Who's Still Playing?

[rudyjuly2]

Quote: Originally Posted by N51_rob

I'm still playing this only because of Online Dynasty. Other than that this game would get no play from me. Without any kind of defense and the huge speed disparity, I get bored playing the CPU.

Quote: Originally Posted by Solidice

same.

People say they like online dynasties and then say they don't like offline dynasties seems hypocritical to me. Unless you are playing an online dynasty where everyone is in the same conference and there are a ton of human vs. human games, you are essentially playing the majority of your games against the cpu. I don't see that being much different than an offline dynasty other than head to head recruiting.

Furthermore, I think online dynasties become problematic because so many people have different abilities that the sliders and/or difficulty level may not be very fun for those cpu games. I'd rather just stick to my offline dynasty.

I guess I just don't fully understand why online dynasties are considered so great.

[Solidice]

Quote: Originally Posted by rudyjuly2

People say they like online dynasties and then say they don't like offline dynasties seems hypocritical to me. Unless you are playing an online dynasty where everyone is in the same conference and there are a ton of human vs. human games, you are essentially playing the majority of your games against the cpu. I don't see that being much different than an offline dynasty other than head to head recruiting. Furthermore, I think online dynasties become problematic because so many people have different abilities that the sliders and/or difficulty level may not be very fun for those cpu games. I'd rather just stick to my offline dynasty. I guess I just don't fully understand why online dynasties are considered so great.

i like it because i can play with my friends, and the recruiting battles.

[Fluffhead]

The poll is inherently flawed as most who don't play this game anymore aren't checking out a forum for it.

Anyway, once the patches came out I was all ready to roll with my offline franchise (online franchise of course fizzled out with no participation at all), but once I started reading about the horrible recruiting / depth charts years down the road I stopped playing. Seriously, what's the point of even playing a dynasty when the CPU teams become crippled due to serious AI flaws?

I really wanted to give it a go this year as I haven't played a dynasty since the 06 version. The good thing is is that after three years of disappointment and dust collecting on the boxes, I don't think I'm a slave to buy this game anymore on an annual basis. My NCAA addicition is broken! Hopefully.

[rudyjuly2]

Quote: Originally Posted by Fluffhead

The poll is inherently flawed as most who don't play this game anymore aren't checking out a forum for it.

You have a good point lol!

Quote: Originally Posted by Fluffhead

Anyway, once the patches came out I was all ready to roll with my offline franchise (online franchise of course fizzled out with no participation at all), but once I started reading about the horrible recruiting / depth charts years down the road I stopped playing. Seriously, what's the point of even playing a dynasty when the CPU teams become crippled due to serious AI flaws?

Why do people blindly trust others without playing it themselves? If I would have listened to some blatantly over the top negative early reports about NCAA on this site I wouldn't have bought this game. Instead, I'm in my 5th year with Colorado and I don't see any major problems and having fun at the same time. Maybe ignorance is bliss but when I play a team better than me, I still lose a lot of the time. I don't see a bunch of crappy teams out there. At the end of my 4th year, Texas and Florida were both A- teams rated 92 to 96 and they both beat me. They certainly weren't crippled. Don't worry about the recruiting and depth charts. They aren't game killers to me, at least in my 5th year anyway.

Nobody can guarantee you will love or hate this game. But why don't you see for yourself?

[StormJH1]

I still play the game and because of my lack of time, still feel like I would really get into it more if I just had more time to play...and this thing was released in July!!! It doesn't help that there are so many other huge releases since then, including NHL 09, Fallout 3, and now Gears 2 and other games.

I also prefer NCAA to Madden, even though I fully recognize that Madden is a much more polished (and perhaps even realistic) form of gameplay. The reason is that Madden games for 7th-gen consoles (360 and PS3) have failed to incorporate any of those fun Franchise elements and depth that were pretty well done in the PS2 versions. You could argue that NCAA has taken a step or two back in terms of Dynasty depth, but they've also taken several steps forward with online dynasties and the phonecall recruiting system. NCAA, with all its flaws, is just more fun to me.

[kindella2]

i play everyday if i have time...online and offline. Love it the smack talking between my friends is epic. its 4 of us, 2 in ACC and 2 in SEC, so its highly competitive.

[mercalnd]

Quote: Originally Posted by rudyjuly2

Why do people blindly trust others without playing it themselves? If I would have listened to some blatantly over the top negative early reports about NCAA on this site I wouldn't have bought this game. Instead, I'm in my 5th year with Colorado and I don't see any major problems and having fun at the same time. Maybe ignorance is bliss but when I play a team better than me, I still lose a lot of the time. I don't see a bunch of crappy teams out there. At the end of my 4th year, Texas and Florida were both A- teams rated 92 to 96 and they both beat me. They certainly weren't crippled. Don't worry about the recruiting and depth charts. They aren't game killers to me, at least in my 5th year anyway.

The recruiting issue as I understand it results in lower team ratings because of a lack of depth at certain positions. On more extremem cases, there can be rbs or wrs playing on the O-line. There are also reportedly way too many players at skill positions. Not having played it through myself, I imagine that the impact of this is mostly limited to numerical ratings (or alphabetical in this case) and has very little effect on the way games play out on the field. On this I think you have a point and I do believe that very few people, if any, actually observed a significant difference in actual gameplay due to this issue.

I can however imagine that for people who dig much deeper into the dynasty experience than me (I don't really ever look at other teams' rosters/depth charts, I just play my games, recruit and look at standings stats) by scouting their opponents depth charts for potential mismatches and things of the sort this issue is a major deal breaker when it comes to immersion.

As to your general point of blindly trusting others' reports, I certainly agree. While almost all the issues we read about on these forums are genuine, the impact of many of these issues is greatly overstated. This goes for every sports game too and is not limited to this game or games from any specific company. For each great piece of info as I've found on this forum over the years that has improved my enjoyment of games, I've probably learned about 2 issues that I might never have known about had I just played my games the way I normally do.

[youALREADYknow]

Considering the blatant abuse of the bad recruiting AI by most dynasty players I've seen on this forum, I wonder why they can't simply use a bit of self control and not cheat the system instead of constantly complaining about how flaws are "gamebreakers".

Examples:

1. We all should know by now that the CPU will not make offers to most ATH players outside of the top 50 players until the end of the season.
Solution: Choose your ATH recruits in the preseason and then once again in the offseason recruiting and don't go scouring the database for every ATH that the CPU neglected to recruit throughout the season. Any idiot can get 5-10 good ATH each season by abusing this flaw in the AI.

2. We all should know by now that learning pitches and reverting to the last save is cheating. We should also know that sometimes you will get an hour pitch that hangs on you... this is life.
Solution: Don't cheat the game by resetting to a prior save when you mess up in recruiting.

3. We all know by now that some of the offseason promises are far too easy to achieve and give substantial boosts to recruiting a player that is unmatched by any of the CPU's recruiting efforts.
Solution: Don't make promises unless you are #1 on a player's board. If that doesn't appeal to you, don't make promises that are obviously too easy to achieve.

4. We all know by now that we can get 80 players every season and cut 10 of the worst players on the team until we eventually get the perfect 99 OVR team.
Solution: Don't cheat the game and only sign as many players as you can keep. If you get stuck with a walk-on, then that's life. These things happen in real life (see Texas Tech's kicker).

I'm sure that if most people even used 2 of the above strategies that they would find recruiting to be a lot more balanced. Obviously EA has work to do to improve this aspect of the game, but abusing the system and then complaining about it at the same time is not productive.