Potential Gamekiller: ZERO pass rush

[radiohead]

well this game went from being a "must buy" to a "might buy post patch."

i don't know what happened to ncaa. ever since 05 the game has just been "off" imo.

[Hawaii_Stars]

If it is a big problem I do expect a patch to come out. With already knowing abut this issue, it would seem the patch will come out quickly after the game is released. Of course i guess it depends how tough it is to address the issues.

[countryboy]

Quote: Originally Posted by poster

Thanks Rhombic. Thats too bad, but for me the bottom line is that I expect the game to work properly if I am going to pay full price. I wish these games came out every two years, will never happen though. At least Madden seems promising even if it isn't everything a hard core fan wants.

agreed on the two year cycle. I wish that they would come out every 2 years and in between they could release patches to fix only the most glaring of issues. They could also release roster updates for those who would like to start over or who play online.

Also, if they came out every two years, then in a case like NCAA this year, where they know there are problems, but ran out of time, they could delay the game and fix these issues before shipping.

As you said, the chances of a two year cycle happening for these games is slim and none, and slim just left the building.

[kmp714]

Quote: Originally Posted by rhombic21

They did do this. They had an event in NYC early April where they got a lot of feedback. After talking to cdj and Pasta at the event, they both agreed that the game made serious improvements based on their feedback at that event. Here's the deal. The developers were aware of the pass rush issue. Perhaps they will be able to address it via a patch, or at the very least take steps to correct it in 2010. The development cycle is very tough for NCAA compared to Madden, and the bottom line is that they essentially ran out of time. I talked to several of the gameplay developers and they're aware of the issues that remain in the game, but they just ran out of time to address them. The game hit the deadline date where it had to go final, and they had to try and balance things the best they could. Many of the guys that work on NCAA also work on Madden. We stayed at the studio last night until 2AM playing Madden and NCAA, and several of those guys were there hanging out with us until well after midnight. They care about the game. They understand what needs to happen to make it better. But they have to balance priorities to make very tough deadlines -- which is simply the nature of the beast when you have an annually released sports title that just doesn't have as much time to test things and make adjustments prior to final code. It's disappointing because the game is awesome otherwise. I think that if you guys play Madden, you'll get a feel for how good NCAA could have been if it had another 2 months of development time. Madden is simply an amazing football game-- by far the best I've ever played. And NCAA is really close to that, but there are just a handful of issues that just didn't quite get balanced out properly before it went final.

I may be ignorant about the whole dev process, but I am under the idea that if it isn't broke don't fix it. Personally I didn't think that the pass rush was bad last year, so why was this messed with? So I don't really understand why they ran out of time if they could just keep this aspect of the game the same, and just work on other areas. Again I may be just reaching here, because I am certainly not an expert.

[bad_philanthropy]

Quote: Originally Posted by kmp714

I may be ignorant about the whole dev process, but I am under the idea that if it isn't broke don't fix it. Personally I didn't think that the pass rush was bad last year, so why was this messed with? So I don't really understand why they ran out of time if they could just keep this aspect of the game the same, and just work on other areas. Again I may be just reaching here, because I am certainly not an expert.

I think it was to help out the QB ai, with a pass rush in place the QB ai seemed incapable of making decent decisions.

[radiohead]

I'm all the way with you regarding a two year cycle for a while.

but then again, im not so sure that would help matters. heck, look how long george lucas had between ROTJ and Episode I. we got jar jar bings and an annoying little kid.

i don't know if they need new tech, new ideas, or a combination of both. but they need something because they just aren't pushing the envelope. and arent the only offenders. it's industry wide.

[rudyjuly2]

Quote: Originally Posted by bad_philanthropy

I think it was to help out the QB ai, with a pass rush in place the QB ai seemed incapable of making decent decisions.

I wonder if that was the case as well.

Thanks for your input Rhombic as well. Always appreciated. Hopefully a patch can fix this or at least sliders to help alleviate the problems. I'm not getting Madden so NCAA will be my sole football game. I just don't have the time (or extra money to burn) on more than one football title when I will just end up playing one. And I'd rather be playing NCAA than NFL.

[Hawaii_Stars]

The question you would have to ask is, would you be willing to pay double the amount for a two year wait because EA would be losing money if it came out every two years. Even then, what if a game killing bug got overlooked somehow? People who be rioting here on the messages boards and maybe even down at EA headquarters!