NCAA Football 14 Gameplay Hands-On

[Sausage]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Gameplay Hands-On

Dont get me wrong, I like the direction we are going in with this years title, but I am really just getting annoyed with the half *** improvements.

-fixing the running game, but not completely cause there is still "swerve" running and not even touching the horrible running animations
-fixing the blocking, but still not having a pocket for the QB and still not fixing the patty cake animations...also no arm tackling from blocks
-still don't know if the defense "swerve" runs or if any "non-ball carrier" uses this new system - if this was only implemented with the ball carrier then what is the point (THIS is the most important thing to me, bc once I make a cut, the defense should have to use foot planting as well. If this isn't in, then the ball carrier foot planting is literally just window dressing. This is a difference between changing the way the game is played, and another semi-pointless addition)
-god only knows with the presentation stuff, but that all sounds pretty food so far
-havent even touched special teams (punt returns mostly)...AGAIN
-coaching carousel from 2 years ago, untouched last year
-A WHOLE YEAR SPENT MAKING "AUTHENTIC" PRE-GAME RUN OUTS AND YOU BASICALLY THROW ALL OF IT AWAY THE NEXT YEAR
-many more that i cant think of


I'm just sick of these issues being in the game year after year. Im excited for the game and all, but throw me a friggin bone here EA, I wanna get really fired up about one of your football games for once - YOURS IS THE ONLY ONE IN TOWN - but all I can do is get moderately overjoyed bc once I get pumped hearing about your foot planting stuff, someone tells us it's not really done completely and I come right back down to earth

I feel you UMHester04, sadly what happens is we run out buy the retail version and all of these band-aid fixes eventually start getting loose and we see all the holes after one half of play.

I know this will sound crazy, but I'm already disappointed in NCAA 14, because these devs truly don't learn from there mistakes of putting a band-aid on gaping wounds that needs immediate surgery to repair and months of rehab, lol.

[ghettogeeksta]

Thanks for the honest preview, it was so refreshing not to hear stock/PC answers from people trying their best to hype up this game. Your preview is about what I expected from this title, good preview.

[Swamp Swagger]

Just another little jump from one version to the next I guess but that usually all I need.

Seems EA just removes things then advertises little new things to no end.

[PVarck31]

Some of the stuff sounds good. It will probably be fun, but I guess it was too much to expect the legacy issues to be fixed this gen.

If this stuff isn't fixed for next gen, then Tiburon better run for the hills. (Figure of speech, not a threat.)

[horrormaster]

So when is there going to be a football game of any kind that has proper player interaction, distinct difference between different rated players, and no bs (money plays, nano blitzes, etc.)?

[aerovt]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Gameplay Hands-On

...
-A WHOLE YEAR SPENT MAKING "AUTHENTIC" PRE-GAME RUN OUTS AND YOU BASICALLY THROW ALL OF IT AWAY THE NEXT YEAR
...

uhh, how do you expect them to rerelease this feature as a back of the box bullet if they just leave it in??

On a more serious note though, that part is not really all that concerning to me. After I watched the trailers that one time in their preview they released before the game was released, I saw no reason to ever watch them again and would always just fast forward the opening. Everything else you said was pretty spot on

[UMhester04]

uhh, how do you expect them to rerelease this feature as a back of the box bullet if they just leave it in??

On a more serious note though, that part is not really all that concerning to me. After I watched the trailers that one time in their preview they released before the game was released, I saw no reason to ever watch them again and would always just fast forward the opening. Everything else you said was pretty spot on

My reasoning in saying this was they spent so much time on that feature and just scrapped it the next year. They also did this with so many features in Madden, like the virtual difficulty thing they had you do to determine your difficulty setting in 09 I think, and the rewind feature as well.

They spend all this time on these features and then pull them the next year, instead of working on core features that fans are screaming for. That's what makes MLB The Show and NBA 2K so great, and EA sports football series' just mediocre (in my opinion)

[Big FN Deal]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Gameplay Hands-On

"On a passing play, I saw a taller receiver against my 2 shorter defensive backs out jump them both to come down with a nice catch. The wide receiver then spun away and took off for a good 10 yards before my defenders caught back up to him. While you could tell the wide out was the taller of all three that jumped, it would have been nice to see more of a battle for the ball between the players. Instead it was the same old 3 players jumping straight up with no real interaction between them. The outcome of the play was realistic, but would have loved to see some more physical interaction between the players, whether that be all three players jostling for position or the defensive backs trying to swat the ball away."

On the subject of WR/DB interaction I do have a question that would be nice to get an answer for between now and the time M25 starts its' playbook. Why can't the IE 2 augment/effect the ball carrier on a jump catch or INT when landing?

The bigger issue is IE 2 not effecting every player, ALL the time but for M13 we were shown this comparison between M12 without IE and M13 with IE. In that comparison, the IE in M13 allowed the players to collide and effect each other midair instead of clipping through like in M12. Considering that, why don't any of these midair collisions result in players falling down or stumbling when landing, instead of hitting the ground running? I ask hoping something can be done about this before release of NCAA 14 and if not, maybe before release of M25.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwFkW3GEKws

It's at around the 2:20 mark in this video and considering that thing Victor Lugo mentioned about tension and balance, I would think this could be tuned to allow for receivers and defenders to stumble, fall down, be undercut, etc, on catches/ints, like they can any other time they carry the ball.

[tanchl]

Lost me at "no real improvements in the penalties" area. Why can't penalties be done realistically?

[Big FN Deal]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Gameplay Hands-On

My reasoning in saying this was they spent so much time on that feature and just scrapped it the next year. They also did this with so many features in Madden, like the virtual difficulty thing they had you do to determine your difficulty setting in 09 I think, and the rewind feature as well.

They spend all this time on these features and then pull them the next year, instead of working on core features that fans are screaming for. That's what makes MLB The Show and NBA 2K so great, and EA sports football series' just mediocre (in my opinion)

From what I understand they didn't scrap or remove them, they use them to create a pregame music video montage in NCAA 14 pregame. It's likely similar to what M13 did with team run outs added in M12, making them into a montage, except NCAA 14 is adding a music element to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re-HmFem-dg

Taking those montages and presumably putting the to music pregame instead of halftime like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3ng3dTSq_g

I hope M25 follows suit and uses this music video format for pregame too.

[UMhester04]

From what I understand they didn't scrap or remove them, they use them to create a pregame music video montage in NCAA 14 pregame. It's likely similar to what M13 did with team run outs added in M12, making them into a montage, except NCAA 14 is adding a music element to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re-HmFem-dg

Taking those montages and presumably putting the to music pregame instead of halftime like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3ng3dTSq_g

I hope M25 follows suit and uses this music video format for pregame too.

Ah, I feel much better then.

[ghettogeeksta]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Gameplay Hands-On

Lost me at "no real improvements in the penalties" area. Why can't penalties be done realistically?

Because they still use a ton of predetermined canned animations, how can you call penalties on predetermined outcomes? unless they motion captured penalty animations and made them predetermined too. If they did that people would find a way to trigger them and exploit it which would ruin the game even more.

[BenGerman]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Gameplay Hands-On

I see lots of good news here:

- Option game is improved. IF this is really the case, then it will not only be fun to play in the spread-option, but challenging to play against it.

- Best news in the article for me? Different difficulties for Offense and Defense. This is a very welcome change! I can't wait to toy with the settings.

- Getting a push one way or the other implies that ratings are going to actually matter for the lines. I'd love better interaction, but I'd take just having the ratings working properly.

- I'll say it again: the field looks so improved over last year. It's finally green.

- The bugs from IE 1.0 have been cleaned up.

[volwalker]

Looks like I will stick with playing NCAA 06. I have been playing that game consistently for 8 years and I am still having tons of fun and getting a challenge from it. The biggest disappointment with the next -gen game for me has always been the running animations. Why they could never fix that is beyond me.

LONG LIVE NCAA 06!!!!!!

[DJ]

I see lots of good news here:

- Option game is improved. IF this is really the case, then it will not only be fun to play in the spread-option, but challenging to play against it.

- Best news in the article for me? Different difficulties for Offense and Defense. This is a very welcome change! I can't wait to toy with the settings.

- Getting a push one way or the other implies that ratings are going to actually matter for the lines. I'd love better interaction, but I'd take just having the ratings working properly.

- I'll say it again: the field looks so improved over last year. It's finally green.

- The bugs from IE 1.0 have been cleaned up.

Yeah overall I'm liking what was mentioned in Steve's preview. I know these games aren't going to be perfect. Nothing has really scared me away yet.. I'm still curious what Season and Dynasty will have to offer.