Final word on progression?

[White Out]

I asked this a month ago but in a more general, how is the game type of way... how is the final progression in this game after the final updates?

[jbrew2411]

I have been playing the game the past month without the patches but kept the tuners since they work without the patches. I just finished my 2nd season with Nebraska. I have seen that with most 5* & 6* programs players progress well. I had most guys increase 4-6 points in overall. I looked at some smaller schools to see how well guys I let go in recruiting to see how they progressed. One was a RB that went to SMU. He was red shirted and was a 63ovr to start. He went up 4 points in his red shirt year. I saw a few of my players see a point or two increase during the season in the awr rating. The kickers & punters still suck in this game. I tend to use my 30 player max for creating recruits to make kickers and punters. The only problem is the cpu will sign 2-3 kickers or punters. An example is Boise St which has 2 created kickers and 2 created punters on the roster now. You can't get around the recruiting logic in this game.

I have thought about deleting the tuner. About a week back I could not sleep, my wife was at work and my daughter was sound asleep and I had this theory on my mind. I decided to run a test on what year 7 of a dynasty would look like without tuners or patches. I deleted the tuner since the patches had been long gone. So I started to sim away. I recored data for the top 10 players at each star grade for 6 years. This was something I had done before when the game first came out. I found most of the players that went to 5* & 6* programs saw the same 4-6 points a year increase. The 3* & 4* programs players saw a 3-5 point increase yearly. Then the 1* & 2* schools players saw 1-4 point increase yearly. I saw guys coming in as a 81ovr improve to a 97ovr. I saw guys that come in as a 67ovr improve to 80ovr 5th year seniors. While there was a drop off in team overall and the number of 6* programs the balance was still there. The one real issue I did notice was the lack of skill players (RB's & WR's) that had break away ability. I played 2 games and noticed that running screen passes were a crap shoot. Without the patches the D is not as aggressive but 7 years in the D was taking bad angles and missing assignments. The star players were playing like stars and the good college players were making some mistakes. The average players would make a play here and there but overall you could tell they were not stars. Since the smaller schools were loaded with average at best players it was not a challenge if you had a much better team. That is why the made up FCS schools are beating them. A 40ovr seem to be the cut off and schools like New Mexico were loaded with them.

After doing this I have decided to keep the tuner. Progression is not bad at all. You still see a slight drop from the over rated original rosters but you can play freshmen day one. If you look hard enough you can find players with good skill ratings. The recruits that saw the most change were the 1-3 star players. Most 1*'s that I have seen come in rated in the low 50's. I have seen a few 2*'s that are in the low 60's and lot of 3*'s that are in the mid to low 70's. I like how things are looking.

[orangeafroman]

I had been without internet access for months, so did not get the updates or whatever. In year 5/6 of my dynasty, the best players in the country had an 82 rating. I had many of them, and was a dominant team, but still. it was stupid with zero player progression.

Now that I got internet back, I simulated to an offseason, and was pleased to see the 5-6 points of improvement, plus the point or two of in-season improvement.