Early Top Ten Wishlist for NCAA Football '12

[etmccreary]

There are a lot of great ideas in this thread, and my personal wish list will probably agree with most of them, but some I will expand upon a bit.

1. Expanded rosters. By expanded I don't just mean 85 scholarship spots. I think 100 would be better, all schools have lots of walk-ons, and now those situations where recruits commit to a school without being offered a scholarship are a bigger deal. As it is now, we don't have the room for adequate backups at certain positions (kicker, punter, and linemen especially. Walk-ons can be recruited or automatically generated. The ratings of these players should be like in real life; usually much lower than scholarship players, but with a few potential contributors in the mix. In real life, many walk-ons eventually earn scholarships by their last season or two on campus.

2. Eligibility hurdles. Not every recruit in the real world is eligible from day one, or even year one. EA should force our hand in redshirting some recruits, make certain players ineligible their first year on campus. This could be controlled with another attribute (but not a 0-100; more like type of student).

3. Optional discipline-related suspensions. This was a great idea in the PS2 days that should be re-introduced and expanded upon. Not everyone wants to deal with it, so make it optional, just like the time-savers are now (minus the cost, obviously). Take away the limits per season and having to spread hours between discipline and other aspects of managing a dynasty. Add an attribute that deals with player decision-making (could range from idiot, troublemaking leader, sheep or follower, to model citizen). The option to kick repeat offenders off the team at any point during the season or off-season would be a neat option as well.

4. Advanced roster control. Injuries are a joke right now and we all know it. General improvements to the injuries and in-game notification system would be great to start with. In-season or after season redshirt applications; not every player who redshirts knows before the season that they will not play a snap that season. We should be able to look at all players who are eligible for a redshirt after the season (based on having not played or season-ending injury). We should be able to dictate changes in a player's weight- if I recruit a kid as a DE who I want to move to DT (or TE to somewhere on the OL, etc) he is going to be much too light; I should be able to ask him to put on (or lose) X amount of weight this off-season. I should be able to tell players what areas of their game to work on to help control progression (an athletic QB who is low on the depth chart may be asked to work on his receiver skills this off-season then next off-season asked to move back to QB-specific work). More customizable things for players such as area of study (undeclared, gen studies, other majors) that can be used in commentary. There are potentially many more advanced roster control ideas out there, but I will stop here.

5. Advanced conference customization ability. If you think the SEC should expand to 16 teams 5 years into your dynasty, you should be able to send some invitations to schools. If you're the future PAC16 and think that's just too much, you should be able to kick a school out without replacing it. This should be an option EVERY off-season, not just before season 1. If two smaller conferences want to improve their statuses, they should be able to merge.

6. Athletic facility evolution. Stadiums grow, facilities are improved over time. This should be implemented based on program prestige, performance, etc.

7. Recruiting advancements. Very few elite athletes play only one way in high school (outside of QBs). Just because a 4 or 5 star running back is good enough to not get moved to another position at the college level doesn't mean that he wouldn't be good at another position. Offensive players should have increased defensive abilities and vice versa. More hidden gems (whether 1, 2, or 3* or even a walk-on) and more busts (whether it's overall ranking lower than expected, academic or disciplinary problems, or just playing below his ability). Whether you add juniors to the recruiting board or not, some guys commit to schools before their senior season; this should be addressed. Some schools open the season with commits w/o even having to recruit the kid (just add the commit to your board and offer a scholly or try to convince to walk on).

8. Playbooks, playbooks, playbooks. PLEASE let us edit playbooks. Create-a-play would be nice, but just editing playbooks would be enough.

9. Advanced depth chart/substitutions. The ability to truly implement a 2 back system by specifying how many carries back #1 gets compared to back #2. Editing special teams without using up so many of our substitution allotments. Here is where increasing roster size and giving offensive players more defensive skill comes in.

10. Gameplay wishes: More animations. Different QB throwing motions. Different running styles. Better WR jump ball animations. More realistic CPU; no more super coverage or God-mode passing. Revamp specials teams- need penetration on block attempts, bad snaps, bad holds, better return blocking, add some razzle dazzle plays, and for crying out loud fix the onside kicking.

11. Cut scenes. During the game, halftime, certain occasions in dynasty (Heisman, recruiting commits, etc.). Play NBA 2K11 or MLB the Show 2010 and use them as an example.

12. Revamped commentary. Get more announcers. Have different announce teams based on the game (network, game of the week, national, regional, ppv, non-televised). I know ESPN doesn't exactly work with Fox or NBC, etc. but make up some fake networks if you have to; you already have the different ESPN networks and ABC to work with (Disney owns ABC and ESPN). The announcers don't have to be well known; use up-and-comers.

13. Penalties, ugh.... How about some pass interference calls? Maybe roughing the passer penalties on the CPU? For more realism, bring back unsportsmanlike conduct on occasion (whether celebrating a score or extracurricular activity after a play). Kickoffs have gone out of bounds; maybe the CPU could do that once every so many kicks.


Maybe more later, but this is my wishlist for now....

[thegreatusurper512]

Dynasty related.

1) AD mode which includes
2) Conference realignment
3) Scheduling Series years in advance
4) Budgets for recruiting, training, coaching staff, stadium expansion
5) Inclusion of all FCS teams
6) Ability to negotiate an alternative to the BCS, plus one system, 6,8,12,16 team playoff with/without homefield advantage. Basically let me fix the BCS.
7) More realistic polling AI.
8) Coordinators (don't have to be real).

Non dynasty related things.

Rating system is the same in Madden and NCAA. I.e. the highest rated player in NCAA is like an 82ish. Give players two separate (hidden) ratings for college and pro potential. Makes it possible to find diamonds in the rough or have a player explode in talent when he gets exported to Madden. This also means you super fast college players dont actually animate slower when they get sent to Madden. I also don't think the highest rated player in Madden should be a 99 though. By having the highest rated player not be 99, it saves it for when a once in a lifetime player comes around.

I really enjoy these games, but of course this is a wishlist so I'd figure that I'd include as much stuff as possible.

[XBox_Roughneck]

Quote: Originally Posted by Survivor

- More player faces and celebrations would add to on field identities beyond strictly gameplay. Cut-scenes, cut-scenes, cut-scenes! They can add more animations and dual-stick capabilities too, but this year is better than ever IMO.

Yes, Yes, YES!!

[voloholic93]

Custom Playbooks

Alt Colors

Add more helmets and facemasks like more Speed and DNA Facemasks and add the Ion 4D and the Schutt XP

Subs on no huddle. Sometimes I will change plays in a no huddle and have a slot reciever at TE or a WR at RB

Add the actual Pro Combats for the upcoming season

Add more Sleves and thicker wristbands

Be able to make your stadium do a color out like a white out or black out regardless of wheather the actual team does it in real life or not.

Have teams running through the band like Tennessee does with the T or Florida and the UF.

Corso putting on the head gear if your school hosts Gameday.

[dxdude2004]

From a CPU vs CPU standpoint, we need an accelerated clock runoff like in madden 10.

[hawksrul05]

If EA isn't going to take the time to go in and fix all the little things about every school, not just the Alabama's and USC's, give the user the ability to.
Give us full customization of things like jersey's, stadium, playbooks, styles, field, fans, celebrations, fan celebrations (aka http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V84gM...eature=related) etc. Similar to what the did with stadium sounds, which ill hit on here in a sec, but basically just giving the user the ability to go in and perfect every little thing about their favorite teams to make the game as realistic as possible and bring it to life. Also, give us the ability to post the custom settings in My EA locker so that they can be shared, just like the rosters are. This would help with the licensing issues and things so that the game could be more realistic without breaking NCAA rules because it is user shared, not made by EA, just like downloading a named roster.

Stadium sounds is a great concept, but needs to be much more in depth, such as taking parts of songs, duration, etc. They should also make the sounds actually sound like they are coming from the speakers in the stadium, not just being played from your xbox.

Bring much more emotion into the game... If Kansas State beats Oklahoma on a last second touchdown pass, the crowd should erupt and the players on the sideline should rush on the field. College football is a game of passion so EA should put more into the game.

[JPCaveman13]

I like a lot of the ideas set forth so far and I hope that some will be in the next edition or shortly thereafter.

Some things I know I would like to see in the next game:

- better player customization within teambuilder and in-game. With the advent of teambuilder, creating a school is better than it has been, but there are still features that are missing. In the edit player screen in-game, everything about a player can be edited. However, in teambuilder, only the vitals (name, height, weight, age) and attributes are editable. Either an editable screen can be added in teambuilder or an option to edit the roster in-game, and outside of dynasty mode, with the ability to edit every feature and to include team color options. Team colors are already pulled for uniforms so a line of code to color the accessories the same isn't too hard. Likewise, more options for editing players themselves should be available. Perhaps a slider-style system could be added to a stock of sixty or so faces so that way two players who share "Face 13" won't share the exact same features. Another good feature would be the Home/Away settings and also cold only settings. That can even be expanded on for day/night as well and even include something for rainy/snowy games (outside of the cold feature). Like a player could wear a dark visor in the day but it'll be lighter for a night/dome game.

- better team customization through teambuilder. Something that would be a little better roster-wise when creating schools, is to split the rosters between offense and defense when selecting them. With the split rosters, they can be tailored more towards the style of play utilized. So if you want to run a 4-2-5, 3-4, or 3-3-5 defense, there's options to set the roster that way instead of digging through trying to find at least 4 MLBs for a 3-4 or 4 SSs for 4-2-5 or 3-3-5. Same with the offense where if you run more heavily, you have more RBs and TEs than in a pass heavy offense. It can even specialize further between spread-option, flexbone, spread pass, etc. Also, some teams have more than four jerseys and two pants. Alternate jerseys should just be labeled Alt 1, Alt 2, etc. (home and away still the same) and not be tied to specific color rules. With that, there can be a drop down menu to control the number of alt jerseys (from none to maybe four or six). The same can be done for pants (one to four). There should also be an option to set the default uniforms for home, away, and maybe two alternate uniform combinations.

- custom playbooks. That's been fleshed out before so I won't go into detail here.

- better clock management. It's hard to play the CPU when it snaps the ball so soon after getting set, usually with 20-25 seconds on the play clock. Very few teams snap the ball that fast unless it's a close game late. Maybe devising a system that is based off of the quarter length on how fast the CPU plays so that ends with a realistic number of plays run.

- player confidence and more of a home-field advantage. Back in older games, players had a confidence level and it should be brought back. Plus the older versions had a better setting for home-field advantage with camera shakes, missed audibles, rattled players. Those could really make-or-break a player in certain situations, like having a frosh QB coming in after an injury to lead the team back in a close game or having the 5th year senior QB calm everyone down for a similar drive.

- in-game and week-to-week momentum. While it seems as if that's in there, it's not something that can be followed. A way to track this would be a welcome addition. I remember 07 having an in-game register but the ratings boost or drop it had was too prevalent. Instead of the ratings boost, it could tie into the confidence levels. Plus, this can open up a lot more things to worry about in dynasty modes like the "hangover effect" a team could have after a disheartening loss or a huge upset (like a small school defeating a powerhouse).

- the ability to add more than twelve teams to dynasty/control more than one in online dynasty. We have the option to download 120 teams to our HDD, why can't we put 120 into a dynasty. Also, why replace teams?? We can just add them as independents and then after a season they get a conference offer based on the season or if we add to a conference, there's an option for that independent season. Plus with the conference customization, expansion and retraction would be nice. Or even doing a straight custom conference like selecting a number of schools, custom logo, rating, etc.

- FCS teams. FCS teams were a part of the older versions and they can be in next-gen too. It's not that fun looking at the week's games and seeing like fifty games vs FCS schools but only six FCS schools are available. Tying into the above idea, powerful FCS schools eventually moving up to FBS.

- presentation that more tailored to the situation. The commentary could mention game stats, season stats, career stats for players or comment on trophy races. Even comment on how teams are doing like win/loss streaks, can they clinch conference, rivalry records, etc. There's really a wealth of info that can be delved into in this.

- coaching carousel. Adding coaches back into this (aside from just a name now) would be great. There could be a main menu screen where editing coaches is available (can use the same face/body model style for player but more enhanced). In dynasty mode, coaches are all rookie coaches. In the edit coach screen at the main menu, there can be a page to edit the coach history. Example: say you're using your teambuilder school and you edit the coach to be 44. He can then be edited to have been a head coach for 12 years. After that, you can edit that he's been at X Univ. for the last three years, been 24-12 during that time and 1-1 in bowl games. Before your created team he coached at Y College for six years and put in the records. With that, the coaching contracts can be impacted in dynasty. C Univ's coach could be new and have a five-year contract while D Tech's coach has been there for two years and that would be a contract year or have three years left. Of course, basic coordinators could be added too and over time, as some older coaches retire, some are fired, and some move up (can be brought into Madden as an option too. Like draft classes, saving the coach roster file can be imported to Madden.) and the coordinators can move as well to either take over a coordinator spot or head coaching spot.

There's a few thoughts bouncing around my head to add to future editions of NCAA football. I did see a lot for AD mode additions, but I see that more as a separate game that could be a DLC that attaches to the major college sports. But with that, the other sports like baseball/softball, wrestling, basketball (both men's and women's), soccer, and the others either need their own game or to have a sim facet within the AD game. Anyway, those are a few thoughts.

[jth76]

I kept reading the same BS fixes along with some legit suggestions. but my biggest gripe for '11 is that there are no MEDICAL REDSHIRTS! They need to put that back into the next installment. Nothing worse than a player getting knocked out for the season in the first game - happened to me in NCAA 10 with AJ Green in the first game of the season and happened in one of my dynasties on 11 as well.

All the other stuff every throws out there are usually BS cosmetic crap like uniforms and junk. I'd like to see more in depth additions like the AD mode, coaches actual names, etc. as well.