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Old 09-30-2008, 04:51 PM   #1
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What needs to change. Very long.

So, I am a diehard NCAA fan. Been one for years. Mostly because there is no other video game. The effort it seems they put into this game is pretty pathetic. I find problems/bugs etc in my first game every year.

Aside from that, I also know a ridiculous amount about football. So I'm very picky with the inaccuracies that this game has.

And since I know that EA reads these forums sometimes, I figure I could give some feedback.



First thing I want to address is the position system.
- It isn't that hard to switch positions in real life. One huge flaw in this game is that it greatly penalizes you for switching a player. An example would be my current situation in my franchise. I have a 91 and a 83 free safety. At strong safety I have a 74 and a 71. In game, I have to start the 74 strong safety because the game drops the 83 free safety's awareness to ridiculously low numbers. In real football, the positions are basically interchangeable. Players swap back and forth mid game over and over, and most teams don't really differentiate between the two slots.

This same problem exists for many positions. Many linebackers play all three LB positions. DEs can play DT. Offensive linemen are swapped all over the place etc.

Make changing positions that are similar yield very small awareness drops. Dropping a free safety to strong safety should be a 5 overall change at the most.

- The position titles feel like somebody who doesn't understand football tried to look intelligent by giving out right/left assignments.

There is no such thing as a right outside linebacker. I've never came across a team that sticks an OLB to one side all game. If you are going to differentiate between OLBs then they need to be Strong/Weak. The difference between an 3-4 ILB and a 4-3 is SIGNIFICANTLY greater then the difference between an ROLB/LOLB, yet there is no difference in game. So why make one for R/L?

Similar with DEs. The best DE is put on the QBs blindside. Never strictly right or left. Same with offensive tackles.

Make positions set up like this.

QB
RB
FB
TE
T
G
C
DE
DT
OLB
ILB
CB
S

- Swapping a RB to a FB should be easy. If done during the off season, the player should gain weight (from x to 240-270ish), lose speed (5-15, depending on weight gain), gain strength, gain blocking ability, lose ball carrying ability, lose catching etc.

It shouldn't be RB->FB and only a 30 speed drop so that the player now is completely useless. This really puts strangle holds on a player when you have 10 WRs and no tight ends. Swapping your biggest WR to a TE should be a small drop off, but it shouldn't be impossible. And the player should change physically.

Same thing with safety swaps, LB swaps, dline swaps, o line swaps etc.


Next up is a players ratings. Some things are too catered to 12 year olds.

- The change to acceleration making a difference this year was great. Huge upgrade from previous years. Though it needs to be toned a little bit. A 88 acceleration back with 99 break tackle, 99 elusiveness absolutely sucks. He can't get to the hole before the defense closes up. A 99 accell back with 71 overall is dominating because he gets 7 yards every run because nobody catches him.

- The RB system needs reworked. There absolutely, 100%, without a doubt needs to be a "Balance" statistic. Watch Ronnie Brown play, watch Priest Holmes, watch Barry Sanders. They are three players who have the ability to take a hit and stay up not because they are powerful or "slippery", but because they have uncanny balance.

- Trucking should renamed at the least. So juvenile. And the factors that determine running power should be a balance of speed/acceleration/size/strength and balance. There is no skill involved in running people over, it is just the result of a bunch of attributes. Elusiveness is kind of the same thing. "Elusiveness" is a blend of balance, acceleration, speed, agility etc.

- An idea would be to give attribute stats and skill stats. Stats like speed, agility, arm strength aren't really that trainable. But finesse rush moves are 100% teachable. Swapping a linebacker to de over an offseason should see pass rush skill jump from like 40 to 70.

- The stats should be organized better. Why is "release" in the middle of defensive stats and seperated from the other WR stats? Why are the offensive line stats split? etc etc


Recruiting: Many peoples favorite part of the game. Some good changes to this feature over the years, but still needs work.

- Every recruit should be an equivalent to an "athlete." There isn't a highschool kid around that has specialized so much in their position that they can't switch without losing tons of awareness.

There should be a few qualifications for players. And in those qualifications there should be a meter that shows the position that a players skillset favors to the most.

QB, RB, Rec, Oline, Dline, LB, DB
RB would be RB/FB lean
Rec would be TE/WR
Oline would be all three
etc etc

Something along those lines would be significantly better then what is currently in game.

- I'd like to see the screen changes in recruiting take less time. I like flipping pages while recruiting like a madman. Having .7 second load times on everything is just mind numbing. Take away the fancy images and give us good performance, or at least the option to have it this way.

- Make zones inside a state like Texas/Cali/Florida. In Dade County, Miami should pull 75% of the top talent. It should be a 20% florida, 20% miami, 20% fsu, 40% others.

- JUCOS need to be rated higher then highschool kids of the same star rating. A JUCO is a player that you bring in because they are more developed than other kids and are capable of coming in and playing right away with good consistency. They aren't just older recruits.

In game -
- When a defensive linemen comes off a block, he shouldn't be able to suction tackle. He should throw his arms but the majority of the time it should be broken. Hitting holes in the game is pointless at the moment. Chances are a DT will turn around and lay you out without any movement. This makes it so the only thing that works is hitting the outside.

- The hit stick needs rethought. A hit stick should either miss or lay somebody out. You should never push the hit stick and have the ball carrier shrug you off.

- The CPU needs to have QB vision. They shouldn't be aware of everything around them, they need to look at their recievers and go on a progression list.

- Get rid of reviews. They are cool the first time, but every time after that they are nothing but annyoing.

- A 1 on 1 on the passing game is usually a win for the offense. The passing game should rely less on wide open receivers and more on receivers beating DBs.

There is plenty more, but I can't think at the moment. I'll keep adding to this thread.

Last edited by NJL22; 09-30-2008 at 04:56 PM.
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Old 09-30-2008, 05:02 PM   #2
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Icon14 Re: What needs to change. Very long.

EXCELLENT POST
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Old 09-30-2008, 05:40 PM   #3
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Re: What needs to change. Very long.

Quote:
Originally Posted by NJL22
So, I am a diehard NCAA fan. Been one for years. Mostly because there is no other video game. The effort it seems they put into this game is pretty pathetic. I find problems/bugs etc in my first game every year.

Aside from that, I also know a ridiculous amount about football. So I'm very picky with the inaccuracies that this game has.

And since I know that EA reads these forums sometimes, I figure I could give some feedback.



First thing I want to address is the position system.
- It isn't that hard to switch positions in real life. One huge flaw in this game is that it greatly penalizes you for switching a player. An example would be my current situation in my franchise. I have a 91 and a 83 free safety. At strong safety I have a 74 and a 71. In game, I have to start the 74 strong safety because the game drops the 83 free safety's awareness to ridiculously low numbers. In real football, the positions are basically interchangeable. Players swap back and forth mid game over and over, and most teams don't really differentiate between the two slots.

This same problem exists for many positions. Many linebackers play all three LB positions. DEs can play DT. Offensive linemen are swapped all over the place etc.

Make changing positions that are similar yield very small awareness drops. Dropping a free safety to strong safety should be a 5 overall change at the most.

- The position titles feel like somebody who doesn't understand football tried to look intelligent by giving out right/left assignments.

There is no such thing as a right outside linebacker. I've never came across a team that sticks an OLB to one side all game. If you are going to differentiate between OLBs then they need to be Strong/Weak. The difference between an 3-4 ILB and a 4-3 is SIGNIFICANTLY greater then the difference between an ROLB/LOLB, yet there is no difference in game. So why make one for R/L?

Similar with DEs. The best DE is put on the QBs blindside. Never strictly right or left. Same with offensive tackles.

Make positions set up like this.

QB
RB
FB
TE
T
G
C
DE
DT
OLB
ILB
CB
S

- Swapping a RB to a FB should be easy. If done during the off season, the player should gain weight (from x to 240-270ish), lose speed (5-15, depending on weight gain), gain strength, gain blocking ability, lose ball carrying ability, lose catching etc.

It shouldn't be RB->FB and only a 30 speed drop so that the player now is completely useless. This really puts strangle holds on a player when you have 10 WRs and no tight ends. Swapping your biggest WR to a TE should be a small drop off, but it shouldn't be impossible. And the player should change physically.

Same thing with safety swaps, LB swaps, dline swaps, o line swaps etc.


Next up is a players ratings. Some things are too catered to 12 year olds.

- The change to acceleration making a difference this year was great. Huge upgrade from previous years. Though it needs to be toned a little bit. A 88 acceleration back with 99 break tackle, 99 elusiveness absolutely sucks. He can't get to the hole before the defense closes up. A 99 accell back with 71 overall is dominating because he gets 7 yards every run because nobody catches him.

- The RB system needs reworked. There absolutely, 100%, without a doubt needs to be a "Balance" statistic. Watch Ronnie Brown play, watch Priest Holmes, watch Barry Sanders. They are three players who have the ability to take a hit and stay up not because they are powerful or "slippery", but because they have uncanny balance.

- Trucking should renamed at the least. So juvenile. And the factors that determine running power should be a balance of speed/acceleration/size/strength and balance. There is no skill involved in running people over, it is just the result of a bunch of attributes. Elusiveness is kind of the same thing. "Elusiveness" is a blend of balance, acceleration, speed, agility etc.

- An idea would be to give attribute stats and skill stats. Stats like speed, agility, arm strength aren't really that trainable. But finesse rush moves are 100% teachable. Swapping a linebacker to de over an offseason should see pass rush skill jump from like 40 to 70.

- The stats should be organized better. Why is "release" in the middle of defensive stats and seperated from the other WR stats? Why are the offensive line stats split? etc etc


Recruiting: Many peoples favorite part of the game. Some good changes to this feature over the years, but still needs work.

- Every recruit should be an equivalent to an "athlete." There isn't a highschool kid around that has specialized so much in their position that they can't switch without losing tons of awareness.

There should be a few qualifications for players. And in those qualifications there should be a meter that shows the position that a players skillset favors to the most.

QB, RB, Rec, Oline, Dline, LB, DB
RB would be RB/FB lean
Rec would be TE/WR
Oline would be all three
etc etc

Something along those lines would be significantly better then what is currently in game.

- I'd like to see the screen changes in recruiting take less time. I like flipping pages while recruiting like a madman. Having .7 second load times on everything is just mind numbing. Take away the fancy images and give us good performance, or at least the option to have it this way.

- Make zones inside a state like Texas/Cali/Florida. In Dade County, Miami should pull 75% of the top talent. It should be a 20% florida, 20% miami, 20% fsu, 40% others.

- JUCOS need to be rated higher then highschool kids of the same star rating. A JUCO is a player that you bring in because they are more developed than other kids and are capable of coming in and playing right away with good consistency. They aren't just older recruits.

In game -
- When a defensive linemen comes off a block, he shouldn't be able to suction tackle. He should throw his arms but the majority of the time it should be broken. Hitting holes in the game is pointless at the moment. Chances are a DT will turn around and lay you out without any movement. This makes it so the only thing that works is hitting the outside.

- The hit stick needs rethought. A hit stick should either miss or lay somebody out. You should never push the hit stick and have the ball carrier shrug you off.

- The CPU needs to have QB vision. They shouldn't be aware of everything around them, they need to look at their recievers and go on a progression list.

- Get rid of reviews. They are cool the first time, but every time after that they are nothing but annyoing.

- A 1 on 1 on the passing game is usually a win for the offense. The passing game should rely less on wide open receivers and more on receivers beating DBs.

There is plenty more, but I can't think at the moment. I'll keep adding to this thread.
if it was possible to agree 1,000,000% i would, but i'll stick to 100
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Old 09-30-2008, 08:24 PM   #4
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Re: What needs to change. Very long.

Great shiznet man!
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Old 09-30-2008, 08:36 PM   #5
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Re: What needs to change. Very long.

Right on Brother! Right On!
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Old 09-30-2008, 09:34 PM   #6
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Re: What needs to change. Very long.

Something for presentation:

Use the friggin' ESPN license. You see what they do on Saturdays on your TV? Do that. 2k did it for years, if you have the ESPN license use it for more than a friggin sportscenter update.
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Old 09-30-2008, 10:46 PM   #7
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Re: What needs to change. Very long.

very nice bro, i think EA needs some one on their team that has actually played at least high school football in their life.. maybe their understanding would be a little bit better of what it is then, besides a bunch of nerds on a computer thinking that yea this seems realistic to me..
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Old 10-03-2008, 03:56 PM   #8
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Re: What needs to change. Very long.

Simmed through a franchise. Good God is this mode horrible this year. Truly pathetic. I seriously can't believe I payed 60 bucks for this unfinished product.

- They make recruiting cyclical. One year a team will get the number one overall ranking for commits and the next year there will be no 5 stars interested in the same team. I guess this is EAs way of making sure no team stands out. But it is a horrible fix.

There needs to be players who are flat out busts and players who blow away expectations. Hide actual ratings and make it so you are just going off the recruitment statistics for a kid for a couple years or so. Then over the course of their career unlock certain ratings.

Maybe something else, but to have every single 4 star start at roughly 76 and increase 4 points a season until they are a 92 their senior year is just dumb.

This game really gets boring when the top 50 teams are all B or B+.

- Recruiting is too tedious. Make it faster without having to let the God awful AI control it(NO I DO NOT WANT 12 FULLBACKS.)

The damn popup animations for every screen really kill things for me. When I am doing something that you make me change screens 50 times over two minutes, I don't care to wait .9 seconds between each screen. Make the popups instant or merge screens.

- Make time spent talking to a prospect a number on the targeted list and then you can just click one button to spend all your points for a week. I hate having to select every prospect and pick an amount of time to talk to them.

- In general, the old 2005ish version of recruiting was much more fun then the current version. Just too much work trying to guess and find poorly displayed information.

- MAKE INFORMATION EASIER TO FIND. If I'm looking for players who have my team number one on their list so I can find potential instant commits, why do I have to click through 4 tabs and then go through the horribly slow right stick scroll down the list? Why not make the initial screens stats show everything?

Another factor of overtediousness(is that a word) for recruiting.

- Make the offense that you run(sim) more customizable. If I don't want my 75 speed QB to be running 20 times a game then I should have an option to make it so that he doesn't. I had a 97 RB and the QB usually got more carries then him. No thank you.

- Already said this, but fix the damn positions for christ's sake. Simmed through 10 years in a franchise, on two different occasions I ended up with multiple 85+ free safeties and 0 66+ strong safeties. But when I switch from free to strong they lose speed, acceleration, agility, awareness etc. Lose about 15 overall.

Ed Reed switched positions about 2 years ago. Guess what, he is still the best safety in the NFL.

- Fix line recruitment. Why is there never a single linemen interested in my school. I was running a 70/30 run/pass offense and was overwhelmed by interested WRs. Meanwhile, I couldn't find a linemen for the life of me. I was using 60 overall walk ons at offensive line while redshirting my 4 76-80 overall WRs on a yearly basis.

- Recruits need to give more feedback regarding their recruitment. There needs to be a "test the waters" type option. Thanks to the fact that there is no three star or above offensive tackle interested in my 3 straight years in the top 5 in the polls Miami team, I had to guess interest and randomly target 5/4 star linemen. Result? Tons of time wasted recruiting uninterested players.

Tho I guess this would be fixed if EA would ever fix the damn interest balance amongst positions.

- Make recruiting consist of players who have a list of positions they are capable of playing. There isn't a highschool player in the world who is only capable of playing center. Tons of linemen are switched from DT recruits into whatever offensive line position is needed for that team.

Say I have a 5 star player who is 6'3 310. His positions would be:
1. DT
2. G
3. C
4. DE
5. T

- There needs to be more conferance and division switching. If Utah goes 12-0 every single year and plays BYU, who also goes 12-0 every year, in the NCG, they both need to switch conferances to prevent them beating up on their ****ty conferances all the time.

- Add a coaching feature. Make the coaching world dynamic. I haven't played Madden in many years, but I know they used to have it. Why can't NCAA have it 5 years later?

- Why are there players without offers? Jelani Jenkins has 37 offers 5 weeks into the season this year. If it is a academic ineligiblity thing, tell us their GPA/scores etc.

- Recruiting world needs to be more dynamic. I went 5-7 one year and finished like last in the ACC. So no 5 stars and only a few 4 stars were interested in my school(lol, see Miami in 2007 - nations top recruiting class given same circumstance). The next season I ended up going 13-1 and played in the NCG but lost. Yet no new kids were interested.

My three top RBs were all seniors and left. The starter the next season ended up being a 73 overall 3 star. In a real life situation, if you are a 5 star and you could start as a true freshman on the nations number two team, you are very tempted. Yet not one kid grew interest.



- CAN WE PLEASE HAVE A BETTER TACKLING GAME???????? NFL 2k3s tackling system was SIFNIFICANTLY better then Madden and NCAA 2009. Ever heard of an assist EA?

- To add to that, why aren't defensive stats accurate? Many players each year end up with 130 or so tackles. Multiple people break 10 interceptions etc. Yet I never see more then 7 picks and only 2 or so players break 10 tackles.

- Simming takes too long. This is Xbox 360. MLB 1998 on my Nintendo 64 simmed seasons about as fast as NCAA 2009 sims a 4 week period.

- Why does every year have somebody come up and steal the heisman at the last second? I have lead the votes on a couple occasions going into the last week and had an outstanding last game only to be passed by 430 first place votes. What the hell?
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