***NHL 13 Thread*** (Part 2)

[Novacane]

NovaCane: Thanks for posting the videoes. Love your name. My Wife's name is Nova

Yep. I was kind of thinking it was stupid because it was a butchery of the real word, but it combines to of my favorite things(space related-Nova, and hockey-Cane's').

 

[n00bxQb]

http://www.easports.com/nhl/news/article/nhl-13-player-ratings

NHL 13 Player Ratings





Last week in partnership with the Yahoo! Sports’ Puck Daddy blog we released the overall player ratings for EA SPORTS NHL 13. You can read those ratings here for the Western Conference and here for the Eastern Conference.

In today’s Ratings Deep Dive the production team explains what goes into determining how the players are rated.

Hi I’m Gurn Sumal Game Modes Producer on NHL 13. As many of you know we released our new overall rating system for NHL 13 and I wanted to share with you how the player ratings are decided and how our new system changes how players are rated for NHL 13.

A lot of people assume that we here at EA Canada create the ratings for the players and that the ratings are based off of statistics. In truth the ratings are delivered to us by a scout.

Each region has its own scout that does his region’s ratings. The regions themselves are as follows North America, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Germany and the Czech Republic.

The scouts rate the players against players from all over the world, and not just their own leagues. This means that a star in Germany will not be as good as a star in the NHL but that German player might make a serviceable NHLer or a star AHL player.

The scouts base players off individual skills and not by how many points they accumulate in a season. Relying only on stats would leave too many variables in play, including line mates, ice time, strength of competition and so on. By creating ratings based on individual skill at every attribute our scouts are able to more accurately capture the abilities of a player as opposed to artificially inflating them because he happened to have a great year and everything happened to click for him.

Michael Ryder is a good example of this. Last year he had his second best season in the NHL ever by putting up 35 goals and 62 points. Ryder was a solid top 9 forward who has shown tremendous goal scoring capability, but with his 62pts he scored more points than Corey Perry (Hart, Richard winner), Rick Nash (Richard Winner), Ryan Getzlaf, Dustin Brown and David Backes just to name a few. Most people would agree that Ryder was not a better player than those others, thus his ratings reflect what he does best which is getting open and firing that amazing shot of his.

There are two reasons why we went ahead and decided to change the overall system for NHL 13. The first reason is because of you the fans, for years I have been reading the forums of people alluding that they would like a much wider distinction between superstars, stars and the third liners of the NHL and this was a way for us to do so.

The second reason is the GM Brain, because we had gone through a full rewrite of a lot of GM Connected and Be A GM logic we thought it was a good idea to pull add in the greater distinction of player skill levels. This affects GM Connected through player roles and how the CPU assigns and values players.

So what is overall in NHL 13? The overall is a value given to a player for his overall skill in a player’s given position.

Each Position has its own weighted formula that provides an overall. While a forward’s offensive statistics will lead to a higher increase of their overall that does not mean that defense doesn’t matter. Overall is the “Overall†ability of that player and that does includes both offense and defense.

Pavel Datsyuk is a perfect example of this is as he’s often called a “complete†player. Offensively he is every bit as skilled as Steven Stamkos and Alexander Ovechkin. Defensively Pavel Datsyuk is one of the best if not the best in the world and this is what separates him from both Stamkos and Ovechkin.

Again you have to remember just because all of these players are forwards does not mean that defense does not count to their overall. Yes, a forward’s main objective is to produce offense but in hockey a forward must be able to play defense. While Ovechkin and Stamkos are not defensive liabilities they do not excel at the defensive side of the game. Pavel Datsyuk on the other hand excels at playing both offensively and defensively which is why his overall is higher.

Another example is when you look at a player like Mike Richards (87) compared to Anze Kopitar (86) the difference in overall is very small. When you look at Kopitar’s Offensive Ratings they are slightly better than Richards’ but Richards has much better defensive and physical attributes and that is enough for him to overcome Kopitar’s offensive edge.

Now because we stretched out the Overall value to allow for more variation there is not a one to one correlation of what a player’s overall means anymore when compared to past games. So below is a list of what an overall generally corresponds to in terms of a Player Role in NHL 13.

NHL Forwards:

1st line Player 84-99

2nd line Player 81- 85

3rd line scorers/checkers 77-82

4th line players/minor league call-up 63-74

NHL Defensemen:

Top 2 Dman 86-99

Top 4 Dman 81-86

Top 6 Dman 76-81

Top 8 Dman/minor league call-up 72-75

NHL Goalies:

Elite 87-92

Starter 81-87

Backup 73-80

Minor League Starter (call-up) 69-73

As you can see from above, a 78 overall player is not necessarily as bad a rating as it used to be in previous NHL games. A 78 is now a serviceable NHL player that can either be a scorer or checking forward, a regular NHL defenseman or a Backup Goalie. You will also notice that there is some overlap between different roles. That is because a player could be as high an overall as say a 2nd line player but his overall is high because of his defensive attributes and not because of his offensive skill so he would not qualify to be a 2nd line player but rather a really good 3rd line checker because he does not meet the offensive requirement to be a 2nd line player.

Thanks for reading and I hope this gives you a new insight into how the new overall ratings system determines how your favorite players will perform in NHL 13. Be sure to pick up a copy of NHL 13 when it hits the shelves on September 11th, 2012.

 

[PookDo]

Yep. I was kind of thinking it was stupid because it was a butchery of the real word, but it combines to of my favorite things(space related-Nova, and hockey-Cane's').

I'm a huge Neil Degrasse Tyson fan myself. I love astrophysics. Probably why I found Ilya Bryzgalov's comments about the universe on 24/7 so awesome

 

[Novacane]

I'm a huge Neil Degrasse Tyson fan myself. I love astrophysics. Probably why I found Ilya Bryzgalov's comments about the universe on 24/7 so awesome

Yeah, Neil is amazing, and might I add, a badass. Bryz, well, he's Bryz.

 

[PookDo]

Yeah, Neil is amazing, and might I add, a badass. Bryz, well, he's Bryz.

Neil and Lisa Randall are the reason that at 44 I am still considering going back to school for physics

 

[Trae]

That rationale for ratings doesn't help how bad they are haha. According to EA, Jarome Iginla is a high-end 2nd line forward who has slightly more "skill" than David Booth, among others. And if a player's overall rating is relative to how good he is at his position, Iginla should be much higher.

 

[FLYguy3911]

That was a cool write up and all but it lost all credibility with giving Crosby 95 Defensive Awareness. It was strictly to make him the best player in the game (overall wise).

 

[542365]

No salary cap for player vs. player HUT???? That's actually awesome. I know people will build super teams, but those people also probably spend a lot of time on the mode. They deserve to have a very good team in my opinion. I don't love the new training, how it only applies for only one game, but I like the other changes.

 

[Novacane]

Yeah, not to harp on this, but apparently Pitkanen is a bottom pairing "serviceable" defenseman. That's a pretty good joke and I am seriously wondering if these so called scouts actually watched a Canes game because the defense is completely ass backwards.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Yea nothing that guy said justified the ratings. They're a product of a lack of effort or knowledge, not a new rating system.

 

[ChibiPooky]

I wonder if the non-NA players (playing outside NA that is) are any more accurate. Only one guy for all of North America seems like not nearly enough.

 

[FLYguy3911]

My question is, what kind of scout does ratings for a video game?

 

[n00bxQb]

That rationale for ratings doesn't help how bad they are haha. According to EA, Jarome Iginla is a high-end 2nd line forward who has slightly more "skill" than David Booth, among others. And if a player's overall rating is relative to how good he is at his position, Iginla should be much higher.

I think skating plays a big role in the overall score for forwards. It would explain why Booth is so high as he's a tremendous skater while guys like Iginla and Kopitar aren't exactly the fastest skaters out there (Iggy's skating ability isn't what it used to be).

The article also states that it "generally corresponds to," which implies it's just a guideline, not a rule.

 

[Beauner]

That was a cool write up and all but it lost all credibility with giving Crosby 95 Defensive Awareness. It was strictly to make him the best player in the game (overall wise).

He's actually tied with Datsyuk (which is a joke).

 

[hockeyarena]

Gurns attempt to justify their terrible ratings is equally as terrible. Apparently Jim Slater is a minor league callup with his 73 rating.

 

[The Lunatic Fridge]

So...the demo comes out tonight, right?

 

[Cloned]

RNH is third-line fodder with his 80 rating.

 

[PookDo]

I'm kind of hoping the demo is available when I get home but I doubt it

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Yeah, not to harp on this, but apparently Pitkanen is a bottom pairing "serviceable" defenseman. That's a pretty good joke and I am seriously wondering if these so called scouts actually watched a Canes game because the defense is completely ass backwards.

These supposed "scouts" are likely fans/employees who don't pay much attention to detail. I find it hard to believe that a scout believes that Kesler is one of the best players at his position. There is simply no consistency in their ratings.

 

[Mynameismark*]

Enough about Datsyuk!

A skilled forwards main objective is to be offensive and to create goals. That's why they get paid the big bucks. You have defensemen to play D, sure it's fine for a foreard to come back, but when you're as good as a Jagr was back in the day, or an Ovechkin now, putting up all kinds of points in a way is defense enough. It's both offense and defense, cuz really, if you get 130 points in a year, you're prolly gonna have yourself a decent plus/minus too. Datsyuk has loads of skills but doesn't have the instincts nor the abilities to put up the big numbers and never has. He's Kovalev with more work ethic.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Am i the only one who is really excited about the new rating system? Sure some of the guys on our favorite teams appear to be rated too low (Seabrook/Kane) or too high (Hjalmarsson, Keith) but i think EA is trying to get us to look past the obvious overall #. Like he said, Mike Richards is rated higher than Kopitar, but that doesn't mean that Kopitar wont be a better scorer or passer (he won't actually).

I think people are complaining just because its August and they cant play the game yet. Personally, i love the mentality behind the new ratings system as its going to bring a lot more realism to the game IMO.

 

[nyrpassion]

6 hours till xbox demo!!!

 

[GoSensGo6172]

Where you getting six hours from? The demo is going to be posted at 6 am?? Seems random....

 

[Madic]

^ It's out at 6am? Sweet.

 

[n00bxQb]

These supposed "scouts" are likely fans/employees who don't pay much attention to detail. I find it hard to believe that a scout believes that Kesler is one of the best players at his position. There is simply no consistency in their ratings.

Kesler is a Selke winner, multiple-time Selke runner-up, and has the 43rd highest PPG average over the last 3 seasons.

That doesn't constitute one of the best at his position?