Here is a new NCAA Football 10 video that features some adjusted sliders. More specifically, AA, Pass Blocking 0, Break Block 100. I'm going to try and grab a user vs. AI clip before bed.
Little Timmy or Joe "I don't know a damn thing about football" Shmoe can still pop the game in on default settings and get their 8 TDs a game with no punts on 5 minute quarters.
But if you give us sliders that work and VASTLY improved CPU AI on the higher difficulty settings...we "sim" guys can have an experience as close to a real college football game as a video game can get.
But they keep dropping the ball.
They keep showing a severely skewed interest in catering mainly to the casual "arcade" crowd and much less to us sim guys.
See "Season Showdown"....an absolutely useless feature in the ACTUAL game. It doesn't affect anything in the actual game..and yet this is a huge addition that is plastered all over 3 blogs by EA and is constantly brought up in interviews.
By that same token...an absolutely essential aspect of football...a pass rush...is still left unattended.
Even after 365 days of screaming at the top of our collective lungs to fix it...dear lord...FIX IT.
They don't.
"Then at least give us more and effective sliders to make the game play more realistically."
They don't.
This isn't an exaggeration...we have someone with the game, posting visual EVIDENCE that neither of these near "game killing" (yes I used the phrase) issues have truly been fixed. Not one bit.
Again...I am completely flabbergasted and very upset about this.
And to top it all off...we were lied to about these aspects getting a major overhaul.
Again...a picture is worth a thousand words. 10 videos are worth a million words.
In NHL 10, there are different gameplay settings like easy, normal, and hardcore.
Easy is run n gun, and hardcore is more setup the offense and play good positional d. In NCAA 10, it could be the same way. Easy would be "Wide-Open Gamepay!!!" while hardcore has a good pass rush and smarter A.I. AA is right, NHL has it both ways; why can't NCAA?
If I were a developer on the NCAA team, I would be embarrassed to have my name attached to this piece of ****. Is it possible that any of the devs can actually man up and respond to these issues instead of dodging each thread that asks legit questions about the lack of improvements to key elements of gameplay???
At this point, if I'm on the art team, or some other aspect, I'm like, "ahh well, I did my job" I wouldn't take a bit of criticism for the gameplay team who seemingly did nothing with a WHOLE YEAR's time. Yeah it's a team effort but it's obvious that everyone is not pulling their own weight.
The thing that's so frustrating about this is that, as Auburn Alumni has pointed out, they actually fixed a lot of the other major issues. Coverage looks better (a lot better), the run block steering looks really cool, playbooks look slightly improved, the computer actually takes some deep shots (although I still think the AI QB logic is wonky and too sack averse -- they dump it short to covered WRs way too much), the tipped passes are a huge addition as are the new "throw out of sack" animations, the annual addition of catch/tackle animations appear to be better. The zig zag run stuff looks horrible, but I could get over it probably, since the CPU at least looks capable of putting together an effective running game.
There's just this one glaring hole. I'm hoping against hope that somehow it turns out to not be as bad as it looks right now, because if it weren't for this incredibly lame pass rush issue, the game would be looking like one of the best NCAA's ever, from a gameplay standpoint. This is literally the only major gameplay flaw that appears evident. Unfortunately, as Auburn Alumni has pointed out, it's a flaw in an area that's absolutely fundamental to defensive balance, and as a result has the potential to be a gamekiller (particularly when combined with the useless sliders).
It's unfortunate that the pass-rush is not as aggressive as it should be. It is equally dis-heartening that the slider-adjustments appear to have very little impact on the gameplay.
I see that some have suggested that this may just be an "A.I. vs. A.I." issue. Well I only play sports-games in coach-mode plus I often like to sit back enjoy watching a good CPUvsCPU game during my offline-dynasty. So even if this is "only" an A.I. vs. A.I. issue, it still makes the game completely unenjoyable for me.
If the developement team is reading this, please look into releasing a patch for the pass-rush and please find a way to give the sliders a bit more potency.
My hope was for this game to hold me off for at least half a year. Now it maybe just a month until Madden comes out lol
It almost looks like gameplay went backwards. Developers trying to cut corners is what turned Madden backwards (and they are finally fixing that now).
I'll be honest, I think that sometimes we have people on here who just cry negative and that does not make sense to me. No matter what they do, you will always hate it because you are obsessed with that 2k game(which is overrated)
There is the other end of the spectrum who will always justify what EA does not matter what.
I think that this is what most rational people agree with.
1- last year game was not good mainly because of pass rush and QB accuracy. Those are the 2 majors necessities for this game to have any hope.
2-Rosters issue is disappointing, buy not the end of the world because they are trying to fix it.
3-Some of the added features (SS, TB) does little to satisfy the sim fan.
4- I think some of the comments is uncalled for, (wanting people to get fired, and calling people names). But I will say this. When you have the exclusive license, you open yourself up to harsh critisism because you have given college football fans no alternative.
I do not think that there has EVER been a true sim game. You will never get it because there is no clear cut definition. What is sim to you, might not be some to someone else. So what you try to do is try so satisfy both, but at the end of the day you satisify none.
don't worry about no pass rush,bad wr/db interaction,none of that stuff guys....cause we've got BANDS AND SEASON SHOWDOWN to look forward to!
shame on you EA,what did you do,hire the guys from the Madden team Ian and co. replaced? Damn does Ian need to take over NCAA too???
This game has sliders that are worthless.I mean absolute worthless.And this dev team has the nerve to bash OS??? Seriously EA needs to be sued for "Consistent Fun Stealing."
Too bad such a great commentary effort is wasted on such a bad game.
See, now I think this video is better than a few of the other ones that have gone up in recent days. The pass rush isn't very good, but the AI is also using three and four man rushes on some of these plays. Granted, Carlos Dunlap and Gerald McCoy should be more dominant in one-on-one situations, but the ratings of these two offensive lines maybe too high in the game. Both of these schools have much better defensive lines than offensive lines in 2010.
Oklahoma ran the ball well at times with Demarco Murray. In fact, Murray broke a nice run up the middle and Florida countered on the next play by pinching the line. The defenses did get some pressure when they blitzed. Those quick swing passes are ugly as hell, but that's what the AI goes to instead of just taking the sack. That's where the AI should throw the ball away. The swing passes and screen passes are forced regardless of how well the back is covered.
I don't like the new "defense" chant. It seems to standout as a generic audio clip more than the past chant used. I'm also not getting into the Erin Andrews addition to the broadcast. Maybe it will improve once player names are added to the broadcast, but right now, it's sounds like Tom Hammond is her speech coach.
"He has hurt his leg, but it is not a fracture. The trainers are going to get him ready for the second half. Back up to you Brad."
Again, hopefully it flows better with the names used. But this video, not so bad in my opinion. As a request, I'd like to see some player lock camera footage.