NCAA Football 14 Impressions Thread

[kc10785]

I see a lot of people complaining about the lack of D in 14 and I'm not really seeing it, especially after practicing D and playing online.

I'm here to defend the D.

I see it (perceived lack of D) more of a game-speed/momentum engine unfamiliarity from us. The ability to drive a lineman back into the quarterback or to perform lineman moves to get to or disrupt the QB, that actually work is great....even bumping that go-to tight end at the line results in a timing disruption now. You don't win them all but you do make more of a non-cheesy difference on D at the line than years past, and all without actually having to hit the QB (though its still great to do). The right stick+turbo in the right situation is great weapon at the line. Now, you also have to make the correct line blocking assignments or get hammered by better teams/game play.

Playing against Alabama's D-line is distinctly different than playing against Florida Atlantic's D-line.

The new D-line play and infinity engine, makes that pocket so much more dynamic and unpredictable now and a shrinking pocket DOES affect the QB and the offense (rushed releases, deflected passes, "tuck rule" types of hits, scrambles, etc.). The right stick moves feel natural and with certain players is almost OP IMO if anything. As a D-lineman, I've busted through the line on Heisman (using Syracuse) and almost taken the hand-off myself from the QB against the read option, pushed the QB into the ground with his own lineman, swim moves, spin moves, bull rushes, swatting passes, containing read-option running lanes, covering tight ends, covering RBs, forcing the pocket in a direction opposite of the designed play, blowing up lead blockers,

Press covering and bumping receivers has never been more satisfying. In some instances, they don't get off the line at all before the play ends because of battling with a good/superior CB and good defensive scheming. If anything CB user pick is OP, but i think its just me being used to doing it.

I think people expected to be handed the usual easy AI wins out of the box by using the same gimmicks on D that they used in the past, and they simply don't work as reliably as in years past. All of the complaints seem to be slider-fixable unless someone tells us the sliders aren't working.

I don't think you can just sit in the secondary now as a super MLB, or jump snapping(I know not in this year) DL all the time, expect the AI to pick up their slack and be successful, you have to mix it up and play the situation yourself correctly or get beat.

The read-option/triple threat is definitely not OP when running the right D against it.

Playing against a top QB is not at all like playing against a lower tier QB in accuracy, decision making, accuracy speed, etc. Blocking was improved last year, but wasn't done very good compared to this year. This year with improved blocking its perceived as OP. Its not, its the flavor of the week.

Deep/jump fades are much harder because the D can battle for the ball, by bumping, posting-up, pushing out of bounds, so having the correct player in coverage is also now more important instead of just the fast guy. You can now play the big bump coverage corner that's a true lock-down cover guy.

Overall I think the EA NCAA 14 team did a great job and the franchise is headed in a great direction on O, and on D game-play. It has a small issues here and there with recruiting and presentation, but definitely not deal breakers by any means.

This is a great counter response to those who haven't figured out the D side of the ball. I actually like the D-Line and LB play specially when I controlling them. My problem is the zone defense it's horrible! Players don't react to players entering there zone. My main problem with this game is the actual facts that's wrong with this game. In correct sim stats, Touchback TD glitch, Holding calls (Like flight said), Roster share freezing up if you have ovet 90 people on your friends list, game slowing down in second half, punts always bouncing forward, grey gace mask, cpu DB glitch, plus more.

This is not complaining this is mistakes in the game. (This whole comment wasn't for you seanhazz)

Sent From a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 with Tapatalk 4

[booker21]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Available For Season Ticket Subscribers, Post Your Impressions H

Zone aggressive adjustment is screwing a pretty great game up. It's always just one thing with EA. I thought someone interviewed Josh H about the DB Glitch - well the formula for the DB Glitch stems from the nucleus that is the Aggressive Zone coverage adjustment.

Try for yourself:

Around the 3rd quarter, pause game - settings and select sides. Switch to CPU and then in the play select screen press L1 (adjustments) and see the defense is set to Coverage = Aggressive. Notice it is the only value that has been changed, nothing else.

I'm still testing for a fix - but this is the exact reason the DB glitch occured in NCAA 13 - and has been around in NCAA 12 (possibly 11). I'm posting this in the bug thread - doubt it will be looked at, but hopefully it will gain ground before the next damn game is out.

This ^

Hopefully EA fix this in a patch.

[XxJustAguessxX]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Available For Season Ticket Subscribers, Post Your Impressions H

I liked how the challenge systems seems to be fixed. A couple calls went my way and when replayed they were called correctlty, they also fixed the camera angles on the challenge replay.

[hazelhood19]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Available For Season Ticket Subscribers, Post Your Impressions H

Yeah, holding calls I am on board with. Those never had a problem being called when you bump it up a little. I haven't had a problem with getting holding calls this year.

[mebby]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Available For Season Ticket Subscribers, Post Your Impressions H

I've seen the DB glitch once but that's it. I've also increased the CPU coverage slider to around 60 so maybe that's made a difference?

I play on Heisman.

[sooner1]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Available For Season Ticket Subscribers, Post Your Impressions H

I see a lot of people complaining about the lack of D in 14 and I'm not really seeing it, especially after practicing D and playing online.

I'm here to defend the D.

I see it (perceived lack of D) more of a game-speed/momentum engine unfamiliarity from us. The ability to drive a lineman back into the quarterback or to perform lineman moves to get to or disrupt the QB, that actually work is great....even bumping that go-to tight end at the line results in a timing disruption now. You don't win them all but you do make more of a non-cheesy difference on D at the line than years past, and all without actually having to hit the QB (though its still great to do). The right stick+turbo in the right situation is great weapon at the line. Now, you also have to make the correct line blocking assignments or get hammered by better teams/game play.

Playing against Alabama's D-line is distinctly different than playing against Florida Atlantic's D-line.

The new D-line play and infinity engine, makes that pocket so much more dynamic and unpredictable now and a shrinking pocket DOES affect the QB and the offense (rushed releases, deflected passes, "tuck rule" types of hits, scrambles, etc.). The right stick moves feel natural and with certain players is almost OP IMO if anything. As a D-lineman, I've busted through the line on Heisman (using Syracuse) and almost taken the hand-off myself from the QB against the read option, pushed the QB into the ground with his own lineman, swim moves, spin moves, bull rushes, swatting passes, containing read-option running lanes, covering tight ends, covering RBs, forcing the pocket in a direction opposite of the designed play, blowing up lead blockers,

Press covering and bumping receivers has never been more satisfying. In some instances, they don't get off the line at all before the play ends because of battling with a good/superior CB and good defensive scheming. If anything CB user pick is OP, but i think its just me being used to doing it.

I think people expected to be handed the usual easy AI wins out of the box by using the same gimmicks on D that they used in the past, and they simply don't work as reliably as in years past. All of the complaints seem to be slider-fixable unless someone tells us the sliders aren't working.

I don't think you can just sit in the secondary now as a super MLB, or jump snapping(I know not in this year) DL all the time, expect the AI to pick up their slack and be successful, you have to mix it up and play the situation yourself correctly or get beat.

The read-option/triple threat is definitely not OP when running the right D against it.

Playing against a top QB is not at all like playing against a lower tier QB in accuracy, decision making, accuracy speed, etc. Blocking was improved last year, but wasn't done very good compared to this year. This year with improved blocking its perceived as OP. Its not, its the flavor of the week.

Deep/jump fades are much harder because the D can battle for the ball, by bumping, posting-up, pushing out of bounds, so having the correct player in coverage is also now more important instead of just the fast guy. You can now play the big bump coverage corner that's a true lock-down cover guy.

Overall I think the EA NCAA 14 team did a great job and the franchise is headed in a great direction on O, and on D game-play. It has a small issues here and there with recruiting and presentation, but definitely not deal breakers by any means.

Defense is so bad that I can run dives all day out of shotgun. Also pretty sad that this years D is so bad that you need to play on a linemen to get any pressure.

[mebby]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Available For Season Ticket Subscribers, Post Your Impressions H

Defense is so bad that I can run dives all day out of shotgun. Also pretty sad that this years D is so bad that you need to play on a linemen to get any pressure.

I'll send you my sliders once I can get to them again. Playing on Heisman with the sliders I have it's impossible to consistently run shotgun draws up the middle. The only thing I've had success running consistently is the read option but that's to be expected as it can happen in real life too unless they start running the right blitzes or specifically playing to guard it. And then you just start running the play action and hope you get something out of it.

I don't know guys... I'm finding quite a bit of fun in this game. It's definitely not perfect but for me... it's fun enough.

[kwjones16]

Playing Dynasty on PS3 with Nebraska... if editing a players equipment, the team color is showing up as white instead of red. Same is the case when trying to make shoes black and team color instead of the incorrect default of white. Nebraska always wears black shoes. Also not to be a Homer but Tayor Martinez got screwed in the speed rating. An 88 speed for one of the fastest players in the country regardless of position is a slap in the face.

[BenGerman]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Available For Season Ticket Subscribers, Post Your Impressions H

Again, I think my experience has been a little different than everyone else. My last five games (as UF):

W: 23-20 (Toledo)
W: 20-17 (Miami)
W: 27-17 (Tennessee)
W: 17-13 (Kentucky)
L: 13-33 (Arkansas)

If anything, I think there has been too much good defense from what I've seen. I've been able to mix in zones, blitzes, and man and had a lot of success with it. The zones are a little too soft up the middle, but I'm hoping that can be addressed via patch or sliders.

Plus, I have been getting a huge pass rush with my front four, which is something that I've never had in a game of NCAA Football.

[tyberious4now]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Available For Season Ticket Subscribers, Post Your Impressions H

Buy or no buy that is the question? Right now I'm at the no buy stage until a patch is done and it fix what is wrong with this game!

[Dogslax41]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Available For Season Ticket Subscribers, Post Your Impressions H

After logging about 10-15 games (exhibition and Hawaii dynasty) MY opinion of the game has remained unchanged from my initial reaction, a fantastic game that is severely crippled by poor balance creating game-breaking flaws in key technical areas.

This has been one of if not the most frustrating games that I have ever played because it is so close to being the most fun and best football game I have ever played, but fails miserably in areas that right now, unaddressed will keep me from buying the game. The irony of this is that it seems like EA’s additions to the game are the cause of the issue because they have failed to balance gameplay additions with pre-existing gameplay state.

I’ll start with the gamebreaking bad for me.

• Pass coverage for the human and the cpu have some horrendous balancing issues that lead to major problems. If gameplan is set to conservative or normal, zone coverage defenders will ignore players running through their zone and only pick them up if they stop and camp in their circle on influence. This leads to slants and drags running free through zone coverage and make playing zone impossible in key medium yardage situations because players refuse to pick up and pass on receivers. When set to aggressive gameplan defenders will almost run the route for the receiver and take superhuman routes and breaks on the ball. I’ll be honest, I hated and haven’t used these gameplan adjustments after a year or two after they were integrated because I always felt they were cheap and provided an unrealistic boost (big hit, strip and jump snap settings just felt cheesy and guessing run always reminded me of guessing the opponents play on Tecmo Bowl and the jail break that ensued)

I can understand how for some these gameplan additions are great additions to the game and need to be there, but it seems like programmers failed miserably to balance their integration into the game. The coverage gameplan setting seems to trump any coverage slider changes and essentially breaks both human and cpu coverage and the user can’t make any adjustments to fix those issues. Now while playing I know that if I call a pass play and the CPUs secondary’s first step is back I can hit a slant, drag or post with ease. From the snap I can tell if a defender is going to run my receiver’s route and there is no way he is getting separation no matter what the route is, perfect example of this are the curl routes. In reality if a defender is on a receivers hip stride for stride the curl is going to break his ankles, but in the game the defender turns in time with the receiver when in aggressive mode and more often than not picks the pass. From a human side this makes CPU defenses shutting me down impossible unless the defense just simply far outskills my offense (USC v Hawaii). For games where the CPU is equal to or even moderately better than my team the games are not nearly the 50/50 endeavor that they should be because of the ease of completing 5-10 yard passes against zone keeping drives alive.

• This leads to the second major issue for me, CPU running defense is non existent. The irony of this is that this appears to be the case because EA did such a good job with o line schemes, second level blocking and the option game. If you are remotely able to read the blocking scheme and defensive setup you are all but guaranteed 4-10 yards and no adjustment of defensive sliders or game level settings are going to help. The major issue that seems to be impacting this is that EA did a great job with implementing offensive line improvements but since no player rating in the game other than speed seems to have any impact on gameplay, the defenders are at a severe disadvantage because even a dominant defensive line player can be picked up and blocked by the worst of offensive linemen and now that they take proper angles and pick up defenders better you get to the second level with ease now. Granted I have only broken one major run over 30 yards in all of my games, but the automatic 5-10 yards combined with the coverage issues make it almost impossible for the CPU to stop me and I find that I regularly have 15-18 play touchdown drives.

The painful part about all of this is that other than these two issues the game is fantastic and would be a ton of fun to play.

Pros for me

• ESPN integration is finally done well and is almost perfect (give me video highlights during studio updates and halftime and add a weekly wrap up show and its perfect)

In game stat overlays, player specific commentary, team specific commentary and game trend specific commentary all add life to a game
Studio updates highlighting player performance add immersion to dynasties and make you interested in other players around the country

• Recruiting is fantastic. I know some don’t like the removal of the calls but I think its great. Its not time consuming and tedious but still allows you to adjust time focused on players. The randomness combined with the bonus points for pitch correlation to interests and bonus points for performance on the field at a recruits position. Recruiting is now difficult and requires thought and strategy but without being overly time consuming and keeping you off the field.
• Coaching carousel gets a huge upgrade and makes it interesting to me now that there is a progression slider. This for me fixes what was a broken useless system and makes it a huge part of the game. Being able to set progression to slowest means you won’t be Kunte Rockne after one year at SMU and makes you actually invest time. I love that I got use to using the WR matchup feature during exhibition then had it ripped out of my hands when I started my dynasty as a fresh coach.
• Most importantly the game looks and feels beautiful and plays a very smooth and gorgeous game of football. Physics and animations have been blended very well and while there are some comical moments overall the feel of the game is fantastic. It has just enough and not too many of those moments that make you yell out loud and then have to watch the replay over and over just to appreciate what happened.

There are plenty of other smaller pros (vibrant color style works well on the field, menus are gorgeous, Nike skills are a fantastic addition) and cons (atmosphere is still awful with no crowd interaction, uniform inaccuracies, button and menu lag, missing TD replay issues, sidelines are N64 level graphically) but the general feel for me is that EA did itself a major disservice and release an unfinished game because this game feels 2/3 months away from near perfection and jumping into NBA2k and The Shows weight class.

The biggest issue is that the two major gripes that I have with the game can’t be fixed with sliders. I’ve gotten too old to be able to invest all my time adjusting sliders for sports games anymore and had said if that was what NCAA demanded is was going to be a no go for me, but the game is so good that if these issues could be fixed with sliders I probably would have jumped and been forced to do it because the game is really that good outside of those issues.

[gogators]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Available For Season Ticket Subscribers, Post Your Impressions H

Again, I think my experience has been a little different than everyone else. My last five games (as UF):

W: 23-20 (Toledo)
W: 20-17 (Miami)
W: 27-17 (Tennessee)
W: 17-13 (Kentucky)
L: 13-33 (Arkansas)

If anything, I think there has been too much good defense from what I've seen. I've been able to mix in zones, blitzes, and man and had a lot of success with it. The zones are a little too soft up the middle, but I'm hoping that can be addressed via patch or sliders.

Plus, I have been getting a huge pass rush with my front four, which is something that I've never had in a game of NCAA Football.

What is your slider set and difficulty. Want to give them a try. Maybe a moot point because of tuner sets and a patch that is out on retail version.

[hazelhood19]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Available For Season Ticket Subscribers, Post Your Impressions H

Again, I think my experience has been a little different than everyone else. My last five games (as UF):

W: 23-20 (Toledo)
W: 20-17 (Miami)
W: 27-17 (Tennessee)
W: 17-13 (Kentucky)
L: 13-33 (Arkansas)

If anything, I think there has been too much good defense from what I've seen. I've been able to mix in zones, blitzes, and man and had a lot of success with it. The zones are a little too soft up the middle, but I'm hoping that can be addressed via patch or sliders.

Plus, I have been getting a huge pass rush with my front four, which is something that I've never had in a game of NCAA Football.

My only gripe so far with this game is the front four pressure. What sliders are you using, and are you user'ing the dline or leaving that for the CPU?

[BenGerman]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Available For Season Ticket Subscribers, Post Your Impressions H

My only gripe so far with this game is the front four pressure. What sliders are you using, and are you user'ing the dline or leaving that for the CPU?

I switch off between user DL and user FS.

My sliders are pretty simple. Heisman difficulty on Offense, AA on Defense.

Speed: Normal
Threshold: 50 (though, I've been debating changing this)

QBA: 5/5
CPU RBA: 60
CPU Run Blocking: 60
PCV: 55/55
INT: 45/45
FGA: 5/45

[hazelhood19]

Re: NCAA Football 14 Available For Season Ticket Subscribers, Post Your Impressions H

I switch off between user DL and user FS.

My sliders are pretty simple. Heisman difficulty on Offense, AA on Defense.

Speed: Normal
Threshold: 50 (though, I've been debating changing this)

QBA: 5/5
CPU RBA: 60
CPU Run Blocking: 60
PCV: 55/55
INT: 45/45
FGA: 5/45

Cool, man. I'll give those a shot and I'll try to user more with a dlineman.