gschwendt's Threshold Sliders proposal... long but need your feedback

[gschwendt]

Based on the fact that quite a few people complain that the current setup of sliders in the NCAA series is very stale and it needs an overhaul, I've come up with a proposal on how to overhaul them. I've had this idea for the past couple of years but never really set down to fully flesh it out until now. This feature also ends up taking care of another request, Global Ratings Changes... that is, the ability to lower all players in dynasty at a particular rating across the board. I'm sure it will come across fairly complicated and could likely scare off a lot of users... if you think that's the case, I certainly need to know it. I'm planning to forward this on to the devs in the next week or so. Obviously it won't be making it into NCAA14 but with solid feedback, it's possible that it make it into NCAA15. Without further ado...

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Part of the problem with today's slider setup is that when a user makes changes to the sliders, they aren't certain what other areas it might affect. For example, if you adjust the HB Ability slider, it will affect SPD, JKM, SPM, BCV, etc. However, to my knowledge, this has no effect on other ballcarriers (WR, QB, etc.). As well, while you can edit Throw Accuracy, you cannot edit Throw Power, and so on.

My idea for the sliders overhaul is what I call "Threshold Sliders". Essentially, this takes the current "Speed Threshold" and applies it to every other rating in the game. Additionally, you can apply these thresholds to Offense, Defense, Special Teams, for the Human or the CPU, down to each individual position. With this, if you wanted to keep every slider at 50 except for the CPU's QB's Stamina at 35, you could do so.

While this first comes off as much more complex for the user, they'll be able to make it as simple or as complicated as they'd like. If a novice user wants to only change Offensive or Defensive sliders that affect both CPU & HUM, they can very easily do so. If a user has slightly more experience, they could modify the Offensive or Defensive Sliders for HUM and CPU separately. For the expert user, they would be able to modify sliders all the way down to each position on both sides of the ball for HUM & CPU separately.

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I've created a mockup of my idea and how it would work in game. These first screens are how it would look in an overview mode... essentially allowing you to look at all sliders settings, but you'd modify them on a separate screen (further below).

http://i.imgur.com/IymUeKh.png
http://i.imgur.com/BXHsa9n.png
http://i.imgur.com/ZVZaa6N.png

One thing you'll notice is an "Inherit" column... if a slider is inherited, that means that if you change it's parent slider, it affects that slider. In the example above, the HUM Offensive sliders are inherited from the parent Offensive sliders, however the CPU Offensive sliders are not (compare the OFF RBK slider with the HUM & CPU RBK slider). As well, the CPU HB sliders are inherited from the CPU offensive sliders, but the CPU QB sliders are not (compare the CPU Offensive AWR with the QB & HB AWR slider).

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While the screens above were for an "overview" mode, these screens below would be the ones where you'd do the actual slider editing. The first section is where the user would edit the Global Offensive Sliders. If you then pressed R1, you'd be shown the Human Offensive Sliders with an indicator that says it is inherited from the Global Offensive Sliders. If you them pressed R2, you'd be shown the Human QB Sliders with an indicator that says it is not inherited. If you pressed R1, you'd be shown the CPU QB Sliders with an indicator that says it is not inherited. For the sections that aren't inherited, it would highlight the differences between it and what it would inherit (below you can compare the HUM Offensive Sliders with the HUM QB Sliders and look at the AWR rating). The ability to tab back & forth is essential so that you could easily compare HUM to CPU and position to position.

http://i.imgur.com/jqebU0m.png

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For those of you that are saying "I'd never touch those... that's too complicated so I'd never edit sliders". You wouldn't have to edit sliders if you didn't want to... since this idea is so very complicated, to give the average joe a fighting chance, along with this would be the ability to save multiple slider files per console/user and also the ability to share slider files in the same manner that we share roster files today. That way, if you wanted to download steelerfan's slider files and gamingtailgate's slider files, you could do so and then switch back & forth between the two to determine which one you liked better.

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In closing, this new slider setup would give us MUCH more control than what we have today while still giving the more novice user ability to take advantage of it.

[texacotea]

I like it, given the issues we are currently having in Powerhouse I believe this would alleviate some of the headache that is caused by certian positions not performing to the ratings that have.

[psusnoop]

Very nice write up Tommy, I like it and agree with Tex.

[CLW]

The deeper the sliders/options to edit the game to our liking the better. I'd really like the QBA slider to be broken down to short med and deep throws. Obviously shorter passes are a higher % throw than one 40+ yards down field.

[Jayrah]

Excellent stuff Tommy. I would like that setup very much and think it might be great for OD guys who aren't exactly sure what or whom they're affecting when changing the global slider. I know that's a reason my OD guys try to stay far away from changing sliders. With this setup, I think they might actually do some things with it.

[baseballplyrmvp]

I like it Tommy. Thanks for writing this up.....but I still think that global rating decreases should happen across the board. For instance, if 50% of the starting quarterbacks in college have a throw accuracy rating between 80 and 89, you're not gonna see a whole lot of difference in any threshold you have for that throw accuracy rating. You need a greater parody in the initial ratings in order to see an impact in any slider or threshold, right off the bat. Thats just an example, but it applies to every rating.

Dont get me wrong though, this would instantly help the game tremendously.....much moreso, than what the current sliders do in ncaa.

[Oneback]

While I like the idea on the surface, however I would much rather have a slider set that doesn't tie into player rating directly.

A Few Examples:

QB Sliders

Drop Back Speed
Play-Action Effectiveness
Throwing Power/Speed
Release Speed
Short Pass Accuracy
Short Pass Touch/Speed
Intermediate Pass Accuracy
Intermediate Pass Touch/Speed
Deep Pass Accuracy
Deep Pass Touch/Speed

Obviously they would go through and do this for each position, however by having more control over the way the game plays via sliders we'd be able to fine tune things instead of gloabally changing rating but then having a 90 THA QB throwing with 90 THA short, medium and deep which is where we run into problems.

Even better than having one slider for each of those items would be a MIN and MAX for each of those items, therefore a 99 rated player would play to the MAX whereas the lowest rated would perform to the MIN. For example, on short pass accuracy you set the MAX to 85 and the MIN to 60 - a 99 THA rated QB would complete short passes at or near a 85% level where as the QB with the lowest rated THA would complete short passes at or near a 60% level (these are only examples) then every other QB would layer in between 60% and 85% depending on their rating. This would give us greater control over how the game plays in comparison to your model.

[gschwendt]

The deeper the sliders/options to edit the game to our liking the better. I'd really like the QBA slider to be broken down to short med and deep throws. Obviously shorter passes are a higher % throw than one 40+ yards down field.I think with next gen, there's a distinct possibility that we see those additional QB ratings we've been missing (and therefore would also be in the sliders). I don't know for a fact but I imagine with all of the players in the college game, adding in more ratings was probably just an added resource strain they weren't able to handle very well.


While I like the idea on the surface, however I would much rather have a slider set that doesn't tie into player rating directly.

A Few Examples:

QB Sliders

Drop Back Speed
Play-Action Effectiveness
Throwing Power/Speed
Release Speed
Short Pass Accuracy
Short Pass Touch/Speed
Intermediate Pass Accuracy
Intermediate Pass Touch/Speed
Deep Pass Accuracy
Deep Pass Touch/Speed

Obviously they would go through and do this for each position, however by having more control over the way the game plays via sliders we'd be able to fine tune things instead of gloabally changing rating but then having a 90 THA QB throwing with 90 THA short, medium and deep which is where we run into problems.

Even better than having one slider for each of those items would be a MIN and MAX for each of those items, therefore a 99 rated player would play to the MAX whereas the lowest rated would perform to the MIN. For example, on short pass accuracy you set the MAX to 85 and the MIN to 60 - a 99 THA rated QB would complete short passes at or near a 85% level where as the QB with the lowest rated THA would complete short passes at or near a 60% level (these are only examples) then every other QB would layer in between 60% and 85% depending on their rating. This would give us greater control over how the game plays in comparison to your model.
I see where you're going with that but I don't know that EA would ever give us those and if they did, how well they would work.

For example, if you were able to change the Drop Back Speed for a QB, how would that effect animation meshes for hand-offs, playactions, etc.? As well, if there weren't corresponding ratings, then every player in the game would end up having the same attributes for drop back speed, playaction effectiveness, release speed, etc.

Added, that would also mean that they would have to go through all of the code and allow for variance on all of these attributes/actions. Whereas in my model, it would just be a matter of essentially stretching the ratings in the current boundary that we have... IMO a much simpler and more likely chance that we get something like that while still giving us an awful lot of power.

[Oneback]

I think with next gen, there's a distinct possibility that we see those additional QB ratings we've been missing (and therefore would also be in the sliders). I don't know for a fact but I imagine with all of the players in the college game, adding in more ratings was probably just an added resource strain they weren't able to handle very well.


I see where you're going with that but I don't know that EA would ever give us those and if they did, how well they would work.

For example, if you were able to change the Drop Back Speed for a QB, how would that effect animation meshes for hand-offs, playactions, etc.? As well, if there weren't corresponding ratings, then every player in the game would end up having the same attributes for drop back speed, playaction effectiveness, release speed, etc.

Added, that would also mean that they would have to go through all of the code and allow for variance on all of these attributes/actions. Whereas in my model, it would just be a matter of essentially stretching the ratings in the current boundary that we have... IMO a much simpler and more likely chance that we get something like that while still giving us an awful lot of power.

Right now all quarterbacks have the same dropback speed, playaction effectiveness, release speed etc. The problem with changing the ratings as it's currently constructed is that we don't know what the ratings do in game - we have good assumptions but until they can create a shuddown corner with 99 MCV that will actually shutdown a reciever or a QB with bad THA that actually has bad accuracy, I'm not sure manipulating ratings will have much impact.

Could all that be fixed this year, certainly but I haven't seen it yet.

Now do I believe there should be something that you are suggesting in addition to what I am, certainly, however until the gameplay issues are fixed I think what you are suggesting only serves as another tool to play with and ultimately get frustrated over because its not helping to fix the underlying issue.

[Jayrah]

Right now all quarterbacks have the same dropback speed, playaction effectiveness, release speed etc. The problem with changing the ratings as it's currently constructed is that we don't know what the ratings do in game - we have good assumptions but until they can create a shuddown corner with 99 MCV that will actually shutdown a reciever or a QB with bad THA that actually has bad accuracy, I'm not sure manipulating ratings will have much impact.

Could all that be fixed this year, certainly but I haven't seen it yet.

Now do I believe there should be something that you are suggesting in addition to what I am, certainly, however until the gameplay issues are fixed I think what you are suggesting only serves as another tool to play with and ultimately get frustrated over because its not helping to fix the underlying issue.
I would think they would just have to expand the animations and speeds manually and then have them preset in with players. Like Tommy said, animations and game functions could be affected, making for some wonky happenings in-game. I suppose there could be a slow, med, fast and then we could kind of change it to our liking but a slider set for some of those things just does't seem plausible.

[WolverineJay]

I think its a significant step in the right direction for those of us that want more control but like oneback said many issues currently exist that need ironing out before the true power of your sliders idea gschwendt could be seen. Gameplay sliders and penalty sliders for that matter are almost a waste of time to mess with since most have no real impact or way too much impact. In the future, I think having the default slider section and your advanced slider idea in the game would be good for all gamers.

As far as this gen's limitations and next gen's capabilities regarding attributes. I surely hope we see the additional Madden QB ratings plus QBR (QB Release- The higher the rating the quicker the QB releases the pass once you press the button) since I'm tired of seeing all QB's go into the same long elaborate throwing motion in NCAA and Madden). Madden had signature throwing motions in Madden 12 but 90% had the same release time thus making it purely a cosmetic thing.

[souljahbill]

I think it would help if the scale became 0-10 with 5 being average instead of 75. With less numbers, each step up or down becomes more meaningful.

[Rudy]

I would love something like that. Don't even include that with the slider section in a game and call it the tuning file section. I'd love to know what the EA tuning files actually do and I would love to have access to build my own if possible. Especially since EA's football teams refuse to use them. But this would help tremendously in areas of improving cpu QB intelligence, player movement, LE sack "glitch", specific RB moves, zone vs man coverage, etc. Especially if it was a true 100 point system and the sliders were made stronger. We would have so much more control on fixing things and customizing the game.

There are a couple things that this wouldn't work with that I would still like to see.
1) Kick returns. I'd love to be able to boost the cpu return ability. They can never return any balls in the game. Any way you could have the EA team boost their abilities more in this area if they don't add a slider for it? At least make them competent on Heisman where they can get the ball past the 30 yard line once in awhile and (gasp) even return one for a TD.
2) User pass rushing and block shedding. I'd love to be able to tune MY pass rush abilities separate from my cpu teammates. Too often I have found I can do it easier than they can. I know this is picky but I'd love the ability to do that.

Unfortunately I don't think there is any way the EA teams will implement this. The NCAA team has refused to add sliders for fumbles or fatigue so I doubt they will add all these. The Madden team doesn't even have separate sliders for special teams which is beyond stupid. Some of this has to do with certain teams having a disdain for sliders. Some of it has to do with dev teams not wanting to give us that much control so we are forced to buy next year's game as well. Too much customization and maybe people get too happy.