What year will we get: Special Teams play or accurate penalties?

[ODogg]

NCAA 09 I believe it was had a bunch of blocked FGs and XPs, it got kind of ridiculous in fact.

[FedExPope]

I'm becoming a bit of a broken record on these forums but...this series will not get over the hump into the 'great' category so long as the development cycle is so short for every game in this series. We have the same quirks we've had for years, including warping. That has always been a problem. As has special teams being stale and penalties being non existent. No reason to think that this will ever change. I do remember though, NCAA 08 I was able to block some FGs, EPs, etc and had it happen to me because of the jump snap feature being effective. I even blocked a few punts in that game.

As for penalties not being wanted by the users...I know my blood boils when I get a penalty now, but that's because they are so damn RARE, that it feels like the game is cheating (didn't play last year, but I have heard something about the "phantom holding call" that occured late in the game and was part of the 'catch-up AI' the CPU possesses). If EA could try penalties being more abundant, and then adjusting them according to player feedback that'd be great and we could know for sure if they're better the way they are now, i.e. called about as often as safeties occur IRL.

[KG]

How about the fact the fact that with default sliders almost every kicker can bury 50+ yd FGs. I know people will say "You can just adjust the slider".

Well, if you're an online user (lobby or online dynasty) you can kick accurately vs the CPU but when you play another human you're back to booting 50yds with ease.

The kicking game is one aspect in the pro vs college debate that everyone can see a difference in.

[FedExPope]

I had KPWR and KAC sliders to 40 for my offline dynasty, and the AI went from robo-K to not even coming close to making any FGs. As in, kicked from the right hashmark, and absolutely no compensation - multiple times, multiple games, multiple dynasties. On the other hand, lowering human sliders for those two can make it pretty damn hard and very interesting to try and kick even an EP.

[ODogg]

Uh I've got to stand up for NCAA 11 here as I've missed some field goals this year and also seen the CPU miss some.

I'd like to see more focus on having more special teams plays and schemes as this basic 3 or 4 play stuff is really over simplistic. Let's get some reverses and misdirection plays on kick returns. Let's get some more fake punt stuff than just a run or a pass. It's like having a football game where on offense all you have are 4 offensive plays, it was fine like 10 years ago but not now.

I also would like the ability to throw the ball, like a QB, backwards on kick returns to try the desperation type end of game plays you see. Of course this could introduce all sorts of cheese so they'd really have to playtest the heck out of it..