NCAA Football 14 News Post

Realistic Recruiting Expected in NCAA Football 14

12:28 AM - March 11, 2013 by TryHard_Nation

EA Sports and West Virginia University had a meeting last July to discuss how they can create a realistic recruiting process in NCAA Football 14. EA Sports Producer Ben Haumiller stated it has gotten a little stale and wants to give it a fresh look and feel.

Quote:


	"There are definitely features that we've added and things that have happened that are based on the conversation we had with them," producer/designer Christian McLeod said. "There are a couple key points that eventually we'll be able to talk about that are the direct result of the conversation we had." Expect recruiting to be more realistic. That was the only goal Hammond and Dorchester had. They found it odd a player never de-committed. They noticed variables like academics, coaching changes and the success of a season weren't factored into the process. They didn't think junior college recruits were represented in ways that explain their value.

Source - WVU football: EA Sports reflects Mountaineers recruiting (Daily Mail)

Game: NCAA Football 14Reader Score: 8/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Xbox 360Votes for game: 54 - View All

NCAA Football 14 Videos

Member Comments

# 41 jwilphl @ 03/12/13 07:14 PM

Did they fix the gameplay yet?

This all sounds well and good, but color me concerned that what EA considers "realistic recruiting" is really EA's own brand of recruiting - some weird Jekyll and Hyde hybrid of what they do now and something else. And I'm amazed Ben still works there; no offense to the guy personally, but he has not done a good job at all "producing" this generation of NCAA games.

Overhauling all of Dynasty, as PRAY just said, is also hugely important. Everything from the menus to the minute details.

# 42 GruffyMcGuiness @ 03/12/13 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OhioBuckeyes7


	fix the gameplay and make the gameplay like madden 13 before you start talking about recruiting. the gameplay is more important.

It's going to run an updated engine of Madden 13.

# 43 sparkdawg777 @ 03/12/13 09:11 PM

I think they need to just take everything that college hoops had and implement it. That game was 6 years ago and it had a better coaching carousel, weekly scoreboard show, preseason show, selection show, better atmosphere. Imagine if a college football game had all these things. In fact imagine if college hoops didn't quit making games.

# 44 kcharles520 @ 03/12/13 09:18 PM

recruiting has always been one of NCAA's strong points if you ask me...not perfect, but good enough for what it is.

i'd rather see them put more energy into the actual, i dunno, GAMEPLAY. online ranked games were total cheesefests in NCAA 2013 and games against the CPU weren't very realistic either. it's so easy to run a cheese offense in this game, it just drives me nuts. i'd routinely go into ranked games "trying" to play fair but when the other team went to their unstoppable cheese plays i had no choice but to go to mine. just ruins the whole game if you ask me...

but it doesn't matter cuz' i don't think i'll be buying another copy of NCAA or Madden anytime soon. not worth the cash for such an unrealistic football gaming experience

# 45 BLACKjersey53 @ 03/12/13 11:10 PM

Maybe WVU mentioned something about spring games, you know, so I can get a feel for how my new guys preform in game-like situations before I throw them in a real game.

# 46 ND fan 84 @ 03/13/13 12:23 AM

they should implement 30 or 40 different recruiting classes all with back stories like the draft classes in madden.

# 47 fballturkey @ 03/13/13 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ND fan 84


	they should implement 30 or 40 different recruiting classes all with back stories like the draft classes in madden.

Only if they actually make them carry through to in-game commentary (which they won't because they can't do that for the 'real' players), otherwise it's useless.

# 48 alemic @ 03/13/13 06:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fballturkey


	Only if they actually make them carry through to in-game commentary (which they won't because they can't do that for the 'real' players), otherwise it's useless.

They wouldn't be 'real' players they would be made up ones just like they did in Madden.

Personally I think this would be the best feature they could possibly put in with it also connecting with Madden. Imagine if what you did in NCAA got uploaded to Madden and those were the stories they talked about in Madden. Obviously some things would have to be vague such as "He broke Ohio States school passing record in week 14" as far as the commentary went but the twitter updates could include all the actual stats.

# 49 GruffyMcGuiness @ 03/13/13 08:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ND fan 84


	they should implement 30 or 40 different recruiting classes all with back stories like the draft classes in madden.

No. Too many problems with draft class cheaters

# 50 skeezapleez @ 03/14/13 12:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ND fan 84


	they should implement 30 or 40 different recruiting classes all with back stories like the draft classes in madden.

No. I hate the predetermined draft classes in Madden. I like the randomness of old. You never know what each recruiting class is going to have in it.

# 51 tical2399 @ 03/14/13 07:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Death


	Skeptical doesn't even cover it. As mentioned earlier in this thread - but something I'll elaborate on with a bit more detail - this "De-commit" thing could - and probably will - be way overdone by EA. They have no concept of the word SUBTLETY. If every couple years you had one 5-star player or if you take over North Texas and lose a 3-star, then fine. But what frightens me is that we'll all have a bunch of players "committed" to our team, and then on Signing Day half of them will bail on you. THIS is what EA typically does. It's always ALL or NOTHING with them - they know no middle ground, they have no idea that implementing something new that happens RARELY would actually be cool. Skeptical... Nah... I'm POSITIVE they will screw this up badly. There's 7 years of games this gen to back that thought process up...

You are so right about the over doing every new feature. They had Megatron who is a big TE sized WR on the cover so you knew they were going to try to play that up. Every draft class has
like 15 guys of that size in it (6'5", 235) when in reality you might get two guys like that in a decade.

Its like they have to justify the new feature by MAKING SURE you see it at every turn. So I'm certain every school is going to have like 10 last second de-commits

# 52 BraveHeart @ 03/14/13 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skeezapleez


	No. I hate the predetermined draft classes in Madden. I like the randomness of old. You never know what each recruiting class is going to have in it.

My momma always said draft classes are like a box of chocolates.

# 53 jello1717 @ 03/15/13 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BV11


	Yep. I would say the only 2 attributes that REALLY matter besides speed for any recruit is THP and THA for QB. If you have a QB with high THP and THA, and the rest of your team is fast, you are set on this game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by khaliib


	I would say go back to some of the threads by GotMadSkillzSon and you'll know were my comments derive from. I as well as others have been tweaking Ratings for years to try and get AI players to behave somewhat differently which has led to Recruiting serving little need because outside of Speed, that 1 Star player at Sac State played "The Same" as that Blue Chip that signed with Alabama at every position across the board (as far as being AI controlled). Until there is a difference between a 1 Star and 5 Star player, again, Recruiting is meaningless because your 30 min spent in this phase has the "Same Exact" Gameplay outcome as the gamer who just skip/sim past. If one chooses to spend time going through and getting something out of the Recruiting, good for them, but there is no error in my statement. Speed has always been the foundation EA football has been built on top of. Players do not behave differently (1 Star through 5 Star) when the AI controls them.

In my 22 seasons in '13 this has absolutely not been even close to my experience. For examples:

I've seen really fast DEs with average block shedding skills and they've only been okay, but I've had slow DEs with excellent block shedding skills and they've been MONSTERS as pass rushers. All of my career leading sackers have been those with great block shedding (in my OD my career sack leader has 98/99/99 for FMV/PMV/BSH but only 70 SPD/ACC).

At HB I usually have a thunder/lightning combo and I've always had much better success with the 99 TRK guys than the 99 SPD/ACC guys. My best guy had 99 TRK and 93 SPD. The 2nd best HB I've had in my OD graduated with only 82 SPD. I've also had balanced guys play much better than the pure speed backs.

I love SPD at CB, but I always pick the 99 cover/90 SPD guys over the 90 cover/99 SPD guys as they've always played better.

At OLB I've had guys that graduate with 90+ SPD but because the rest of their skills are less they've never performed we'll for me. I've started going for the high tackle/high cover/high shedding/80ish SPD OLBs and they play way, way better.

# 54 Mckinley Cash @ 03/16/13 01:49 AM

I hope this means recruits can follow you to a new school if you're hired by different team at the end of the season.

# 55 K0ZZ @ 03/16/13 02:47 AM

I really hope they don't do prewritten stories for recruits like they did with CCM.

The classes are too similar as is, making an expected progression of classes will kill it for me. They need more variety before trying to toss in backstories which in Madden weren't all that great in the first place. (( As in, while it was a nice feature I wouldn't miss it if it were taken out))

If they make dynamic storylines that randomly generate, cool, but pre rendered classes = no go.

# 56 BenGerman @ 03/18/13 09:31 PM

Remaking recruiting is useless unless they get ratings to matter.

I trust they'll figure it out, however. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

# 57 illwill10 @ 03/19/13 12:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BenGerman


	Remaking recruiting is useless unless they get ratings to matter. I trust they'll figure it out, however. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Agree.

Every positional player basically plays the same outside of physical ratings and awareness.

Unless they are able to add and expand on Madden's DPP system, they will have to create a tendency system to differentiate players.

# 58 CM Hooe @ 03/19/13 01:28 PM

I welcome any changes to recruiting. I find it boring in its current design.

# 59 UMhester04 @ 03/19/13 04:16 PM

How are they ignoring the awkward running in their game again??

I still want to meet the guy that made the ball carriers "square their shoulders and tip-toe" whenever you change direction. Unreal.

# 60 TryHard_Nation @ 03/19/13 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UMhester04


	How are they ignoring the awkward running in their game again?? I still want to meet the guy that made the ball carriers "square their shoulders and tip-toe" whenever you change direction. Unreal.

I don't think that EA has its gameplay, dynasty, presentation, and marketing team focused on West Virginia's tips. Nowhere did they say they are ignoring "awkward running" in fact I fully expect for them to improve on it this year.

« Previous 1 234 5 Next »

More Links

Realistic Recruiting Expected in NCAA Football 14