7/29/10 NCAA blog about tuners & more

[boritter]

It looks like we will have a progression fix next week!

Russ edited this into his post and I thought it deserved it's own thread. Here is the link:

http://ncaafootball.easports.com/blo...logId=ThankYou


Here is the important part of the text (Due to length I cut out non-tuner info):

NEW FOR NCAA FOOTBALL 11 -- LIVE TUNING PACKAGES
A number of you have already noticed that we do a check for "Online Gameplay Tuning" when connecting to our online servers. Some of you may also have found a new "Tuning" category in the Files menu. This is a new technology for NCAA Football 11 that allows us to not only live update and tune core gameplay parameters -- like fumbles, throw accuracy, and juke success ratings -- but it also allows us to rebalance certain core features such as recruiting logic, blocking, even control the intensity of shadows cast by the football on a sunny day!
These new Live Tuning Packages (LTPs) contain literally 1000's of key parameters which drive the heart of our game; parameters that live well below the level of specific player or team ratings. With our new LTPs we can often turn changes around in a few days. It can't solve everything, and some issues will still require a traditional client update, but for many items it's definitely a more powerful and faster strategy for tuning throughout the season.
Our first LTP should be arriving next week along with detailed notes on what the update contains. I can tell you that based on the collective feedback we've received, we will be carefully down-tuning the athleticism of defensive lineman and reduce the number of impressive picks by the big guys. We're also looking to address a few important dynasty progression and recruiting issues. [My emphasis]

NCAA FOOTBALL 11 ONLINE SERVER UPDATES

The NCAA Football Live Team, a group dedicated to server-side health and maintenance, has been very busy over the last two weeks since launch. We apologize for any issues you may have experienced in recent days. The team has been upgrading hardware, tuning databases, and fixing web issues as they arise. Most of these changes happen behind-the-scenes on a daily and nightly basis. Here a few of the most visible fixes so far:
-- Fixed online leaderboard exploit
-- Fixed potential crash at online team-select screen
-- Fixed post-game email formatting
-- Optimized various database queries
-- Various hardware upgrades and backend optimizations
Work will continue on server optimizations throughout the season to ensure a fast and enjoyable online experience for everyone. We're also working to do a better job of communicating upcoming fixes and outages so that everyone has a better handle on what's happening. And by the way, just to dispel a common myth, if you have lag issues when playing an online opponent, it's unlikely to be an EA Server issue. Our matchmaking system works by telling your consoles to directly connect to each other for the game and then report back the results. The network traffic doesn't go through our servers like an MMO. If you have problems or disconnects, it could be your ISP, local networking gear, or simply someone unhappy about the way the game is going and pulling the cord. It happens. ;-)
NCAA FOOTBALL 11 CLIENT UPDATE 2
More details on the client update to come, but here are three of the big ones we've solved:
-- RANDOM PLAY ACTION CRAZINESS - Sure it looks funny, but annoying as heck when it costs you a drive or a game. We're sorry we missed this one as well and apologize for the issue.

-- SEASON SHOWDOWN STATS REPORTING - The season showdown warning is harmless right now and this issue and related lobby problems ultimately get fixed with the update.

-- UNIFORMS THAT NEVER NEED WASHING - This is one of the more painful ones for us given all the work on visuals this year. The game actually does degrade uniforms; unfortunately we broke something in a final build that made the impact way too subtle. Consider this one solved with the update. And we want you to know that we've really been enjoying the great "Art of NCAA Football" threads. It's clear we have some incredible photographic talent in our community! So I expect things will go next-level when the update rolls out. For example, this shot comes straight out of the updated game:



My apologies to longtime fans like ODogg who can't find peace without dreadlocks. ;-) Or others who've been aggressively petitioning for broadcast cameras or bowl patches. We just weren't able to get them into NCAA Football 11 given all the other work we had to take care of this year. And unfortunately, these aren't things that we can simply "patch in". I can tell you they're on our wishlists as well and we hope to get to them in a future version. Look for a link to a new Satisfaction and Feature Request Survey in my next blog.

[dalecooper]

Dangit, I just posted about this.

[Solidice]

Roy is a good man, glad he is the new Executive Producer of the NCAA series.

[Bwnarrow3]

This is great news. No, there's no "community interaction" per se, but it's nice to see they are working on the game's flaws right now. I can't wait for patches and tuner sets. Good job EA. You deserved my money.

[Artof_War]

Good stuff.

[dalecooper]

Recruiting/progression tuners as early as next week... I'm giddy. I hope this fixes the most frustrating problems with dynasty.

[StormJH1]

Good news, I guess, but if you look at the level of detail they went into for the other fixes (online, uniform degradation), they were extremely vague about the "progression and recruiting" issues. But at least it's a mention...

[Deegeezy]

Woohooo....Blog today and recruiting and progression fix next week! Someone here predicted this!