Madden 17 Ratings

Ben C.
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Re: Madden 17 Ratings

Post by Ben C. »

Fish wrote:Just so I understand better...

Yes Eli Rodgers at 68 is the 5th best WR on my roster, but I planned to start him because of his role on a potent passing offense in RL and my understanding that skilled players (and defensive players to a lesser extent) with good RL performance receive an uptick in the actual sim. For arguments sake, if Rodgers had a 150+ yard, 2-3 TD flperformanve would he still sit the bench even though I have him in my starting lineup?

It may not matter this week as Wheaton was out making Eli 4th and at least in the grade, but I'm still struggling a bit with how exactly the hybrid system works and how much control we as the GM have. Feel free to answer in PM offline if this would derail the overall thread about Madden ratings.
Your player's STATS will be involved in the simulation, especially if they are listed in your depth chart.

The player's rating/grade will only affect the outcome if they are one of the top players on your team at the position. So if you have 4 WRs rated 80, 78, 76, and 74 respectively, your 68-rated WR will not be factored in to your team's overall Receivers grade. The Receiver's grade in turn affects how the sim adjusts your players' passing game stats to "expected" values. Those "expected" values are then dependent on actual game situation. So if your 68-rated WR has a big game, and the grades adjust that game even bigger, but then your team doesn't get into passing situations, then that WR's stats may not end up being very big.

Make sense?
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Goodell
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Re: Madden 17 Ratings

Post by Goodell »

Fish wrote:Just so I understand better...

Yes Eli Rodgers at 68 is the 5th best WR on my roster, but I planned to start him because of his role on a potent passing offense in RL and my understanding that skilled players (and defensive players to a lesser extent) with good RL performance receive an uptick in the actual sim. For arguments sake, if Rodgers had a 150+ yard, 2-3 TD flperformanve would he still sit the bench even though I have him in my starting lineup?

It may not matter this week as Wheaton was out making Eli 4th and at least in the grade, but I'm still struggling a bit with how exactly the hybrid system works and how much control we as the GM have. Feel free to answer in PM offline if this would derail the overall thread about Madden ratings.
For your example, GMs can't change anything in terms of the team strength averages other than acquiring players. Whatever choices you make for your WRs in the depth chart lineup do not change the WR average. The WR/OL/F7/SEC averages are calculated by the system based upon the player grades on the roster. You can't change anything related to those averages. They come right from the system, right from your overall roster and nothing you can do to change those averages other than acquiring new players.

We don't have our sim teams set a defensive starting lineup, yet the system generates that front 7 and secondary strength grades. It works the same way with receiver strength grade. It's not dependent upon your choices, just your roster.

Whether a WR has a 0 grade or 68 grade will effect the system-generated average (if he's one of your top grades in that area) but will not impact anything else. While grades don't really factor much into the depth chart choices you make, those decisions can matter in terms of game stats uploaded. Think of those depth chart decisions as a game plan of players you want to be CERTAIN are part of the game stats uploaded no matter what. You choose those players in the depth chart that you want your offensive game plan to focus around. Who you put in the starting RB1 spot, for example, will tend to focus more on that featured back you chose versus your designated backups. Now sometimes the game stats uploaded will shift game action more toward bench players if they have amazing stats while your starters were very limited with lesser stats, but all things equal it will focus more often toward the players you want it to.

This is primarily a GM game. Primarily an off-season team building game. That's where most of our gameplay and GM control lies. You draft players, you sign free agents. After that, the GM sits up in the box and watches the coaches and players do their thing. GMs don't have a ton of control on the game simulation. You can say which players you want to be the focus of a gameplan, but the game stats uploaded dictate the action more than you do. We don't have our GMs call plays (real GMs don't either). We don't have them throw virtual passes, etc. You build a team, and then see how they preform. In that regard it's somewhat like fantasy football where you set your team and then see how many points they rack up, except we have bigger rosters and generate results like a real game one play at a time using adjusted averages and completion percentages. But there isn't a lot of in-game control for GMs in reality or here. Your job as sim GM is mostly putting the best roster you can together, and we try to have a simulator that best rewards those teams that put the best rosters together from both objective grade strength and on-the-field performance.
Last edited by Goodell on Tue Sep 13, 2016 4:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Fish
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Re: Madden 17 Ratings

Post by Fish »

So my WR group rating is the top 4 rated (or whatever), but the WR that will sim are is based on my DC? Which is not necessarily the same group. So starting Eli Rodgers in my scenario X a only help since my WR rating is based on players rated higher high would boost him.

It may be one of those things I need to see a few weeks.
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Re: Madden 17 Ratings

Post by Goodell »

Fish wrote:So my WR group rating is the top 4 rated (or whatever), but the WR that will sim are is based on my DC? Which is not necessarily the same group. So starting Eli Rodgers in my scenario X a only help since my WR rating is based on players rated higher high would boost him.

It may be one of those things I need to see a few weeks.
Yeah, it'll be easier to probably see than try to explain in theory.

But yes, the group of receivers that make up your WR strength grade could be a different group of players on your roster than players you want to focus on in your gameplan in the sim. Usually they are a similar group (because usually you want to focus your gameplan on highly rated players) but they could be different if you chose to start less rated WRs than your higher rated WRs.

I think many over-think these depth charts. Really you just want to make sure you have your healthy best guys in there. It's less to stress out about compared to fantasy football lineups, for example, because if you have a great fantasy performance from a player on your bench you get no points for that in fantasy. Here, if you get a great real life performance from a player on your bench, he's likely to be brought into the game action because we bring in some players beyond the depth chart. That player off the bench's role may be smaller, though, compared to if you had decided to start him as a featured player in the game plan from the beginning, but he'll still get brought in to the action and contribute.
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Re: Madden 17 Ratings

Post by Fish »

Interesting. So the sim may bring Rodgers or even Thomas (my lowest rated WR) into the game if they have a big RL performance regardless of what I do with the DC?
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Re: Madden 17 Ratings

Post by Goodell »

Fish wrote:Interesting. So the sim may bring Rodgers or even Thomas (my lowest rated WR) into the game if they have a big RL performance regardless of what I do with the DC?
Yes. The sim results will mostly focus on your designated starting skill position players, but we actually generate a full game play-by-play and usually more players are involved in NFL game than just the limited amount on our depth charts.

You're going to for certain get plays from your depth chart lineup you set, and for sure have their game stats uploaded for your game, but it will also pull in one runner, one receiver, and one returner beyond those you set. We do that for realism (as more players involved in NFL games), to keep the stats from getting too high for the limited depth chart players by bringing in more to spread the ball around, and to discourage tanking because even if you bench your elite players in the depth chart the sim coach is still going to put them in the sim game if they have strong NFL game stats that week.

It's play-by-play results generation. First down and 10 from the 25, what play is going to be called? We have a sim coach that has programming for different scenarios (winning or losing, how much time left, what players had big games that we need to start getting their sim stats up, do you have bigger passing or rushing stats in your game updates, etc.). So say sim coach decides this first down play is going to be a run. Now who gets the carry? It'll often default to your designated RB1 frequently, but also mix things up depending upon the various strengths of their NFL games. The game simulator first works toward what's the best strategy for this play, but if it's somewhat neutral on best play call here then it works toward what stats it needs to make happen if your RB1 or QB1 is way behind on their expected game. Third-and-10, so sim coach calls a pass. Is it complete or incomplete? Depends upon your QB1's adjusted completion percentage and if he's above his expected percentage or below. If it's complete, who catches the pass? It'll focus on getting the ball more to your set WR starters, but will also consider a WR on the bench, and they'll get their share of pass completions also especially if they had bigger real game stats than your designated starters. It just goes one play at a time trying to get players to their expected games as it can and as the number of plays and game situations allow, and will focus mostly on getting your top designated starters in the game plan to their totals primarily then mix in others as expected stats allow.
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Re: Madden 17 Ratings

Post by Fish »

Alright thanks everyone, appreciate the explanations.
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Re: Madden 17 Ratings

Post by Goodell »

Just an update that I've got most of the available grades uploaded now.
Goodell wrote:Thank you for bringing this to attention, and I understand the concerns. Although it makes things more difficult than it's been in past years, I believe I've found a way through several trial and error attempts and testing various tools/methods to include more if not all of the updated information. I'll be working that through in hopes we'll still be able to sim our week 1 tomorrow, and include a larger update of more player grade updates.

If most of the players who wouldn't have gotten updated were some of the lower graded players on rosters as it sounds, most of the low rated players usually have no immediate impact on weekly game play. Only the starting top players (and top backup) across a team's offensive line, receivers, or defenders impact the game play here. Whether a 4th string offensive guard has a 0 or 50 grade, most likely has no impact on the current week's sim results if that player isn't among the top lineman making up the starting OL grade average.

However, as it may impact some other players or teams more than others (especially as injuries become more of an issue as the season progresses) and as we've come across some methods that may work, we'll work to include as many grade updates as we can before simming without delaying it too much.

On a larger point about grades... We have always used the current grade source because it has been the most updated, publicly available, most reliable from year to year, and a free source of posted information for our free, for-fun league. However, we go through a process of converting one source of data to our own custom grade scale to maintain that independence and flexibility here. There is no guarantee that how grades were done in the past, or how often resources published public updates, or how easy they make it to utilize that information, won't change at any time in large part because those resources are not within our control.

We control what we can control, and the league makes decisions about what it feels is best at any particular time or given circumstance. The league has it's own grade scale with some of these possibilities in mind. We use the current public resources because in the past it has been beneficial. If that changes, the league may change and adjust as deemed most beneficial for continuing league operations. Some thoughts on that have been discussed in past off-season rule discussion sessions over the years.

From a team perspective, just know that the league will attempt to maintain the status quo and familiar methods regarding player grades as that remains possible (or better free/public alternatives aren't available). But if situations cause changes, the league will one way or another continue to provide as best it can an objective grading method.

For now, things have changed, but I think we'll still be able to proceed mostly as expected and done previously. It's possible if spreadsheets aren't available ahead and new methods are more time consuming that we may update less frequently (every other week or monthly), but we'll be working toward comprehensive weekly updates if possible.
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Re: Madden 17 Ratings

Post by Aftermath2531 »

Just wanted to make sure we are aware there are changes in other players grades not listed under big movers.
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Re: Madden 17 Ratings

Post by Fish »

I believe so. It was discussed on the EFFL forum (Eli Rodgers is what brought it to my attention) and I saw some Steelers get updated that weren't on the Big Movers list.
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