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What it all means... my "thesis" on RS, RP and MS


kingsoby1

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EDIT: THIS IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT FOR QBs!

What it all means... my "thesis" on RS, RP and MS on Offense:

How are they actually related? No one has ever written a formal document on this, so I thought I'd actually do my part to give to the community :D .

I've heard many theories over the past couple of years, including...

- "RS is a player's speed around corners"

- "RP is acceleration"

- "MS is obviously max speed"

Well, these generalized statements are correct to a degree. However, I looked at the relationship between these attributes about a year and a half ago, when I was taking basic kinematics as a frosh engineer... One thing that I found after looking up from my physics book to check something on a tecmo rom I was rating - there had to be an obvious mathematical relationship between those numbers - could it relate to physics at all?

Synopsis

Surprisingly, it did. RS is not an offensive players speed around corners. RP is indeed acceleration. MS is indeed max speed. But there was a missing variable... I randomly plugged in values to this equation,

V = Vo + at

and found how long (in seconds) it took for offensive players like bo jackson to accelerate.

V = MS

Vo = RS

a = RP

t = time in seconds

when I reduced RP to a low level and timed with a stopwatch how long it took for a player to get from his RS to his MS, it was very similar to the theoretical calculated value retrieved from the basic kinematics equation.

of course, being a computer game, there are limits of the programming... for example, I dont know the exact absolute value equation needed to calculate relations that use negative acceleration.

Here are some basic points you should know about the relationship

1) Every offensive player will start at whatever RS is given

2) Every offensive player will eventually end at the given MS (unless tested at the boundaries and extremes)

Here are the effects of RP

1) When RS is lower than MS, a high RP will cause a player to nearly immediately accelerate to his MS

2) When RS is lower than MS, a low RP will cause a player to gradually accelerate to his MS

3) When RS is higher than MS, RP doesn't really matter that much; the equation above doesn't hold true, and the player will start out at his RS and almost instantly fade to his MS.

Practical Applications

Bruddog and I have discussed using these above effects of RP to exhibit drastic differences between starters, backups, deep-threat receivers, etc... for example, in a previous thread bruddog showed that in his 1990 rom he is rating Bo Jackson as such:

25 RS

25 RP

63 MS

This is due to the fact that Bo had an amazing yards per carry and was known to be very fast... however, he was only a split-time back with Marcus Allen. He only had 500 yards on the season I think.

What this rating scheme would do is outlined above in my observations of RP: Bo would start at 25 S and gradually accelerate to 63 S. He would be an effective runner, but nowhere nearly as effective as a "normal" 38RS, 69RP, 63MS back - let along a 56MS back.

Finally,

RS is not "speed around corners". However, you need to remember that your player will indeed be reduced (or increased) back to his RS if your motion is broken (non-fluid) on the play. That is, if you stop and start again or change direction 90 degrees or more.

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What this is all about, basically, is the fact that people over-value RS on offense in it's current state.

A player with 25, 69, 63 ratings is not much different from a player with 50, 69, 63 ratings.... In fact, I would rather use a 13, 69, 63 runningback any day over a 38, 69, 56.

If you drastically change RP on offense, you open up a whole new world of rom rating on offense.

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In simple terms, for an offensive player:

RS = starting speed (before ball and after chucking someone)

RP = acceleration

MS = max speed

Fullbacks typically get RS > MS to simulate short yardage and to give them a boost after knocking someone off. It's interesting to note that in the ROM RP and RS are stored in reverse, and (if I'm not mistaken) all the other versions of TSB have them labelled the other way around.

I think it makes more sense (from a terminology standpoint) the other way around (at least for offensive players) where RS is acceleration and RP is start speed. I think somehow they mislabelled the player profile screen.

For defensive players it's different. You can have a guy with super RP and little MS and he can still rush the QB like a freak. While it's nice to have a stat screen with labels, they sort of use and abuse them at will.

Personally, I prefer to keep things within the scope of how Tecmo did, but yes you are correct in that by understanding the ratings you can tweak the gameplay in ways that even the original makers did not.

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Actually I've tested it a lot on offense... the values are depicted correctly on the display screens for the NES version (suffice to say, not for the SNES version).

Check the other thread I made for how defensive speed attributes work.

edit: oh ok i see what you mean, "from a terminology standpoint"... yeah that does make sense imo. RS sounds like it should be the acceleration value, but what can we do? lol.

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Actually I've tested it a lot on offense... the values are depicted correctly on the display screens for the NES version

I'm not disagreeing with that. It's just about what you want to call what. :D

I'm saying from a pure terminology standpoint that Running Speed sounds more like acceleration than Rushing Power does. (And Rushing Power sounds more like start-up speed than Running Speed does.) And it is odd that they labelled them differently than how it's stored in the ROM.

I fully agree that what is labelled as "69" is meant to be acceleration, but I have doubts on whether or not they intended for that field to be called RP. I mean, if they could label something as RUNNNIG speed in one of the versions, I think they could slip up elsewhere too. :D

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edit: oh ok i see what you mean, "from a terminology standpoint"... yeah that does make sense imo. RS sounds like it should be the acceleration value, but what can we do? lol.

In the rom I just made, I changed the names of running speed and running power in a hex editor. Running Speed I labeled initial speed, and running power I labeled acceleration.

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