Poll: Will We see drastic changes in AI in NCAA 2010?

[AuburnAlumni]

This is to gauge how the OS community feels about the real possibility of EA doing a major overhaul on their AI for NCAA 2010.

So...yes or no...

Do you think EA will listen to the community and implement many of these major AI complaints?

--Suction Blocking/Horrid OL/DL interaction

--Bad QB AI (no over/under throws, CPU throwing into coverage rather than throw the ball away, Overdone CPU Accuracy i.e. throwing off backfoot, "Robo QB" on Heisman, etc.)

--Fix the QB "freakout" on screens...i.e. CPU QB doesn't know what to do if the screen is covered and will still try and throw the ball to the RB instead of throwing it away, etc.

--Scrap "Wide Open Gameplay" Speed boosts...i.e. 99 speed players are MUCH faster than 98, etc.

--Bad Defensive Pursuit angles

--Increase effectiveness of defensive blitzes and pursuit speed

--Improve WR/DB interaction, i.e. have the WRs "jump with the DB and fight for the ball"

--Improve CPU Playcalling DRASTICALLY...i.e. no more QB option plays on 3rd and 8, quit having CPU run screens 3 times in a row, quit running out routes to the short side of the field, etc.


Obviously there are a lot of these issues and most are pretty major.

Do you believe that EA will make a commitment to fix these or will we see more of the same in 2010?

[heavy_hitter]

I voted NO. I don't think they are smart enough to understand how to program a football game. I also don't think they know enough football to be able to program it properly if they did understand how to program it.

[fistofrage]

It would be great if they could fix everything but we all know that in order to fix something, something else must break.

Here is what I think needs to be fixed whic basically echoes your list.....

There needs to be more off target passes that fall to the ground not Intercepted.

The AI needs to throw the deep ball much mor often and with some zip on it.

O-Line and D-line interaction needs to be fixed to some degree.

MAKE THE OTHER RATINGS COUNT - Tone down speed.

Fix the recruiting - there is too much wrong with it to even list.

Make the sliders work! 0 Int should mean thet defense is incapable of intercepting a pass.

[dkrause1971]

I think your being pretty hard on these guys. I think they do listen and i do think they care. To me it seems they are really limited by some factors and being talented enough may or may not be one of them.

In my opinion they just need a new gaming engine as alot of the issues you list have been around forever. If 2K can have a pocket, or QB playing more realistic like APF then EA should be able too. I am going to blame the engine and not the workers. I just don't see how the money company wouldn't have at least equal talent. I believe they are doing the best they can with what they have.

Where i think they are limited is EA or whoever isn't having a separate team working independently on this engine (That we know of) because it would take serious money to have a group working on an engine that isn't going to be in the game for awhile. Its not like you can take part of the current staff to do it as they are working on the game. Also, when you sells the number of copies they do- why bother? Last thing on the EA staff- Its rarely desire is why professionals fail- its typically being handcuffed by the limits of cash, talent or management.

Back to your question- I would say the probability is that few of those items are fixed. If they cannot make a real pocket in the last 10 years, i doubt it happens now without a new engine or new talent (and i would bet the talent turnover has been decent over these years). If they cannot remove suction blocking, crappy slider functions, DB/WR, etc and etc issues i doubt they will in 2010.

What they should be able to fix are these- CPU deep ball, CPU AI in clear cut situations like end of game, recruiting glitches like not enough OL, speed of defensive players being stunted for open gameplay, sliders being more extreme, and adapting somewhat to my playcalling.

If they even addressed those and the typical graphic tweaks i think most OS fans would be ok with it next year. Another season of these being issues are uncalled for however.

[dkrause1971]

Quote: Originally Posted by fistofrage

It would be great if they could fix everything but we all know that in order to fix something, something else must break. Here is what I think needs to be fixed whic basically echoes your list..... There needs to be more off target passes that fall to the ground not Intercepted. The AI needs to throw the deep ball much mor often and with some zip on it. O-Line and D-line interaction needs to be fixed to some degree. MAKE THE OTHER RATINGS COUNT - Tone down speed. Fix the recruiting - there is too much wrong with it to even list. Make the sliders work! 0 Int should mean thet defense is incapable of intercepting a pass.

can you imagine just how different this game would be with just more over and under throws and the CPU deep ball alone?

[Keyser Soze]

while I do believe EA will attempt to fix things, they will end up breaking other things just as bad if not worse then current state of affairs. EA = FED when it comes to economy. They "try" but are clueless and use the excuse "we don't have time" with everything that goes wrong. take 95% of the threads this year, do a FIND-REPLACE with 09 to 10 and it will be the same.

[dave374]

I doubt it.
Some of these issues are more than five years old.

IMO, they would need to start from scratch to fix all these issues because they're buried so deep in the game, trying to fix them would probably create a whole new set of problems.

[rudyjuly2]

I think we will see an evolutionary improvement next year. I think we will see a nice amount of change that will make us happy. And there is no question there will also be some things that still need improvement.

My personal prediction is that the basic gameplay in this game gets refined and we see an improvement in things like the default pass protection, the cpu will go deep on passes, the cpu's running game will be better, sliders will work at default, etc. The development team has a full grasp on both consoles now, they won't spend as much time on online dynasties since it's created, they won't be redoing the player models for the 4th year in a row so there is a lot more time that can be devoted to core gameplay elements.

However, I think the one thing that EA will fail to address will be the blocking engine. That needs an overhaul to capture the type of engine that 2K used. I don't think EA can simply tweak their system to fix it. They can fix the results by changing things but they can't change the way they get those results without doing a big overhaul.

I don't see any huge changes next year but just a nice collection of small changes that will make the game even better.