Create-a-Playbook: The Interface

[Kaiser Wilhelm]

I wanted to make a thread regarding the seemingly random and clunky interface in the create-a-playbook section of NCAA Football 13.

The first thing that strikes me, is that the formations seem to have to rhyme or reason as to how they are set up. For instance, if one were to pick any random playbook the formations are usually organized like so:

Ace, I-Form, Strong, Weak, Pistol, Shotgun, Hail Mary, Goal Line.

Now I understand I have chosen a fairly generic playbook lacking many of the more particular formations like the Flexbone and Power I. Regardless this is the basic structure of most playbooks. So would it not make sense to organize the create a playbook feature roughly around this type of organization? Apparently not. I was trying to make a base I-Formation run playbook with some Ace and other formations thrown in and was surprised at the lack of cohesion. It went something roughly like this.

Ace, Hail Mary, Goal Line, Empty, I-Form.

At this point I'm confused why two back page formations, if you will, are in between the two foremost formations in pre-made playbooks. The next part blew my mind.

I-Form, Power-I, various triple option sets, Pistol Shotgun, Strong I, Weak I.

This makes even less sense. The Strong and Weak formations, as off set I formations. As such they should immediately follow the other I-Formations, rather than be spread so far thin.

I know this seems like something small and inconsequential but it really does make this feature clunkier than it should be.

My next criticism of the interface is the lack of ability to sort by play type, or even by selected plays. Finding and eliminating the pre-selected playbooks becomes rather annoying. In my most recent example I was using UConn as my base and finding the random formations scattered throughout the format is simply a nuisance and a bit time consuming. Which also brings me to why we cannot just start from scratch, but I digress. The inability to get a concise look at the playbook in the playbook screen is rather inconvenient.

One last thing, and I may have missed something here, but it seems you are unable to shift formations as they appear in-game. So I cannot change my playbook to look like:

Shotgun, Ace, Empty, I-Form, Goal Line, Hail Mary

even if Shotgun is my base formation.

So to summarize, it was great that we saw this feature finally return to NCAA in the past two years but it needs to be streamlined further so that creating a playbook is not so time consuming when trying to compose a complex playbook.

[PowerofRed25]

The interface is god awful. There is some sort of hidden pattern to getting formation sets in the order you want. It took hours of trial and error just to get my spread playbook with Pistol, Shotgun, Wildcat and Wingbone (No GL or Hail Mary) in that exact order. I had to use Clemson as a base, remove Ace, leave Pistol, remove every shotgun formation EXCEPT Spread Flex, remove every Wildcat formation except Spread Flex and add Wingbone to get it right.

I can't imagine tying to get Ace, I, Strong, Weak, Pistol, Shotgun all in a decent order. Usually you need to start with a base playbook that has all those formation sets in them, and then carefully add/remove formations from them to keep them in the proper order. There is no rhyme or reason.

As for the interface itself, clunky and awful. I had a long thread earlier this year about how custom playbooks needed to be modular. Select formation, select the plays you want to be in that formation (all plays would be available in all formations). I hate how it is and I spend HOURS upon HOURS in the CPB menu creating playbooks and tweaking playbooks I've made.

[The_Rick_14]

I haven't used custom playbooks yet, but I would think it would be determined by the order you select them. Or is that not the case and it just orders them randomly?

I ask because sure maybe you don't want offset I formations away from I Pro, but maybe some other users do. So if you have control over where they end up in how you build your playbook then they should just make it easier to re-order the formations. But if it just drops them in randomly and that's the order it goes with, then I see a bigger problem.

[C Spot]

Quote: Originally Posted by The_Rick_14

I haven't used custom playbooks yet, but I would think it would be determined by the order you select them. Or is that not the case and it just orders them randomly? I ask because sure maybe you don't want offset I formations away from I Pro, but maybe some other users do. So if you have control over where they end up in how you build your playbook then they should just make it easier to re-order the formations. But if it just drops them in randomly and that's the order it goes with, then I see a bigger problem.

Yeah it dosent matter when you select them it just randomly orders them

[Colt45]

The best way to do this is to get all the plays you want, and then just use "Play Type" on the playcall screen instead of by formation. Pretty soon you memorize where all the normal plays you run are and you get used to it and can call any play quickly.

[PowerofRed25]

I've actually started to consider that approach Colt45, although not because of the order of my formations. I have my formations and formation types in the order I want them, but I find myself being a grab bagger when calling plays via formations. I just pick random stuff with no rhyme or reason. I feel like if I called them by play type, I'd be setting plays up better.

I've just been hesitant to do it because I don't want to get stuck in a situation where I can't find a play I'm looking for.

[Haze88]

Jut like they have an organize plays option all they need is an organize formation button and the CAP would be set.

[LionsFanNJ]

Before the last patch they organized alphabetically, at least it did when I removed everything but hail mary and reselected everything I wanted. The recent patch (before the uni store patch) seemed to have a odd organizational grouping now.