How do you commit to a dynasty?

[Dj2360]

I'm just gonna echo that

[SilverBullet19]

Quote: Originally Posted by Locke888

Every year I change the starting QB for Michigan. Give him a name like Melissa, Becky or Pamela. Then pretend he's trail blazing a path in college football as the 1st transgender in the game. Really heart felt, tear jerking, courageous moment when I announce that to my imaginary audience.

I assume you're an Ohio State guy? lol

[AKEjcl41]

I also do a lot of these things...like everyone else...always looking for a new and better slider set, house rules...all of that...can't ever get past year 3 or 4...but I'm in year 6 right now (4 were shortened as a coordinator), where all of the edited players are gone. everyone's roster took a drastic hit. I'm interested to see how this affects the dynasty going forward. Using josh's house rules for recruiting is amazing...I used to go after 10 guys, 700 points and once they were committed, go find other guys that were gems and fill the rest of the spots...his new way is PERFECT!! 35 guys right away, no scouting til committed...can't add new players...so if I need 2 qbs, I target 4-5...put points towards 2 of them and hope the other 3 stay interested. in my first year as head coach, I missed out on my top 2 targets and settled for a 65 OVR qb...put a big emphasis on qb in this year's class...it keeps you from having a 3 deep qb stable of 90+ ovr players...where this way if you're qb gets hurt...you're in trouble potentially...which is realistic...also I do "coach pick" and pick one of the 3 plays to avoid money plays...if they call 3 screens, gotta run a screen...don't work very often, but negative plays happen, 3rd and 1 and they call a toss and 2 play action plays, makes it hard...anyone can get it with another dive play...also I don't hot route, I can create route combos to get open and get every 1st down, so run the play in its true form (2 minute drill they call only 4 verts, so I allow myself some room to create in this situation...I would try those...they've worked great for me.... went 10-4 in first year as HC at Nebraska, currently 5-0, haven't played anyone yet this year, but have Penn st and Michigan that are both ovr 95+, so I'm guessing the losses are coming soon....here's my overall advice: 1. use a hard slider set for yourself depending on skill level. 2. josh's house rules for recruiting 3. pick 1 of 3 coach pick plays (same on defense) 4. no hot routes (same on defense). For example: this year I've won by 21, 2, 3 and 2 again...beat ohio st by 2 points at home...they're overall roster is much better, but they're having a bad year (1-3)...see Oregon last year...its very hard to beat teams that have better players and rosters but not really hard to beat FCS MW by 3-4 scores. its totally revitalized the game for me...and hopefully won't cost me my marriage...but if it does...i'll miss her, but i'll always have this game...

[Hellisan]

Quote: Originally Posted by Zaky29

I suppose all this is to ask what suggestions do you have to help stick with a dynasty?

I've taken a very quick look through this thread. A lot of what has been said applies to me. Some of it does not. We're all different no surprise there.

I'll leave two thoughts.

1) Not being able to commit usually comes down to "loving to start things." People love to start things. It gives them that warm feeling in their gut like "this is gonna be awesome." Whereas an existing dynasty is like that girlfriend they've been dating for years and are too nice to break up with... Kinda. Weird analogy. But I swear to God that is what's going on. People love to start things! It's way easier than grinding out something long term. So I'm just saying that to hopefully give out what I think is a proper diagnosis for a lot of people with this "problem."

2) The thing I'll add about this is that I like to become a fan of the team. We all follow college football, maybe some of us know more about it than others. But I find that when I take over a team, if I really dig into their history and traditions I can find out some really interesting things. I like to look at pictures of the stadium, even the campus, and use those pictures in my graphics for the dynasty. I'm trying to develop some kind of connection with the team. Losing games here and there is essential, and I would say that getting creative with making sure you have guys missing games due to injuries, having realistic recruiting, etc. etc. etc. is all very important. It sort of all ties in together, but at the end of the day, some guys are gonna be more prone to doing a long-term dynasty than others and I'm not sure how easy that is to change.

[The EVHL]

Quote: Originally Posted by Zaky29

I suppose this is kind of a tough question to answer, but it's been something that's been weighing on my mind. Through the past four years of playing NCAA 14, I've had a shamefully large amount of failed dynasties. With the one exception being a 8-ish year Washington State dynasty, it seems that all I can do is start a dynasty, run for 1-3 years, then stop. It varies from time to time whether I'm no longer having fun playing that dynasty, or whether I'm having some sort of existential crisis where I attempt to find which NCAA game I like most, only to wind back up at 14. I suppose all this is to ask what suggestions do you have to help stick with a dynasty?

So, here's what I do (and I know this is crazy). Being an only child, I wanted a more organic challenge than the CPU had to offer as a child. I learned how to play football games in a pretty fun fashion by myself while controlling both teams.

Yep, you read that right. I control my user teams and their respective opponents. I'm actually probably going to start doing write-ups on my 12 team dynasty I have right now (just finished season 1). I use custom sliders to make the game difficult, and have rarely seen am upset (usually my controlled teams would be doing the upsetting if it happened)

Anyway, I play as the offense for both teams (sim kickoffs, punts, FG's) and I pick plays by formation. I use a custom playbook where I think I've eliminated all money plays/read options and I really try to not use the same play too many times. I pick my play, hit LT on the defensive controller, and allow myself no adjustments at the line. I just play the plays chosen.

If you have the discipline to not "win at all costs" for your favorite/user team, this method is actually very challenging! For my dynasty, I have a 12 team, all teambuilder conference where I'm controlling all 12 teams. Only four made bowl games (all B/B+ teams) two teams were 2-10 (with one FCS win each) and 6 of the teams weren't even .500.

I keep track of season results, bowl victors, conference standings, rankings, etc on a spreadhseet and it's the only way I've ever played football games, and I always have a ridiculous amount of fun doing it!

[Spartan Warrior]

Some little things that have helped me:

-Editing my recruits. Giving them appropriate skin color (too many black kickers, too many white DBs, ect.), interesting names, weird numbers, and also messing with their ratings so that they make sense to me.

-Toning down progression. I like making progression sort of random, some guys blow up and some never get better. I have a system where I do a random number generator to pick a gem and a bust of my returning players. One guy suddenly gets a lot better, the other guy doesn't improve at all. Do the same with my recruits, fun to have a random three star turn out to be a stud and a five star be a bust.

-Turn your injury ratings down. Someone has a scale for realistic injuries. Otherwise the only guys who get hurt are guys who carry the ball.

-I also like running an injury calculator each week to determine additional injuries. Lots of guys get hurt playing college football. You're never going to see a team be a month into the season and have a blank injury report, but that happens all the time in the game.

-Do the same thing for guys getting in trouble off the field. It's a part of the game. Guys miss class, show up late for team meetings, get arrested.

-If someone wants to transfer or turn pro early I don't try to talk them out of it. Attrition is realistic and makes the game more challenging.

-I change equipment during the season. Add sleeves and high socks for cold weather games, give guys additional padding if they have an injury.

I really like the point about losses making things more interesting.

[Hellisan]

Quote: Originally Posted by Spartan Warrior

Some little things that have helped me:

Love the list. ESPECIALLY the customized progression. I think I would be done with this game without that. It really bothers me on a fundamental level that they never offered the option of going with a realistic progression system. yeah some people might want all their guys to improve each and every year, but I think a lot of us would want something more hardcore and realistic.

[Spartan Warrior]

Yeah, I hope they would have fixed that by now. We all know from watching college football that guys don't predictably progress in a linear way throughout their careers. Some guys never get any better. Some guys actually get worse. Others take a few years, but then blow up and become stars overnight. And some guys do just steadily get better over the course of their careers. I think the biggest improvement is usually from Freshman to Sophomore and then from Junior to Senior, but everyone is different.

Another big one for me is resisting the urge to run money plays. I don't run read option on third or fourth down, it's just too effective.

Here's my off field incident calculator:

-(1-10) Missed Class: Miss start
-(11-20) Late for practice
-(21-30) Late for team meeting: Miss start
-(31-40) Poor grades: One game suspension
-(41-45) Alcohol Incident: One game suspension
- (45-49) Skip team meeting: One game suspension
-(50-54) Stealing: One game suspension
-(55-59) DUI: One game suspension
-(60-64) Marijuana Possession: Two Game Suspension
-(65-69) Skip Practice: Two game suspension
-(70-74) Bar fight: Two game suspension
-(74-79) Gun Possession: Four game suspension
-(80-84) Hard Drug Possession: Four Game Suspension
-(85-89) PED Use: Suspended for season
- (90-94) Academic dishonesty: Suspended for season
- (95-100): Violent Felony: Dismissed

I can't remember how good the chance of something happening was. Maybe run it every week and there's a 25% chance of an incident in a given week? Then you'd expect a couple incidents over the course of the season. And if you want to be realistic run it multiple times before the first game and before the bowl game due to the number of weeks that pass there. Always seems there's trouble on the bowl trips.