gnperdue
06-29-2007, 03:47 PM
Realistically, this is a wishlist item for 2009. I've seen no indication anything like this is in for NCAA '08, and I don't think there is time even if EA likes the idea. But, I'd like to go ahead and make my case anyway.
I think a fantastic and easy-to-implement item would be hidden player ratings. By "hidden ratings," what I really mean is non-numerical ratings, or letter-grade ratings. Using letter grade ratings instead of numerical ratings is more realistic and provides players with an interesting set of roster challenges. And they are relatively easy to implement - this is a great "bang for the buck" improvement.
First, it is important to recognize that not everyone would like hidden/letter ratings. Furthermore, for online play, the real numerical ratings should be available. Therefore, the way to implement this is to provide players with an option in their profile settings along the lines of "Ratings: <NUMERICAL>/<Letter>." The default would be numerical, but it could be toggled to: "Ratings: <Numerical>/<LETTER>." . When players started a new dynasty/franchise mode, the behavior would be set by their preferences at that time, and locked.
Suppose a gamer chose to use letter ratings. How would it work? For most ratings, the following table could be used:
99-97: A+
96-93: A
92-90: A-
89-87: B+
86-83: B
82-80: B-
79-77: C+
76-73: C
72-70: C-
69-67: D+
66-63: D
62-60: D-
59 and below: F
Now, not every rating could use that table. For example, according to that table, almost every offensive lineman in the game would have a speed rating of F! This would make it impossible to pick out meaningful information. So some ratings would have to be explicitly position dependent. So for the speed ratings of offensive linemen, the table above might look like this:
99-77: A+
76-73: A
72-70: A-
69-67: B+
66-63: B
62-60: B-
59-57: C+
56-53: C
52-50: C-
49-47: D+
46-43: D
42-40: D-
39 and below: F
Obviously, that table cannot distinguish how much better a guard with 90 speed would be than a guard with 77 speed, all other ratings equal, but that should be okay - there aren't any guards with 90 speed! (One thing to note is that the "solid" B speed here is faster than most linemen in the real game - take that as a hint EA! Linemen are too slow in the game!)
So what would the impact of these letter ratings be? Suppose a gamer had a mass exodus of cornerbacks and had to recruit four new ones. Let's say the players he got were rated overall (OVR): 79, 77, 76, and 70. Most gamers would put those players on the depth chart in that order without thinking too hard. Suppose instead though that they saw: C+, C+, C, and C-. Our gamer might still be tempted to start the two C+ players, but he doesn't really know exactly how much better the C+ players are than the C player. Maybe he's got two 79's and a 73, or maybe he's got two 77's and a 76! He'll have to look more closely at all the individual ratings. Of course, these will be a little ambiguous too. Maybe their zone coverage (ZON) ratings look like C+, D+, B, and C- (for the C+, C+, C, and C- OVR players, respectively). Depending on the scheme used, the C OVR player might be more valuable because of that unusually high coverage rating.
It is worth noting there is of course also ambiguity about how different the C and C- players from the example above really are. The careful gamer will want to not only examine the individual ratings for all these players more carefully, he'll also want to put them in different roles during games, and try to figure out what the ratings really are! This is exactly the kind of roster management challenge a lot of gamers would really enjoy. Some care would need to be taken so that CPU behavior was neutral with regards to letter grades (i.e., it should not be possible for a gamer to figure out very much by allowing the CPU to auto-order the depth chart), but that should not be difficult to implement.
Of course, it is easy to take letter-grade ratings to the next level by adding ERROR to the number-to-rating translation. While it would be fun to give gamers the ability to manage a scouting department, where better scouts make smaller errors in their analysis, that is tricky to manage and isn't necessary to make this interesting. (I'll explain why it is tricky in a little bit.)
Purely physical ratings, the sort of ratings that are set in the scouting combine and on pro-days, should have very little error. Suppose our cornerbacks above had speed (SPD) ratings of 97, 90, 95, and 97. Perfect translation should be something like A+, B-, A, and A+ (the SPD grade for cornerbacks would be a steeply falling, and probably non-linear, function). Error on these ratings shouldn't be larger than 1/3 of a letter grade. So we might imagine something like A+, B, A-, and A+ being the grades a gamer actually saw. There is some error, but not much.
However, instinct and technique ratings would naturally have a lot more error. Previously, we thought the ZON ratings of our cornerbacks were C+, D+, B, and C-. Imagine if the gamer instead saw: C+, C+, B+, D. Occasionally the scouts are getting it right, but they might be wrong by as much as a full letter grade! This error would then feed into the OVR grade. So maybe instead of C+, C+, C, and C-, our gamer would actually see C+, C+, C+, and D+ for the OVR ratings.
If gamers knew that the OVR ratings they had access to were influenced by attributes that were not being measured perfectly, figuring out the best way to set a depth chart becomes a lot more challenging. In this case, three of the cornerbacks have the same OVR rating. This means our gamer is going to have to really watch his players during game and pay close attention to the kinds of plays they make and don't make. He'll have to rotate players in and out of the CB1 and CB2 positions, and ultimately the starters are going to be the guys that make plays!
A final neat twist on this would be to have the errors on a scout's assessment shrink over time. So a freshman with a awareness (AWR) rating of B would have to be considered carefully, but for a senior, an awareness (AWR) rating of B+ could be considered quite accurate - possiblely it is a B or an A-, but for the most part it would be very trustworthy. Our freshman though might be anywhere between C and A!
These things coupled together (always having fairly accurate physical ratings, but more intangible ratings becoming more certain over time) would better simulate the real life tendency of coaches and scouts to overweight measurables like 40 yard dash times and also better replicate the preference among coaches for "known commodities" (i.e., upperclassmen) in starting roles on their squads.
Of course, letter ratings would apply to every player in the game (including recruiting targets and players on other teams). In this case, it would be necessary for the CPU controlled teams to only see letter grades too. If the CPU controlled teams also face the possibility of scouting errors, things might become complicated. It might be best to have, for every player in the game, just one set of "scouting" ratings that every team sees in the same way rather that have some large database of different errors for every team. For some variety, perhaps scouting departments themselves might be rated (say as 1-6 stars), and every department with the same rating could then have the same errors.
One interesting note to make here is that if the scouting errors are drawn from a normal distribution (a bell-curve), sometimes the lower rated scouting departments will be more accurate! In the long run though, the higher rated departments would be right more often, but this would still provide for interesting dynamics - occasionally highly rated players would look sub-par to the big schools (with highly rated scouting departments) and they would end up at a small school.
Ulitmately, all of these changes are easy to introduce and they potentially add a lot to the game. So come on EA, consider uncertain letter grades for player ratings!
I think a fantastic and easy-to-implement item would be hidden player ratings. By "hidden ratings," what I really mean is non-numerical ratings, or letter-grade ratings. Using letter grade ratings instead of numerical ratings is more realistic and provides players with an interesting set of roster challenges. And they are relatively easy to implement - this is a great "bang for the buck" improvement.
First, it is important to recognize that not everyone would like hidden/letter ratings. Furthermore, for online play, the real numerical ratings should be available. Therefore, the way to implement this is to provide players with an option in their profile settings along the lines of "Ratings: <NUMERICAL>/<Letter>." The default would be numerical, but it could be toggled to: "Ratings: <Numerical>/<LETTER>." . When players started a new dynasty/franchise mode, the behavior would be set by their preferences at that time, and locked.
Suppose a gamer chose to use letter ratings. How would it work? For most ratings, the following table could be used:
99-97: A+
96-93: A
92-90: A-
89-87: B+
86-83: B
82-80: B-
79-77: C+
76-73: C
72-70: C-
69-67: D+
66-63: D
62-60: D-
59 and below: F
Now, not every rating could use that table. For example, according to that table, almost every offensive lineman in the game would have a speed rating of F! This would make it impossible to pick out meaningful information. So some ratings would have to be explicitly position dependent. So for the speed ratings of offensive linemen, the table above might look like this:
99-77: A+
76-73: A
72-70: A-
69-67: B+
66-63: B
62-60: B-
59-57: C+
56-53: C
52-50: C-
49-47: D+
46-43: D
42-40: D-
39 and below: F
Obviously, that table cannot distinguish how much better a guard with 90 speed would be than a guard with 77 speed, all other ratings equal, but that should be okay - there aren't any guards with 90 speed! (One thing to note is that the "solid" B speed here is faster than most linemen in the real game - take that as a hint EA! Linemen are too slow in the game!)
So what would the impact of these letter ratings be? Suppose a gamer had a mass exodus of cornerbacks and had to recruit four new ones. Let's say the players he got were rated overall (OVR): 79, 77, 76, and 70. Most gamers would put those players on the depth chart in that order without thinking too hard. Suppose instead though that they saw: C+, C+, C, and C-. Our gamer might still be tempted to start the two C+ players, but he doesn't really know exactly how much better the C+ players are than the C player. Maybe he's got two 79's and a 73, or maybe he's got two 77's and a 76! He'll have to look more closely at all the individual ratings. Of course, these will be a little ambiguous too. Maybe their zone coverage (ZON) ratings look like C+, D+, B, and C- (for the C+, C+, C, and C- OVR players, respectively). Depending on the scheme used, the C OVR player might be more valuable because of that unusually high coverage rating.
It is worth noting there is of course also ambiguity about how different the C and C- players from the example above really are. The careful gamer will want to not only examine the individual ratings for all these players more carefully, he'll also want to put them in different roles during games, and try to figure out what the ratings really are! This is exactly the kind of roster management challenge a lot of gamers would really enjoy. Some care would need to be taken so that CPU behavior was neutral with regards to letter grades (i.e., it should not be possible for a gamer to figure out very much by allowing the CPU to auto-order the depth chart), but that should not be difficult to implement.
Of course, it is easy to take letter-grade ratings to the next level by adding ERROR to the number-to-rating translation. While it would be fun to give gamers the ability to manage a scouting department, where better scouts make smaller errors in their analysis, that is tricky to manage and isn't necessary to make this interesting. (I'll explain why it is tricky in a little bit.)
Purely physical ratings, the sort of ratings that are set in the scouting combine and on pro-days, should have very little error. Suppose our cornerbacks above had speed (SPD) ratings of 97, 90, 95, and 97. Perfect translation should be something like A+, B-, A, and A+ (the SPD grade for cornerbacks would be a steeply falling, and probably non-linear, function). Error on these ratings shouldn't be larger than 1/3 of a letter grade. So we might imagine something like A+, B, A-, and A+ being the grades a gamer actually saw. There is some error, but not much.
However, instinct and technique ratings would naturally have a lot more error. Previously, we thought the ZON ratings of our cornerbacks were C+, D+, B, and C-. Imagine if the gamer instead saw: C+, C+, B+, D. Occasionally the scouts are getting it right, but they might be wrong by as much as a full letter grade! This error would then feed into the OVR grade. So maybe instead of C+, C+, C, and C-, our gamer would actually see C+, C+, C+, and D+ for the OVR ratings.
If gamers knew that the OVR ratings they had access to were influenced by attributes that were not being measured perfectly, figuring out the best way to set a depth chart becomes a lot more challenging. In this case, three of the cornerbacks have the same OVR rating. This means our gamer is going to have to really watch his players during game and pay close attention to the kinds of plays they make and don't make. He'll have to rotate players in and out of the CB1 and CB2 positions, and ultimately the starters are going to be the guys that make plays!
A final neat twist on this would be to have the errors on a scout's assessment shrink over time. So a freshman with a awareness (AWR) rating of B would have to be considered carefully, but for a senior, an awareness (AWR) rating of B+ could be considered quite accurate - possiblely it is a B or an A-, but for the most part it would be very trustworthy. Our freshman though might be anywhere between C and A!
These things coupled together (always having fairly accurate physical ratings, but more intangible ratings becoming more certain over time) would better simulate the real life tendency of coaches and scouts to overweight measurables like 40 yard dash times and also better replicate the preference among coaches for "known commodities" (i.e., upperclassmen) in starting roles on their squads.
Of course, letter ratings would apply to every player in the game (including recruiting targets and players on other teams). In this case, it would be necessary for the CPU controlled teams to only see letter grades too. If the CPU controlled teams also face the possibility of scouting errors, things might become complicated. It might be best to have, for every player in the game, just one set of "scouting" ratings that every team sees in the same way rather that have some large database of different errors for every team. For some variety, perhaps scouting departments themselves might be rated (say as 1-6 stars), and every department with the same rating could then have the same errors.
One interesting note to make here is that if the scouting errors are drawn from a normal distribution (a bell-curve), sometimes the lower rated scouting departments will be more accurate! In the long run though, the higher rated departments would be right more often, but this would still provide for interesting dynamics - occasionally highly rated players would look sub-par to the big schools (with highly rated scouting departments) and they would end up at a small school.
Ulitmately, all of these changes are easy to introduce and they potentially add a lot to the game. So come on EA, consider uncertain letter grades for player ratings!