NCAA Next-Gen Wishlist

[GuitarJC13]

With the announcement of the PS4 coming later this year, most of my friends and I have already sold our consoles in hopes to save up for a next-gen system. The only game we would regret missing out on is NCAA14 (we buy every year.) after hearing and reading about all that the new systems will be capable of had me drooling when I imagined what all EA could do with NCAA. Key word is could.

Gameplay -
I felt like the gameplay NCAA13 was solid and I had no major complaints. However, with the introduction of the Infinity Engine in Madden 13, I expect that it should be included in EA's next-gen debut. I would like to see better tackling. The big hits are fun, but not always realistic. I would like to see plays break and the offense recover.

I also think that the no-huddle offense needs a bit of work. Maybe having more frequent sub packages on defense would help this. Watch some Oregon games, or even the New England Patriots. All that the no-huddle does in the current game is lock in the defensive scheme.


Dynasty/Online Dynasty -
Everybody's favorite mode in NCAA in the Dynasty mode. I definitely spend 95% on my playing time in Dynasty. However, I do have one major problem with it. When playing it, I don't feel like a coach. Go back and spend some time playing NFL Head Coach 09. I know that NFL and NCAA coaching jobs are different, but take some of the principles from that series and apply them to Dynasty mode.

As a Head Coach, I should be able to put together and fire my own coaching staff. To do this, there has to be some other way to bring these coaches in. Maybe EA could introduce some sort of monetary system that could be used the staff's salary, stadium improvements, new stadium funds, new uniforms, and traveling to meet/scout recruits. This budget could be based on the average attendance, bowl payout, and conference TV deals from the previous season.

Recruiting and Scouting should change a bit as well. Each program should have a recruiting budget. 6* Schools would have the max budget and could visit players that live across the country, but it could take half of a smaller school's budget. Scouting should be dependent on how good your scout is.
Recruits should also be playing their senior season at the same time they are being recruited. What if a 5* Speed WR were to tear his ACL early in his senior year? He might drop to 3* and lose speed.

The presentation for games in Dynasty mode should be different from the presentation in Play Now. When #1 Alabama hosts #4 Texas A&M, the presentation should be extremely different as opposed to Eastern Michigan hosting UMass. If ESPN is still involved, they should have a "College Game Day" show every week. College Hoops 2k8 had a weekly show. That was 5 years ago.

There are plenty of other things that I believe should be added to Dynasty:
- Training/Progression
- Ability to create/remove conferences
- Bowl Invitation system (accept/decline Bowl invites)
- Spring game (including early admission recruits)
- Discipline system
- Players returning as coaches
- Senior Bowl
- Army All-American game

Road to Glory -
This mode has so much potential, yet I feel that we get a bare bones product here. I want to feel like a college athlete when I play. I want to have the same grading system as the recruits in Dynasty. I want to receive promises from coaches. If I sit my freshman year at Texas, and Coach Brown recruits this hot shot young player at my position, I want to have the opportunity to switch positions or even transfer to a smaller program like SMU so that I can still have the chance to play.

Heisman Challenge/Mascot Mode -
Trash it. We don't need novelty stuff like this in the game. I would much rather have a play creator or the ability to create a whole recruiting class and save it for multiple uses.


I believe that all of this is possible in the next-generation systems and I believe it is reasonable to expect this from EA. If they pride themselves in making a realistic product, then they should already be looking at ways to accomplish most of this. I'm not expecting this for NCAA14, but soon. Very soon.

Any other ideas out there?

[strictbusiness14]

Re: NCAA Next-Gen Wishlist

As a Head Coach, I should be able to put together and fire my own coaching staff. To do this, there has to be some other way to bring these coaches in. Maybe EA could introduce some sort of monetary system that could be used the staff's salary, stadium improvements, new stadium funds, new uniforms, and traveling to meet/scout recruits. This budget could be based on the average attendance, bowl payout, and conference TV deals from the previous season.

Recruiting and Scouting should change a bit as well. Each program should have a recruiting budget. 6* Schools would have the max budget and could visit players that live across the country, but it could take half of a smaller school's budget. Scouting should be dependent on how good your scout is.
Recruits should also be playing their senior season at the same time they are being recruited. What if a 5* Speed WR were to tear his ACL early in his senior year? He might drop to 3* and lose speed.

I think scouting should be mostly left up to your own abilities rather than something that the computer determines, but I absolutely agree on every other point.

There are plenty of other things that I believe should be added to Dynasty:
- Training/Progression
- Ability to create/remove conferences
- Bowl Invitation system (accept/decline Bowl invites)
- Spring game (including early admission recruits)
- Discipline system
- Players returning as coaches
- Senior Bowl
- Army All-American game

All very good ideas. Training and progression definitely need to be overhauled, specifically with the addition of green shirts (early enrollees). Adding the spring game would be good, but I'd like it if spring ball was even deeper, with progression being more incremental and position changes able to take place as players separate themselves. Creating and removing conferences would be great, especially if there could be a TeamBuilder-style conference creator where you could upload your own logos and everything. The return of program discipline would be great, so long as they improved the implementation and didn't use that weird point allocation thing. The Senior Bowl and Army All-American Game would be nice, but I could live without them.

Road to Glory -
This mode has so much potential, yet I feel that we get a bare bones product here. I want to feel like a college athlete when I play. I want to have the same grading system as the recruits in Dynasty. I want to receive promises from coaches. If I sit my freshman year at Texas, and Coach Brown recruits this hot shot young player at my position, I want to have the opportunity to switch positions or even transfer to a smaller program like SMU so that I can still have the chance to play.

All of that sounds great to me. I'd also like to see it like in the old Race for the Heisman mode where you could transition into a Dynasty immediately after your senior year.

Heisman Challenge/Mascot Mode -
Trash it. We don't need novelty stuff like this in the game. I would much rather have a play creator or the ability to create a whole recruiting class and save it for multiple uses.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I believe that all of this is possible in the next-generation systems and I believe it is reasonable to expect this from EA. If they pride themselves in making a realistic product, then they should already be looking at ways to accomplish most of this. I'm not expecting this for NCAA14, but soon. Very soon.

Any other ideas out there?

These are some of my ideas. I know I have more, but they're just not coming to me right now.

Player Progression

• There should be green shirt (early enrollee) players who participate in spring practice and get an edge on the other freshmen.
• Spring practice should be an incremental process that allows for tracking player progression. As players develop and separate themselves in the depth chart, you may change their position to something you believe they'd be more successful at.
• I'd like it if you could actually run through the drills yourself for a select number of players (maybe limit one per position or one per starter at each position). For those who wouldn't want to do that, just make it completely optional. You can run through drills for 24 players (11 offense, 11 defense, kicker, and punter), sim for all players, or do anything in between.
• Players who are falling behind at their position or are developing skills fit for a different position may even ask to be switched to a different position (i.e. a receiving TE who can't block, but is making gains in speed to levels acceptable for a WR).
• During spring practice, players can still suffer injuries that affect their development or even drag into the season.
• As players age, they should develop the physique for their position. Some players might need to gain weight, some might need to lose weight. Players who need to overhaul their physique will likely see lesser gains on skills such as Route Running or Play Recognition, but can make large gains in strength, speed, acceleration, or the like.
• At the end of spring practice should be the Spring Game. If possible, it would be nice to have different formats available, such as Offense vs. Defense or Even Teams.

Recruiting

• Recruiting could start off by listing players who attended your school's camps with each player having already been significantly scouted. Coaches can then offer scholarships to players that they feel stand out, if any. More prestigious schools would obviously have a higher caliber level of player that attends their camps, but smaller schools sometimes get a leg-up on gems and are more likely to offer a scholarship off of this first impression (giving them another advantage for that recruit). After that, you could progress to the regular recruiting screen where you can see the entire recruiting pool.
• You should be able to filter players by regular HS players, early enrolling HS players, freshmen JC players, sophomore JC players, and transfers (see Transfers). Transfer players should be completely known quantities, with no scouting necessary.
• When recruiting an athlete, you should be able to tell the athlete what you're recruiting him as. The player will have (realistic) preferences that you will be able to unlock early in the process, at a cost. You can hold off on telling him or not tell him at all, but it benefits you to tell him and to do so early. Changing what position you're recruiting him at will cost you momentum, unless it's to a clear favorite position. Changing his position after he enrolls can be the same as breaking a promise.
• Upon completing 100% of scouting for an athlete, your coaching staff should recommend a position for him. Occasionally, coaches should also suggest changing positions for a particular player who already has a position (i.e. a TE who should really be an OL or a FB who could actually be a LB).
• HS and JC players should be susceptible to injuries over the course of the season, which can affect their ratings and necessitate a small amount of extra scouting.
• Over the course of the season, player rankings should update a couple times, but not every week. Injuries can cause a player to drop and "performance" (though not explicitly shown) can cause a player to rise or fall. Sometimes a good player won't "perform" well or a poor player will, but a rise or fall in rankings has nothing to do with a change in talent. Better players are more likely to "perform" well and poor players to "perform" poorly, however.
• As time progresses, coaches should be tracked for how well they "coach-up" players. If a coach lands nothing but five star recruits who fall on their face (regardless of what their actual ratings were when they were recruited), he can suffer a hit to his reputation. Likewise, a coach who lands nothing but three-star players that end up being All-Americans (regardless of what their actual rating were) will be lauded, and his reputation will spike accordingly.

Academics

• In addition to Academic Prestige, schools should have Academic Requirements. The former determines how easy it is to get good grades at the school and the latter is a "dealbreaker" for getting into (and staying at) the school. If a recruit commits to a school and is later determined to not qualify, he reopens his recruiting. If a kid enrolls at the school but falters, he could transfer out (see In-Depth Transferring).
• The Academic Requirements should actually be set by the head coach each season, but the range of possible settings should vary based upon the school's Academic Prestige. A school with the highest Prestige shouldn't allow the bare minimum Requirements, but schools with the lowest Prestige shouldn't allow very high Requirements.
• APR (Academic Progress Rate) reporting should factor into coaching contracts depending upon the Academic Prestige of the school. More prestigious schools should expect high rankings, but almost all schools should expect halfway decent results.
• There should be Academic All-Americans each season. No matter the school's Academic Prestige, getting Academic All-Americans should give the coach a little more slack in reaching his contractual goals. Of course, they should carry much more weight at institutions with high Academic Prestige. So even though it's harder to recruit for a school with high academic standards, getting these All-Americans should make up for some shortcomings on the field. It shouldn't completely excuse these shortcomings at highly competitive programs like Stanford or Notre Dame, but might have decent pull at a program like Duke or Vanderbilt.

Transfers

• Transfers should be able to occur mid-season, during the post-season/bowl season, or even during spring practice. Occasionally, they should even transfer out early enough in the season that they only need to sit out that season (see Demetrius Jones/Notre Dame, 2007).
• Players might transfer because they feel they're falling too far down the depth chart, because they're being red shirted, because a promise (or multiple promises) were broken, or because they don't want to switch positions (or just don't want to switch to a particular position you've switched them to).
• Once a player decides he's going to transfer, schools should be able to recruit him immediately.
• Players who can't cut it academically at one school can transfer to another school. Underclassmen may even transfer to a JC and re-enter the regular recruiting pool like any other JC recruit. Assuming they left on good terms (the school didn't break any promises), the school they left would be high on their list of preferred schools, if not first, at the very beginning.
• Players with good academic performance should be able to attend graduate school (sometimes even a year early if they're top academic performers) and transfer to another school upon graduation without having to sit out a year. This should usually be limited to players who are very much blocked on the depth chart (i.e. a rising senior QB rated 7 or 8 points below the rising junior starter) or players who are much better than the team they're playing on (a 95 overall RB on a one-star team).

[sportfan14]

Re: NCAA Next-Gen Wishlist

I would love to see roster expansion the most and the ability to talk to your recruits and kind of see how they feel about your school....also bring back promises in regular recruiting so i can get recruits easier

[Miles Perry]

Re: NCAA Next-Gen Wishlist

I would love to see a NCAA football game next year............

[Bach Patu]

Re: NCAA Next-Gen Wishlist

My wishlist basically just consists of some major bug fixes at this point (But I'm conjuring other ideas as I type this )

The bugs I've encountered (At least in the Playstation version - Dunno about the Xbox version since I don't own an Xbox) I wish (And hope!) are fixed are.....

SCORING REVIEWS

When a touchdown is scored, the game will conduct an official review just like the real game BUT what happens in the PS3 version (Again I mention only the PS3 because I don't own an Xbox & there can't attest to anything in that version), the play clock will begin running & the menu to go for the PAT or 2 PT Conversion will appear

If I attempt either or choose to SIM this play (I can't kick my way out of a wet paper bag) while I play is (Unbeknownst to me) still under official review, I am told as much & THE ONLY way out of it is to simply wait for the play clock to expire & take the delay of game

THIS IS A MUST FIX because the chances of not getting a 2 PT Conversion SOAR when the line of scrimmage moves from the 2 to the 7 & that could have an impact on games

ENDLESS CAMERA PANNING

This happens when the game simply simply gets caught in transition between plays. Sometimes using START BUTTON > RESUME GAME will fix the problem & snap the game out of it but there are times when EVEN THAT doesn't work

An example of this happened to me yesterday in my Week 1 game involving the CU Buffs (CPU) & CSU Rams (Me). I had just scored a TD to give CSU a 20-17 lead with 52 seconds left in the game & was awaiting the prompt to go for the PAT when suddenly.....

IT HAPPENED.....

The cameras in the game were endlessly wandering & panning around the stadium. Tried the aforementioned START BUTTON > RESUME GAME option. That didn't work. Next I tried START BUTTON > Other things within the pause menu & then going back to RESUME GAME !! Didn't work

I wound up EXITING THE GAME to get out of it HOWEVER this WAS NOT without fallout

As I was exiting, it appeared to have recorded the score correctly (As if I had missed the PAT & the remaining 52 seconds uneventfully elapsed) YET when I got back to the SEASON screen, week one was recorded AS A 52-17 CSU LOSS !!!

As a result, CSU's record became 0-1 going into Week 2 @ Tulsa as opposed to 1-0 as it should've (And otherwise would've) been recorded as

I've NEVER seen a game do that. I mean HOW does a 20-17 LEAD get converted to a 52-17 LOSS ?? How does that happen ?? It's utterly beyond me.....

As I said, I've got other more useful wishlist ideas swirling in my head but at least these are good starting points

Cheers & Happy Gaming

[Aggies7]

Re: NCAA Next-Gen Wishlist

Just give us a game next year with players numbered 1-70 and we can create the names. Then you don't have to worry about a lawsuit