Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

[bucknut7]

I know there has been conversation about this in other threads, but I'm hoping that this can maybe get some singular attention as I've done some research that really shows how out of balance athlete QBs are in this game.

For context, there are seven QBs in the base roster with 91 or better speed. The best is 95 (QB at Vandy) and there is a 92 as well.

I simmed three recruiting classes in a file. The results I saw were absolutely staggering:

• QBs with 91+ speed: 38 per class
• QBs with 93+ speed: 22 per class
• QBs with 95+ speed: 9 per class
• QBs with 97+ speed: 3 per class

All of these were Athletes with Scrambler QB as their archetype.

It's absolutely maddening that the devs claimed to look at ten years of historical data to determine pipeline, but they didn't consider their own base roster when developing recruiting classes. I can't quite understand the oversight.. especially when this was a fundamental problem in NCAA 14.

A secondary issue here is that the CPU simply never adjusts an athletes position. As a result they'll hoard 7+ QBs, and I've seen rosters where the CPU will sign three quarterbacks with 90+ speed. It all just becomes homogenous, and the other two archetypes are irrelevant.

[shanew21]

Re: Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

It's becoming increasingly obvious that very minimal work was done on Dynasty mode beyond the getting key functionalities working at a baseline level.

They seriously could have just simulated a single season, looked at the results, and gone "hmm...that doesn't look right" to SO MANY THINGS, and yet this is what was shipped.

This is just another example.

[BonesawMcgraw]

Re: Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

It's becoming increasingly obvious that very minimal work was done on Dynasty mode beyond the getting key functionalities working at a baseline level.

They seriously could have just simulated a single season, looked at the results, and gone "hmm...that doesn't look right" to SO MANY THINGS, and yet this is what was shipped.

This is just another example.

I think this is true. They can of course restore some goodwill with a quality patch. That patch better be quality given how long they’re taking to drop it.

[young22]

Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

They didn’t put any effort into this mode. NCAA 14s dynasty had its issues, but at least the sim engine was okay and we could edit. It took me maybe 45 minutes to realize that the mode is terrible.


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[WeArePSU40]

Re: Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

Also annoying is that when I recruit an athlete QB (and maybe it’s athlete anything), I can’t edit the position when I first get them on the roster. I recruited 3 centers my first year and made two of them guards. But athletes don’t show up in the position change section, so you’re stuck where the game places them (main position) until one year later.

Has to be a bug. But it’s annoying.

[ggsimmonds]

Re: Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

Also annoying is that when I recruit an athlete QB (and maybe it’s athlete anything), I can’t edit the position when I first get them on the roster. I recruited 3 centers my first year and made two of them guards. But athletes don’t show up in the position change section, so you’re stuck where the game places them (main position) until one year later.

Has to be a bug. But it’s annoying.

I believe you can, but you can only do so when not filtering positions.

When you hit the actual "change positions" portion of the offseason, if you're like me you immediately went to filter positions and looked for the "ATH" position. Well its not there, so the only way to see it is to have the filter set to all and then sort. The athletes will show up.

Don't think its a bug, more of a design oversight

[young22]

Re: Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

Also annoying is that when I recruit an athlete QB (and maybe it’s athlete anything), I can’t edit the position when I first get them on the roster. I recruited 3 centers my first year and made two of them guards. But athletes don’t show up in the position change section, so you’re stuck where the game places them (main position) until one year later.

Has to be a bug. But it’s annoying.

No this is one of the many QOL failures of this game, you can’t filter for ATH.


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[WeArePSU40]

Re: Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

I believe you can, but you can only do so when not filtering positions.

When you hit the actual "change positions" portion of the offseason, if you're like me you immediately went to filter positions and looked for the "ATH" position. Well its not there, so the only way to see it is to have the filter set to all and then sort. The athletes will show up.

Don't think its a bug, more of a design oversight

Thank you! I’ll try this out next time I get to an offseason. They didn’t show up as QBs either. But I’ll look.

[MiracleMet718]

Re: Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

Thank you! I’ll try this out next time I get to an offseason. They didn’t show up as QBs either. But I’ll look.

They won’t show up as QBs or whatever position you are recruiting them for and still show as ATH. Like the posters said, just hit sort twice and all the ATH will show up at the top. The only pain is since you can’t filter, you have to sort again if you want to filter a specific position to double check the OVRs of players at that spot.

Signed some ATH OLs and wanted to double check which position I wanted to put them at because swapping, so it was a lot of filtering and re-sorting.

[bkrich83]

Re: Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

They won’t show up as QBs or whatever position you are recruiting them for and still show as ATH. Like the posters said, just hit sort twice and all the ATH will show up at the top. The only pain is since you can’t filter, you have to sort again if you want to filter a specific position to double check the OVRs of players at that spot.



Signed some ATH OLs and wanted to double check which position I wanted to put them at because swapping, so it was a lot of filtering and re-sorting.

Yup, super annoying.


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[Danish ram]

Re: Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

At first i thought my I was lucky recruiting amazing ath qb’s, then I realized that every class class is just packed with Michael Vick spin offs
Patch pretty please

[GarKeith]

Re: Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

I believe you can, but you can only do so when not filtering positions.

When you hit the actual "change positions" portion of the offseason, if you're like me you immediately went to filter positions and looked for the "ATH" position. Well its not there, so the only way to see it is to have the filter set to all and then sort. The athletes will show up.

Don't think its a bug, more of a design oversight

That is correct, if you look by position and change them on the position changes screen it is really nice because it shows you what they will be overall at every position. I love that. It makes me want to get more athletes. It is a better setup than the old games for sure. If you miss it though you are stuck until next year, why? Why cant that screen be accessed any time? I would like that to be an improvement later.

[Datninja619]

Re: Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

People may think we complain alot, but it is absolutely mind blowing that development teams across the same darn parent company do not utilize the features that are enjoyed in other sports.
Madden had the same problems with rookies stats being better than base roster.

Madden introduced Draft Class Strength, which imo was a game changer. Someone on PC modding community created a spreadsheet to randomly generate the strength for each position for multiple years out. This allowed franchises to very year to year. Some years would have elite classes other would be weak. And it was up to you to plan ahead.

The good news is I'm sure they'll add it as a brand new feature next year in the dynasty deep dive and mention how college football fans can finally tune the strength of the recruiting class.

[bkrich83]

Re: Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

People may think we complain alot, but it is absolutely mind blowing that development teams across the same darn parent company do not utilize the features that are enjoyed in other sports.

Madden had the same problems with rookies stats being better than base roster.



Madden introduced Draft Class Strength, which imo was a game changer. Someone on PC modding community created a spreadsheet to randomly generate the strength for each position for multiple years out. This allowed franchises to very year to year. Some years would have elite classes other would be weak. And it was up to you to plan ahead.



The good news is I'm sure they'll add it as a brand new feature next year in the dynasty deep dive and mention how college football fans can finally tune the strength of the recruiting class.

Allegedly from what I read somewhere different recruiting classes will have different strengths and weaknesses.

I think you’d need to sim several years of recruit classes to see any true trends.

That said if they overpowered the incoming classes vs. the base roster it wouldn’t shock me and I’d hope they’d balance that out.


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[Potatoes002]

Re: Athletes (especially Athlete QBs) need immediate attention from EA

The 2 star scrambling ATH QBs are even overpowered. I’ve seen several with mid 90s THP, 90s speed, 95+ PAC, etc. Plus they are still really accurate. My online dynasty had to make house rules against this where we can’t recruit this type of player because it was so cheesy.