League Discussion: Sliders

First topic message reminder :

Play as many games as you can against other users. Use those instances to test things and see how you think we can balance the game. Offense looks to be overpowered, so if you can mess around ways to boost the defense, I'm all ears. I'll be looking to Operation Sports to see if they have any good slider threads for ideas as well.

If you have any thoughts, post them here. Thanks.

Also, our community info to play the game is under the Community forum to test games on Heisman difficulty.

FG length will be reduced as a starting idea. Maybe not as much as last year, it feels slightly less powerful already this year.

Also play CPU games. We want CPU games to be tough, but feel balanced. Users will be expected to lose some CPU games once in a while.

No problems with kicking but I noticed A LOT of wild throws (off-target by 10+ yds) over the last couple of weeks. That hasn't been the case at the beginning of the season.

I think we should consider trimming down INTs or slightly increasing QB accuracy.

In regards to recent concerns:

QB accuracy and missed throws: I think Mustard and Pitt put it best: QB misses by big gains are the same misses as before, just by a wider margin. QBs are still completing 60%+ of passes in many games. Those that struggle and seem to be making the most noise are those that use mobile QBs who have low accuracy to begin with. If players are committing to the run to stop you, which sounds like they haven't been, then you should find more success passing. As long as they honor the pass, you'll likely find success on the ground. I think with the way Madden is designed this year, we're not going to find a medium. It's either going to nearly perfect throws, or way off, and I'd rather be inaccurate if given the choice.

INTs, I haven't touched the INT slider, not sure where the sticky hands are coming from, unless it is somehow tied to QB accuracy. (I had 5 picks vs Mustard, just ridiculous, but unsure where it's coming from)

FG, they've been the same all season. As always, I dropped range down a couple notches so that deep kicks are not automatic, and accuracy down further as always to keep you on your toes. I'd drop them down even further, but for those playing CPU games, the All-Madden kick meter is crazy fast relative to the user/user game version, so I tried to find a happy medium.

Over-powered running game. While I've seen a bit more balance, I'm still reducing blocking bit by bit. It's just proving difficult in EA's attempt to make the game more approachable.

It's great to be getting feedback, it shows you guys care. Just saying something sucks doesn't help, and raising or lowering one slider may not fix what you're seeing. Also, if you have a shitty player, or a player that is deficient in a skill set, they should struggle at things like Accuracy, and catching in traffic.  Not all players should play the same.  Either invest in development, or scout the draft class for an improvement. This is a franchise, that means games, building through free agency/draft, and owner items like profit are all part of the intended experience. 

If you want to search Operation Sports or other sites and see if there are any new developments from time to time on sliders, post them here.  I spent a few days straight before the franchise started reading through threads on how to use the sliders to impact each part of the game with the normal sliders and penalty sliders. I had the test league I was trying games in to balance things out. And keep in mind that we won't find a slider set that works for everyone.  Hell, our NCAA league has at least 3 guys getting destroyed by the CPU at times (sorry Ken, Ani, and truth) because we jacked up the AI to add difficulty. If you want everything to be perfect, then start an offline franchise on Rookie mode, by all means.

Sliders are always a work in progress. As we adapt to different difficulty levels, we'll have to adjust things to keep it fresh. But don't expect every game to be the same, and that every corner route needs to be wide open.

I'm going to bump this. Heading into season 2, I want to make some adjustments.
Run Blocking likely to go down a bit more.
Run defense awareness likely to go up to help seal the outside a bit more.

Not sure what to do about user/user passing matchups. Increase pass rush to force the ball out of your hands? Or make the DBs even more psychic but lower INTs to show more deflections and incompletions?

I thought the sliders were good at end of year. Makes it more challenging when dbs can capitalize on mistakes

I agree with mission8.

Just played the first game in Season 2. I have no idea what is up with these sliders but the passing game was almost unplayable. Ken (Chargers) won the game in overtime, it was a clean win, good game but neither team could throw the ball. Both QBs were somewhere around 40 percent completions and we didn't even try a lot of long passes. My QB (Tannehill) is 85-90 in all accuracy ratings but he couldn't even complete a simple 5 yd out to a TE. It's not only the inaccurate QBs, it's also the incredibly high amount of dropped passes. My WRs had a combined 12 dropped passes. Twelve!!! Ken also had some drops as well.
Running was quite easy for both teams but passing really sucks at the moment.

Therefore I suggest to slightly increase passing accuracy and drastically increase WR catching. Maybe lower run blocking a bit or increase run defense.

I agree. Pretty much every time a WR was hit, they'd drop it.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll look into it further. I'm pretty sure I only touched the run blocking, yet it seams not to be affecting that. I'll check other places to see if there's anything new to try.

Passing stats so far in week 1:
Completion%
100% Club -- EJ Manuel 21/21 (vs CPU...wow) and Connor Shaw 1/1
70% to 99% -- Matt Ryan 14/19
60% to 69% -- Tyler Bray 12/18, Logan Thomas 27/41 (vs CPU), Andy Dalton 28/46 (CPU)
50% to 59% -- none
40% to 49% -- Joe Flacco (CPU), Andrew Luck 18/38, Terrelle Pryor 9/22
30% to 39% -- Ryan Tannehill 16/41
20% to 29% -- Philip Rivers 8/28
0% Club -- Taylor Martinez 0/1

EA's broken game no longer tracks Drops or Pass Breakups apparently. Just posting these for now as a reference. I'll add to it tomorrow.

honestly played the QB Week one against the bengals front 7 and had no room in the middle only outside runs with best was all i could do to have positive runs. I had a few throws go horribly accurate although i have got logan thomas accuracy to 80s on short and mid but still threw three of my passes rite to the bengals. but I also am a definate defence guy on this game my O game needs work but i shut em down on offence only allowing 13 pts. (I threw a pic 6 on an aweful out rout to jordan cameron). Defence was awesome i had a pick six and pics and sacks to force good field position. only thing i saw was overthrows other than that i had a challenge for most of the game.

Oh an BTW the game looks lopsided by far but keep in mind i did force the bengals cpu into many third and longs and daltons not great at deep throws.

Me and my opponent d-styles had like 5 or 6 fumbles! That's is a lot! Idk if It was just our game they were happening way to much! Only 2 or 3 were recovered by the opposing team but still.

#1 issue to me at the moment is drops. I trained up my guys to be very good at 'Catch in Traffic' but guys like Eric Decker or Brian Hartline (both around 90 CIT) can't hold on to anything. 12 drops by my guys, most of them on short throws. If we increase catching it will automatically increase QB completion percentage, although I still suffered A LOT of inaccurate throws, even with a good throwing QB (85-90 ACC).

Still A LOT of drops (I had 7 in my week 3 game against the Jets). No difference between a speedster with 80 CIT and a possession guy with 92 CIT (Mike Wallace vs Hartline/Decker).
QB is inaccurate at times but I can live with that. Drops are too much though.

The user defensive AI Needs to be raised there were multiple times where I would be in position for a pick and my guys wouldn't even react! It got annoying at times because they were blatant potential interceptions which would have changed the outcome of the game! It's like when the ball is thrown you start running a lot slower and can't even react. And It seems like it's just me but I average like 2 fumbles a game! This one in crunch time which made me lose and game I could have won!

Haha that was the worst game I've ever watched

From time to time I search sites like Operation Sports for new developments in sliders. Since there was a 1.03 patch for Madden, I'm thinking of resetting the sliders, and considering a drop to All-Pro difficulty to limit the Psychic AI play-calls.

One interesting rumor is that users in Online Franchise may experience the sliders differently if they don't download the slider set themselves. Once I settle on a set, I'll share them for download, and we'll see if that evens things up a bit. 
 

What's psychic AI? I haven't noticed any of that.