General question for Roster Nerds

[tommygunn]

First off just a HUGE thank you for all the hard work that goes into maintaining these files. It is greatly appreciated.

Secondly a question - the one knock on NCAA 14 is that there isn't enough of a difference between the worst team and the best team. Has anyone ever tried to remedy this with rosters? You know, maybe tweaking them so that the overall rating would be like having an OSU or Georgia a 99, a Rutgers or Pittsburg maybe a 50, and a Uconn a 30?? Something like that?

[kmorton]

Re: General question for Roster Nerds

Here's what I've done in the past. I haven't spent nearly as much time on this as I have in years past mainly because the roster is being put out are pretty close to my philosophy (except for some body mods I like to do to make most players look leaner).

The first thing I do is find a list of top 250 or so players, or look at draft rankings. The top five players get a 99 overall, next five 98, and so on, usually down to about 87 or so. If a player isn't going to be drafted for an elite college football player, they don't get above that rating.

The next thing I do is collect all of the Athlon preseason all conference teams. I rate the players on the first team the highest, with the SEC and Big ten getting the highest ratings. For instance, players on the first team in those conference would get an 87, second team 86 etc. The other power five conference players start at 86 for first-teamers, AAC and mountain West start at 85, and the other three conferences start at 84.

My next step is to look at Bill Connolly's S&P ratings for each team offensively and defensively based on ranking. I then tear them starting usually with 85. So for instance the top 10 teams would have 85, next 10 84, etc. What this means is that if a player isn't on the top players list or an all-conference player, this is the highest rating that player can have. So for instance, Akron may have one or two players in the 80s but besides that, no player would be over say 73.

Find this gives rosters some nice separation, and good teams blow out awful teams on a pretty regular basis (I usually do CPU versus CPU).

[Tuscaloosa]

Re: General question for Roster Nerds

First off just a HUGE thank you for all the hard work that goes into maintaining these files. It is greatly appreciated.

Secondly a question - the one knock on NCAA 14 is that there isn't enough of a difference between the worst team and the best team. Has anyone ever tried to remedy this with rosters? You know, maybe tweaking them so that the overall rating would be like having an OSU or Georgia a 99, a Rutgers or Pittsburg maybe a 50, and a Uconn a 30?? Something like that?

I brought this up in a thread a long time ago and no one ever responded, but I'm totally with you. I completely agree. I believe one of the biggest issues is poor teams not being rated low enough. I'm a long term dynasty guy, so while I do respect the work of the various roster creators around here, I'm more concerned with the auto-generated rosters that the game creates years into a dynasty. It would obviously take some work in the editor, but I think it would make for better football. TarheelPhenom might have some insight on this. I know he has edited this game front to back in his Coach Mode type dynasties, but I think it could translate well into USER vs CPU dynasties.

[maniacwithaknife]

Re: General question for Roster Nerds

Play NCAA '13, not '14. The gameplay experience and roster balance with '13 is superior to '14. I've never understood what the attraction to '14 is. '13 is easily the best of the series.

'14 has defensive tackles with ridiculously high spin moves, fullbacks with insane spectacular catch ratings, WR's who can run block like lineman, kickers who have hit power like linebackers, lineman with speed equal to defensive backs. None of the ratings make any sense. EA was in a rush to push the game out before conference realignment.

[appstate]

Re: General question for Roster Nerds

First off just a HUGE thank you for all the hard work that goes into maintaining these files. It is greatly appreciated.

Secondly a question - the one knock on NCAA 14 is that there isn't enough of a difference between the worst team and the best team. Has anyone ever tried to remedy this with rosters? You know, maybe tweaking them so that the overall rating would be like having an OSU or Georgia a 99, a Rutgers or Pittsburg maybe a 50, and a Uconn a 30?? Something like that?

There are a slew of real-life factors that contribute to the powerhouses being OP and the bad programs being bad in comparison that can't be duplicated on a video game, and that type of wild variance is not the way to go about it for a myriad of reasons but mainly because pretty much every FBS recruit begins his career in the 247 star system.

Now, recruit rankings are not gospel, but they are the "great equalizer" if you will that allows us to make comparisons between the guys that end up at Alabama and the guys that end up at Rutgers.

Speaking of your Scarlet Knights, I see that they recently got a commit from a 4 star player out of Kentucky. To have 4 stars means that he had a significant number of offers from some really solid programs, and therefore must be a quality player. But under your idea, we should essentially penalize him for choosing Rutgers and make him a 60 overall. Doesn't make sense.

We do our best to make things as realistic as possible, and it would be great if everything played out the way it does in real life. But at the end of the day, it's a video game.

Play NCAA '13, not '14. The gameplay experience and roster balance with '13 is superior to '14. I've never understood what the attraction to '14 is. '13 is easily the best of the series.

'14 has defensive tackles with ridiculously high spin moves, fullbacks with insane spectacular catch ratings, WR's who can run block like lineman, kickers who have hit power like linebackers, lineman with speed equal to defensive backs. None of the ratings make any sense. EA was in a rush to push the game out before conference realignment.

While 13 certainly has some things that put it ahead of 14, blaming the ratings doesn't make sense as those can be changed in-game, and, if you're referring to the default ratings, are likely unchanged from one year to the next.