The "why I love NCAA 14 three years later" thread

[Amoo316]

This game is the only reason I haven't donated my PS3 to some kid somewhere who would probably really enjoy it.

I just love the control, of EVERYTHING. Feel like Mizzou and A&M in the SEC is silly, change it. Decide you want to build all your conferences with 12 teams, knock yourself out. The possibilities are endless. Want to move your powerhouse Northwestern to the Big 12 just to win a different trophy and play in a different BCS bowl every year, SURE THING!

I shed a tear each time I think about how close we actually came to getting an NCAA football game that included a playoff. What could have been.

This game though. Now that we're a few seasons removed, I like to sim to 2015 only doing recruiting and pick up from this season. I always start with I wanna say it was volstopfan's rosters and just go from there.

Year 1 in my current Rebuild, USF. We went from 3-9 the previous year to 9-3 in my first season (all simmed). First job up on the Coaching Carousel, Bill O'Brien is fired from PSU. Who do they hire to replace him? Dan Mullen, the same friggen guy that was the #1 target in real life. The MSU job comes open, who gets the first offer? I do with my rank 10 or so created coach with MSU set as the alma matter coming off a 6 win turnaround. I'm holding off a few years before taking my talents to Starkvegas, but things that happen even on the Carousel kind of make sense. I just love it.

Love the revamped offseason recruiting in 14. You get 1 week and X number of points. You have to try your best to prioritize where you want to spend them. I have literally sat down and done the math and put exactly enough points into a guy where I know I can hold a lead even if another team uses their max points. I do this though, knowing I'm sacrifices at least 1 maybe 2 other players if teams make a push.

I play a game and look forward to my time not in game almost as much as my time in game. There's none of this, play a game then do some drills to hope to earn 100 points to help a guy progress like in Madden or randomly "scouting" every player in the draft and getting enough info to see 3 ratings garbage. I go scout a kid, find what his ratings are and decide if I want him to be part of my team. I then have to weigh how important he is vs other players I'm going after, all while keeping track of how he's trending. If I'm stuffing 600 points a week into a kid and still loosing ground, probably time to cut my losses and move on.

I know I'm part of a dying breed who just likes to build up bad teams in video games, but I find the overall process of rebuilding much better in NCAA 14 then anything else I play. Every rebuild is different and there is no free agency period to help me. If want a star on my team, I need to first go find the kid, then convince him to come play in Provo, then I need to get him on the field and then I need to produce. I've done enough Madden rebuilds this year to know that I can completely not worry about my WR position in year 1 because Josh Gordon is coming to my team in year 2 as long as I shove enough money in his face.

In some ways it's apples to oranges to try to compare Madden to NCAA as the systems are setup completely different, but the overall lack of ability to make any trades in the college game really tests your ability to find players that fit what you want to do, more so then any sports game out there. For my rebuilding needs I rank NCAA > NBA2k > Madden > The Show (I don't follow enough Hockey to know what I'm doing with NHL, I just fly around the ice smashing people and trying to score on 1 timers.) Also note I'm only ranking games on how I rate their ability to rebuild and Show is only so low because of how long a season is. I am in no way suggesting The Show is a worse game then any of the others, because it just flat out isn't.

[richmondn96]

Just a minute ago I thought I had sealed the game with a first down, but instead of taking a knee I decided to run it again. Well, the football gods punished me because I lost a fumble on the next play. One of the most shocking plays I've had in NCAA (but not the most, amazingly). Luckily I held on to win 63-56.

I've won games 70-63 and 10-9.

I've won back to back games by returning kickoffs for touchdowns as time expired. I've lost games by rolling the dice on a 2 point conversion and missed it. I'm 2-1 in triple overtime games. I've NEVER shut out an opponent in 257 tries. I've also never had an undefeated season out of 16 seasons with various teams.

The beauty for me in this game is in the frustration of being pretty good but still having moments where I get beat. In other sports games, I have never found this perfect balance. One difficulty level will be far too easy and the next is too hard. Or, when I find a good difficulty level I will eventually become accustomed to it so I become too good.

[Gdbraden]

I just bought the game and popped it in the ol' 360. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to enjoy the game because the rosters were old, there was no playoff, and the conferences needed realigned. Within 1 minute of becoming the OC at Washington State I scouted a "gem" QB recruit that wants to play for me and now I don't give a crap about any of that other stuff. I'm going to try and keep my 1* team in games with a custom playbook, score a couple of upsets (I won @Auburn in my first game), and improve my stock so I can go after some bigger recruits next season.

The game is timeless. I just hope my xbox lasts longer than this prohibition on NCAA games.

[BDawg35]

Even though I am 10 years into my dynasty, I am still getting a ton of competitive games and have yet to play for a national championship.

It seems weird I'm only 10 years in while playing a game that has been out for three years. I'd probably be 45 years in if I played as much as I used to.

Also, it doesn't seem like anything is too overblown in this game. The read option is pretty tough to defend, but it can be defended. It can be pretty easy to run if your QB has SPD in the 90s like one I used to have, but it can be slammed shut if the CPU simply leaves someone on the edge waiting for you.

I am getting shootout games and defensive battles. I like the mix.

I just wish the college football playoff would've been in place when this game was made. I see people have done modifications to get it in the game, but I'm not smart enough to figure out that stuff.

[Mos1ted]

A lot of people crowned NCAA 06 as the greatest of all time when it was released. I, however, never played that version because it was a transition year (to the next-gen systems). The same thing happened with NCAA 14. People were crowning it the greatest of all time, and I never played it because it was released during a transition year.

I saw it go on sale on PSN a few months back, so I decided to buy it even though I hadn't touched my PS3 since I got the PS4 at launch. The game sat on my PS3's hard drive for nearly a year before I decided to fire it up last weekend...

...that was the most fun I had in a football game since NCAA 04. I always preferred NCAA to Madden because of its dynasty mode. The dynasty mode in NCAA 14 really hooked me. I literally spent all day Saturday and Sunday playing it, especially since my alma mater, Old Dominion University, is in the game! We suck, but I love trying to build up my team's program, much like is happening in real life. (Our football program is only six years old.)

[Joel3232]

Can't wait to get this game once I get a PS3!

[DJ]

What sliders are you all using? I'm feeling like the set I'm using isn't as effective as it once was.

[nofx94]

JoshC1977's "50-ish threshold sliders" http://www.operationsports.com/forum...d.php?t=848821