What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

[Lord Marshall X]

Every weekday I will come out with a flaw with this game and I want to see how many I can do. I think can easily pump out a months' worth. These problems are partially our fault as a community. I'll explain.

A few things about me.

• I play on Heisman. (So don't say well this and that works for me if you don't play on Heisman.)

• The computer will ALWAYS be secondary to a person when it comes to competition. That's why Online dynasties are so popular. (So when I hear. "Well in my Offline Dynasty." I don't care.
  EDIT. - I have to put this side note in because i saw that people took offense to me talking about their offline dynasty. What i am saying is if you play an online dynasty and the COMPUTER does not compete with you enough, especially in recruiting then join an online dynasty. Because real people have an insight and a strategy beyond what a computer could ever do. the only way the computer really beats in anything is this game is when it blatantly cheats.)

• I've been in a large online Dynasty that has run 25+ seasons in 2009 and 2010. I play this game EVERY DAY 365 until the next one comes out.

FLAW #1

When I hear the NCAA community talk about this game. These are things I hear.

"How come we don't have more cleats?"

"We need NIKE armband number 12!"

If you play this game a lot you NEVER watch the stadium entrances anymore!!!! You normally skip over the beginning of the ESPN overlay!!!
The community BEGS for things that are in essence so shallow and should be an afterthought. The GAMEPLAY suffers when things that are on the forefront of way too many wish list.

Now I'm all for improved commentary. God knows we need it but that's hours worth of quality enhancements not 2 minutes! Man we don't think things through!

And that's what really Grinds my Gears!

[NDAlum]

Re: What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

Another elitist thread bashing everything different. Good story OP

[Deegeezy]

Re: What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

PRETTY LAME

[demondecs21]

Re: What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

Some one likes family guy.....

i think the game is pretty good my self, btw everygame is going to have it problems.

[Lord Marshall X]

Re: What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

Some one likes family guy.....

i think the game is pretty good my self, btw everygame is going to have it problems.

We will see how you feel when I get to day 30. I can easily get there. I did Grinds my gears because I knew it would catch peoples attention.

[Segagendude]

Re: What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

This should be a blog. I don't care to read this junk. Thanks.

[DrAnguish]

Re: What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

I don't have a problem with posts like this, only because there is a lot of truth to it.

I do think that every year development time needs to go into the small things in the game (appearances / additional equipment / hairstyles, etc...) because little items like that do add icing to the cake...

... but rightfully the "cake" (i.e. the majority of the game) definitely needs the most attention when in development. I love the game, but yes, there are some little oddities that definitely need addressing (not going to get into them here, but still...)

Hopefully EA will budget as much time as they can to gameplay improvements, and then afterwards they can spend the remaining time on other things.

[NDAlum]

Re: What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

I don't have a problem with posts like this, only because there is a lot of truth to it.

I do think that every year development time needs to go into the small things in the game (appearances / additional equipment / hairstyles, etc...) because little items like that do add icing to the cake...

... but rightfully the "cake" (i.e. the majority of the game) definitely needs the most attention when in development. I love the game, but yes, there are some little oddities that definitely need addressing (not going to get into them here, but still...)

Hopefully EA will budget as much time as they can to gameplay improvements, and then afterwards they can spend the remaining time on other things.

I have a problem with egocentric posters.

"The computer will ALWAYS be secondary to a person when it comes to competition. That's why Online dynasties are so popular. (So when I hear. "Well in my Offline Dynasty." I don't care.) "

That's not truth, that pure opinion.

[DrAnguish]

Re: What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

ND Alum, I do agree with you... and like I said there's 'A lot" of truth.... not 'All" truth.

And one thing I'll say is this: Even if it is an "online dynasty", unless you are playing every single game against human opponents (not likely), you still have to deal with the computer (to me its like two totally different game types as well... you have to have one game plan for human games and one for CPU games)

[z Revis]

Re: What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

Well in my offline dynasty....

I still watch the custom entrances, every time.

I don't think the gameplay is suffering.. at all..

And I definitely want dynamic commentary more than anything(ala NBA 2k11).

/thread.

[Lord Marshall X]

Re: What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

Let me clarify for some people do not hate offline dynasties but when people in offline dynasties complain about things like how hard the computer recruits and things that destroy online dynasties because one person wants more challenge . . . from the computer. This is another topic in my 30 days. So stay posted.

[bh446066]

Re: What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

29 more installments? THAT would grind my gears. I'm going to throw a little unsolicited advice your way. Take all that negative energy and focus it on something positive, or at least counter every grinded gear with something you like, that way it doesn't come off so "trollish".

[cr00v]

Re: What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

5* thread

ITT people who are butthurt because OP is referring to them

[Pogo27]

Re: What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

That's not truth, that pure opinion.

Truth & Opinion are not mutually exclusive.

Fact & Opinion are mutually exclusive however.



That the computer competition is not as tough as human competition is an opinion that is both true and false at the same time. If you're a better player than all of your friends, and none of your friends are tougher than the computer on Heisman difficulty, then the computer is tougher competition than all of your friends.

If you have friends who are tougher than the computer on the highest difficulty, regardless of whether or not they can beat you, if it's noticeably tougher, than those friends are tougher competition than the computer.



But here's some fact: An AVERAGE human player plays BETTER than the computer on any difficulty.

I don't mean that the computer isn't tougher. So, what do I mean that the human "plays better"? (And perhaps this is to the point the OP was making.)


The Computer is allowed magic plays. And we all know what this means. You sometimes play a game in which you have 20 tackles for loss and then the computer is 10/10 on 3rd down conversions because while they couldn't move the ball ever on first or second down, they converted every 3rd & long play. And this is just one example.

But really the point is, a human vs human match will see a relatively equal amount of broken tackles, completed passes, yardage per play, completion percentage, etc. with slight variances for the skill level of the humans controlling the players and the players individual skill levels. Human have game styles they play by, realistic tendencies you can pick up on, and at the same time, the ability to take you completely by surprise on any given down.

The computer? Not so much. The game just doesn't seem to flow right. Now, you can help a lot of this by adjust difficulty sliders, penalty sliders, speed threshold, and even coaching sliders (in offline dynasty for this anyway). But even here, the computer gameplay just doesn't feel quite right, ever. They have terrible clock management abilities. They have a tendency to call plays that NEVER work just because EA put them in a playbook without making sure they work (and didn't test it apparently, because some plays never work) and continue to call them.

By the end of the game, the stats my look all right (or they may not, because I see a lot of CPU QBs regularly over 70% pass completion against me on default Heisman, and to be honest, it's more like 95% most of the time, we're talking like 21/23 pass complete). But the game sometimes just doesn't feel right.



As to the original gear grinding complaint... some people always watch the stadium entrances. Some people watch them occasionally. Some people watch them never. Just because you never watch them any more doesn't mean no one watches them. Personally, I'm to the point where I'm only playing about one game a day (absolute maximum) any more so I actually rarely skip anything, including timeouts.

But with that said, I do think the complaining about minute details that are hardly (if at all) noticeable during actual gameplay like armbands and cleat styles. With that said though, dreads out of the back of helmets are quite noticeable and extremely prevalent in today's football. I think they're long overdue. If the choice though is between perfect gameplay or dreads? I pick gameplay every time.

I don't think the choice is that simple though. I mean, first and foremost, if EA doesn't upgrade graphics every year, how well do you think the game will sell? "Hey guys, we didn't improve anything. We just fixed everything that was broke last year. Oh yeah, and instead of just releasing it as a free patch to fix the game we already sold you, we're going to charge you $60 again."

Now let's face it, that's kind of close to what they're already doing, but at least they're also slightly upgrading the look & feel at the same time.

But on top of that... I don't think it's a straight choice to fix bugs or work on graphics. I think they have graphics people and gameplay people. Having the graphics people work on gameplay issues would honestly probably result in worse gameplay than it already is... so let the graphics people work on graphics and the gameplay people work on gameplay.


In the meantime, commentary is an absolute must fix. And I say fix, because it's something I consider to be broken at the moment. And if I were in charge at EA, it is perhaps the issue I'd put the highest priority on, for two reasons.
1) It's not that complicated to fix compared to some of the other issues (I'm guessing).
2) It can add a significant amount to the game experience.


First suggestion? If the games not on TV, don't have commentators. What even happened to this idea in the first place? This used to be in NCAA, but now Brad & Kirk commentate every game? How can you have worked toward breaking commentary by adding MORE of it? Here's how: LESS IS MORE!

Now then, as long as non-televised games are going to have no commentary...with nationally televised games getting Brad & Kirk, we need another pair of voices for the regionally televised games. And to be completely honest, this doesn't have to be name commentators either. Go hire three voice actors (two dudes and a sideline reporter). Give them fictional names or keep them unnamed. Ultimately though, the point is, it's not like real commentating where you need the ability to continuously speak clearly and know what you're talking about as the action takes place on the field. No, you just need to record a ton of soundbytes which EA plays at the right time (and a lot of times, at the wrong time, making the commentator seem like an idiot). You just need 3 people who can speak with the right tone of voice for football commentary.


Now, just a rough guesstimate, but probably 95% of Brad's lines can be copied word for word and said by the voice actor play-by-play guy. Probably 100% of Erin Andrews's lines can be copied word for word and said by the voice actor doing the sideline reporting. As for Kirk, it's smaller, but still probably at least half of what he says can be copied word for word, while the rest just needs to be rephrased, because every color commentator is a little different and has their own way of explaining things.


Just having another set of voices in the box for regionally televised games (and no commentary for non-televised) would mix it up quite a bit for anyone playing dynasties, even if they are still saying mostly the same stuff.

And if you keep the commentators' lines similar enough, you can actually mix and match them. You can pair Brad with Kirk or the hired voice actor color commentary guy. You can pair Kirk with Brad or the hired voice actor play by play guy. And in each of these situations you can use either Erin Andrews or the voice actor Sideline reporter. This gives you 8 combinations of voices without the three existing voices recording a single second of new commentary.

But the commentary needs to be far, far, far, far, far more expansive than it is now. Need a lot more lines.

You can make comparisons to NBA 2k11 if you want, but I don't even want to go outside of EA. The commentary for NCAA Football and FIFA is night and day. FIFA has amazing commentary compared to NCAA Football. I think the Tiburon guys need to talk to the EA Canada guys to get some tips on the commentary.

[foo55]

Re: What Grinds my Gears 10/28/10 (Part 1)

i agree, so many complaints about cosmetics when in truth no one gives a damn about most of that stuff 1mth after release.

remember when people were calling it a deal breaker because the unis werent getting dirty? lol