NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

[SteelerSpartan]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

Auburn and all the guys taking the time to educate people with whats wrong with the OL/DL...I you(Im too lazy to)


Having read and paid attention to most of what Ian has been saying since he got here....It just baffles me that they got it this much worse then even last year.(Still have a good feeling about Madden 09 though)

And whats depressing about this...is that for yet another year we have to worry about them fixing the core instead of expanding it to new realms of what was supposed to be "Next Gen"

Anywho sorry I got off topic and am glad they seem to be responding somewhat faster with these fixes. Hopefully this avalanche of bugs will shake some things up down there and from now on it'll only get better from here on out

[ehh]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

Last I heard was that it was submitted for approval and will be out in 5-10 days.

[edaddy]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

you wont.

My guess is the decision has already been made that the gameplay issues that this community has pointed out will not be patched, they'll do everything but that.

Then next year it will be "Ncaa 2010...Hardcore Defense is back"

If they fixed the sliders and NOTHING else I'd be happy and call it a day.

Bingo!!!..Like I stated earlier the firestorm regarding NCAA will disappear when Madden comes out ...which will in turn take the heat off OMT at least in these threads..They had to do that first patch because it was a major bug that was destroyng the game..With madden coming out the priority for a patch goes way way down...Ea did a good job again this year with the hype, spin, and marketing and the reps on this board are part of that like it or not..The gameplay issue will not be adressed at least to the extent that we want it because it's a wide open gameplay year.. I predict that the kickoff and punt issues will get fixed because thats noticeable even to casual gamers..But the lack of pass rush, speed cheats, etc will not be addressed it goes against EA offensive philosophy(OMT knows that ) ...it's been alluded to already...I rsepect him for being on these boards but after all he is a rep for a game that is being sold to the public...He should be doing what he is doing...

[Herky]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

Exclusive deals mean you don't have to try to outdo anyone. They suck 110% and it shows.

[callmetaternuts]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

Last I heard was that it was submitted for approval and will be out in 5-10 days.

Thats the first patch (roster patch), we are discussing the 2nd patch.

I get that its a business decision, but id at least like to hear straight from EA, "we arent fixing issue X,Y,Z because we dont want to, this is how we want the game." That would be enough to trade the game in and not buy 2010, seriously. Ive never missed an NCAA or Madden since i can remember (at least 02, but thats bc i have that game box right here), but if they come out to say that, ill be long gone. I dont boycott things, or encourage others to, but that would speak volumes to me.

I understand they have to test the issues and see whats going on, and they dont want to tell us something and not be able to deliver, but we've heard on the roster patch, weve heard about the online dynasty, weve heard about sliders and kick returns, but not a PEEP about the defensive issues (speed, DL, blitzes, angles, yellow zones). I would just like something to say "We estimate it to be out on this day, and that could change, and it will address these issues currently, and we are looking at throwing these in there too". Is that possible? Probably not bc it does expose them to some risk (im being serious). But still, the lack of acknowledgement on the 10-12 posts i made today (long ones too) and AA made on defensive issues has me a little peeved.

Again, not an EA *****, i think my posts show that, just a consumer trying to get some answers.

[servo75]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

Nice try!

What are they ?

HAHAHAHAHAHA ROTFL!!!!

[rhombic21]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

Right.. but I said if we fixed that, and you said it wouldn't help because they don't work. I think you are misunderstaning me!

I play online, so fixing the sliders alone doesn't really help me, since you can't make slider adjustments for online games.

[xV3L0CiTY]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

Since my previous two posts have been deleted for no reason whatsoever, I suppose this is a waste of time as well but here it goes.

Anyone else curious as to why it's Adam answering most of the questions? As he says, he's a "features" guy. He's not with the gameplay dept. 98% of complaints are coming strictly from gameplay. ??????

Guys, we have beaten this to death. They simply don't get it. They are wasting our time and theirs. Think about it. If they come here to try to "listen" to us and help make the game better...by either patch, next year, etc...etc.. then they are failing miserably.

How many times do we have to say, as a community, LEAVE OUT EVERY SINGE GOSH DARN "FEATURE" known to man, and the get the gameplay right!!!!!!!!!!!! How many years have we been saying that??????

Adam himself has done a great job here. But he works for EA.
He is EA's answer to complaints. A features guy.

We have a broken driveway, and EA sent us an electrician.
Does that not make perfect sense? Same gameplay issues year after year. Rocket catch, Poor AI, Robo QB, etc.. the list is long.
And they send us someone who isn't even the gameplay dept to address our "issues".

Guys, I'm sorry. Add all this up, and EA just doesn't get it. They just don't. There will be at least 2 patches. I take Adam for his word on this. When doesn't really matter to me. This is corporate EA we're dealing with, not Adam. I have no doubts what so ever that even after the 2nd patch we will be left as frustrated as we are now.
Anyone who hopes for better is foolish given the track record, and writting on the wall.

lol...exactly my thoughts.

Thats the first patch (roster patch), we are discussing the 2nd patch.

I get that its a business decision, but id at least like to hear straight from EA, "we arent fixing issue X,Y,Z because we dont want to, this is how we want the game." That would be enough to trade the game in and not buy 2010, seriously. Ive never missed an NCAA or Madden since i can remember (at least 02, but thats bc i have that game box right here), but if they come out to say that, ill be long gone. I dont boycott things, or encourage others to, but that would speak volumes to me.

I understand they have to test the issues and see whats going on, and they dont want to tell us something and not be able to deliver, but we've heard on the roster patch, weve heard about the online dynasty, weve heard about sliders and kick returns, but not a PEEP about the defensive issues (speed, DL, blitzes, angles, yellow zones). I would just like something to say "We estimate it to be out on this day, and that could change, and it will address these issues currently, and we are looking at throwing these in there too". Is that possible? Probably not bc it does expose them to some risk (im being serious). But still, the lack of acknowledgement on the 10-12 posts i made today (long ones too) and AA made on defensive issues has me a little peeved.

Again, not an EA *****, i think my posts show that, just a consumer trying to get some answers.

I agree completely.

This whole thing with NCAA 09 has left me speechless, honestly, speechless, just shaking my head.

I use to buy NCAA and Madden every year for a long time. I went to Gamestop on Monday (July 14, the night before release) and canceled my pre-order because of all the bad things I was reading on OS. I decided to rent it first instead, and my God I'm glad I did.

This was finally the year I realized before I buy anything EA, I must rent it first.

[edaddy]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

You know that's a good point made by concretefire..If most of the problems are gameplay related issues why isn't EA sending a gameplay rep on these boards as opposed to OMT who basically states he is a feature guy..I mean Ea is all about the the community scene and interaction now right (lol)..so lets hear from a "gameplay guy"....

[ramspeedkill]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

its been a week since.............i haven't played game in about 10 days
oh well 3 more weeks for madden

[MattUMD224]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

its been a week since.............i haven't played game in about 10 days
oh well 3 more weeks for madden

just send the game to EA and get a brand new game back and then take back to get your money back or get ps2 version

[callmetaternuts]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

You know that's a good point made by concretefire..If most of the problems are gameplay related issues why isn't EA sending a gameplay rep on these boards as opposed to OMT who basically states he is a feature guy..I mean Ea is all about the the community scene and interaction now right (lol)..so lets hear from a "gameplay guy"....

I only want to hear from a gameplay guy once, to say, this is what we are fixing and how we are doing it. Besides that, i want him, you know, ACTUALLY WORKING ON GAMEPLAY!!!!!

I will admit this, the drop fest in 05 (i think) the INT issue last year, all the stuff thats gone on, it rarely bothered me or made me come here and post 32-049203 times. This has me pretty aggravated. Why am i on my PC at 9:00 PM when i could be playing NCAA? This wouldve never happened last year. I just got done playing Rock Band for an hour and i promise you, this never happened in previous years (ask my wife, she hates NCAA and Madden bc they take up all my time). Go into the dynasty headquarters, ive seen more 08 and 07 threads than 09. THAT IS A PROBLEM!!!!

This game doesnt have the feel of years past bc one side of the ball is completely aggravating. I am psyched for the roster patch, and looking forward to online dynasty, now, i'd just like some defense to go with.

And God Bless Adam, comes by every day to read our nonsense.......i feel bad for the guy, he's the one face we have at EA (one name, whatever). I'd just like to hear a bit more behind the scenes as to whats going on. We heard him tell us how quickly they were working on the roster patch, that impressed me. He told us how late they were working on the online dynasty stuff and emailing all the time to us OS'ers to fix it, but i havent heard any of that on this other stuff. A few words go along way sometimes.

Anywho, enough of me babbling, im still holding on hope for all this to get remedied!!

[callmetaternuts]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

This is a very long post, it comes for Bill Harris over at Dubious Quality. Figured this would be a good read, as he is able to post some good numbers based on what we are all seeing. Enjoy (and sorry for the length)

Today, let's delve deeper into the specific gameplay of NCAA Football 09.

Based on my own observations after playing the game for a little over five hours, I identified the following areas as "broken":

Special teams:
--kickoff and punt coverage

Offense:
--CPU quarterback completion percentage (way too high)
--CPU quarterback pass selection (almost no deep passes)
--CPU quarterback response to blitz ("psychic" power)
--CPU quarterback (ineffective as runner)
--CPU running game (ineffective)
--CPU running backs (overuse of jukes and special moves)

Defense:
--CPU defensive line (unable to pressure quarterback)
--CPU defense (unable to play man-to-man coverage)
--CPU defense (pursuit angles totally broken)

Officiating:
--penalties (almost none called)

If you're wondering if that represents all the gameplay--yeah, it pretty much does. Essentially, it's all broken. And I'm not even discussing rare situations that only happen occasionally--these are every-game occurrences.

To demonstrate what's happening, let's look at a classic matchup: Florida versus LSU in Death Valley. Heisman difficulty. Again, this is in CPU vs. CPU mode, which I use to document issues I see when I play the game.

Florida won 24-7, in case you're interested. Now, let's look at the numbers.

There were 91 total offensive plays in the game (that doesn't include special teams plays), which is low, but for our purposes, it's more than enough. Let's review the gameplay list in order.

Special teams:
1. Here's how far away the nearest tackler was when a punt returner caught the ball: 33 yards. Oh, except when it was 40 yards, which happened sometimes as well. 33 freaking yards. Really, that's so bad that it's stunning.

Offense:
1. CPU completion percentage: there were 52 passes in the game, and 36 were completed, for a 69% completion rate. That's with the QB accuracy slider reduced to 45 from the default of 50, and the "catch" slider at 0.
2. Deep passes: Of those 52 passes, 3 were thrown more than 20 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, or 5.7%. This is with the fastest wide receiver in the game playing for Florida.
3. CPU QB "psychic response" to pressure: I don't collected data for this, but it's amazing to see how often a quarterback under blitz pressure will find the open receiver and throw a strike. Almost every time, seemingly.
4. CPU QB running: Tim Tebow, the best running quarterback in the country, had 9 rushing attempts for 11 yards. His speed is rated at 85, which makes him absolutely useless, because he's running so slowly that he can't get into the open field.
5. CPU running game: 39 total rushing attempts for 85 yards, or just over 2 yards a carry. There will be games where you see much higher rushing totals, but they'll always be from one or two 60+ yard runs. There's no such thing as a consistent ground attack, at least not what from what I've seen.

Oh, and that's with run blocking at 80 and running back ability at 75, by the way. Sliders aren't going to fix this.
6. CPU jukes and special moves: another observational point. It's remarkable to see how many special moves the CPU running backs will make when a defender isn't even close enough for it to matter. This includes jukes that actually take them out of bounds (oops).

Defense:
1. Defensive line pressure on passes: with 52 passes in the game, let's assume that half of those pass plays were facing a 4-man defensive line, while the other half faced a 3-man line (that's conservative, because I think most of the passes were against a 4-man line). In other words, there were 3.5 blocks on defensive lineman per pass for 52 attempts, or a total of 182 on-one-one situations between an offensive and defensive lineman in pass situations. How many of those confrontations resulted in a defensive lineman defeating the offensive lineman and running free toward the quarterback?

5 out of 182 times, or 2.7%. With the four starting defensive ends for the two teams rated at 95,92,89, and 89 overall.

Think sliders can fix this? That's with Pass Blocking at 0 and Break Block (for the defense) at 100.

Now a knockdown would count as pressure, because it results in an incomplete pass. I put the Knockdown slider at 100, and there were 2 knockdowns out of 52 passes.
2. This is observational, but on almost every occasion where I saw a defense playing a man-to-man defense, they got burned. With the speed differences so exaggerated this year, it's money.
3. Defensive pursuit angles are comical this year--there's no other proper word to describe it. Here are two videos that show it perfectly. In this link, go to post #322 on the page and watch:
I don't want to tackle you

That was bad, but this is EPIC. Go to post #371 and watch this:
we don't want to tackle you

I'd describe those videos, but they are so incredibly embarrassing that you need to see them for yourself. Really, they're staggering. There are many times in NCAA 09 were the pursuit angles look like they were copied from Ten-Yard Fight. Seriously.

Officiating:
1. There were 2 penalties called in the entire game. That's with all penalty sliders at 100.

See what I mean? We're not talking about minor problems with gameplay here--we're talking about major, fundamental problems across the board.

That's what happens when you ship an early beta, because no one could play this game for more than a couple of hours and think it's anything more than that.

If you think I cherry-picked two teams and set this up just to get the numbers I wanted, you would be incorrect. Maybe you'll get lucky and occasionally see a game where the CPU runs effectively, or you'll see 6 penalties called (which is still too low), but you'll see all of these problems in the vast majority of games that are played. These issues aren't rare flukes--they're endemic.

Tomorrow: don't even think I'm done yet. It takes multiple days to document everything that's broken in this game.

Does that indicate an issue to anyone?

Edit: I realize this is a gameplay/patch announcement thread, so ill tie it in by saying this. The issues we all have been clamoring about are laid out in nice bullet point form in that quote. There are areas essential to the game that are not working properly. They cant jus tbe ignored or hit with a small bandaid.

At this point, i feel like im just talking to myself.......

[AuburnAlumni]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

Bill pretty much nails it yet again.

Here's the biggest thing.

The guys who are screaming bloody murder about the "obscene" issues on defense, special teams, etc.

We aren't 14 year old kids who just got here.

Bill Harris, Bill Abner, Rhombic, LBzrule, myself, tater etc.

These are guys who are grown men, have played this series throughout its entire existence, and are pretty much experts on the game and its nuances.

And this is by far the most extreme and the most frustrated I think we as a group have been with the AI.

I can handle a few too many "pick sixes".

But the complete and total castration of anything related to good defense...good pursuit angles, effective pass rush, potent blitz packages, sound pass coverage.... is infuriating.

This is THE game for me. This is it. I am a college football fanatic. And my one single "game of games" in my library has basically become an arcade game as it stands right now.

No defense, just offense, offense, offense...all game, every game.

If these issues aren't addressed or if the group that is unhappy, which I would consider "respected" among the gaming community, is simply dismissed as "whiners" and not representative of the majority of NCAAers, then I may seriously, for the first time ever...reconsider buying this game next year until I actually see what it will be like.

That's a big statement for someone who will pay 40 bucks just to have the game shipped to my house overnight on a Saturday this past year and every year prior.

[xV3L0CiTY]

Re: NCAA Football 09 Patch Announcement

This is a very long post, it comes for Bill Harris over at Dubious Quality. Figured this would be a good read, as he is able to post some good numbers based on what we are all seeing. Enjoy (and sorry for the length)

Does that indicate an issue to anyone?

Edit: I realize this is a gameplay/patch announcement thread, so ill tie it in by saying this. The issues we all have been clamoring about are laid out in nice bullet point form in that quote. There are areas essential to the game that are not working properly. They cant jus tbe ignored or hit with a small bandaid.

At this point, i feel like im just talking to myself.......

You're not talking to yourself...the rest of us are just speechless...

It's dreadful knowing a game can be released like this one...considering we spend $60 (luckily I was one who rented).

Almost every post on this board regarding NCAA 09 sums up my thoughts. EA won't listen to us, so me posting and beating a dead horse is pointless. The only real reason I have to post is to let out some steam on how aggravated I can get over this game. I don't even know what to say anymore...