NCAA 08

[DougAlvarez]

NCAA 2008 Ideas

Since I have bought NCAA 07 for XBOX 360 I have been compiling a list to help make the NCAA series a game you cannot drop by giving EA my feedback from a huge college football fan as well as a video game fan.

Graphics:

Players: Every player is absolutely jacked. And corners and linebackers all have the same muscle definition. Each position should have like 4 or 5 body templates. The shoulders are way too wide and tall. The arms are way to jacked and thick, there are no thin arms or anything. Every player is thick, where are they skinny guys? The calves all look fat too, there are no skinny ones, and anyways the calves look bad anyways. The sleeves are too thick and they are higher up the arm. The pants pads do not look realistic at all, they are too ragged. Where is the hair? There are no players with dreads hanging out or having there hair hang out if its long? The players on the sideline? are you that lazy EA? You need to make them look just as good as the players on the field. The Jerseys also need to be tweaked a bit because the numbers are blurry and don’t stay in place. The Jerseys should be able to fit loose on some players as they do in real life, and as the game goes on, the jerseys become un-tucked, and filled with sweat. Jerseys should also be able to be seen grabbed and pulled away during a tackle. And when a player brushes himself off you should be able to see some dirt particles come out of his jersey. If a team is wearing long socks lets see their socks slip down their leg sometimes. When it is raining, the jerseys don’t get dirty fast enough or as dirty as they should be, especially the teams wearing white.

Stadiums, Field & Crowd: Put more detail into the grass like in madden, the field looks real in Madden, in NCAA it doesn't. During a game while raining, you should be able to see mud and water being kicked up as players run on it as well as see splashes in it as a player runs through it or gets tackled on it. Give every team its actual stadium. The crowd needs to be sharper and more detailed. There are five different kinds of fans, why don't you create more. And the band could actually looks like a band. Bring back the cheerleaders, refs, and camera men and reports and put some detail into them to make them look alive. In the crowd lets see some signs, pom poms, air horns, figurines etc…


Dynasty: The Dynasty gets boring way to quickly. It needs to be much and deeper and more interactive and in depth to what a coaching staff has to do day to day and week by week to turn their program into one of the elite ones. You are in complete control of being the head coach and have to deal with everything a coach has to deal with on a daily basis. Every team should have a coach for each position, and there should be a coaching carousel. You have to keep your coaches happy and give them a good salary to keep them with your programs or you will just lose them to another program or a bigger job opportunity. Coaching Carousel. You get to also decide before you start the dynasty whether you want the playoff system implemented or not.

Game Week: Every week should start off with a scouting report of the team you face next. You should have a set of game plan keys you have to practice and execute to be successful. Like every team should have tendencies ( on defense they run a lot of cover-3 so we must throw underneath etc...) So in practice you have to go against your scout team based on their tendencies and practice your game-plan. You get points for how well you do in practice, and that indicates how your team will perform in the game. If you do bad it will result in things like dropped balls, bad blocking, forgetting a route, running the wrong route, players becoming rattled easier etc.. If you're coaching one of the better teams they qualify the point expectations easier and faster, and the worse teams have a tougher time doing so. How well you practice should have an effect on how you play. Than you play your game and you have the option to evaluate each player and give them a grade to motivate them to practice hard.

Magazine: Bring back the magazine, but have more than the top 25, BCS, players of the week and conference leaders....How about bringing in something like weekly highlight shows, and teams on the rise, players on the rise and decline, Heisman updates, bowl previews, predictions, games of the week etc..

Off-season: Off-season workouts are too bland and computer generated players become too good too easy. How about you actually get to control your teams off-season workouts? You get to pick their schedule, run their workouts and actually perform as the players in the drills if you want to. Each player increases due to how hard they work and how good you are at persuading them that the workouts have a purpose. You control how hard your team works, but with more drills (weightlifting, running, football position specific drills {have 3 drills for each posistion} etc...)
Include the senior all star games and the Army All American game so you can play with the years biggest recruits against the others. Then have spring...you have the two weeks of practice and drills, than you play your spring game.

Recruiting: More in depth....you should be able to recruit younger players to get them interested early. More options for pitches, and each player has to have qualified for the university or they can't attend and they go to JUCO where you can keep in touch with them until they can get into college. Keep the In-season recruiting option, but be able to recruit more than 12 players, you pick your 12 targets you want, but at the same time you can call and email other players, because if one of your recruits commit to another school, you need someone else to fill that scholarship.

Extras: Get a team momentum meter. As the season goes on and you keep winning or you win a big game, your momentum increases and that improves there play, or it can work the opposite, the higher the momentum rating of your team, they easier it is to convert that 4th and 5 in a rivalry game . Also a team unity meter, your teams chemistry has a big impact on how a team plays and whether they can come through on a big drive in a big game because they all get along and trust each-other. Have the option to run a playoff mode instead of the BCS.

Coach Responsibilities: The coach should have to monitor each player and his academic and disciplinary performance. He has to keep his team in line by implementing a curfew and other team rules, and if a player breaks that rule, the punishment will have an effect on the player on whether his actions were worth the punishment or if they weren't to determine whether hell turn around and do it again. Weekly recruiting, keeping in contact with each player. You also have to create a game plan each week as well as create your own custom packages.




Miscellaneous:

In-Game Features: Bring back the composure ratings, and create a more in depth audible system so you could have a little bar come up on screen so you know what play each audible is etc.. Each player has their own composure rating, and a momentum rating based on their performance. Game breaking plays…in all games there are 3 or 4 plays that decide the game, why can’t they stick out in this game? Also you can create your own camera view.

Extra Game Modes: Campus Legend, Create A Playbook ( Your own formations and plays you can build from scratch as well as build your own packages), Practice, Drills, Playoff Mode (Just set up your own bracket and play), Tournament

Presentation: The pre, half and post game features are boring also. Add in some commentary for all three, giving keys to the game, key players, half-time adjustments needed to be made, in-game updates of how the other teams around the nation are doing in their game ,how a player performed, and analysis of what and why things happened. The in-game commentary is terrible too. Add more lines and phrases so we don't here the same comments 10 times a game. Give them the ability to say players names, and bring things up that happened early in the game. Like if a star receiver catches his first pass late in the game, the commentators should say something along the lines of, " The defense has done a heck of a job shutting down (name) because that was his first grab of the day" etc... You should also add in two other commentary teams, one for regional games, one for local and one for national so we don't get tired of the same three commentators every game. Also add in an on the field reporter. Also for a game between two teams that are like 2-10 and 1-9 use the EA Sports radio of sorts for that game.

Crowd and Players: The crowds reactions suck big time. If you get an interception the crowd stands up and cheers for one second and then they sit back down, and if the guy returns that all the way to the end-zone they don't stand up until the guy crosses the goal line. Fact of the matter is, when that happens the crowd celebrates longer and doesn't sit down or stop yelling till the play is over or a few seconds after. If a running back breaks through a hole, the crowd always stands up and yells louder in anticipation, that doesn't happen in NCAA 07. Bring back the home-field advantage also. And every team does not sell out every game, the crowd should come to a teams game based on their performance and the caliber of the team they are playing. The players cut scenes and celebrations suck. Add in more celebration and pre and post play cut scenes. Also add more band songs please, you are missing so much in the atmosphere of college football.

Team Traditions: Each team should have their own entrance, like Michigan runs out and jumps up and touches the "Go BIg Blue" sign, or Tennessee runs through the big "T". Each team should run out before the games because the coin toss thing is just boring and lazy. Also include more fight songs and other songs for the bands to play during the games. Like UF, they play "Gator-Bait" and "The Go Gators" chant, and they also all clap before the kickoff repeatedly until the ball is kicked, include all that in the game.

Create A Player: Add in this feature with the ability to edit what they wear, the figure and frame of each part of their body, how they wear their socks, shoulder pads etc..

Create A Team: Make this feature better, you should be able to create the school, add in more logos, and uniform options and templates. You should be able to put the schools name on the helmet or jersey if you want, and build the stadium from the ground up as well as select important features and things that are part of the university.

Player Ratings: Players reach 99 in dynasty way too much, this means you need to fix the rating system. Most players should sit around an 75-93 range, and every year there should be maybe 20 95+ rated players. This would show separation in the talent of a player and make the game more realistic. Give players a range of ratings. As they can play like as well as 99, or they could play as bad as an 85. Add in more attributes for each position as well as include the general ones ( Speed, jumping, agility, acceleration, awareness, intelligence, discipline,injury, durability, toughness, clutch, potential, strength, composure, game breaking)
QB:
throwing range short, throwing range medium, throwing range long, throwing accuracy short, throwing accuracy medium, throwing accuracy long, pocket presence, scrambling ability, throwing on run, roll out effectiveness, coverage recognition, QB vision
RB/FB:
BC Vision, elusive, carrying, back juke, trucking, hurdle, stiff arm, balance, left juke, right juke, cutting, inside running, outside running, break tackle, catching, blocking, routes, jumping
WR/TE:
Routes, Hands, catching, catching in traffic, blocking, cutting, carrying, elusiveness, jumping, sideline awareness, back juke, trucking, hurdle, stiff arm, balance, right juke, left juke, BC vision, beating jam, finding holes in coverage, run block, ratings for each route, recognizing coverage at line.
OL:
pass block, run block, double team, pulling,
General Defense:
Tackling, Play recognition, hit stick, memory,
DL:
swim, rip, break block, wrong arming, pressure,
LB:
jamming, man coverage, press, cover 2, cover 3, cover 4, blitzing
Secondary:
Jamming, press coverage, cover 2, cover 3, cover 4, man to man, hit stick, blitzing
You can actually edit the equipment a player wears and actually include all the equipment and you can wear it anywhere and in any color or style etc...

Game Play:

Offense:
-Fix the dropped balls too many open receivers drop too many easy catches
-Screens are dropped to often
-QB vision should have a better effect using it than not
-Running game needs to be tweaked, the draw is impossible to run, better inside running
-QB’s constanly throw perfect pass across their body to the other side of the field while their on the run, that needs to be changed
-You should be able to feel pressure, and it needs to effect how the QB performs, it pisses me off when you pressure the hell out of the QB and he still throws perfect passes play after play
-Bring Back The Playmaker control

Defense:
-Gang Tackling
-Group Tackling and Dog Piles
-Corner routes are always open
-Linebacker & DB’s need to be more aware
-Dives are to far
-Get rid of the often amount of big hits
-Deep ball should be able to be stopped, it is easily completed
-Mobile quarterbacks should not have the ability to scramble play after play for about 15 seconds in the back field until they find an open receiver,
-Make the defensive players actually play their responsibilities…when I run cover 2 the safety never gets over the top of the #1 receiver if he is going vertical

Special Teams:
-Less blocked FG’s & EP’s
-Ability to block a punt


A.I.:
-Computer is stupid….on 3rd down with 5 seconds in the game on their own 20 they throw hitch routes instead of a hail mary, never go for it on fourth down and run risky plays, never run trick plays
-Fix computer play calling on offense


General:
-Change the Hit stick, in fact get rid of it, there is way too many big hits, and it be nice to have that as a total control tackle and run stick. Like you have to direct the stick in the right direction of the runner to be in position and decide whether you want to tackle high or low based on who your tackling. On offense you can juke, truck, spin, cutback, or whatever based on how skilled you are with the stick.
-Add something in to where the performance of one player effects their performance i.e. a corner back who has been shutting down a receiver and not allowing him to get open stresses out the receiver causing him to become rattled, and be more prevelant to make a mistake & vice versa…as would it be for a LB v TE or RB or DL vs OL etc…
-You need to be in control of what happens, not the computer that’s why I think the total control offense/ defense stick would be awesome
Please feel free to leave any more feedback on other things youd like to add so I can add to this list before I personally mail it to EA in late February.

[bifflefan27]

Bowl Games Stadiums and Presentations: For each bowl game, there should be the teams endzones and crowds from both teams. Have fireworks and better presentations for the BCS bowl games and some presentation for the smaller bowl games.

[ehh]

Something small that I'd like to see added to added to dynasty mode as an option you can turn on/off would be the ability to predetermine certain CPU controlled programs that could get much better/worse throughout your dynasty.

Let's say for example you want to make sure that ND and Bama will get alot better in your dynasty because you think Weiss and Saban will have both programs as a Top 5 school in real life. This option could allow you to do that. This could also be good if you want to make sure you're rivalry game stays important throughout your dynasty. Let's say you're using Michigan and five years into your dynasty Ohio State is struggling to win 6 games a year. Now your rivalry game at the end of the year doesn't have nearly as much hype around it.

It's just an idea because it seems like EA predetermines this anyway, but it's the same for every dynasty you play. Remember in NCAA '04 when North Texas was arguably the best school in the nation ten years into every dynasty you played? Plus Florida State always went down the crapper, at least for me. In '07 on Xbox, Michigan always became terrible in my dynasties.

This way you can sorta play God and pick which teams you want to be powerhouses, stay powerhouses or fall from power. And of course you could turn the option off.

[Shaver]

We have a wishlist thread stickied at the top.

*LOCKED*