The Ratings Break Down - NCAA 13 Edition

[Gotmadskillzson]

4th year in a row, let me get started in this adventure known as the NCAA 13 ratings. Let me start off by saying read & react effect ALL PLAYERS. It just isn't a WR/DB thing. It effects everybody on the field from linemen to the QB. The rating system in NCAA 13 is more powerful then it was in NCAA 12, however you simply have to go pretty high to unlock the power.

Awareness - The higher it is, the better they play. I know I say it every year, but this saying has never been so more true then it is in NCAA 13. Due to the read and react system, awareness plays a very huge factor in how well a player performs.

Not only does it make them smarter on the field, it also makes their other ratings more effective and increases their willingness to use their special moves. Plus a higher awareness player can maintain their balance better as well.

Agility - The higher it is, the sharper the cut when they juke. You will notice it the most when it is above 95.

Impact Blocking - The higher it is, the better they block. Seriously crank it up to 85 and higher for option and pistol teams. They will miss way less blocks.

Catching - This year, I like to call it the aggressiveness rating. The higher it is, the more aggressive the WR is towards catching the ball and the more animations you will see. The cut off number is 75. Anything below 75 and the WR won't go out of his way to catch the ball.

Man Coverage and Zone Coverage - This year due to the new read and react engine, I call it recovery speed. The higher it is, the quicker they can recover and it also effects their range of how much ground they can cover as well. By default, zone coverage rating is way too low for linebackers.

Game Play Enhancements

Ok folks, roll up your sleeves and have your favorite drink sitting next to you, it is time to get down and dirty. By far, too get the best game play and animations out of NCAA 13, you will have to edit the ratings if you playing against the CPU.

1. Speed, lower it. Way too many players with 90 plus speed. Not every WR, DB or RB is a speed demon. No defensive lineman should have 80 plus speed either. By and large, 98% of defensive linemen should have less then 70 for speed and a lot of the them should be in the mid 50s to low 60s.

2. Acceleration, lower it. Especially for defensive linemen and linebackers. Keep them in the low 70s, unless they are a star pass rusher or run stopper. High acceleration by too many defenders kills the running game and screens.

For corner backs, drop it too. Should be only a handful of corner backs with 90 plus acceleration.

3. Pursuit for defensive linemen, keep it in the 70s and for the big 300 pound linemen, drop them to the 50s. It will give a much more realistic flow to the ball.

4. Man Coverage/Zone Coverage:

60s - average
70s - Good
80s - Great
90s - Ball Hawk

With that said......98% of players are either good or average. Only some are great and very few should be ball hawks.

5. Awareness:

60s - Dumb
70s -Average but Inconsistent.
80s - Good
90-94 - Great
95 and above - Game Changer

Option and Pistol teams can't have their QB lower then 80 for awareness.

Impact players - 90 awareness automatically. It will make them actually play like impact players and stand out more.

True Beasts and Game Changers - 95 and above. They will make their presence known very well in the game and take it over.

6. Fixing option teams

Offensive linemen have to have 85 or above awareness, impact blocking and run blocking.

Tight Ends, 1st two WRs, 1st two RBs and the FB have to have 80 or above awareness, 70s run blocking and impact blocking.

Don't forget the QB has to have good blocking ratings as well in the 80s.

Bottom line, the smarter the QB, RBs and FB for option and pistol teams, the way better they will play.

7. Block shedding, lower it. Shouldn't be that many defenders on a team with block shedding in the 80s.

8. Play Recognition, majority of players should be in the 60s and 70s. The higher it is, the more plays they will bust up in the backfield.

9. Trucking and elusiveness, don't go above 85. If you do, you will them lean forward while running in open space, which basically slows them down. You don't want them trucking air.

10. Agility, lower it. Not everybody is highly agile and not all fast players are agile either.

Well there you go guys. Happy editing.

[scottyo60]

Re: The Ratings Break Down - NCAA 13 Edition

Do you have a recomendation for how to rate speed? I know for Marshall we had several players run in 4.3s but EA makes them bad by just lowering speed and such to even out ratings. I'd really like to get that as realistic as possible with speed ratings stretched out.

[DNMHIII]

Re: The Ratings Break Down - NCAA 13 Edition

Nice work man.....thanks.

[Lets Mosh]

What exactly does impact blocking effect?

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: The Ratings Break Down - NCAA 13 Edition

Do you have a recomendation for how to rate speed? I know for Marshall we had several players run in 4.3s but EA makes them bad by just lowering speed and such to even out ratings. I'd really like to get that as realistic as possible with speed ratings stretched out.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that not every fast player has high acceleration. Some players take a while to get to top speed. So technically you could have players with 90 or 92 speed but yet have 70 or 60 acceleration.

Just like you can have players with 92 speed but 70 or 65 agility. Which means they are a vertical threat, but yet suck running routes and changing directions.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: The Ratings Break Down - NCAA 13 Edition

What exactly does impact blocking effect?

Blocking in open space.

[Purplepower_NC]

Re: The Ratings Break Down - NCAA 13 Edition

As always skills has given a great breakdown of how the ratings work together. I am not picking up this years game (as of yet), but have used his suggestions to make a very good NCAA 12 with the proper editing.

Again, very good job Skills!

[Pmoney327]

Re: The Ratings Break Down - NCAA 13 Edition

You know what I wonder....if the Developers would have as good rationalization as you do for what the ratings really do.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: The Ratings Break Down - NCAA 13 Edition

Another very important thing to remember with the military schools, Air Force, Army and Navy. Their offensive linemen are very small in stature, literally 235 to 265 with strength in the low 70s. What they lack in size and power, they make up for in speed, acceleration and agility.

So basically their speed should be between 75-80, with acceleration in the upper 90s. Since technically their linemen is nothing more then full backs who can't catch.

[osubucks13]

Re: The Ratings Break Down - NCAA 13 Edition

This is exactly why we need a universal player editor. Would make editing things like this so much easier.

[khaliib]

Re: The Ratings Break Down - NCAA 13 Edition

To really get the best out of the Player Ratings, folks will have to throw out the OVR ratings for Team and Player and focus on the skillset each player will bring to the team.

Stamina Rating
actually has an affect on Ratings in the game (Dynasty only) were players play/movements are affected.
-Players begin to slow during a play
-Position skills are affected
-Injuries are tied into this rating (though realistic, not to sure I like this!!!)
**(The "ONLY" kicker is...., that the rating threshold needs to be below 50 for all players to be seen during plays and the sub-out needs to be set really low or to 1 for some positions)


Since I like lowered ratings and utilizing more of the scale, I max out these sliders to 100% and utilize the Specific Position Rating to differentiate between players of the same position.

Don't want to derail this this thread with Slider Discussions (hope guys don't do that), but to max the weight on certain ratings, some global sliders should be placed at 100% when using these suggestions.

QB Throw Accuracy Slider
-Seems to be tied into the ratings for Catch Animations attempted by both CPU/Hum and not so much the Accuracy of the QB.
-The 1st half of Catch Animations are triggered according how we push the L-Stick (locations/zones) on a pass.
-The 2nd half is links to the SPC Catch rating to drive which Catch Animation will play out/attempt.
-Higher SPC's will give us more dynamic attempts.
-At 100, all catch locations/zones around a Player are available (lowering only limits the zones that catch animations are programmed to)

QB Throw Accuracy Rating
-dictates how far "AWAY" from player the ball will be.
-the higher the rating, the more exact/pinpoint to the Receiver the pass will be, thus minimizing zones available which limits catch animations and why you can't throw to a area/space.
(still testing to find out what the rating needs to be set at to allow throw attempts to be placed 3,4,5 etc... yrds away from the player on a more exact scale)

RB Ability Slider
-Affects all Ball Carriers, not just RB/FB
-Makes all RB running/break tackle animations available, while differentiation being placed on the Position Ratings of the RB/Ball Carrier.
(You must lower SPD/ACC/AGL down as Skillz has noted to let the ratings dictate the type of ballcarrier while removing the Superman Robo-RB when done with rosters that maintain such high ratings in these areas)

Ball Carrier Ratings
-Lower STR Ratings drive that "Maul" type of tackle animation were they are driven to ground
-Middle STR Rating drives that ugly RB/Tackler "Stalemate" animation
-Higher STR Rating drives that "Falling forward through the Tackle" animation
**not to high as Skillz noted


NOTE:
The SPEED Threshold Slider seems to work the same as the Sliders I noted (and others to follow) and how it links with Ratings and drives Animations that come from them.

With lowering Ratings away from high ranges, at 100% (that's right) all Animations are made available while placing all the weight on the Ratings.
**Still testing (in Dynasty) to see the impact it has on each position, but...

-thus far, it seems to impact how hard DE's/OLB rush the QB and Def players attack the PAT/Punt from the edge (ie block attempts)

I'll be back, I want to test/verify a couple of thoughts that just popped into my head concerning K/P Sliders and their ratings pertaining to Blocked Kicks.

Thanks Skillz for starting this thing again.
There are definite some things we can do to get the most out of what's here.

[scottyo60]

Re: The Ratings Break Down - NCAA 13 Edition

The most important thing to keep in mind is that not every fast player has high acceleration. Some players take a while to get to top speed. So technically you could have players with 90 or 92 speed but yet have 70 or 60 acceleration.

Just like you can have players with 92 speed but 70 or 65 agility. Which means they are a vertical threat, but yet suck running routes and changing directions.

Thanks for the ideas on this. I'll be trying it out over the next few days. I really want to create a balance in the game to make it realistic. After playing multiplayer all weekend speed needs to be lowered for sure. I'd have 70 overall speed QBs who could move it felt like. Now that I think about it more due to acceleration and not the speed.

[LSUVlly]

Re: The Ratings Break Down - NCAA 13 Edition

I have a question. How can we evaluate which players receive each rating? Like, speed could be dictated by real life 40 times but awareness, acceleration, and the like are all pretty objective especially if you don't watch a certain team or aren't 100% up to date on players.

I'm just wondering how do those who change ratings like this decide the ratings the player receives?

[carnalnirvana]

Re: The Ratings Break Down - NCAA 13 Edition

To really get the best out of the Player Ratings, folks will have to throw out the OVR ratings for Team and Player and focus on the skillset each player will bring to the team.

Stamina Rating
actually has an affect on Ratings in the game (Dynasty only) were players play/movements are affected.
-Players begin to slow during a play
-Position skills are affected
-Injuries are tied into this rating (though realistic, not to sure I like this!!!)
**(The "ONLY" kicker is...., that the rating threshold needs to be below 50 for all players to be seen during plays and the sub-out needs to be set really low or to 1 for some positions)


Since I like lowered ratings and utilizing more of the scale, I max out these sliders to 100% and utilize the Specific Position Rating to differentiate between players of the same position.

Don't want to derail this this thread with Slider Discussions (hope guys don't do that), but to max the weight on certain ratings, some global sliders should be placed at 100% when using these suggestions.

QB Throw Accuracy Slider
-Seems to be tied into the ratings for Catch Animations attempted by both CPU/Hum and not so much the Accuracy of the QB.
-The 1st half of Catch Animations are triggered according how we push the L-Stick (locations/zones) on a pass.
-The 2nd half is links to the SPC Catch rating to drive which Catch Animation will play out/attempt.
-Higher SPC's will give us more dynamic attempts.
-At 100, all catch locations/zones around a Player are available (lowering only limits the zones that catch animations are programmed to)

QB Throw Accuracy Rating
-dictates how far "AWAY" from player the ball will be.
-the higher the rating, the more exact/pinpoint to the Receiver the pass will be, thus minimizing zones available which limits catch animations and why you can't throw to a area/space.
(still testing to find out what the rating needs to be set at to allow throw attempts to be placed 3,4,5 etc... yrds away from the player on a more exact scale)

RB Ability Slider
-Affects all Ball Carriers, not just RB/FB
-Makes all RB running/break tackle animations available, while differentiation being placed on the Position Ratings of the RB/Ball Carrier.
(You must lower SPD/ACC/AGL down as Skillz has noted to let the ratings dictate the type of ballcarrier while removing the Superman Robo-RB when done with rosters that maintain such high ratings in these areas)

Ball Carrier Ratings
-Lower STR Ratings drive that "Maul" type of tackle animation were they are driven to ground
-Middle STR Rating drives that ugly RB/Tackler "Stalemate" animation
-Higher STR Rating drives that "Falling forward through the Tackle" animation
**not to high as Skillz noted


NOTE:
The SPEED Threshold Slider seems to work the same as the Sliders I noted (and others to follow) and how it links with Ratings and drives Animations that come from them.

With lowering Ratings away from high ranges, at 100% (that's right) all Animations are made available while placing all the weight on the Ratings.
**Still testing (in Dynasty) to see the impact it has on each position, but...

-thus far, it seems to impact how hard DE's/OLB rush the QB and Def players attack the PAT/Punt from the edge (ie block attempts)

I'll be back, I want to test/verify a couple of thoughts that just popped into my head concerning K/P Sliders and their ratings pertaining to Blocked Kicks.

Thanks Skillz for starting this thing again.
There are definite some things we can do to get the most out of what's here.

very interesting read, i am very interested to hear more if you ever do a detailed write up

[Silent Nature]

Re: The Ratings Break Down - NCAA 13 Edition

Great read.

My only concern is that after a year of season is played, incoming freshmen will come in all messed up with the ratings and be held to different standards than the edited roster set.