BCS Will Continue as the Postseason Format For All Years of Dynasty in NCAA Football

[stormisbruin]

Re: BCS Will Continue as the Postseason Format For All Years of Dynasty in NCAA Footb

"It wouldn't be realistic" is the dumbest excuse I've ever heard. Yeah, because these games are all about realism. 2-4 teams still in the top 25, Alabama sucking it up while Toledo goes undefeated every year, 2 and 3 loss AQ teams ahead of 1 loss AQ teams. Last time I checked, the BS system won't be in place in 2022. Yet it will be in my dynasty, how realistic. ODU won't be in FBS football next year, yet they will be in NCAA 14. How realistic. Teams playing 11 game seasons, how realistic. Teams with losing records making bowl games, how realistic. This would not have been hard to do at all. 4 teams, users pick the sites since we can make any site a neutral site game now. For those who are about to say "Then people would complain about how the playoffs are picked!" I wouldn't. I'd be much happier as long as the real system is in place. Except I'm sure EA would've screwed that up since they still have the Fiesta Bowl decorations hanging up when I'm playing the championship. Stop making excuses. I enjoy the game but anyone who doesn't see this as pathetic and just a way for EA to plug it in next year and say "Look at this great new feature!" is lying to themselves.

[Hooe]

Re: BCS Will Continue as the Postseason Format For All Years of Dynasty in NCAA Footb

This would not have been hard to do at all.

And you know this so definitively based on what, exactly?

According to Wikipedia, the Madden NFL code base is over 10 million lines of code. I'm sure that NCAA is probably similar. Nothing gets added to such a monolith easily.

[Ziza9Noles94]

Re: BCS Will Continue as the Postseason Format For All Years of Dynasty in NCAA Footb

And you know this so definitively based on what, exactly?

According to Wikipedia, the Madden NFL code base is over 10 million lines of code. I'm sure that NCAA is probably similar. Nothing gets added to such a monolith easily.

I would agree that it probably isn't easy to add to the code. But his other points about the game's "realism" and attention to accuracy were spot-on.

[theharbinater]

Re: No Playoffs in NCAA 14

No one has a clue how a playoff works? I don't see anyone saying EA better get this 100% accurate in year one. Any type of simple playoff structure would work fine for the first year.

People just need to stop with this POV in regards to this particular game. If our expectations for NCAA Football were limited by the current state of college football than we should of never been expecting Teambuilder, Coaching Carousel, or Custom Conferences yet we have all three.

agreed. also, most of the unknowns (conf champs requirement or not, bowls, higher seed home team games (i think that's already been shot down, but cold be an option anyway), bcs tie in (straight top 4, or must be in top 10, etc.), sos, multi teams from 1 conf (or not)) could/should all be options.

if i want the top 4 ranked teams regardless of conf affiliation, the just select top 4 in bcs (or coaches/media, etc).

if i want 4 highest rated conf champs, then select must be conf champ, based on rank.

if i want no more than 1 per conf and for conf champ to be significant factor, but not overriding factor like above, then do conf champ if in top 10, otherwise highest rank with only 1 allowed per conf.

bottom line is they need to have options and allow customization.

[DorianDonP]

Re: BCS Will Continue as the Postseason Format For All Years of Dynasty in NCAA Footb

I understand that. And if you would've read the very next sentence, I give a possible explanation: that it could be a logistical nightmare to code a switch past year one.

The conference switch code and the playoff after year one code are different. In addition, EA was very familiar with the code needed for conference alignment that they could put it into the game without error.

That "possible explanation" doesn't explain away your argument for realism.

Their job is to code. It being hard doesn't change the fact that it's their JOB. It's hard to score touchdowns in the NFL but a fan can still criticize when it's not being done.

I think the "logistical nightmare" is hyperbole on your part. If putting in a playoff code is a nightmare for a developer of video games, then they might need to get some new developers. Especially since the playoff has been announced for over a year.

It seems like people are jumping all over the place to try to answer for it not being in. Is it realism? Is it being too hard? Is it not knowing who is on the selection committee?

Maybe it's a bit of it all. Maybe it's none of the above and it's just about selling copies next year as the big feature. I can buy that. I'd accept that as the reason why it's not in. But "being too hard" and "being more realistic" doesn't work as reasons IMO.

[Retropyro]

All I heard was, "It is not our policy to put something into the upcoming version of the game that may be tagged as a selling point for the version that follows the next year".

[tHurley2010]

Re: BCS Will Continue as the Postseason Format For All Years of Dynasty in NCAA Footb

That "possible explanation" doesn't explain away your argument for realism.

Their job is to code. It being hard doesn't change the fact that it's their JOB. It's hard to score touchdowns in the NFL but a fan can still criticize when it's not being done.

I think the "logistical nightmare" is hyperbole on your part. If putting in a playoff code is a nightmare for a developer of video games, then they might need to get some new developers. Especially since the playoff has been announced for over a year.

It seems like people are jumping all over the place to try to answer for it not being in. Is it realism? Is it being too hard? Is it not knowing who is on the selection committee?

Maybe it's a bit of it all. Maybe it's none of the above and it's just about selling copies next year as the big feature. I can buy that. I'd accept that as the reason why it's not in. But "being too hard" and "being more realistic" doesn't work as reasons IMO.

I'm not exactly talking about the playoff code itself, as much as I am talking about switching from the BCS code to the playoff code within they dynasty. I don't know the code needed to do that--perhaps the developers do, and also understand that it could screw up a whole bunch of other things, because coding does that sometimes.

A parallel to Madden can't be drawn here because Madden starts off with the playoffs from Year 1. There is no switch between years. That alone should be enough to differentiate the two.

Maybe it's easy, maybe it's not. Maybe they know the code and don't want to use it as a feature until next year. Maybe they don't know how to implement the code properly, and can't include it this year. That is known only within a small group within the confines of Electronic Arts.

As for the realism, I meant to say it as I would rather have them work on fixing current aspects in the game that are broken and unrealistic before they try to implement a playoff system. If they can do that with this years edition sans playoff, I'll be AOK with that.

[Colt45]

Re: No Playoffs in NCAA 14

Why is that "malarkey"? Would you prefer they make up criteria?

Yes. Absolutely.

[Hooe]

Re: No Playoffs in NCAA 14

Yes. Absolutely.

And then they have to most assuredly redo it for the next game once the parameters for choosing playoff teams are more clear. You surely understand how that - duplicating work - is a disaster from an operational standpoint, not just for Tiburon but for any company. It shouldn't be surprising that Tiburon chose not to go this route.

[DorianDonP]

Re: No Playoffs in NCAA 14

And then they have to most assuredly redo it for the next game once the parameters for choosing playoff teams are more clear. You surely understand how that - duplicating work - is a disaster from an operational standpoint, not just for Tiburon but for any company. It shouldn't be surprising that Tiburon chose not to go this route.

Maybe I'd have more sympathy if this wasn't a company that puts something in and then barely touches it again (coaching carousel, teambuilder, rtg, etc), or even worse, takes it out the next year.

I see "redoing" it as the same thing as when they constantly redo how recruiting works and the other things in the game that don't stay the same the next year.

Fwiw, I don't think they'd have to "redo" it as you said. They'd be tweaking and tuning the logic. Even you said it, the parameters for how they choose the teams is the only thing that might "change". But the infrastructure would already be there, because THAT part of the playoff is already set in stone.

[cmilner2]

Re: BCS Will Continue as the Postseason Format For All Years of Dynasty in NCAA Footb

It's probably just as disappointing to us as it is to EA to not have playoffs in the game. Hopefully once all of the details of the playoff system are set, EA will provide a playoff DLC

[Colt45]

Re: No Playoffs in NCAA 14

And then they have to most assuredly redo it for the next game once the parameters for choosing playoff teams are more clear. You surely understand how that - duplicating work - is a disaster from an operational standpoint, not just for Tiburon but for any company. It shouldn't be surprising that Tiburon chose not to go this route.

How hard could it possibly be to take the Top 4 ranked in their current BCS and make three games out of it? It can't be so much work that it is not worth it.

[ACardAttack]

Re: No Playoffs in NCAA 14

How hard could it possibly be to take the Top 4 ranked in their current BCS and make three games out of it? It can't be so much work that it is not worth it.

And on top of that, they could improve upon the code for next season instead and make sure there are no bugs

[Hooe]

Re: No Playoffs in NCAA 14

How hard could it possibly be to take the Top 4 ranked in their current BCS and make three games out of it? It can't be so much work that it is not worth it.

In isolation, no, it isn't hard.

In the context of a ten million line long code base and a AAA video game project where any additional feature requires weeks of planning and preparation, it suddenly becomes a much taller order to add any sort of tournament to the game in a bug-free manner, particularly given the extra variable of swapping between postseason formats midstream.

Making games is hard. It is Tiburon's job to make games, yes, but it is also Tiburon's job to manage their resources effectively.

[DorianDonP]

Re: No Playoffs in NCAA 14

In isolation, no, it isn't hard.

In the context of a ten million line long code base and a AAA video game project where any additional feature requires weeks of planning and preparation, it suddenly becomes a much taller order to add any sort of tournament to the game in a bug-free manner, particularly given the extra variable of swapping between postseason formats midstream.

Making games is hard. It is Tiburon's job to make games, yes, but it is also Tiburon's job to manage their resources effectively.

Respect your position, but again, I don't buy the "its too hard to do" angle. Certainly don't buy that this would be a mismanage of resources. Not from EA, a company that openly admits that they have a history of putting something in and taking it right back out the next year. Nope.

This is something that will be in college football for the foreseeable future. Getting started on it early isn't mismanaging resources, even if the first implementation has bugs. CC and studio updates had bugs. That doesn't mean you don't do them. All it means is you continue working to get it right. Work is part of the job.

I'll just put this out there that I know EA didn't have to put this in. They are not obligated. They have built in excuses for why they can hold off on it. But that's partly why it disappoints me to not see them go out of the way for the fans.

That type of stuff builds equity with the fanbase. The company that doesn't "HAVE" to do it, but does it anyway because they want to make the best game possible. When Madden put in the Texans, the expansion draft, and the new divisions a year BEFORE they had to, it was something the fans could cheer about. I'm sure it wasn't easy to make the game switch to new divisions in franchise midstream along with a new team, but guess what? EA did it anyway and people were thankful for it.

What's more, the franchise mode also takes into consideration the Houston Texans entering the league, enabling you to take over that franchise after the first year and taking part in the expansion draft or even import a created team into the league at that time. And if that's not enough painstaking details for you, Madden 2002 is the only football game that we know of this year that'll actually have the new division alignment that'll take place next year, so that there's an AFC North, South, East, and West and an NFL North, South, East and, West.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2001/08/21/madden-nfl-2002-7

Back when the company wanted to separate themselves from the pack, they went out of their way to give fans a great game. They could STILL do that with the little things that go a long way. Even if I think the gameplay is stale right now and can't be fixed until next gen, I would have appreciated the effort EA made by putting in the playoffs even though they don't technically have to do it. As of now, I doubt I'd be able to be immersed in a dynasty mode, because after year one, I'll be annoyed playing every other year with a BCS instead of what is really going on in the college football future.

As I said, EA could be building equity with the community instead of just doing enough to get by. The effort in the past gen was noticed. And on the flip, it's also noticed when they don't make the effort because "its too hard" or "we can do it next year" or whatever excuse is littered in this thread.

Sure they didn't have to do it. But that is obviously missing the point.