NCAA Football 12: Title Update #2

Feature Article

Submitted on: 09/19/2011 by Dustin Toms

I’ve read through your impressions. I’ve seen what you gripes revolve around. But when I played NCAA 12 with its latest patch, despite all of the negatives, I found a more enjoyable game.

Before I get flamed, know that I rock the 360, so the no huddle problems you PS3 users experience aren't there for me.

However, the first thing I checked out was the no huddle, and I encountered no problems. My playbook was there, I had the options and could run a Pro-Style offense to near perfection.

My team of choice is Oregon, so the spread is my comfort zone. As you should know, the spread was a pain to run pre patch since option plays were a waste of time. The improvements of the quarterback’s acceleration and the lead blocking allow you to create something if it’s available. The blocking is still not the best, but when it comes to EA football titles it’s never up to par. But now that I can gain five, ten and sometimes 20 yards with Thomas or James, the spread finally feels more realistic.

Another big gameplay issue with NCAA was the terrible AI in the secondary. The patch has made it better, but I still find it slightly too easy to connect on deep passes. Zone coverage pays more attention to your quarterback, which is good, but they still aren’t where they need to be most of the time.

The only problem that I can’t stand is the CPU’s ability to run screens. Sure screens are always hit or miss, but they can’t move the ball at all. I love giving my opponent a 5-yard loss, but it really kills the realism and fun factor when they choose a screen play on third down.

Outside of gameplay, the changes made to roster edits are a great addition. I love how we can change other team’s ratings. Obviously if you want, you can destroy some ratings of good players. But it’s great how, especially later in the real college season, we can edit some freshman that are tearing it up. EA basically gave us total control for roster updates. If that isn’t win, I don’t know what is.

The game still is far from perfect, but the patch made it better than it was before. NCAA is now more enjoyable than Madden, and should be your top football choice until Madden receives similar treatment via a patch.

NCAA Football 12 Videos

Member Comments

# 41 MrC @ 09/20/11 10:24 AM

No, my point was not "yeah, it's broken..."

My point was that this "glitch" is a myth, and if you feel the least important defenders to stopping an option are not responding the way you want, then user control them or blitz them. If you are on the offensive side of the ball, don't exploit the secondary on option runs if you think it gives you an unfair advantage.

Seriously now, you can't claim that DB behavior against a triple option/flexbone-normal is the most important thing in this game, can you?

Also, to be "broken" requires more than just a few posts complaining on the OS forum and a video or two showing one defense. I run a PJ-style offense offline and online pre-patch and post-patch and have not witnessed a problem in the secondary executing their assignments. In fact, they respond too good (in an unrealistic way) on option passes... But you don't see me posting videos of CBs covering go routes like Champ Bailey or something on a speed option pass after 6 or 7 straight option runs to set up that pass.

# 42 ZouDave @ 09/20/11 12:06 PM

I'm confused as to what the OP is referring to when he says the no-huddle glitch doesn't appear on the 360.

I'm not an overly-frequent reader of this forum, but when I heard about the problems Patch #2 had introduced I avoided it like a dog with rabies. After reading this, I thought "Oh, it's just a PS3 issue? Very good, I'll download it."

And doing so completely ruined the game for me.

I and a friend of mine play the game together, me running the offense and him running the defense. We had created our own playbooks with everything exactly where we wanted it and were more than happy with the way the game was playing. There were bugs/glitches like all video games had, but it was working and we were being challenged and having fun so that's what mattered. After patch #2, we tried to start our next game and it told us we had to go re-save our playbooks. I loaded up my offensive playbook, and to my surprise found that my plays were in all different locations. After further inspection, I found that the playbook had altogether been changed to something really not resembling my original design. Extremely frustrated that I had to re-create it, I set out to do that. I then found that I couldn't remove certain formations that I had no interest in using, not because those formations contained audibles but because I had "reached the minimum number of plays for my coaching style" or something like that. It didn't matter how many other plays I removed/added, there was no getting ride of those formations.

More and more frustrated, we just wanted to play the game so we went with what we had and started it up. There, I found even more problems by seeing that there were formations in the playbook that I had never chosen, nor had been unable to remove plays from. I also now only had one option for a kick return, which did not include the ability to call for an onside kick return, and my co-player found his only options on punt return were a punt block.

At this point, the game became unforgivably unplayable for me. I don't understand how these bugs can make it into the game, I don't understand how we're 2 weeks into having this patch where these bugs are known and EA (to my knowledge) has said nothing about it, not confirmed that they are even aware of it, and have certainly given no indication that they plan on fixing it in short order.

What I also find unforgivable is that this site would publish what appears to be a staff-supported article extolling the virtues of patch #2 and claiming the presence of bugs is a myth. There are a lot of us that don't have the time to read the forum all day, every day, nor keep up with every bit of news that comes out about these games and we rely on places like OperationSports.com to be a reliable source for the information we need. To see this, which honestly just looks like a piece of wishful-thinking fiction, is disconcerting.

I think I'm done with NCAA '12, and will certainly give a lot of thought to buying NCAA '13 until patch #2 has been released and a trusted source has verified that nothing major is completely broken. I am sad that EA Sports has failed so miserably with the game that I used to look forward to more than any other, but that's just the way it goes I guess.

# 43 IlluminatusUIUC @ 09/20/11 03:38 PM

I've been fortunate enough not to experience many of the show-stopping bugs that others have been complaining about, but a lot of my OD mates have. They pretty much lost interest in the game when the patch failed to fix many of the problems that it promised to, and so most of my ODs collapsed. With Gears of War coming in the mail today, its an open question whether I'll pick this one up again before Patch 3, if at all. Complete disaster.

# 44 Maitreya @ 09/20/11 05:03 PM

The custom playbook issues are unforgivable. That should have been found within minutes of testing. I am really sad about this feature being so broken. I hope there is a patch to fix this.

# 45 edscott @ 09/20/11 10:14 PM

I'm a little behind here, I quit playing this game after I played a game post patch and noticed all that they messed up. Have they still not fixed the problems that this patch caused? If it's not been fixed yet, I'm definitely not buying the game next year. This is a slap in the face considering I paid 60 bucks for this game.

# 46 Spanky @ 09/20/11 11:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by edscott


	This is a slap in the face considering I paid 60 bucks for this game.

Exactly. This is pretty much what I just wrote in another thread. The people responsible for this mess are basically saying "Those idiots will buy anything.''

# 47 skinsfan703 @ 09/21/11 06:00 AM

I voted this patch bad. It made my game worst. I play as Virginia Tech, in year one of my offline dynasty(before the patch came out) I could play all the games fine. Then when the patch came out in year 2 of my dynasty I can't play the boston college game. I click on it and then it takes me to Indiana vs Iowa that the computer controls.

The EA website said that they fix this bug, I never had a problem with it before the patch. This bug is ridiculous, when I can't even continue my dynasty. don't want to start over because I already imported my draft class into madden.

"Fixed an issue with the schedule that prevented entering the Virginia Tech vs. Boston College game (fixed for both Dynasty and RTG)."

# 48 rsump112 @ 09/21/11 07:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LionsFanNJ


	ah. So this thread pretty much turned into every other thread in this forum. Cool.

Considering the problems caused by this patch haven't been corrected why would you expect anything different?

I've been here for years and find it disturbing that this "article" would be placed on OS's front page.

# 49 Petey B @ 09/22/11 12:29 PM

I'm curious what this means for the profit margin of this game and future NCAA titles! Here and on the EA update blog dozens of people are saying they've traded in the game, and almost unanimously it seems no one would reccomend this game to their friends without several caveats. Yet, EA claims sales were up the first two weeks. So, did more people than ever trade in the game? Do retailers ever give out those stats? Are we looking at a downward trend for NCAA's popularity due to hemoraging bug craziness?

# 50 Big Mocephus @ 09/25/11 12:50 PM

Like a lot of people I would trade this years game in if I had another college football game available but no such option exists. It is either a buggy, glitchy sub par game from a company that clearly does not care about quality like they should or.....no college football game at all.

Maybe the author of this article could just tell me how to download the patch he got instead of the one the rest of us are stuck with. He claims it works well for him.

# 51 xaiw @ 10/11/11 07:29 PM

How do u download the patch....? cause i dnt think i got it.......like for instance in my OD when i edit another teams player like their dress etc but not their ratings and then i exit the OD and return to it....its back back to default....bottomline when editing another team player none of my changes will stay on that player once i exit and come back into the dynasty.

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