Are speed ratings a problem in NCAA 09?

[t3g]

On Florida State's end, Brandon Paul at HB went from a 95 to 92 speed even though he posted low 4.3 40 times and Patrick Robinson ran a 4.25 and is only listed as 93 speed. Robinson was a 94 with the default rosters last year before he had the breakout season and low 40 time.

Paul's situation is more pressing though. How can someone go from a 95 to a 92 when they are around the same if not faster this year?

[bad_philanthropy]

I feel like the speed of the players and their aggressiveness in the game isn't representative of the flow of football. I'm not saying the game needs to play as fast as real football but the speed that some of the defensive players play at in the game just isn't believable.

I really don't get the feeling that the players (especially the defensive players) have that burst and aggression that they in real life they train to sustain for forty yards. The game just lacks that instant of explosion and violence at the snap of the ball

[AuburnAlumni]

Quote: Originally Posted by bad_philanthropy

I feel like the speed of the players and their aggressiveness in the game isn't representative of the flow of football. I'm not saying the game needs to play as fast as real football but the speed that some of the defensive players play at in the game just isn't believable. I really don't get the feeling that the players (especially the defensive players) have that burst and aggression that they in real life they train to sustain for forty yards. The game just lacks that instant of explosion and violence at the snap of the ball

Yup.

Ask therizing. I just beat him (as Ole Miss 84 Offense 87 Defense) with me playing as...Idaho (60 Offense, 66 Defense).

I won 28-17 and never punted. He didn't sack me once.

My receivers and backs were destroying him and...of course...the lack of pass rush allowed me all day to find an open man.

[chia51]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sigma4Life

If someone has time I'd like to see what happens when you make all the players speeds more realistic. If you rate all players so that the gap between the fastest and slowest player is within the 1.25 second range mentioned at the combine.

After reading this I went into the game to edit 2 teams so that all
players are closer in speeds.

QB 86-91
HB 89-94
OL 83-88
TE 85-90
WR 93-98

DE 85-90
DL 83-88
LB 89-94
DB 94-99

Accelerations would be 1 point higher than speed for all players except HB's, WR's, LB's which would be 2 points and DB's would be 3 points.

Obiously there would be exceptions for some players, like running QB's, etc...

I was hoping that this would make the gameplay faster and possibly make the defense be able to keep up with the offense.

But everytime I have tried to edit teams the game will lock up so I gave up, maybe after the patch we will be able to do this project and get it done.

[rhombic21]

This year they actually made the problem way worse, on purpose. It's a new gameplay feature that they created to get more big plays.

Basically, the speed curve is non-linear, and gets progressively steeper the further up you go on the speed chart. So a 99 SPD player is actually considerably faster than even a 96 SPD player, whereas last year he would have only been slightly faster.

It's a really bad idea, IMO. They did it because they said that last year they felt like the elite speed players (Harvin, Holliday, etc...) weren't explosive enough in the open field or the passing game.

The problem is that it creates really huge issues for other matchups. The LB situation is the best example of this. Your fastest LB probably has between 80 and 85 SPD. The other team's HB probably has about 90-93 SPD. On last year's game, the HB would still beat the LB on passing plays out of the backfield, but the LB would usually be close enough to at least occassionally make a play, and to make a tackle after the catch. This year, you're not even in the same zipcode. A part of it is bad defensive reaction to certain routes, but I've noticed that even if you cover the routes manually, it's literally impossible to stay within 5 yards of the HB after he makes his cut, because the speed difference is so great.

For mobile QBs, it makes the poor pass rush even worse. Say you have a QB with 85 SPD. If the other team rushes 4, they might have a DE or two with 80 or 82 SPD. But if that guy gets blocked, the QB can pretty easily outrun everyone else to buy time and escape the pocket. Again, he could do it last year too, but this year he gets away a lot faster, so now it's easier to do things like scramble out to a side, set your feet, and throw downfield. Last year the DL would be bearing down on you fast enough so that the QB wouldn't have time to set his feet to throw the ball. If people put non-QB players with ELITE speed (97+) in at QB, you see really comical things happening, due to the combination of horrible pursuit angles/pass rush and the speed difference. Percy Harvin can literally run around the backfield for 25+ seconds (retreating 30 yards deep and going sideline to sideline) while your DL scramble around helplessly to contain him (even if you use contain). Literally the only way to get any pressure on him AT ALL is to blitz a CB, and even then, if that guy gets chipped or takes a bad angle, the play can still get outside of him really easily.

This is one of the reasons why I expect Madden to be a lot better, since my understanding is that Madden doesn't have the new speed curve.

[AuburnAlumni]

Quote: Originally Posted by rhombic21

This year they actually made the problem way worse, on purpose. It's a new gameplay feature that they created to get more big plays. Basically, the speed curve is non-linear, and gets progressively steeper the further up you go on the speed chart. So a 99 SPD player is actually considerably faster than even a 96 SPD player, whereas last year he would have only been slightly faster. It's a really bad idea, IMO. They did it because they said that last year they felt like the elite speed players (Harvin, Holliday, etc...) weren't explosive enough in the open field or the passing game. The problem is that it creates really huge issues for other matchups. The LB situation is the best example of this. Your fastest LB probably has between 80 and 85 SPD. The other team's HB probably has about 90-93 SPD. On last year's game, the HB would still beat the LB on passing plays out of the backfield, but the LB would usually be close enough to at least occassionally make a play, and to make a tackle after the catch. This year, you're not even in the same zipcode. A part of it is bad defensive reaction to certain routes, but I've noticed that even if you cover the routes manually, it's literally impossible to stay within 5 yards of the HB after he makes his cut, because the speed difference is so great. For mobile QBs, it makes the poor pass rush even worse. Say you have a QB with 85 SPD. If the other team rushes 4, they might have a DE or two with 80 or 82 SPD. But if that guy gets blocked, the QB can pretty easily outrun everyone else to buy time and escape the pocket. Again, he could do it last year too, but this year he gets away a lot faster, so now it's easier to do things like scramble out to a side, set your feet, and throw downfield. Last year the DL would be bearing down on you fast enough so that the QB wouldn't have time to set his feet to throw the ball. If people put non-QB players with ELITE speed (97+) in at QB, you see really comical things happening, due to the combination of horrible pursuit angles/pass rush and the speed difference. Percy Harvin can literally run around the backfield for 25+ seconds (retreating 30 yards deep and going sideline to sideline) while your DL scramble around helplessly to contain him (even if you use contain). Literally the only way to get any pressure on him AT ALL is to blitz a CB, and even then, if that guy gets chipped or takes a bad angle, the play can still get outside of him really easily. This is one of the reasons why I expect Madden to be a lot better, since my understanding is that Madden doesn't have the new speed curve.

Whoever came up with that absurd "speed cheat" for some gimmicky "wide open gameplay" should be covered in honey and buried in an ant hill.

They should be flogged with a cat-o-nine-tails and have lemon juice poured on their cuts.

They should have each of their fingernails pulled out one by one.

They should have their eyelids set on fire.

Am I missing anything?

[LBzrule]

Some of his individual numbers may be questionable, but his overall point is right on the money. I hit on it in the Poll thread. The numbers are arbitrary for defense and simply there for show. None of the DE's in this game are athletic. They all take off on the snap, stand up and start running like Ogre's, like the ones from the game Ogre Battle, just hunched over and all slow. Linebackers are pathetically slow. The hook zones in several of the plays are broken. The flats zones in several plays out of the 335 Stack Playbook are broken.

I don't know about offline but online you have to play this friggin game like the old EA games on D in order to even compete, namely, forget normal defenses. Stay in Nickel, Dime and Quarters all game long or else you are asking for problems.

[o 99 PROBL3MS o]

Its funny you guys touch on this now....because me and my brother did this many years ago. We used NFL 2k2 as our model. On this game you couldn't change player ratings and they had bars to represent attributes instead of number ratings. We would go to practice mode with two teams and time the players in the 40 to see how fast they really were.

Needless to see they were pretty accurate. According to our timings Randy Moss and Deion Sanders were the fastest players in NFL 2K running in the 4.28-4.31 range. (which seemed pretty realistic to us) We would next go to Madden on the xbox console and perform the same test. Randy Moss was a 98 spd but only ran in the 4.5 range.

I was tickled to death reading this post because it is something me and my brother studied years ago but didn't think it really had that much affect on the game as it possibly does. Glad to see someone shedding some light on this. It could be a possible answer to some of our gameplay woes.