How accurate is the statistical engine in 13?

[Frank the Tank]

Hello everyone, just curious about how accurately the game simulates stats for the games you aren't playing? I last bought NCAA 11, skipped last year's game. But in both 10 and 11, the simulation of the running game was lousy, a ypc average of 4.0 was actually pretty good. So if you were just coaching the games, it was always best to find a team with a good QB, throw it a lot, because the quality of your RBs was pretty irrelevant.

Also, on smaller issues from past years. I recall that in 11, a QB's awareness was all that mattered, pretty much, on his comp %. Someone even tested this by putting an MLB with high awareness but no throwing skills at QB, and the MLB completed over 60% of his passes.

I ask because sometimes life gets busy and I don't always have time to play full games, but would like to move along a dynasty anyways, so I have to go the quick route and coach the games instead. If anyone can speak to these things, or anything else about the statistical engine, I'd appreciate your time.

[voodoo_magic]

I did a test dynasty of 7 years.
In my dynasty stats were surprisingly good, when compared to last years leaders.
One year the top hb would have 18td and another 25 with realistic yards. Maybe a bit low on the carries, the 20th hb was about 20 carries less than real life and so had less yards but not too far off.
For QB maybe a bit high on td but just about everything else was reasonable.
Only thing that really jumps out is low completion %, about 10% lower than real life, still a few guys with 60% but lots of lower rated guys with 42-45%.
Receivers looked ok, with some 100 catch guys and 15-20td.
Defensive stats all looked realistic.

For QB when I looked to see who the guys were that were getting 60% completion, awareness was not the highest but a factor I'm sure. The top guys had very good throwing power and accuracy. I looked at some of the low completion guys and they all seemed to have low throw power/accuracy, usually because they were so or jr.

Overall it seems like you can go deep in a dynasty and unless a patch does something the results are very good.

[Frank the Tank]

Interesting, could it be that the developers actually paid attention to this? It would be the first time in quite a while, I think. Can anyone else chime in and confirm this? Or had a different experience?

And thanks for the feedback, vm.

[demon19000]

I know that Chris Sanner on the OS review said that it's "one of the most balanced NCAA games in years" and that its "hard to argue with the statistical accuracy and variety of games" even though it "cuts corners" sometimes (the 6th paragraph under "simulation realism"). However, I'm not sure if he's just talking about the gameplay or simming games as well.

However, he did talk about the off balance supersim, saying that the computer, no matter how good the team, "doesn't do well in games you supersim." (12th paragraph under "gameplay").

Anyway, although I can't give you a 100 percent answer, hopefully that helped a little bit.

[majesty95]

I think the sim engine needs tuning. As was pointed out, QB comp % is way too low which affects yards, receptions and receiving yards. Also, the yards per attempt are too high as is the TD/ATT ratio. I also had a back get 500+ carries, over 2600 yards and 35 TD and was an 82 OVR...

As far as teams, I still see lower ranked (and rated) teams win too often. The poll logic (kind of a stat lol) is off too. Doesn't factor in enough components.

I'm might be the most disappointed with the sim engine over anything else...

[Frank the Tank]

Majesty, are you indicating a return to the running back simulations of, say, 2006-07, when all backs average about 6.0 ypc no matter their quality? Or just that they accumulate too many stats in any given season.

[voodoo_magic]

Quote: Originally Posted by majesty95

I also had a back get 500+ carries, over 2600 yards and 35 TD and was an 82 OVR...

I noticed if you changed a team with say 50/50 run/pass and changed the run/pass ratio to max run it had a large impact and now their hb was getting stats like that if their wasn't a 2nd back getting carries. Maybe the coach had a max run system for your example?
I don't think I had any hb get over 400 carries in my test, but there were a few 2100 yd rushers.
Agree the ypc was high but the overall stats were good, so I guess you could look to tweak things.

[bad_philanthropy]

I feel like this is as good as the sim engine has ever been in the series. Might be some quirks here and there, but I'm very satisfied with the results after several seasons of simming.