This game made me REALLY angry for the first time.

[Village Idiot]

I play with Michigan, on Heisman, with sliders that, as far as I know, are harder than most, yet I managed to wipe the floor with Iowa 54-10 in my last game. Yes, I played my backups in the second half, took my foot off the gas and ran the ball almost exclusively, the whole bit. Was that 'predetermined' too?

The bottom line is that if you want the game to be competitive, realistic, and challangeing, that means you can't *****foot around and 'go through the motions' with any of your opponents; they can all beat you if you don't call a good, intelligent game and execute.

[Deltron]

I think that there are two parts to the original post. The first part everyone seems to be jumping on -- that he reset his game out of frustration and played it over. Sure that's an easy target.

But the second part no one is really discussing. That the computer does juice its player in certain games and it becomes very obvious what is going on. The examples I gave about missed tackles, multiple fumbles, AI defenders suddenly not defending passes, the dline starts crushing your oline. All of these are examples of not the computer playing better or smarter football than you but rather they are examples of their ratings getting boosted and your ratings taking a hit.

I'm not talking about momentum either.

I'm talking about the way EA has made the cpu competitive on the higher difficulty levels in their football games. It feels very cheap the path that they take to make it difficult on the user. And the annoying thing is that you don't get this every week. For whatever reason it seems like there are random games throughout the season where this will happen. Sure the idea behind it may be fine -- giving you a tough game everyonce in awhile. But the execution feels all wrong when its as obvious as it is that your AI simply forget how to play and theirs become superhuman.

Obviously I don't think that is the only option to make the game harder, rather it is the result of simple AI programming -- its been around since Tecmo Super Bowl.

[srudoff]

If you ended up blowing out USC 52-0 with 700 yards of total offense would you reset it because it was too unrealistic????

ND's defense sucks in real life and should suck in this game. It should be hard to stop any decent offense from scoring.

The funny thing is, I could see you saying "man i had USC on the ropes at home and then on fourth and 9, leinart completes a 61 yard pass to Jarrett. i mean c'mon, fourth and 9?!?!?! then they fumbled out of bounce on the five but the refs gave them the ball on the one!!! to top if off, leinart tried a qb sneak with no time left and i had him til Bush pushed him into the end zone for the game winner!!! isn't that illegal or something???? they didn't even call it. so I reset it and beat them 52-0."

[Village Idiot]

Quote: Originally Posted by Deltron

I'm talking about the way EA has made the cpu competitive on the higher difficulty levels in their football games. It feels very cheap the path that they take to make it difficult on the user. And the annoying thing is that you don't get this every week. For whatever reason it seems like there are random games throughout the season where this will happen. Sure the idea behind it may be fine -- giving you a tough game everyonce in awhile. But the execution feels all wrong when its as obvious as it is that your AI simply forget how to play and theirs become superhuman.

That's fair enough, and I know what you're talking about, but I disagree: that has been discussed in this thread, by those who have mentioned real life blowouts and upsets.

The classic example I always tend to use is Oklahoma laying a 65 on Texas in 2003. That Longhorns team was ranked 11th in the nation. Later that same year, Oklahoma beat Texas A&M 77-0! How would those games play if you were on the losing end? Wouldn't the CPU have to seem 'superhuman'? Didn't Vince Young look awful 'superhuman' against USC last year, one the best teams in history? Yet put the identical circumstance on the game and all of a sudden it's 'cheating' by the CPU.

Again, I've been blown out my fair share of times, and I know what you mean about it not 'feeling' right. Still, if you lose big, how on Earth could it feel right?

[RoyalBoyle78]

Quote: Originally Posted by Gagnon39

Just finished the game and I was off by 10 points. I won 38-10, not 48-10. And come on, why is everyone flaming me? My gosh. I can DEFINATELY take a loss. In fact I like losing on football games (believe it or not) but just not when its totally unrealistic. I just wish I had the whole game to play for you guys. It was LITERALLY every 3rd down = automatic conversion. 3rd and 20, 3rd and 30, it didn't matter. The CPU was absolutely perfect in every way. I agree that a team can upset another but RARELY, if ever would a team like Stanford come into Notre Dame and completely, and I mean COMPLETELY dominate. Teams usually win upsets by having a few key turnovers resulting in points and by playing sound defensively. During this game it was a complete shootout and the CPU could not be stopped. I honestly don't think I stopped a single drive the entire game.

dude no body should be flaming you, you are right about that..It's just I noticed when new sports games come out, you seem to complain a lot...

[fishepa]

Quote: Originally Posted by Gagnon39

So I started my Notre Dame dynasty and began the year 5-0. I play Stanford at home (3-2) and they whip the living crap out of me matching me score for score until they broke it open in the 4th. I literally felt like the CPU had decided that it was time for me to lose and it just so happened that Stanford was the team I was playing. I COULD NOT stop them for anything. 3rd down conversions were automatic. I could not stop the run and their quarterback was 23 for 25 with over 400 yards. It was totally rediculous. I haven't felt like the Heisman level has cheated until I played this game. This was the most stupid thing I've seen yet. I truly believe there are times when the game pre-determines that the user is going to lose. I got so pissed that I actually turned the game off (I haven't done that in a while). I'm going to play the game over and I bet I win 48-10.

I was 4-0 in my Auburn dynasty and got KILLED at home by Arkansas 59-9. I couldn't stop them either. Sounds like what happened to you.

[2krules]

I've been in games in which I was whipping the CPU's butt and in the 3rd and 4th quarter they start playing like they are the best team that ever existed, and I can't do anything right. It is very unrealistic, and it does seem like the CPU is cheating.

[GaryM05]

I know this kind of thing is frustrating, but I've noticed it in every NCAA game going back to 2003. Every once in a while, it seems like the game just decides that you're going to lose (or at least have to overcome seemingly superhuman obstacles to win).

While annoying, I'm okay with it, because like others have mentioned, this kind of thing does happen every year in college football. For whatever reason, a supposedly superior team gets crushed in a game they should win handily.

Under the covers, I think this game does lots of things like this in order to more closely resemble what could actually happen. So when I notice these things now, where I used to get really frustrated, I just look at it as 'one of those things'.

In the end, I'm glad to have a college football game that acts reasonably most of the time, and that does simulate the real thing pretty closely (even if it has to do some far-fetched things every once in a while to make that happen).