Some concerns that nobody yesterday addressed in the preview of NCAA 14 Game Play

[Gotmadskillzson]

I'm still waiting on some things nobody seemed to have addressed yet in any of the Game Play articles.

1. Special teams being over hauled. Will the CPU finally return a punt for more then a few yards ? Will we finally see punt blocks and FG blocks ?

2. Is the safety glitch fixed ? Past few years it has been way too easy to pass the ball because the TE or one of the WRs were always open on any deep route.

3. Situation awareness AI been improved ? Don't want to see the CPU punt the ball out the back of the end zone instead of trying to coffin kick it of bounds. Nor do I want to see teams doing running plays when they are losing in the 4th quarter and not using their time outs.

4. Did they fix the 63 yard FG attempts on Heisman ?

5. Any new ratings, sliders, player traits that Madden has had for years but NCAA never got ?

6. Will defensive ends finally do inside rushes instead of the standard outside rush arc that always form the PERFECT pocket ?

7. Anything new on the WR/DB interaction front ? Or is it still the same foot race from point A to point B between these 2 positions ?

8. Has the CPU always on aggressive defensive pass defense coach strategy bug been fixed ?

9. So how long does it take for this adaptive AI, real AI or what ever you guys want to call it to actually KICK IN. In NCAA 13 no matter the difficulty level, the CPU was always dumb as a rock for the first three quarters of the game. They never really try to score at all. But came 4th quarter they always turned into GOD MODE and everything they did was perfect. However by that time they would already be down by 35 points or more.

Which brings me to another thing. Hope the scores are more on the low scoring side this year. Defense was non existent the past few years. Way too many games were in the 50s. Sad part about it was, it didn't matter what school you used or played against, everybody got into the 50s.

So I hope this new AI kicks in FAST, like in a manner of 3 or 4 plays.

10. Will we see more injuries and more VARIETY of injuries to ALL POSITIONS this year ?

11. Defensive end pass rush. Will this FINALLY be in the game this year ? Or will be another year of them getting sucked into playing patty cake with the offensive tackles like gorilla glue. If I had a beast DE, I should be able to get pressure on the QB WITHOUT BLITZING.

12. Has sacks on screens been eliminated ? Last year every time the CPU attempted it, it was an automatic sack. Which bring to did EA finally fix the bug where scrambling QBs would take off running up the middle on screen plays ? That was very annoying.

13. Does this new AI use their star players for their team properly ? As in their best WR leads the team in catches and not the Slot WR, or the RB. Last year the QB threw the ball to the RB way too often, which resulted in a 4 yard lost most of the time.

14. Interceptions on option plays. Has this been eliminated or severely toned down ? Seen way too many interceptions on option plays last year.

15. Will the CPU ball carrier cut back across the grain to wide open space or do they still suffer from tunnel vision and simply stay in the running lane that they received the ball in ?

16. Has player mirroring been eliminated ? Don't want to see 5 defenders juked out at the same time because they were all mirroring each other. Nor do I want to see 2 offensive lineman pancake 2 defensive lineman at the same time.

17. Will defensive lineman be able to push blockers back into the backfield on running plays AND passing plays ? Vice versa for offensive lineman pushing defenders backwards on running plays. Last year this did not happen, instead the defender simply got pancaked.

18. Did they add a new elusive move animation ? I would hate to see the truck animation play out again and see a scat back blasting a defender backwards off his feet.

19. How much does a player's weight factor in to Infinity Engine 2.0 ?

20. Will CPU QBs throw on the run in NCAA 14 ? Will balanced and pocket passers roll out and look to buy time to throw the ball down the field ?

[boritter]

I agree with the majority of your list, especially this one:

16. Has player mirroring been eliminated ? Don't want to see 5 defenders juked out at the same time because they were all mirroring each other. Nor do I want to see 2 offensive lineman pancake 2 defensive lineman at the same time.


I am also less enthusiastic about yesterday's news because EA suppossedly fixed these issues years ago. 2 or 3 years ago they put out a pre-release blog about how they had fixed the option. I think they specifically talked about making triple option teams like Navy or GT more functional. But it never was fixed. And now 2-3 years later one of the key selling points is that they FINALLY fixed the option. Fool me once...

The same thing with physics. The past few years that have added locomotion, gang tackles, etc. to fix the weight and feel of the game. But those band-aids fell off after a few days and now they are back with bigger band-aids that they claim will cure the issues.

It's hard to be excited when previous "fixes" have failed to resolve this exact issues.

[bellaballa]

This reminds me of when the teachers would tell us to hold our questions till the end because more than likely it would be answered, we just had to be patient. However, I'm all for having an open and curious mind and most of the things on your list are common sense to the gamers that follow the sport religiously. Weve spent the mojority of this current gen waiting for answers to the same questions every year. Seriously, go back to some threads from 2006. I bet the questions were along the same lines as they are today. We deserve more simply because we are paying customers. We have rights too ya know.

/rant

[Ziza9Noles94]

It's the first couple of days of info for '14. Maybe they didn't address any of those issues. But we won't know everything after day 1. If after their schedule of announcements and rollout of info over the next few months, nothing on that list is addressed, then I'll get annoyed too. I didn't expect all of those questions to be answered after the first couple of gameplay pr vids.

[PVarck31]

I agree with everything you state, Skillz. But did you really expect all that to answered on day one of info?

[DorianDonP]

While I'd like to see more defensive struggles, in real life, scores are starting to become ridiculous shootouts, in college and the NFL. I remember ESPN doing a segment on how defense can start catching up to the offenses around the country.

That Oregon/USC game was like playing on freshman mode. 20/23 passing. 60 rushes for over 400 yards. 7/11 on third downs and 2/2 on fourth down. So silly.

You raised a bunch of relevant questions though. But it's too early for answers.

[Cowboy008]

Just wait they aren't going to give out all the details of the game yet.

[jfsolo]

We'll find out eventually, but my gut says

2, 8, 12, 14 are fixed

10, 15, 16, 18, 19 will be pretty good

The rest, minimally improved or still not fixed.