Total customization and the Rating System

[kjcheezhead]

Ever since the Game Informer preview, this game is getting a lot of heat for a few things, the biggest probably being total customization and ratings.

According to the preview we will not be able to edit a players size, weight or skill ratings. Having the ability to do this tho, would actually break the game. Online madden gamers have always had to deal with having to face the top 5 or so teams in the game 90% of the time. What would happen if they allowed gamers to make a team with max height, weight and max ratings on every player? Online would be a cheesefest. Even offline, if you can just edit your team to all golds, then why play franchise and try to build a team up at all?

Now according to the article, you can adjust sliders to change the number of gold players on both sides of the ball and you can adjust your teams strength. This gives me the impression that if I edit my teams strength to be good at the running game, I could get a gold RB and good run blocking oline. So I do have some control of what positions my gold players play.



Now let's look at the 4 skill rating system. Here is a description of the ratings system BB forum members voted for:

Blend: This system involves taking a handful of athletic/mental and position-specific attributes. An example for a quarterback would be speed, agility, strength, and concentration (athletic/mental attributes). Then arm strength and passing accuracy (position-specific attributes). These six attributes will each be given a value (1-100 or 1-10 or 5 stars, etc.). Attributes would combine to create special skills as well. For instance, a quarterback with high speed, agility, and concentration ratings may be a great "scrambler." Furthermore, a quarterback with a very high passing accuracy rating might have be a "bull's eye" quarterback. These special skills would be identified through icons on the field.

In other words, on top of the 4 ratings, there will be position specific attributes. Now here is what GI said about it.

"The version of the game we played did have varying player skill implemented yet, so we won’t know if this will be the case until we play the final game."

This sentence makes no sense as it is written. It looks to me like the GI informer was in fact, not playing a version that had position specific attributes.

I'm ok with both of these decisions personally. I'm convinced the ratings system is in fact the "blend system" described above and more involved than we know right now and I know people want the ability to recreate the NFL exactly, but at what cost to the game itself?

[Gort77]

Great write up. I agree with you about the customization, while i know everyone wants complete control over absolutely everything you know people would be making completely gold teams for online play. Another thing that occurred to me was, that since they have already said you can buy free agents with points you earn through the games you play, if the restriction to the number of gold players carries over to the franchise modes it will serve as a 'salary cap' of sorts.

[gr18]

The ratings don't bother me so much right now.It may be a little more to it.

The things that could've/should've been easy implemented is the height/weight.Besides for gameplay reasons it looks a little silly to have kickers looking like big linebackers and MJD and Sproles as big as Jacobs,etc.

Also when everyone has visors it takes away the human feeling of it.A handful on a team is unique but qb's and all....Peyton Manning with a visor doesn't seem right at all.I wish they could've done just a few generic faces.I'm not all that picky about equipment but most are.You see people on these forums picking at sock length!!I make 2k5 rosters and it takes a long time looking on getty images at each player and getting this right.

[Gort77]

Quote: Originally Posted by gr18

The ratings don't bother me so much right now.It may be a little more to it. The things that could've/should've been easy implemented is the height/weight.Besides for gameplay reasons it looks a little silly to have kickers looking like big linebackers and MJD and Sproles as big as Jacobs,etc. Also when everyone has visors it takes away the human feeling of it.A handful on a team is unique but qb's and all....Peyton Manning with a visor doesn't seem right at all.I wish they could've done just a few generic faces.I'm not all that picky about equipment but most are.You see people on these forums picking at sock length!!I make 2k5 rosters and it takes a long time looking on getty images at each player and getting this right.

I dont know if you saw the G4 interview, but they show live game play footage during the interview and they do show the kicker on a field goal and he is skinnier then the typical player.

[gr18]

Quote: Originally Posted by Gort77

I dont know if you saw the G4 interview, but they show live game play footage during the interview and they do show the kicker on a field goal and he is skinnier then the typical player.

I saw a picture somewhere of a kicker that looked huge.If you can adjust size difference per position it would be good.I'm hoping for the best with this game but expecting the worst.I wouldn't want to ruin peoples optimism though.

[kjcheezhead]

Quote: Originally Posted by gr18

The ratings don't bother me so much right now.It may be a little more to it. The things that could've/should've been easy implemented is the height/weight.Besides for gameplay reasons it looks a little silly to have kickers looking like big linebackers and MJD and Sproles as big as Jacobs,etc. Also when everyone has visors it takes away the human feeling of it.A handful on a team is unique but qb's and all....Peyton Manning with a visor doesn't seem right at all.I wish they could've done just a few generic faces.I'm not all that picky about equipment but most are.You see people on these forums picking at sock length!!I make 2k5 rosters and it takes a long time looking on getty images at each player and getting this right.

The thing about 2k5 is when the game was released, it had an NFL license. The NFL can't really sue 2k or anyone else for using the tools to create players in a game allowed to use the NFL. 2k severly limited what could be done in APF when they had no license at all.

Now Backbreaker has chosen a "futuristic" and somewhat arcade look and I think they did this for several reasons:

First, current NFL look without the NFL will probably fail. At the very least, it will turn off a lot of football gamers who enjoy playing Madden since it would instantly give the impression of a poor man's version of the same game (ala APF). This is probably over half the market of people who would ever be interested in a football game in the first place.

Second, it helps with lawsuit issues if the games characters do not look like NFL likenesses. Being able to get NFL logos and names in the game offline is impressive by itself.

Finally, the visors save the team development time and costs for the game.

[kjcheezhead]

Players are not all the same size, look at this pic.



The QB has little scrawny legs, the Olineman #88 has tree trunk legs, and the defender getting pancaked is kinda in between the two.

[Gort77]

http://g4tv.com/videos/44920/Backbre...nt/?quality=hd

Here's the G4 interview. At about 6:35 you can clearly see the kicker is much skinnier then previously seen player models.