Unbeatable AI - Anyone See this yet - Dynasty?

[Suvorov]

I find it funny how people throw the term "realism" around when talking about sports games. The only times they think a game is realistic when they lose, is if they lose by 3 points or less. However, in REAL LIFE, there are a great many examples of "great" teams losing to worse teams by close scores and also by complete blow outs.

I also hate hearing how someone will take a team like Akron, move them to the ACC or Big 10 or some other stron conference, have a 9-1 record, then piss and moan about how their 11th game they played was unrealistic.

Life is full of surprises. If teams performed how they were ranked, then they might as well hand out the trophies to all the teams in real life now, since we already know who will finish 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. No reason to play them out.

[CajunPunk]

I hate to admit it, but I've noticed this in both NCAA and Madden for years... and I mean YEARS.

For example, night before last in my dynasty, I was LSU playing at Miss State. The first half was fairly close, as I went up 14-7 just before the half. In the second half, I couldn't seem to stop anything as Miss State scored 21 unanswered points. Relf threw like Montana and ran like Barry Sanders, and all of the options/handoffs were working nearly to perfection. It was 28-14 in the 4th quarter and Miss State was running the ball and chewing up the clock.

And then the game froze...

That sucked because even though I was going to lose, I was too emotionally invested in the game to be satisfied with an hour+ long game down the drain. Spencer Ware had about 125+ yards rushing, and Craig Loston had about 20 tackles in the game. I got angry when I'd miss a tackle, be caught out of position or be called for a false start. And as much as I hated that I was going to lose the game, in the final minutes I kept thinking about how my ranking would slip away from me and how the loss would look to my recruits.

And then I realized how much that mirrors real life.

I re-played Miss State the next day and worked them, beating them 42-20. So, there does seem to be evidence of random toughness AI. That being said, I don't think I mind it. Sure, it would be better if good teams played to their potential consistently, but I've played in some pretty exciting and heartbreaking games in both NCAA and Madden over the years.

[jmik58]

I've noticed that the CPU plays much better at home and vice versa.

Nice touch, but a bit overboard at times.