Theory for Entirely Ratings-Based Sliders

[JCHISENH2016]

So let me start out by saying that the base of this idea came from someone else on this sliders forum. I saw a post in another thread about the NHL games playing well when you put all the sliders at zero, and this user was saying maybe NCAA would work that way too. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find that post, and I can't remember at all who posted it (perhaps they will see this thread).

I thought about it and figured I would try it. I put every ability slider at zero for the human and cpu, and I set the difficulty at varsity for offense and defense because I figured varsity would keep the game from giving very much of an advantage to either side, at least less-so than any other difficulty.

I jumped into a game between Auburn and FSU using last season's community rosters to see how close it would be and how the players would perform. I tweaked the sliders here and there as the game went along to see how it would affect any areas that seemed unrealistic. Here's how I the sliders set up by the end of the game:

Spoiler

Everything at zero for the Player abilities, except for FG kick power and accuracy (both at 50-I will probably try to tweak that more)

Everything at zero for the CPU except for FG power and accuracy (both at 50-Auburn missed an extra point by three miles so I figured I would have to boost it a significant amount),the punt power, and the kickoff power (both at 50 as well). I also boosted the WR catching to 50 because the Auburn receivers dropped a lot of passes.

I put the speed threshold at 85, and the game speed at fast (the running backs looked like they were running in slow motion on normal speed). I left the penalty sliders at the default 50 for all of them, and I played on 5 minute quarters because I did not want the game to take very long, I just wanted to get a feel of how these sliders would play.

The final score of the game was 17-9, FSU winning. To me, the game played very realistically. Auburn was very solid in their option attack, as Tre Mason had 75 rushing yards and 1 TD. Nick Marshall was good at running the option and executing, but struggled in other parts of the offense, as he often over-threw receivers. For FSU, Winston played like Winston would. He threw for 153 yards, had solid accuracy, and hit a few deep bombs for big plays. The run game was decent, but nothing incredible.

As for animations and the feel of the game, I thought it felt pretty good. It was not a whole lot better than what you see when playing on default settings, but I did see Winston underhand flip a screen pass on the run, which i had never seen, as well as some very smooth-looking broken tackles from Tre Mason.

I am not as skilled in NCAA 14 as some of the other slider guys on this forum. That being said, this felt more ratings-based than any other sliders I had tried. The guys who do sliders here are great, and they give me some very fun challenging games, but I just got the urge to try this set to see if it could be more ratings-based. The sliders do still need some tweaking, especially the kicking/punting sliders, even though I am happy with my first game using them. With adjusted quarter lengths and a few tweaks here and there I think these could be extremely realistic sliders

I am wondering if anyone would be interested in testing these out with me and giving me feedback? I'm not sure if it'll actually work out as well as I'm hoping, but an entirely ratings-based slider set would be great for this game.

[The_Gaming_Disciple]

Quote: Originally Posted by JCHISENH2016

So let me start out by saying that the base of this idea came from someone else on this sliders forum. I saw a post in another thread about the NHL games playing well when you put all the sliders at zero, and this user was saying maybe NCAA would work that way too. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find that post, and I can't remember at all who posted it (perhaps they will see this thread). I thought about it and figured I would try it. I put every ability slider at zero for the human and cpu, and I set the difficulty at varsity for offense and defense because I figured varsity would keep the game from giving very much of an advantage to either side, at least less-so than any other difficulty. I jumped into a game between Auburn and FSU using last season's community rosters to see how close it would be and how the players would perform. I tweaked the sliders here and there as the game went along to see how it would affect any areas that seemed unrealistic. Here's how I the sliders set up by the end of the game: Spoiler Everything at zero for the Player abilities, except for FG kick power and accuracy (both at 50-I will probably try to tweak that more) Everything at zero for the CPU except for FG power and accuracy (both at 50-Auburn missed an extra point by three miles so I figured I would have to boost it a significant amount),the punt power, and the kickoff power (both at 50 as well). I also boosted the WR catching to 50 because the Auburn receivers dropped a lot of passes. I put the speed threshold at 85, and the game speed at fast (the running backs looked like they were running in slow motion on normal speed). I left the penalty sliders at the default 50 for all of them, and I played on 5 minute quarters because I did not want the game to take very long, I just wanted to get a feel of how these sliders would play. The final score of the game was 17-9, FSU winning. To me, the game played very realistically. Auburn was very solid in their option attack, as Tre Mason had 75 rushing yards and 1 TD. Nick Marshall was good at running the option and executing, but struggled in other parts of the offense, as he often over-threw receivers. For FSU, Winston played like Winston would. He threw for 153 yards, had solid accuracy, and hit a few deep bombs for big plays. The run game was decent, but nothing incredible. As for animations and the feel of the game, I thought it felt pretty good. It was not a whole lot better than what you see when playing on default settings, but I did see Winston underhand flip a screen pass on the run, which i had never seen, as well as some very smooth-looking broken tackles from Tre Mason. I am not as skilled in NCAA 14 as some of the other slider guys on this forum. That being said, this felt more ratings-based than any other sliders I had tried. The guys who do sliders here are great, and they give me some very fun challenging games, but I just got the urge to try this set to see if it could be more ratings-based. The sliders do still need some tweaking, especially the kicking/punting sliders, even though I am happy with my first game using them. With adjusted quarter lengths and a few tweaks here and there I think these could be extremely realistic sliders I am wondering if anyone would be interested in testing these out with me and giving me feedback? I'm not sure if it'll actually work out as well as I'm hoping, but an entirely ratings-based slider set would be great for this game.

I have always contended that the game plays best on default settings. It just seems as if the developers had too much time and energy focused on the Madden series to really put forth a solid effort on NCAA.

Also, I noticed for a few years that whenever you played on AA or Heisman difficulty that whenever you overpowered the CPU and would not allow it to carry out it's pre determined plays (glitches), bugs would enter into the game. Hence, you would go into the substitution screen and try to select a player and the highlighted field would scroll continuously without being able to stop it.

This was reinforced greater on AA and Heisman difficulty, being that the developers did not know how to implement the CPU from breaking the game if you did not lose on a pre determined play or game that was intended for you to lose. This is the same reason that the CPU on higher difficulty settings would automatically know the play you were running, or if you audibled a play the CPU would know which defense to audible into.

The sliders all react differently in play now mode, dynasty mode, and practice mode; therefore, it is difficult trying to find the best formula for testing. Secondly, all one has to do is look at the slider for punting, and qb accuracy, it is straight broken. Even if the attributes are set for 0 on putting and passing, the punter and kicker should not kick the ball as if they had never played the game before. Then you have the QB throwing the ball as if he had never thrown a pass in his life.

All of this is just a representation of laziness by the developers and there need to appease investors to "sell" the game to the casual gamer in order to re coupe their investment each year.

Too may sliders across the board affect other sliders and it's time consuming and frustrating.

[JCHISENH2016]

Quote: Originally Posted by The_Gaming_Disciple

I have always contended that the game plays best on default settings. It just seems as if the developers had too much time and energy focused on the Madden series to really put forth a solid effort on NCAA. Also, I noticed for a few years that whenever you played on AA or Heisman difficulty that whenever you overpowered the CPU and would not allow it to carry out it's pre determined plays (glitches), bugs would enter into the game. Hence, you would go into the substitution screen and try to select a player and the highlighted field would scroll continuously without being able to stop it. This was reinforced greater on AA and Heisman difficulty, being that the developers did not know how to implement the CPU from breaking the game if you did not lose on a pre determined play or game that was intended for you to lose. This is the same reason that the CPU on higher difficulty settings would automatically know the play you were running, or if you audibled a play the CPU would know which defense to audible into. The sliders all react differently in play now mode, dynasty mode, and practice mode; therefore, it is difficult trying to find the best formula for testing. Secondly, all one has to do is look at the slider for punting, and qb accuracy, it is straight broken. Even if the attributes are set for 0 on putting and passing, the punter and kicker should not kick the ball as if they had never played the game before. Then you have the QB throwing the ball as if he had never thrown a pass in his life. All of this is just a representation of laziness by the developers and there need to appease investors to "sell" the game to the casual gamer in order to re coupe their investment each year. Too may sliders across the board affect other sliders and it's time consuming and frustrating.

It does seem to play well on default settings, but I always make a few small tweaks to make it play just a little better in my opinion. So far, setting almost everything to zero has worked well for me. I agree with you on the punting; when you set the CPU punting and field goal slider to zero it looks like the kickers/punters have never played a game of football ever. However, I haven't had many issues with the QB accuracy yet. I'm sure if I started playing with smaller schools with less talent there would be glaring holes. It just seems that with everything on zero and the skill level on varsity, ratings are the only way for the game to determine how accurate a pass will be or how well the offensive linemen block, etc.

I'm really looking for a realistic way to increase the difficulty of my games. I started with playing on default varsity settings, putting the speed threshold at zero, and the game speed on slow. That played great for a little while but it got easy fast. I tried sliders from here and they were good but when I started trying to make small tweaks of my own, like you said the sliders I changed affected other aspects of gameplay and that got frustrating. So my next step was to try this set of making almost everything zero, I'm hoping that it at least keeps me satisfied for awhile and I thought maybe other players had tried this or would want to try it

[CloudFuel]

Interesting! I'll have to try this out and see how it goes!

[soonerfan1969]

probably what ea did was make "50" on the slider the actual player rating, if you make "throw accuracy" 60, you just added 10 points(may be based on a 127 point scale) to the players "TA" rating and vice versa.

setting the skill to heisman probably gives a 28 point ratings increase to cpu and negative 28 point ratings decrease to user.

the difficult part is determing what a "88" throw accuracy actually means. is it 88 out of 100 attempts will be accurately thrown or catchable. then use player receiver rating to determine if its caught.

just trying to apply the "kiss" method to the game.

[JCHISENH2016]

Quote: Originally Posted by CloudFuel

Interesting! I'll have to try this out and see how it goes!

Let me know your thoughts! I have been playing a couple games every day and I have really liked it so far!

[JCHISENH2016]

Quote: Originally Posted by soonerfan1969

probably what ea did was make "50" on the slider the actual player rating, if you make "throw accuracy" 60, you just added 10 points(may be based on a 127 point scale) to the players "TA" rating and vice versa. setting the skill to heisman probably gives a 28 point ratings increase to cpu and negative 28 point ratings decrease to user. the difficult part is determing what a "88" throw accuracy actually means. is it 88 out of 100 attempts will be accurately thrown or catchable. then use player receiver rating to determine if its caught. just trying to apply the "kiss" method to the game.

My thinking was that the sliders are like helpers. Anything above zero would actually be an increase in ability, so the game then would not play based on ratings, but more based on what your sliders are. So, I thought putting them to zero would base everything on player ability and nothing on sliders

[soonerfan1969]

it would sure be nice if ea would finally explain how the sliders worked and everything they control.