Thoughts for NCAA 12

[Savvy]

Have certain recruits programmed to automatically progress faster and to higher ratings than others.

• I feel this would fix tons of problems with the dynasty and it's more realistic to the real college football experience. Often I find when I have a dynasty with a powerhouse school, I'll have several players at the same position all with a 89+ rating, while other schools, even those relatively competitive in major conferences don't. This simply results from varying prestige levels limiting their player development.
• Very often very skilled players emerge on teams that aren't traditional powerhouses: Justin Blackmon, Von Miller, Davon House, Dontay Moch are a few examples (All likely first rounders not on 6* prestige teams.) If recruits were adjusted so a few a players in each class, regardless of how many stars they are coming out of high school progress faster it would allow weaker teams to still occasionally produce NFL caliber talent, and give players controlling smaller schools the chance to land that program changing gem.
• At the same time give 5* prospects to potential to be a bust, start out as a high 70s or low 80s and barely progress past the mid 80s. It happens, think Xavier Lee, Mitch Mustaine, Ryan Perriloux...all highly touted high school players who ended up major collegiate disappointments.

Have players progression partially influenced by their in-season performance.

• I believe a similar feature is used in the Madden series. If you're skilled enough of a player to throw for 3500 yards and 25 touchdowns to 12 ints, with an underclassmen quarterback hovering around 78 overall rating, I'd damn expect him to be a much higher rating the next season.
• My personal anecdote is from my latest dynasty with the Rice Owls. I implemented a spread option offense and refused to start any of their existing QBs my second year because they were all slow and not fit for my schemes. My true freshman QB (63 overall 3* prospect) threw for 1900 yards with 16 TDs to 12 Ints, and ran for another 494 yards and 5 TDs. Not bad at all, yet the next season he improved only to a 66 overall, a minimal increase for such a crucial player who put up great numbers.
• I'm not saying make the kid a 99 overall next year. He was playing against C-USA and a C- schedule competition, but I feel after those numbers his freshman year he progressed enough to be a low to mid 70s at least.
• Essentially I feel this progression in a way fits in with my last idea for recruits "potential" (perhaps a new stat?) allowing for player progression to be more directly linked to the performance of a team rather than only the teams prestige rating. This potential won't be linked to how many stars a player is coming out of high school but completely random, or possible it fluxes with their in season performance.

Similarly to Madden 11, divide throw accuracy into several different stats, for short, medium and long range passing.

• I feel nearly every QB should be accurate at short range passing. How can any player expect to play for a D-1 college program when he can't hit a wide open receiver on a 5 yard slant pattern.
• I recently had to play a true freshman QB on my Penn State dynasty (only a 3**) when my start sustained a 3 week injury. I recruited this kid last minute after my backup transferred at the end of my last season. The freshie had a pathetic 64 accuracy rating to a 83 throw power. He could gun it 20 yards ahead of a receiver but couldn't hit a wide open receiver for his life (Granted I was using sliders, but regardless I switched back to 50 User Passing and had similar results.) Now I feel its acceptable if a true freshman thrust into competitive D1 football has trouble hitting down field receivers against a talented secondary, that is one thing. But failing three consecutive times to hit my impact star receiver who is wide open, five yards off the line of scrimmage is something no collegiate QB should be incapable of doing!
• By breaking down passing accuracy into 3 categories short, medium and long this could be easily fixed. Short: 0-10 yards. Medium: 10-25 yards. Long: 25+. Something along those lines... Every QB should be relatively capable at tossing the short ball, medium passes should be a mix, as higher rated QBs can slice a defense there with ease while those with less medium range accuracy will be more likely to throw inaccurately. The long ball will obviously be the most difficult as only the highest rated QBs with solid long range pass accuracy will be able to hit receivers in holes in the coverage deep downfield. The better the long-range accuracy the further away a QB would be able to hit a target effectively.

Everything I've suggested prior are fairly big changes that would have major implications on dynasty mode. So here's a suggestion that affects all facets of game play and is essential towards making a complete game: fix the damn playbooks.

• This is more aimed at defensive playbooks (my recent frustrations over man coverage out of the 4-2-5 in particular) but even some offensive plays seem to never work. They're simply glitched (think the PA where your QB runs straight back 30 yards, or a cover-0 where the safety covering a slot receiver lines up underneath your MLB?)
• This simply shouldn't happen. It's one of the most basic parts of the game and with the advanced graphics and technology available with today's consoles it should be very simple to fix these errors.

Give players a less random way of breaking tackles or choosing a lob or bullet pass; more buttons to press while standing in the pocket so QB play isn't just press A for snap, than _ for receiver.

• This idea stems partly from my recent adoration for FIFA 11. At nearly every moment my fingers are occupied executing a skill move to get past a defender, timing a pass or making a clean tackle. It makes the game more fun!

• When you see a defender about to wallop your QB, provided its within the QBs vision instead of pressing sprint to bolt away give us a button that makes the QB try to shrug him off, a Ben Roelthisberger type animation, but less random. It shouldn't be an automatic megatron untouchable button, but something the user must consciously press in order for their QB to have a chance at evading a sack.
• Similarly give us a "modifier" button for bullet or lob passes. Similar to FIFA 11, pressing LB (sorry I'm an xbox guy) allows for lob through balls, crosses and shots, while RB is for finesse shots. It gives you an extra thing to think about, brings a little more strategy into play and makes the game more skillfull. Just think, normally pressing the button throws a normal pass to the wideout, LB+ receiver button for a lob and RB+receiver for a bullet.

Another idea popped into my head after routing my friend in FIFA, more control over celebrations.

• The variety in NCAA 11 is depressing. Even in Madden it is very limited and often random what the player does after scoring. Players do a lot of interesting dances, arm waves and running celebrations after scores. Why can't we see this in the game? Its relatively simple to implement.
• Just as in FIFA there can be three ways to celebrate. Running celebrations with arm waves and such, than using combination's of LT and LB with the X, A, B, Y and moving the joystick in certain directions each executes a unique celebration. Scoring a goal in FIFA feels so much more rewarding than even breaking a beautiful TD run, being able to than use a unique detailed celebration makes it all that much better.
• This could be further used to include personal foul penalties for excessive celebrations. It can't be called every time, but if someone goes off and runs the width of the endzone, raising the ball than proceeds to spike it (or anything blatantly excessive of that nature) it could add a fun twist to the game....thoughts?

This is all I have for now. I'll update in the future as more things come to mind and hope someone with influence at EA reads this. Please post any thoughts/comments as I'm more than open to what you all think.

[aTTckr]

I like your ideas! Progression really isn't that great right now. It doesn't make dynasty unplayable but certainly leads to some frustrating results. I also think Tiburon should implement a new passing system where you're able to more accurately decide what kind of throw you want to make.

[firesloth]

I like many of these suggestions, particularly related to progression.

I really hope they'll examine the logic for switching players on defense, as well. It can be somewhat random, and often puts you in control of a player that you don't expect. So, rather than putting you in control of the LB who is a few yards from a scrambling QB, it puts you in control of a safety that has little chance to directly make a play.

I would also love to see more diversity in the defensive playbooks. We have team-specific offensive plays, can't we have something similar for defensive plays??

[aidanbox360]

custom playbooks..... PLEASE!!!

I really like your idea for progression, and agree to an extent. If a Freshman comes in and starts, their awareness and injury/stamina should spike, but most other attributes would not.

I also like the idea of "daimonds in the rough" and "bust" recruits.

Sometimes a 1* kid turns into a pretty good roll player. Sometimes a 5* kid gets arrested multiple times and leaves school..... that stuff would make the game more real.

[SynShadowzz]

Quote:

Similarly give us a "modifier" button for bullet or lob passes. Similar to FIFA 11, pressing LB (sorry I'm an xbox guy) allows for lob through balls, crosses and shots, while RB is for finesse shots. It gives you an extra thing to think about, brings a little more strategy into play and makes the game more skillfull. Just think, normally pressing the button throws a normal pass to the wideout, LB+ receiver button for a lob and RB+receiver for a bullet.

This feature is already in the game, and has been for some time.

The longer you hold the button, the harder your QB will throw it.

If you merely tap (for example) the B button, it's going to lob the pass.

If you hold it down hard and long, your QB is going to throw a bullet pass.

[Isura]

The progression stuff is already in the game in some form. Players have an internal potential rating. I've seen this first hand. I recruited a WR, and the first 2 seasons he had +8 and +7 point improvments and was most improved player. I've also recruited plenty of 5-star guys that come in around 78-80 and leave at only 90 rated in 5 years. Playing time and stats currently effects development.

[Savvy]

Quote: Originally Posted by SynShadowzz

This feature is already in the game, and has been for some time.

I realize this, I was proposing a modification towards it. Something to keep you a little busier and give you more to think about. Makes use of more buttons in more situations, provides for more interesting game play, and if implemented correctly could give much more precise control over the passing game.

As I said, it's inspired from the FIFA series. I personally feel FIFA is a much more refined game. It has a much steeper learning curve but coincidentally it has much more intuitive game play.

[Isura]

I agree the passing game needs a complete overhaul. It's too arcady right now. The pocket doesn't develop properly, there's no concept of passing lanes in the game, and better control of pass trajectory and direction is needed.