First of all, credit to Nate Dogg on Reddit for his breakdown in Madden 18. I have used his guide as a framework to write this but there are a number of notable changes - including some silent changes that have occurred since release.

Training is a complex system in Madden 19. Several new factors have changed this year, which affects your ability to maximise XP earnings for your players. Each of these factors acts in varying ways to do so and I will explain each below.

XP sliders will obviously affect all Training XP, but after this, the XP that a player gains is split into three different areas:


a) Drill XP – Dependant on Depth Chart, Training Medal and Dev Trait

b) Bonus XP – Dependant on Depth Chart, Training Medal, Coach Scheme and Coach Traits (No influence from Dev Trait)

c) Focus Training – Dependant on Dev Trait alone.


The following sections define each of these areas in order of influence.


1. XP Sliders

Sliders are king. They affect the Drill XP awarded, Bonus XP awarded and Focus Training. The slider values are effectively the % of all of these awards that a player at that position is granted. For example, a slider set to 50 will grant 50% of the XP awarded at default, while a slider set to 168 will grant 168% of the default.

All the examples below use the default slider setting of 100%.


2. Training Type

The most obvious one is the training drill itself. Different drills on offense and defense target different position groups. Groups not targeted in that training drill will receive no XP for the drill.


Tip: Manually choose your weekly training drills so that you target position groups where you have lots of young players.


3. Basic XP – Depth Chart Position (Training Reps)

The Basic XP a player will earn is based on their Depth Chart position. All other multipliers affected by Training Medal, Dev trait and Scheme Fit and Coach Traitsare based off of this. This varies by position – as you’ll see below – but most positions award a full complement of training XP to the top two players at that position. Players below that are on a sliding scale of how much they get.

The exception to this is the WRs, who have an extra “ranking” above the basic XP award that starters at every other position get. The tables below show the basic XP award by position and depth chart rank (N.B. these are the baseline values that get modified based on training medal and Dev trait, as noted below, and are assuming all XP sliders are set at 100).

Despite previous reports that Madden auto-ranks them based on OVR, my testing shows that if you put your starter at the 3rdspot that is his depth chart position for training even if he is the highest OVR.

**NEW**

The Basic XP also seems to have changed from release. I cannot see any information about this in any patch notes. Franchises started now earn 67% more XP than at release.​

Offense




The abnormal positions here are WR (where there are the boosted XP awards for the two starting wideouts and slot receiver), and Offensive Line, where there is a smaller drop-off from the starter/primary backup down to the 3rd string and bench/practice squad guys. It bottoms out at the second tier.

Defense and Special Teams



All defensive and special teams players follow the standard pattern.


Tips: Before each training session adjust your depth chart. Think of it like giving the younger players more training reps than your veterans. In real life, top players get days off from training whilst the youngsters never do. You want ALL of your young players, especially ones with a Dev trait to be listed in the top two positions of a position on your depth chart, even if it is not their listed position.

After training change it back to how you want it for your game.


4. Training Medal

For each training drill, you are awarded different medals depending on how well you complete the drill (and you can then sim that drill in the future and be awarded that medal).

Bronze/No Medal: Basic XP awarded.
Silver Medal: 200% of the Basic XP awarded.
Gold Medal: 300% of the the Basic XP award.

Tip: I should think this is obvious, but you should get Gold in whatever training drill it is you select. The hardest ones are 3 on 3 and Trick Plays, in my experience. Fortunately, there are easier alternatives that target the same position groups.






5. Player Development Trait

Dev traits are incredibly important in Madden 19, as EA have tweaked the system to remove Slow Development, add Star back in and increased the number of players with Quick Dev. Normal does not equal Slow this year. It is a whole new system. It’s very, very hard to get a Normal Dev guy up to elite OVR levels nowadays, at least in a league with sensible sim rules and XP sliders. A large part of this is how Dev traits affect weekly training XP:


Normal Dev: No addition to Basic XP (x1 Multiplier).

Quick Dev: 120% of the Basic XP will be added (x2.2 Multiplier).

Star Dev: 300% of the Basic XP will be added (x4 Multiplier).

Superstar Dev: 500% of the Basic XP will be added (x6 Multiplier).


Tip: The difference between Superstar Dev and Normal Dev is immense. You should be targeting your weekly training drills at young players with good dev traits over all other factors.

The table below shows the XP that will be added for each Dev trait to form Drill XP

6. Coach Scheme – (Bonus XP Part A)

The coaches scheme will affect training. This is represented by the purple puzzle piece that sits on a players profile. If a player has this then they will receive an additional 250% of their Basic XP from training. It is affected by medal but not affected by Dev Trait.

The example below shows the additional XP gained based for a scheme fit player on Bronze training on default sliders.

7. Coach Traits – (Bonus XP Part B)

You can spend coach XP on progression boosts that award some additional XP to players for the training drills, as well as boosting weekly goal XP awards, and slightly reducing the cost of upgrading attributes. Coach progression packages are massively important, and you need to be a bit strategic about which ones you buy as some of them are very expensive and require that you save up for the best part of a season to purchase them.


The coach boosts are a bit of a topic in their own right, in that they are affected by the training medal (i.e. 2x basic for silver, 3x basic for gold) and by XP sliders. For the values below, I have assumed bronze training medal and all XP sliders set at 100. The values given by the coach boosts are aligned to how much basic weekly XP a player gets based on his position and depth chart rank. If a coach has a trait for that position group then they give an additional 60% of basic XP. They are not affected by Dev Trait

The example below shows the additional XP gained on Bronze training oand default sliders for a position group that the coach has a training package for.

Tips: Purchase coaching packages strategically, targeting positions where you have lots of young talent you need to progress. Once you’ve got enough packages to mean you can train two offensive and two defensive position groups all season and get the applicable XP boosts, don’t be afraid to stockpile your coach XP until after the draft so you can spend it on the most relevant positions for the upcoming season based on your haul of rookies.


8. Focus Training

In addition to the drill-based XP, you can choose three players to give extra focus training to in order to further boost their XP. The XP awarded for focus training is based – again – on Dev traits:


Normal Dev: Basic focus training XP (50 XP)
Quick Dev: 200% of the basic focus training XP (100 XP)
Star Dev: 400% of the basic focus training XP (200 XP)
Superstar Dev: 600% of the basic focus training XP (300 XP)

Tip: You absolutely must focus train your young guys with high Dev and avoid Normal players where possible.

Factors that DO NOT affect how much weekly XP is awarded

There are some misconceptions about other things that might affect how much weekly XP a player gets from training, but if they are not in the list above, they are not relevant. Some of the more common ones are below:

Age

Your player’s age has no bearing on how much training XP they get. You can be 20, you can 42, you’re getting the same amount (provided your basic award, coach boost, dev trait, focus training slider and training medal are identical). Age only affects the cost of upgrading attributes, regression, and how much milestone, weekly and season XP is awarded.

Overall Rating

Again, this has no bearing on weekly XP. You can be a 40 OVR player, you can be a 99 OVR player, you’re getting the same weekly XP as long as all the other factors outlined above are the same.

The Weekly Training XP Formula

Ok, so let’s throw all of this stuff in a bucket and deconstruct the formula Madden uses to determine how much weekly XP a player gets in training:

​

That’s the formula!

Here’s an example for a starting Pass Protecting Left Tackle with Star Dev, doing a Hat Count drill at Gold, being focus trained, and working under a coach with the O line boost package and Vertical Power Run scheme fit, in a league where the OT XP slider is set to 90 in a recently created Franchise:

= (((84*3*4)+((2.5*84*3)+(0.6*84*3)+(50*4))*90%
= ((1008) + (630) + (151) + (200))*0.9
= 1008 Drill XP + 781 Bonus XP + 200 Focus XP *0.9
= 1790 Total XP​

So going off of your claim that listing a RE at the no 2 DT spot on the depth chart will grant that RE starting xp assuming he is listed lower on his RE depth chart spot, will that mean if I put a RE at an outside linebacker spot he will gain xp as well?

So let’s say I’m in a 3-4 defense and I’m using a practice that will train DB and LB position groups since they have more starting positions on the field in most formations. Since he’s a RE and technically a d-lineman will he earn that extra xp if he’s put in a second string OLB spot?


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Lots of interesting information here. Quick question though. When did this "silent patch" take place? As in, when did the changes between pre patch and post patch in your information here happen?

I have no idea. I am guessing one of the title updates but there was no acknowledgement of this. I was putting together this information for my league yesterday and noticed discrepancies from information I noted down when I created the XP sliders for our league and what was happening with simmed results now.

I then loaded an old saved franchise from back in august and sure enough - on default sliders the top position was getting 50XP as opposed to a franchise created now where they get 84XP.

I believe that will only work if you are doing a training drill that is for LB/Dline. If both position groups are in then yes I think they get that benefit.

Thanks for the hard work and amazing detail regarding player progression.

A silent patch doesn't seem to be the reason. When we were doing extensive xp testing for my league (during early release), for some reason leagues started by me earned the high amount of xp, yet leagues started by my other 2 admins earned the low end. We couldn't figure out why,

wow good stuff, great job breaking it down

thats interesting, I wonder why they wouldn't mention such a big change? "increases amount of XP earned in franchise mode" would have been easy to say.