Not sure if anyone has checked this out yet, but Ben Haumiller (NCAA '11 Designer) put out a blog describing how each of the Team Pitch Ratings change each season:
Very good read for dynasty players:
http://ncaafootball.easports.com/blo..****itingPitches
The good:
Finally some transparency in regards to the logic of dynasty mode. More of this would be greatly appreciated. The more we know, the less we have to speculate wildly about.
A good amount of random number roll logic is used to keep things dynamic and interesting.
Television exposure... good to know that televised games still impact this.
The bad:
The actual logic.
Championship contenders for an upcoming season based on a ranking from last season? Not a huge deal, but clearly not ideal or even logical.
Program tradition based on a poll ranking from one season? Does Tiburon understand what tradition is? This is disrespectful to programs with 100+ year histories and global fan bases. I'll expand more on the short-sighted nature of this game later.
The ugly:
I don't know why these guys at Tiburon seem to believe that prestige and tradition are earned in one calendar year. Does anyone consider the New Orleans Saints a premier franchise in the NFL based on one championship? It surely doesn't erase the decades of futility. Does anyone (outside of Ohio) consider Michigan to be a terrible program based on a few bad years?
This logic permeates throughout the game and sucks the life and realism out of dynasty mode.
Example #1: Boise State as a 5-star program out of the box. In what world does Boise State attract more recruits than half of the SEC schools? Surely not the world I'm living in.
Note to EA: If you want to learn a few things about prestige, then look no further than the following lists and do some simple averaging:
Rivals 2008 Team Recruiting Rankings
Rivals 2009 Team Recruiting Rankings
Rivals 2010 Team Recruiting Rankings
Rivals 2011 Team Recruiting Rankings
Show me Boise State.... or not. If you're not attracting top talent then you aren't holding any weight in the real world. That means you aren't one of the most prestigious programs in football. Good coaching, sure. Championship contender, sure. There are other ratings for those though.
Example #2: Using the Team Prestige ratings to define the human poll rankings. See Example #1 to realize how broken this logic is. Now a 10-1 Boise State team in 2010 can suddenly be ranked much higher than a 10-1 team from the SEC or Big XII. I've even seen one loss Boise and Utah ranked ahead of undefeated Oklahoma, Florida State, and Michigan.
Example #3: Look at the yearly logic for changing Team Prestige.
"4-Star: If your team has won a BCS bowl or finishes better than 20th, you have a chance to move up. If you miss a bowl or finish worse than 50th, you have a chance to move down."
Finishing in the top 20 enables a mid-range team to suddenly obtain 5-star prestige? Fresno State can become on par with Penn State in a span of one season without even coming close to playing for the National Championship? Really?
Where is the multi-year horizon?
Where is the respect for history?
Why must we be given everything yesterday instead of earning it tomorrow?
It cheapens the experience of building a program for myself and I'm sure a few others. For some others, it's not a huge issue because they don't play dynasty mode or even care how things work outside of their 70 man roster.
Regardless of whether it impacts the whole consumer base, it would be nice if they at least provided the user more flexibility in dynasty mode. We should not be stuck with four 1-2 loss non-BCS schools in the Top 10 every year, four MWC and WAC schools with 5-6 star prestige within a couple of seasons, and the potential to see programs with 100+ years of excellence reduced to hawking 2-star prospects.
Either make the gamer man up and earn their success in modes like Dynasty or give us the option to man up ourselves. This game has given enough to the casual gamer, so please start giving back to the sim and/or hardcore gamer.
09-03-2010, 03:07 PM
