85 Man Roster Question

[walshcav]

I'm asking for responses from staff or maybe the people from EA that post on here.

Can you please give an official reason why we can't have 85 man rosters on this current generation of gaming platforms?

I find the space issue hard to believe after seeing how in depth Skyrim is and some of the other Sandbox style games.

I apologize if this comes across as flaming or complaining, I swear it's not meant to be in that vein. I played and then coached scholarship college football for a number of years and know exactly how important players 71-85 are to a team and how their development can turn a strong team into a championship team.

I appreciate the work you guys put into the game, nobody will ever be 100% satisfied.

[patsfan1993]

This isn't the response you are looking for, but just throwing my two cents out there. I don't see how the space issue is reasonable. In NCAA 2005 all Division l-A schools were included in the game along with more than 70 l-AA schools

So 2005 = 116+70= 186 teams * 69 players each = 12834
So 2012 = 123 * 85 = 10455

So approximately 2000 less players on the PS3/360 than was on the PS2/Xbox and the excuse is not enough space?

Sorry, but that doesn't make sense to me. If there is another reason, I would love to hear it.

[Suntan Superman]

You can't really compare the PS2/Xbox days to today, these games have way more graphical programming in them. And for me, it would seem its mostly a size issue, plus a re programming issue, multiple parts of the game would be forced to be reprogrammed for this, and its possible they decided to work on other things.

[CM Hooe]

My educated guess is that roster size is probably a memory bounded thing; many high-resolution textures must be loaded / have memory space set aside to run the game frontend, player editing interface, dynasty interface, create-a-playbook interface, etc. In dynasty mode, space for at least 2000 new players must be stored for recruits.

Beyond memory, AI team roster management functions (cutting players, determining recruiting targets, player progression, depth chart reorganization...) will necessarily slow down as team roster sizes increase; there are more data entries to process in each operation as roster size for each team increases. Depending on the time complexity of the roster management routines EA has implemented, the game could slow down significantly by adding even one player to each team's roster; this would manifest itself to the user as more time needed for simulation when advancing weeks in and advancing through various steps in the offseason in Dynasty mode, among other places.

[patsfan1993]

Quote: Originally Posted by CHooe

My educated guess is that roster size is probably a memory bounded thing; many high-resolution textures must be loaded / have memory space set aside to run the game frontend, player editing interface, dynasty interface, create-a-playbook interface, etc. In dynasty mode, space for at least 2000 new players must be stored for recruits. Beyond memory, AI team roster management functions (cutting players, determining recruiting targets, player progression, depth chart reorganization...) will necessarily slow down as team roster sizes increase; there are more data entries to process in each operation as roster size for each team increases. Depending on the time complexity of the roster management routines EA has implemented, the game could slow down significantly by adding even one player to each team's roster; this would manifest itself to the user as more time needed for simulation when advancing weeks in and advancing through various steps in the offseason in Dynasty mode, among other places.

I'm with the OP for hoping/wanting a response. If I could get an honest answer such as what you are saying I would understand and move on. I just haven't seen anybody officially say something to that effect. Do they really have to? No. but it would be nice.

Good points by the way. I hadn't considered it like that.

[CM Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by patsfan1993

This isn't the response you are looking for, but just throwing my two cents out there. I don't see how the space issue is reasonable. In NCAA 2005 all Division l-A schools were included in the game along with more than 70 l-AA schools So 2005 = 116+70= 186 teams * 69 players each = 12834 So 2012 = 123 * 85 = 10455 So approximately 2000 less players on the PS3/360 than was on the PS2/Xbox and the excuse is not enough space? Sorry, but that doesn't make sense to me. If there is another reason, I would love to hear it.

If I recall, EA took some apparent shortcuts with regard to the implementation FCS teams on the last generation of consoles; foremost, the teams were stored in their own roster file, edited separately from the FBS teams, and also their rosters in dynasty mode never changed. It was never the case that the game was holding and operating on FBS team rosters and FCS team rosters simultaneously. Another factor is that players had far fewer ratings and equipment options on the last generation of consoles, so each individual player had a smaller footprint in memory.

[hurricanefootball4]

Just would like an official answer beyond people guessing.

This would make a big difference for a lot of people in the way that they play dynasty.

[MrBlonde21]

Because what would you fill up U$C's roster with then??