Kolbe Launchbaugh: Yeah. Reality is like you’ve got to hire a bunch of scouts and you’ve got to send them out and learn to trust that scout, that scout’s got to give you great information, it’s going to give you a bunch of written feedback, numbers, charts, graphs, sentences, that’s not realistic.
The Natural: But with all that, even in real life, they still don’t know, and they still get it wrong. Every year, despite the millions of dollars spent on scouting.
Kolbe Launchbaugh: Yeah, and that’s not realistic in the sense of what you could do in the scope of a video game. To expect that millions of people would be able to pursue all of this information and make sense of it and then go ‘I know what to do in the draft,’ it’s not an easy thing. So, excuse me, I’m going to take a quick drink of water. Alright, sorry. So, what we did was simplify the system, simplify the problem and make it a game mechanic. So, now, you can only find out three things about every single player in the draft, and those three things are his top three attributes. If you reveal the third one, you will also get his true draft grade. So, we have a projected draft place, so you might look at the project as a kipper, right, his draft board, the big board.
The Natural: Oh, you said ‘the board,’ that’s a magic word there! Better watch out for that one.
Kolbe Launchbaugh: I mean, I don’t know if you’ve seen (inaudible)’s video? Okay, so we’ll get there. But, with the true draft rating, it tells you a lot closer where he really will be drafted, or really should be drafted, not will. So, the advantages by getting that third piece of information, you see this guy, it says he’s got first round talent, you know, first thing he’s got an A in catch in traffic, and you’re like ‘oh cool,’ well, he might have a B and a B in something else and you might think ‘that’s great,’ but the true draft may say he’s like a third round guy. Now, somebody else didn’t reveal all three, they don’t know he’s actually a third round guy, they may get him in the first round, and he’s kind of a bust.
The Natural: Reach!
Kolbe Launchbaugh: Yeah, it’s kind of like a reach. All those little bits of games you can play, forcing you to draft, or to scout every single week, you can’t just save up all of your points until the end and spend them all at once, you have to really think about what you’re going to need and plan ahead. I think like ‘okay, my defensive tackles are getting old,’ I’m a cardinal guy, right? ‘My tackles are getting old, I need to start looking for tacklers in the draft, I’ve got one good end, the other one is okay, and I’m okay there, I need a good middle linebacker,’ so I’m starting to wonder ‘how do I build my draft?’ And then, I might make a totally different move and change it; there might be a great region that I can go pick up, that solves one of those problems, and now with all of the scouting I did, I might still use that, but it falls down in priority.
The Natural: Yeah, it makes it tough. Also, you added the combine, you added the combine, but that’s open to everyone, those combines, that’s a cool thing, I’m definitely happy you guys added that, but what’s stopping guys from maximizing and going for the fastest, you know, biggest guys in the combine, and not looking at a lot of the other stats?
Kolbe Launchbaugh: Well, just because they’re the fastest player doesn’t mean they’re going to be a great fit or a great player on your team. They could be a super fast wide receiver with no catch training, no route running, no awareness, all of those things play into how he plays when you’re not controlling him. So, I would say that yes, it’s nice and yes it adds something, but in the real draft, everybody has combine information. You know how fast that guy is, you know, it’s kind of silly to force you to spend scouting points to find out when you can find out after the combine. So, it’s real, it’s cool, I know it’s something that you guys have asked for, so that’s what we did.
Check back daily for the second part of our Madden 16 Connected Franchise interview with CFM Creative Director Kolbe Launchbaugh.
@EAMaddenNFL when will part 2 be posted?