NCAA Football 11 Patch #3 and Live Tuning Pack 3 Arrives September 7th

[tmas]

Loving the in season progression.....wish they would address CPU depth chart and FULL highlight save for PS3 (I've had 2 punt return for TDs and it saves it from about the 30....frig!!!!)

[jbrew2411]

This all sounds great. I'm so glad they will be improving the kickers/punters. I'm 3 years in with Notre Dame and have been trying to find a kicker the past 2 season. Each year only 2 or 3 are worth offering but for some reason Ohio St. is loading up on kickers. They have signed 4 in the last 2 years. All I could sign was two 1* kickers (one will become a punter) and both have D's in kicking ratings. I have the #3 class in the nation due to my kickers killing me.
Now the the college football season has started I'm ready to start a new dynasty and get going for real.

[purduepete]

Can't wait for the pump fake to be fixed. Just played 2 cheesers in a row that decided to use that in the 4th quarter to beat me. They will now get a game invite on Sept 7th for a rematch/trip to the woodshed

[crabcola]

My wife will kill me. My Rams Franchise in Madden will kill me. Yay!!!!

[northface28]

I am cautiously optimistic, I hope the tuned attributes somehow fix the "depth chart" issue. However, I am worried that now the recruits will come in rated way too high, thus creating another set of problems. I hope I am wrong.

[Azamien]

Quote: Originally Posted by TracerBullet

I don't think the special teams game besides downfield blocking can actually be improved in this game. The bad snaps are necessary and would require new animations to work. They also probably need a long snapping rating. The long snapper is much more important than any game really has given it credit for. Not just any lineman can line up and dnap the ball 15 yards for a punt. Unless you actually are a long snapper, I can guarantee most of your snaps will skid across the ground, go too high, or go to far over to one side. Punters also don't take long enough strides which gives them more room to get off kicks. Most punters generally move forward about 3-5 yards on a punt. On the game the punters only go forward 2 yards because their first step is unrealistically short. Bad snaps would also help alter strides as that is what causes a lot of blocked punts. The lineman on punt teams also block for way too long. They should be getting up the field a lot faster than they do but they stay back to block too long. The ball trajectory on field goals hasn't been right in any game I know. Neither has the way a team blocks on field goals. I can understand not being able to put in the acutal way a team blocks, but the team kicking the field goal should never be able to push the other team trying to block the field goal back like they do at times. Most changes to any of the special teams stuff would have to probably come on NCAA 12. Until then though I'm going to continue to enjoy the things they did well on NCAA 11 and these changes in the next patch. Best football game I've played in awhile.

While I agree with the majority of your post, there are some things that could be patched/tuned for special teams:

1. Stop the receiving team blockers from jumping up at the line to try to block punts. It's ridiculous and the only thing it serves to do, other than just look flat-out stupid, is make sure that any returner reaching the second level will be destroyed.

2. For the CPU, and coach mode players, tune the returners to try to take the ball outside. Right now AI-controlled returners will only make slight adjustments to their path. They never try a full cut to the outside, instead going right into the teeth of the kicking team's pursuit. To test out what I mean, call a punt block when the opposing team has the ball on the hash, then let the AI control the returner for you. Assuming the CPU didn't leave their gunners out instead of bringing them in to help block (I've only seen this happen once) your returner will have an entire side of the field open to them. I guarantee, though, that he'll go straight into the tacklers instead of going to the open sideline.

Obviously this isn't a problem for online players, but it is a problem for any offline player since the CPU will never have any decent returns, and doubly so for any coach mode players.

I really believe those two things could be adjusted in a tuner or a patch.

My other pet peeve with special teams is how the AI can never, ever come close to blocking a kick. I have no idea why, and even less idea of how they can fix it since I can't even figure out why the AI sucks so bad at getting any sort of pressure on the kicker. Maybe it's something that could be tuned, maybe it isn't. But something isn't right.

[Sundown2600]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sven Draconian

I"m going to venture a guesa and say the AWR issue fixes the depth chart issue, atleast partly/mostly. One of the biggest things that dictate overall rating (which is what the CPU uses to start) is awareness, regardless of whether it matters during gameplay or just during sim. One of the penalties for playing a kid out of position was a HUGE hit in the awareness rating. If the awareness ratings are already suffering a huge hit (from design) than there is no penalty to starting a safety at end. He's just a really fast, athletic, player in the computers logic. So looking at LB for example, a corner looks like a freak of a linebacker. Great speed/agil/acc + great coverage ratings. Worse strength and tackle ratings....but the way the formula for OVR is setup, the speed probably matters more. What used to make the LB a LB and a corner a corner was AWR. You try playing a Corner at LB and he drops about 25 points in AWR and 10 points overall. Just a theory.

Outstanding point and your theory is not a theory it's a plain fact. Remember back to the PS2/Xbox days when position changes first made their way into the series. Switching a player from one position to another would affect his overall rating and his awareness rating. The more his overall and awareness dropped the more unsuited he was he was for that particular position. The logic in those days was really good because there were also instances when a position change would cause a boost in overall and it was at that point when you could make a decision to make a pos change. It seems this year the dev team has not penalized smaller players (corners, safeties) when they are moved to the D-Line. This definitely happened last gen. There was no way a safety or corner could play on the line because his rating would plummet. In so doing the CPU depth charts were never an issue because there would always be a random low rated D-Lineman or at worst a big linebacker who would out rate the corner or safety. On that note, it even seems the logic in those days factored in a player's size and weight into the equation.

Now I'm not sure if this is happening this gen or not, because tbh this year is the first year that I've been satisfied with this game to the point that I know I'm gonna keep it. I'm gonna sim some dynasty seasons and check to see how bad the CPU logic is. I'm hearing it's really bad in regards to pos changes and recruiting and that's unacceptable considering how well these areas of the game worked last gen.

[Chas]

That pumpfake-glitch still works...

At least, it worked against me.