Constructive feedback about NCAA Football 10

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 07/15/2009 19:47:18

Hey guys. I may be a bit old to be here, but I've been playing this game since Bill Walsh was on the cover, and the game came with the little roster cards. Unless something changes, to me, this game is completely unplayable.

Over the past five years or so, 75% of my gaming time has been devoted to the NCAA Football series (and I have lots of free time!). I don't really quit playing the last year's version until the new one comes out. While I play roughly 100 online games per year, 90% of my time is spent in the Dynasty Mode. I love building my UW Huskies into a powerhouse that can rival USC. It is the most joy I get from video games. You guys made it so I don't even feel like starting a franchise this year.

First, there is not ONE freshman on the Washington roster this year, not one. Are you really trying to tell me that we didn't bring in one player? How am I going to build for the future without a single freshman on the whole roster?

Secondly, you guys had all of the position players messed up last year, and all you guys did was progress the same wrong players by one year. According to your game, our starting RB wears #28...which would be fine except the only guy on the roster that wears #28 plays on defense. Also, for the past two seasons, you have had a white guy as the team's best receiver, now a senior, #16. That would be fine....except we haven't had a white receiver in a decade, let alone the best receiver on the team. UW has four sophomore playmakers on offense, and not one of them made your rosters. Our best two RB's aren't in this game, and our best 2 WR's aren't in this game. All four are very small and fast, and none of the players in this game are anywhere near being small or fast.

I know this is just bickering about my hometown team, but this is absolutely ridiculous. I checked some of the smallest schools in this game, and even their position players have the correct numbers and estimated attributes. Washington has still won a national title in the past 20 years, and has an extremely rich football tradition. The only possible explanation for this is poor effort.

How am I supposed to play a dynasty mode when all the best and most fun players aren't even in the game? Now I can't even compensate for this by redshirting the freshman and hoping to turn them into contributors down the road. I don't know what to do. I have never in my life been so disappointed with a video game. And this was my favorite game. I'm already done with it, and I haven't even had it 24 hours. Now I'm already worried about paying for this game next year. Is next year's team only going to be seniors and juniors?

There is a few things I do not like:
#1- TEXAS A&M'S SONGS ARE GENERIC AND NOT UNIVERSITY SPECIFIC... I AM VERY VERY DISSAPOINTED WITH THAT.

#2- The mesh effects from daytime to nightime are not very good. It only fades one time at half time. It would be nice to see the transitions occur through the game and have the evening games actually end at night rather than a suspended dusk.

Cool. Well first off I think I should start off with the props.

-I really really appreciate the change to the defensive game play this year. As someone who plays with Texas Tech (which does not always have the best defense) I am glad that I can finally hang with the bests of teams by just being able to call the right play at the right time. Also, the addition of focusing your defense of either pass, run left, run right, or run middle is also a very nice touch which helps for those of us that know football is not all just about who is the fastest, but more about who is the smarter player.

-Glad to see that QBs with speed rating of 70's can still run and scramble without being chased down right away.

-Basically, just glad to see what ya'll have down with demphasizing speed and emphasizing angles of pursuit.

-Jumping and predicting the snap now has more importance. Can't tell you how many 3rd and shorts I have stopped with my DT jumping inbetween the center and the guard.

-Love the animations.

-Setting up plays. (short passes to set up the deep post routes)

-Player lock is a nice touch though I am not very good at it yet.

-There is advantage to moving around slightly in the pocket. Now the Dline can't just turn on a dime after being pushed away or go from being engaged to making a 360 and sacking the QB. Not so easy to break engagement and necessary to move around in the pocket to find throwing lanes.

-Game plans with aggressive and conservative and normal game plan. An extremely nice and appreciated touch this year.

Now for my cons.

-Heisman difficulty CPU is a little cheap. I was running a kick back with my WR (speed 93) and had broke into the open when I see from my players 5 O'clock position, a player labeled MLB # 22. I think that its ok, cause I am in the clear, and at a full sprint so this is a touchdown for sure. But some how, this player catches me from behind, not diving, just able to run up NEXT to my player and push him out of bounds. May I remind you that he is almost comletely behind my player, about 6-7 yards back. I check the depth chart and see his speed is 82! Just think that you guys boost Heisman CPU stats. Which is gonna make Online Dynasty games very interesting.

-Also on Heisman. Sometimes when I throw the ball on a slant or drag route, the DLine men jump to swat before my player has even begun the pass. Now I understand that, as a former RE that you can sometimes read the QBs eyes and predict the pass and try and swat it. But whenever I throw a medium to long pass, not a single reaction from the DLine to try and swat it. Somehow, with their backs to the recievers, the Dline knows who and where the receiver is at that I am trying to throw it to.

And a little suggestion.

-I am really enjoying season showdown and the points but I thought of an idea to make it better and more fair for everybody. Instead of having it just the school who can gather the most points, have it be an average having the total points for the school being divided by the number of players representing the school. That way, a school like UConn, who doesn't have the football fan following as Ohio State, Texas, Florida, USC, still has a chance to have the most points if the people representing the school are better that all the teenagers and "I got to a community college right outside of Austin so I will just use Texas" people that are representing the school that is a powerhouse and just has the name of a big university.

All and all, I think EA did a fantastic job this year. Just a little minor details I think should be looked into and possibly adjusted.

Thanks again for a great game this year.

Presentation EA presentation, what happened to the dynasty magazine covers from NCAA Football on the ps2 and xbox? What about adding a weekly update show?

Oh and while playing on my brother's ps3 a player from his team got injured even though we had injuries turned off. We checked it.

I would love to be able to swap every fbs team in the game out with a created team for offline dynasty. This way I could play a dynasty of complete fcs teams.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 07/16/2009 07:10:11

cem_ea_id.BORN4CORN wrote:AD Mode*

Here is also my idea that would essentially be the new dynasty mode..

Its rough, and could use tweaking but here it is.

Starting off you would pick a school like normal, but you aren’t the coach this time (You do however still control aspects of the team still). You are now the AD with a set budget based on prestige & conference, with a university depending on your expertise to bring them out of the cellar. (We’ll say that the budget is comprised of points instead of actual dollar amounts) Lets say we begin a little team like FIU and our football team budget is set somewhere around 200,000 points or dollars - one of the lowest in the game. (A team like Texas would have something close to 10 million points/dollars to play with - guessing)

Like its set up now, you would be starting in the basic preseason. First would be the option to set your coaching staff, which would be expanded to include an offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator and special teams coach. All head coaches would have their real names, but the assistants would be generic for all 120 teams. From there its your decision to either keep the current staff or select a new one from a pool of randomly generated coaches, with the ability to even create your own coach. Their skills would also determine their desired salary (in points) making a budget that much more fun to manage. Also, this will determine your school’s coaching prestige & coaching experience ratings, which would now become combined to make a Coaching Staff rating.

Next in the preseason is scheduling for the upcoming year. Say you started out as that one one star school like FIU.. As soon as you go to pick your opponents, top tier teams like Texas or Ohio St. would offer you points to play them at their place (just like real life when LSU wants to play North Texas, or USC wants to play Idaho - they all pay small schools to play them). This is next taste of being an AD. Do you set your team up for possible failure, and take the points (which I’ll describe what they are used for shortly) or do you pass & simply schedule other cream puffs? Also, scheduling away games cuts into the budget, and even more so the further away you (geographically) play them. The offers from the big schools would cover these fees though if you agreed to play them.

...I would also love the ability to schedule neutral site games, and also start a home and home series with other teams as your school’s tradition grew. Also tying into scheduling would be the ability to create a rivalry. This would happen if you agreed to multiple contracts 5-6 years in a row with a single team, and then you could propose a long term series, declare it a rivalry, and possibly build a fake trophy.

Presentation - School newspaper or magazine would have all the breaking news of schedules, match ups, top games of the season, and new coaches. (National & Local just like it is)

Now comes the actual coaching aspect. It starts by throwing you into practice with your first unit team going against the scout team in your practice facilities (quality determined by school ratings - everything now matters remember). From there you are able to run drills - pass skeleton, Oklahoma drill, etc. and play around with your guys to try and figure out (using a new menu system) the following:

-Redshirts
-Depth Chart
-Formation Subs (Yes these will be added by then.. fingers crossed)
-Newly created plays (Create a Playbook)
-General roster tweaks (position changes, numbers, equipment, etc.)

Presentation - Aside from the immediate players you are handling, you would also see the rest of the team hitting sleds, kicking into nets, sprinting, and doing various drills with the coaches pacing around. If you are someone like USC or LSU, members of the media would be present, along with a gathering of fans (maybe fans.. idk) Next:

-Set recruiting board
-Schedule
-NCAA News
-etc.

Lets start with recruiting. I like the way its set up with the 10 hours of time at your disposal & how you actually go about recruiting, but bringing in players for campus visits, or sending coaches to their games/homes to scout & talk to them will cost you points/dollars out of the budget. Its going to cost more to go to that 5 star player’s house in California if you are FIU, than it would to visit that 2 star scrub in Georgia. (This also makes it an actual challenge to build programs with a horrible recruiting base i.e. Idaho)

*Throughout the season, a players rating (starts) could rise or fall also.

I don’t know how, but I think adding some type recruiting violations, along with bringing back player discipline has to be added. These things would also effect the budget, prestige, & academic rating and show up in the news section.

Ok, now to actually playing the games and how that ties into it. Take our struggling FIU Panthers.. they don’t draw a lot of fans, their stadium is dinky, and they get beat often.
Lets look at this logically:

?You win games > Increase attendance

Increase attendance > Increase ticket, merchandise, & vendor sales

?Increase all those things, and that’s how you start gaining point/dollars toward the budget for the AD (yourself) to play around with in the off season (this will start to make perfect sense shortly).

Alright, now that we have played through the season, spent points on bringing in recruits, traveling, & gained points from winning games comes the bowl season. Suppose FIU managed an 12-0 season.. miraculously, and we have been received a BCS birth.

Presentation - Sometime during or before the bowl season, you would have the option to play the high school All-American game. It could just have a generic spornsor, but you would be able to play with the top prospects in the country, and possibly get an early look at one of your recruits if they are that good.

Presentation - Bowl preview show with predictions, awards presentation, Heisman blowout presentation (so it actually feels special if you when it).

If you don’t know already, BCS bowls pay out a huge sum of money to each conference the teams in the game are representing.. so this is a big deal for the Sun Belt & FIU. Say they win the Orange Bowl.. FIU would receive a huge boost in their budget, Coaching Staff rating goes up, prestige goes up, conference prestige goes up (because of the distribution of BCS winnings), TV exposure rating increases slightly, and fan base increases. Everything has a purpose now (I’m getting to the other school attributes)

Presentation - To much to cover here.. I will have another blog dedicated to this aspect.

Offseason

Ok, FIU just won the Orange Bowl, but there are teams who didn’t fare so well. This is where the “coaching carousel” begins. Your coach is a hot name on the market for big schools who had a rough season and fired their coach. Their AD’s are offering big bucks to swoop your coach away, and some are even going after the coordinators. With your budget much bigger though now, you are able to try and match offers by offering an extension or more points/dollars. Or you can simply let them go, and pick up one of the fired coaches or generic coaches in the “free agent” pool.

This move though would decrease ratings such as: Program stability, tradition, coaching staff, fan base (*Fan Base also effect how much money/points your school would receive from boosters/community), conference prestige, & championship contender. Once again, the whole point is that every move you make actually matters.

*Players leaving for the draft would bump up the Pro Potential rating also.

After the coaching mess has been taken care of, you move on to recruiting (And no, 4 and 5 star recruits would not be showing up out of the blue like Ben has it currently set up - you would however see a slight change in how some players were rated). I like how the offseason recruiting was set up in 09, so I probably wouldn’t change it too much. The only thing is how aggressive you recruit the top guys will still depend on your program ratings, and budget to visit & bring in player.

Presentation - A national signing day clip must be shown. I want to see the top couple of players pick hats or flip coins, especially if they are considering my team

Now we are almost to the big addition that is going to separate Athletic Director from everything else, and tie everything together. Say FIU currently has a budget of 5,000,000 points from all their wins, boosters, BCS birth, etc. You can choose to spend those points/dollars on new items such as:

-Stadium Expansion
-New Stadium
-Uniforms
-Facilities

All this would be done through TeamBuilder (of course stadium additions would have to be implemented first) and then downloaded into the dynasty. All those things would cost money/points, but they would also build your creditbility as a school, attracting recruits and media attention.

Speak of those things.. Once this process of updating your facilities and team look is done you would be offered: TV contracts (would boost TV exposure rating) & sponsorships (stipulations, but would boost budget if you met the goals). Both these thing would probably have to be generic of course. They aren’t to far fetched either. The Iowa Hawks (and probably every other team) are backed by local businesses.

Now, the final thing that happens in the offseason would be the opportunity to hold a camp for that next years recruiting class. Of course this hinges on if your budget can afford it and if your facilities are up to a certain level (think Oregon). This would:

-Give you and early look at recruits, and let you play with them
-Influence those recruits to attend your school
-Increase multiple program ratings

After this faze, you would begin the next season & continue your mission to build up your school. Spring game would be the first step on the schedule for the new year..

Obviously the FIU example is little far fetched, but its something I would love to see implemented

This is my constructive critisism. Its not my idea, but i am all for it. This needs to happen, make it happen "if you build it they will come" And to all those who read this, if you want this to happen head over to this link http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/264392.page

cem_ea_id.BORN4CORN wrote:Next would easily be the lack of presentational elements. This is college football, & its all about atmosphere.

Team Entrances
Pre-game breakdown
Players warming up
Half-Time show
Post Game wrap up
More stat banners
Coaches interacting w/players

The works... its been to long, and I can't take another year of the empty feeling game.

Many of these things were in last gen, and added so much to the replay value of the game... much of the reason I still play 06 to this day.

Amen. I couldn't agree more. There is simply no real atmosphere in the game, and it's a shame because the college football atmosphere is so unique and exhilerating.

Your rosters are a joke this year, there are numerous players who are listed as seniors that were seniors last year and have the same ratings and attributes. Even with the updated rosters they still are not even close. I think you spent to much time on team builder this year than the rest of the game. Also I think when we can edit players, using the team builder would be a lot easier and faster.

do they actually change the players each year ? well they don't change the coaches-Tenn still has Fulmer as coach

cem_ea_id.tuxedo1 wrote:do they actually change the players each year ? well they don't change the coaches-Tenn still has Fulmer as coach

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 07/16/2009 08:49:25

I agree with a lot of people on here that the presentation needs to be upped. I've seen suggestions for using the ESPN license to make games on ESPNU, ESPN2, etc. and think those would be great. More stat overlays would be nice as well. A key addition to the presentation would be smoother menus. Your menus hang all the time in gameplay, often leading to the wrong call being made. I know EA games are notorious for poor menu systems and load times, but hopefully this can be fixed.

Having played for a while now, I have to say that robo-QB is still in full effect. That's not to say that my QB is not also putting up insane numbers. There has to be a way to get more realistic numbers out of this. I've also noticed it in the sim aspects of the game where players are getting insane stats.

The MAIN THING I think needs to be added to this a true physics system. I'm not just talking about for tackling. We need something approximating real momentum, acceleration/deceleration, ball physics, etc. I don't know how many times I've seen a RB who just got going bowl over a DT. I could understand (maybe) if he was a superstar power running back. Players cutting and taking off at full gallop from the start needs to be over. If there are people out there who like this, they can make an NCAA Blitz for them (hey, a new feature idea).

I could go into improvements on line play, blocking AI (hoo boy.... could I go on about that), defensive AI that still seems broken, team/player ratings, etc. But a lot of these things have been beaten like a dead horse. I don't want you guys to think that I find this game to be horrible, but it is also far from being a great game (I'm not saying "perfect", just great). I know part of the problem is this yearly format, but I still think a lot could be done. Please, please, please try to make sure that the primary time is spent rebuilding the gameplay and presentation for NCAA 11. Fix the modes you have. Thanks for allowing us to vent on here, hope some of the things we suggest are helpful.

the animations are great...no change
the crowd needs help but are not important
the gameplay is the same or worse than last year. Penalties for being aggressive. this is football you are susposed to be agressive all the time, it doesn't make sense. the fumbles the linebackers jumping 10ft in the air this game isn't real and just when i thought you'd learn from madden you took a step backwards, trying to appeal to everyone with great new features while ignoring we that stood by you all this time is a slap in the face. football is a great game but it's obvious that EA needs some competition

cem_ea_id.SportsStarr123 wrote:

cem_ea_id.BORN4CORN wrote:AD Mode*

?You win games > Increase attendance

Increase attendance > Increase ticket, merchandise, & vendor sales

/eaforum/posts/list/264392.page

For the most part, I like BORN4CORN's logic. Though I think a lot of those features are things I would never use. When I play my dynasty, it's mostly about playing the games. The frustrating part is that the recruiting AI is so horrible I can't trust them to get me a decent recruiting class, meaning I spend time I would rather spend playing games fussing with the recruiting. I agree that you guys need that even though I don't.

What I don't agree with is the quote up there. Winning and losing is not the sole reason for high attendance in NCAA football (though one of the main reasons a coach will keep or lose their job). Nebraska still had a full stadium at the start of every game even in the year we had a losing season. I know that other schools are the same way, regardless of record. I like that they have tweaked the attendance system on NCAA, but some fanbases are rabid regardless of record and this needs to be taken into account.

xbox.deusmortuus wrote:

cem_ea_id.SportsStarr123 wrote:

cem_ea_id.BORN4CORN wrote:AD Mode*

?You win games > Increase attendance

Increase attendance > Increase ticket, merchandise, & vendor sales

/eaforum/posts/list/264392.page

For the most part, I like BORN4CORN's logic. Though I think a lot of those features are things I would never use. When I play my dynasty, it's mostly about playing the games. The frustrating part is that the recruiting AI is so horrible I can't trust them to get me a decent recruiting class, meaning I spend time I would rather spend playing games fussing with the recruiting. I agree that you guys need that even though I don't.

What I don't agree with is the quote up there. Winning and losing is not the sole reason for high attendance in NCAA football (though one of the main reasons a coach will keep or lose their job). Nebraska still had a full stadium at the start of every game even in the year we had a losing season. I know that other schools are the same way, regardless of record. I like that they have tweaked the attendance system on NCAA, but some fanbases are rabid regardless of record and this needs to be taken into account.

Very true.. Nebraska has tradition though from years & years of success. I was using FIU as the example. I guess once you built up your squad and maintained a level of prestige over like a decade, it would be less likely to see your crowd shrink during a tough season.

Good points though. While this thread was on OS, we hit on a few different problems that people had & basically figured out a fix right there. Its pretty cool when the community can do that so fast. Now if I were at EA working on this, I'd no doubt be asking the community for advice/suggestions to this mode.

BTW, I have to change my initial thoughts.. This should be its own mode.

Well, NCAA football 2010 is the same game from 2009 just with a little new make up.

I want you guys to be more like the madden development team. Everything gets improved year after year. You guys dont ever seem to really take NCAA to the next level. heres what I want and alot of other people feel the same.

1. Way better presentation. Add college game day, pregame / half-time/ post game show. That might be alot to ask for all 3 but take a page of out College hoops 2k8. They had a college tonight show after each game showing the biggest plays and every Sunday during the season they had A college basketball recap showing all the biggest games in the top 25 and highlights from those games.

2. have the weather change field conditions. Snow builds up, Rains makes fields muddy, Players lose traction.

3. A graphics overhaul. Its time for the game to update either its engine or build a brand new one.

4. It would be sweet to have that cool natural motion engine where each tackle is different depending where your player gets hit.

5. Half-time show with other game highlights and scores. ( back to #1)

6. Fix bungs with the AI, make it more challenging.

Electronic Arts

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