in real life.It's all about schemes and using ur players advantages at best in the game.People be killing me on line Top 100 players quit all the time and back out when they see the other player pick the cowboys. REAL PLAYERS PLAY ANY TEAM AND WIN OR TAKE THERE L LIKE A MAN!!!
February 10, 2009 at 7:15 am
na we r just pissed that the highest rated teams in the video game didnt even make the playoffs
February 10, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Kris the Cowboys are rated the best because they have unequivocally without a shadow of a doubt the best pure talent in the NFL. Kris you need to get over this fact and move on, there is just too much film on the sheer physical dominance of the Dallas Cowboys
February 10, 2009 at 3:21 pm
i never saw a physically dominant team allow the 08 rams to drop like 30+ on then
February 12, 2009 at 12:41 am
Solid. I never saw a physically dominant team give up two-straight runs of more than seventy yards to an injury-hampered tailback and a fullback.
I've also never seen the heaviest o-line in the NFL (they have either the heaviest or the second-heaviest, them and the eagles are first and second, but I'm not sure in which order) get smashed-on like they did. On SI's most disappointing players, they had Flozell Adams and they just smashed on dude. lol. (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/don...
February 10, 2009 at 2:13 am
just hope it works… somewhat decent the 1st go round…
btw congrats Pasta on the Complex Media ring…
I had no idea until i was reading the new edition today…
February 10, 2009 at 2:40 am
This is bad news for the Lions. I wonder if they are going to have to add negative ratings.
February 10, 2009 at 3:02 am
NOOOOOOOOOO….so this mean my Lions will all be in the 50's with the exception of Calvin Johnson….
February 10, 2009 at 7:12 am
o shit that sounds right!!!!!! damn enjoy…..lol
February 10, 2009 at 3:03 am
oh and Jason Hanson….
February 10, 2009 at 3:11 am
The Lions clause does not allow Madden to go below 0.
February 10, 2009 at 4:05 am
So your now referring it as Madden 10 after stating in the other blog that you would ignore it with the rest of us?
February 10, 2009 at 4:23 am
It makes sense and its about time. A guy with a 30 rating is still good enough to make it into the NFL but he just isnt good enough to stay on a team. The seperation is a good thing and I cant wait to see how it works out. Now if they can figure out how to put in 1st round draft picks that are a bust and 7th round (and rare) jewels in there and we got a winner.
February 10, 2009 at 4:33 am
Nice, I like how it SEEMS like these guys are actually doing some things to improve the product
February 10, 2009 at 4:47 am
I've gotten the impression they are sticking with this now unfortunately. I was holding out hope but they've been squared on the 10 thing lately despite evidence of it being lame.
February 10, 2009 at 7:11 am
im not liking the ratings to performance thing. it sounds good on paper but when we put the game in its gonna be shitty. ok im an eagles fan so what they r sayin is that my best reciever(desean) is gonna be like a 77 w/ 94 spd 70 route running and 79-80 catchin goin up against an overhyped overrated db like newman. by their scale newmans spd will be like 93 w/ 88mcv. so can they tell me how the hell hes goin to get open??????? or how about larry fitz on idk say nate clements or antione winfield who actually stopped him? that would just be unfair. maybe im thinkin too much but i dont wanna c dumb stuff just constantly take place on a game that im looking so forward to
February 10, 2009 at 8:41 am
Obviously they will have to recale the defensive players that you mentioned
February 10, 2009 at 8:40 am
EA must have sent out a memo to their payroll, so naturally Pasta has gotten the Memo and will refer to the game as Madden #10 here on out
February 10, 2009 at 8:41 am
This is much bigger and important news then the big superbowl announcement was.
February 10, 2009 at 2:45 pm
I think that they should hide the ratings. That way people will not feel inclined to just take the highest rated player and instead look at the people who actually perform on a consistent basis. I think this would be fantastic for franchise and online.
February 10, 2009 at 3:04 pm
wow u actually sound rational on a subject
February 11, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Mr EA sports: I couldn't disagree with you more. The number of stats attributes has always been a selling point in madden to demonstrate how much effort goes into separating the individual players from each other. To hide them would just upset the general masses and at this point would lead to speculation that they just don't want to program all those attributes any more. Also if you hid all the stats, then it makes substitutions a bit harder for your non starters since you wont know who can do what.
February 10, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Kris, you can not compare a average receiver like DeSean to a elite shutdown corner like Newman. The game should represent what actually what would happen if they matched up against each other while healthy. It's pretty clear on the tape what a healthy Newman would do to a healthy DeSean. Also Kris before you get all irate just realize that DeSean has only one effective route, the go route. When he gets inside the redzone he becomes ineffective which makes him the epitome of a "One Trick Pony". There is just so much tape on how ineffective he is outside of his go route. Newman is a top 3 corner in the NFL, DeSean is a top 3 WR on his own team with a below average receiving corps.
February 10, 2009 at 3:18 pm
U MADE MY POINT U DUMBASS!!!! hes overrated by little bitch ass cowboys fans like urself. im not gonna get into the eagles cowboys debate w/ u because its unneccessay. but to get back on the subject….teams w/ recieving corps similiar to the eagles would have absolutely no success even tho they do in real life. like the eagles secondary would just be too much for teams to overcome…lol jk but u guys get the jist of it. MR. EA can u be a little more mature tho y does everything u say have to be a debate??????? we r tryna talk about madden 10 and ur stuck on how much better the cowboys r than the eagles (on the tape) lol u need a new angle
February 11, 2009 at 6:57 am
kris i have to agree with on the d jackson case everytime i see him do something big in yards its the go route and i live in the phili area
February 11, 2009 at 10:22 am
ok whats the only route u see t.o getting big plays off of????????????? and look at some desean jackson eagles highlights. he runs a curl extremely effective as well.and o yea….HES A FUCKIN ROOKIE!!!!!!!!!!! when t.o. runs anything beside a 9 route its piced off(think back to all romos pics)
February 11, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Tons of DeSean love her. Dont confuse a man crush with playmaking ability. Yes Jackson made some big plays as a rookie. No its doesnt mean that he is great or desitned to be great. No he doesnt read coverages well or run great route yet. He may get better and may not. Dont go all crazy becuase he is on your fav team and had a decent year. I hope he developes into a steve smith type player and clams down on the fumble at the one yardline antics. LOL. take a deep breath.
February 11, 2009 at 4:59 pm
KRIS, how bout you tone it down fanboy. This is a place for civil and intelligent debate. There is no place for your juvenile antics here on the forum. If you cant make your points without the need to belittle someone then take your act somewhere else. We don't need you around here.
February 10, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Pasta: I also think that Madden should steal a page from the MLB series with weekly player updates in addition to stealing a page from the live series with the live 360 updates. Each week you take a players individual performance and you adjust the applicable trait characteristic as demonstrated by that players performance. For example If a LB makes numerous 1 on 1 tackles in the open field then you can increase his TAK stat, or if a WR makes some great catches you can increase his CTH rating. Same goes for missing tackles and dropping passes. I would use the Live 360 format as a way to demonstrate team tendancies and would use this for offline play against the CPU. So if a team lik e the EAGLES pass 60% of the time in real life then you can expect the same in the game.
February 10, 2009 at 11:54 pm
I think this is a bad idea. Mainly becuase a players ability in football cant be judged correctly based soley on stats. Sure, maybe Calvin Johnson had a bunch of drops last year but he was also gettign the ball thrown at him into double coverage and pretty much just all the time. They had no other offense. His catch rating shouldnt go down because he had some dropped balls. Your view is too simplistic for a game that is extremely complex. Baseball players hit the ball or dont. It is much easier to quantify than football.
February 11, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Well i don't think a football player gets penalized for a ball not caught while properly defended. Dropped passes are always referred to by a simple uncontested drop. Secondly there is no way to accurately rate any of these players in the game. How do you quantify an OL. How do you quantify speed ( they dont make these guys run the 40)?
There has to be a format for rating players. In the past the devs when interviewed said that most players rating were based on a public perception of what they thought a player to be. Well that is BS way of doing things and that is why gamers and Actual NFL players complain about the stats. If you don't use performance as a cornerstone of the rating system then the rating system is garbage. Prime example is LT on the chargers. Everyone know LT had a somewhat less than stellar year down the stretch due in part to injury but poor none the less, yet his Madden stats were not affected to display ths. That is the problem with the stats system in the game. If your going to attemp to adjust players stats then you need to have a system from which to do it otherwise don't bother, it just pisses people off.
February 12, 2009 at 12:34 am
"Well i don't think a football player gets penalized for a ball not caught while properly defended."
Actually, if a guy catches the ball and had it knocked out of his hands, it would count as a drop. Just saying. That's why you can judge baseball solely on stats, but not football. For instance, shutdown corners don't usually have as many interceptions because people aren't dumb enough to throw their way a lot. Case in point-Nnamdi Asomugha, Champ Bailey, Deion Sanders.
Anyway, the rest of this particular post was pretty agreeable…
February 10, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Any news on REFS & CHAINGANGS yet?
February 10, 2009 at 8:30 pm
josh you guys want refs on the field, but if you lose a game cus the ref was in front of your throw you would complain. if your player/ the ball go through the ref people would be pissed. personally the chaingangs is a great idea but people will complain if the refs mess up the game.
February 10, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Hey Pasta, do you know if the rating system will be exponential or linear?
February 10, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Well after reading the ENTIRE article I noticed at the end something that alot of us have been asking for as well. Bigger jumps in OVR, both positive and negative. I hated it when when a guy near the end of his career dropped from like a 95 to a 91. Why would you NOT want a guy that was a 91 rating on your team? Except for maybe some salary cap reasons a 91 player is not going anywhere if I can help it. I want to see a guy like Zach Thomas go from a 90 to like a 75 during the course of a year and even worse in the off season so you cut a guy like that like you would in real life. You might take a salary cap hit but if you are paying 10mil a year for the the guy then you will gladly take the hit. id also like to see a guy loose OVR based on the beating they take throughout their career. Some running backs get 5-7 good years as a starter and then all of the sudden they are done. Their bodies just got the crap beat out of them and thats that. I would love to see a 6 year RB all the sudden drop in ratings during the season because u used him to ground pound all the time and he is just wore out.
February 10, 2009 at 9:59 pm
one more thing, I want a QB RELEASE rating in MADDEN and NCAA. How fast a QB gets rid of the ball is a major factor in real life and it would make a HUGE impact in the game.
February 11, 2009 at 6:13 am
u got fantastic ideas…y cant EA think of these kinda things?
February 10, 2009 at 11:42 pm
The dev team has definitely stepped up to the plate on this one….while not huge, they are starting to listen to its customers. One thing that I'm craving for is some sort of Team DNA similar to what Live did this year…..combine that with the ratings fix their doing now, it would be great. First and foremost, they need to fix the player interaction in the trenches…..its still non-existent…..and i still have a difficult time getting to the QB because of that.
February 11, 2009 at 4:12 pm
well first of all they first have to fix some ratings where they should be on some people like michael jenkins,roddy white,michael turner,jerious norwood,matt ryan,harry douglas,justin peele,sam baker,lawyer milloy,curtis lofton,john abraham you know just to name a few.they have to fix those ratings first.they should not just focus on the popular players like t.o. brett farve or plaxico burress. and if anyone wants to play me my name is my gamertag so if ya have ps3 come get sum!
February 11, 2009 at 4:13 pm
and for gods sake jerious norwood has longer hair than he does in the game and hes much faster too
February 11, 2009 at 5:07 pm
I think the only logical way to do the stats is to take the players past performances stat wise when possible over the length of there career and avg it out then apply a numberical value to those attributes. Its not perfect but I think the important things in there will be accounted for.
February 11, 2009 at 6:21 pm
They way I see it, there are only 5 elite WRs in the NFL right now. The same can be said for almost any position really. I dont think there is one position in football that has 5 elite players. I have to say that I dont consider anyplayer having one great year as elite under any circumstances. M.Turner and D.WIlliams sorry. I am big fans especially of turner the burner, but that is the truth. I also think that the most recent stats are the most important ones. Is TO an elite receiver, no. Not anymore at least. I also think that game tape needs to be watched in order to figure out a players rating. Stats lie pretty much all the time. I also think that a RB who gets 1k yards isnt special at all. (67 yards/game is pretty weak) 1300 is a much more accurate number to look at the success of a rb. I think the guys at EA really just need a new perspective on rating player and it doesnt come from the anouncers booth.
February 12, 2009 at 12:30 am
I second everything you just said!
February 11, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Not exactly sure how you would quantify that acreyman. I kind of know what your thinking but you cant quatify that with a stat number. Everyone knows Dan Marino was the greatest at getting rid of the ball quickly and some scrub QB's hold on to the ball too long. But alot of that depends on there ability to read the defense and hit the target. Sometime a QB needs to check down which will require holding the ball a bit longer than usual. Also any number you assign to this would be negligible in online play since you the player controls the release. I do however think that the throwing of the ball should require the analog stick in conjuction with the receiver button selection meaning that you should have to position the analog stick in the direction of the intended receiver in addition to pressing the receiver button.
February 12, 2009 at 12:29 am
I was thinking that the release from when the QB makes his decision should be short, medium, or long. So a QB decides to throw, you being the QB obvioulsy, u might take a sec to hit the button but the other guy next to you might take half a sec…see what i mean. So the way i would do this is when the button is pressed, say the X reciever, it takes the QB a certain amount of time to get the ball to him. If your Romo the ball comes out quick, if your Lynch it comes out a little slower. I dunno but it seems like that might be cool to add.
February 12, 2009 at 12:31 am
MAKE THE RATING SYSTEM EXPONENTIAL ALSO!!
February 12, 2009 at 1:21 am
Refs are part of an NFL game like it or not. Even if they do occasionally get in the way so what! That's part of the game! Not having refs on the field takes away from the realism of the game big time! Not to mention no collision detection on the sidelines, no progressive lighting, players getting up & walking off of the field on their own after an injury, etc… I could go on & on. EA needs to take a page from MLB the Show & realize that little details do make a huge difference!
February 12, 2009 at 8:54 pm
this could either be good or bad depending on how you look at it
this ratings system seperates elites from good, good from average, etc. this could mean that everyone simply uses the patriots now since Moss and Brady are both considered elites. i dont know man i think i smell cheese
February 15, 2009 at 2:16 am
How come shaun alexander has been removed from madden 09??? hes only been released so he sohuld be in the free agency, unless hes retired and madden are the only people who know about it? can anyone elighten me on the situation im a seahawks fan and i still like alexander and is he going to be in the free agency for madden 2010
February 16, 2009 at 10:46 am
am i the only one that thinks this is going to be a BAD idea? They couldnt even get the ratings anywhere near realistic and they had 17+ weeks of updates and tweaks, that resulted in matt forte and a whole gaggle of unproven rookies ranking in the elite upper echelons of superstars, i like how they are being more realistic with the 99 ratings (but they should have been doing that already) following their logic though my skins (playoff contender pretty much every year for 5 years) are going to be a 77 with the cowboys giants and eagles in the high 80s, so were a better team than the eagles but ranked 10 points lower and probably on similar ratings level with the niners, rams and packers? That just doesnt make sense so again i reiterate this is a bad idea, the idiom bandaid on a boken arm comes to mind, id say redo the whole ratings system but im afraid theyd put out something similar to madden 08 (look up unplayable in the dictionary youll find it)
February 18, 2009 at 10:18 pm
id say redo the whole ratings system but im afraid theyd put out something similar to madden 08 (look up unplayable in the dictionary youll find it) <——–This statement hilariously true!!! haha
February 18, 2009 at 11:40 pm
i have an annoying feeling thats what 10 is gonna be like but since EA is listening to the community this time around i have hope they might not try and reinvent the wheel again….
February 20, 2009 at 3:04 am
Deangelo Hall better be at he least an 88 overall he had 5 picks