A Look Ahead to NCAA Football 2010

[Swingking77]

I don’t really think that what needs to happen would happen as it would require WAY too much time and effort on the part of the producers. Instead of giving us ****ty game modes that don’t mean much and that nobody plays any how, they should be focusing on making a pure football game that only consists of football.
fficeffice" />>>
Where things started going wrong was when they started making game modes where one creates a player and brings him up through the ranks, blah blah blah… This kind of game would be better suited in a game Head Coach and developing talent is all about coaching, so as such, move it there. If you pass that off to another team, it will open things up for the team working on Madden. Obviously a game where one has a great deal of interaction over what happens on the actual field in a free flowing mode like Madden/NCAA is going to require more attention then something where one simply enters commands, the computer crunches the numbers before the play even starts and gives you a result like in Head Coach. As such, adding game modes that don’t directly reflect a game of football on a field would be better suited in a SIM game environment like Head Coach. Let the Head Coach players design rings and all the other junk that does little for the game if it saves space and time for actual game play development. For years now, we’ve been getting bombarded with fluff features and game modes that do little if anything to develop what the game was founded on… An on-field football game. These additional games have progresses much further and faster then what made the franchise what it is today. People aren’t going online and playing create-a-player online. People aren’t at home playing tournaments about who can make the best star. People aren’t at home doing any of these other things. What people are doing is sitting down and playing head to head with people in their homes or online, so please! Pretty please! Drop the fluff once and for all and give us a solid game of football once and for all. All that’s been happening is that you keep giving us a loaded car with square wheels and a steam engine. The people that are at the core of this franchise will not complain if game modes other then Quick Play and Franchise disappear and those that love these games, which I’m sure there are some of you out there, will be satisfied given that the game modes find their way to Head Coach or even another franchise that you could create and milk in the same manner that NBA the Life has found a nitch market.
>>
The Engine Needs Work!!!>>
>>
The engine needs to be completely reworked. This has been the problem with Madden for years now. We still see things like vacuum blocking (which could be a simple as having the linemen suck to the D instead of the D player with a clear line getting sucked into the blocker), vacuum catches, rocket/jet pack catches, the ball turning end over end like the magic bullet from the JFK incident to get into a receivers hands. These all serve as serious clues that something is a muck with this outdated engine. We now have the tools that can deliver physics at an amazing level giving us the ability to create games with physics like those in Half Life 2 and many more. There is no reason other then laziness to continue on your current course of action based on this shotty engine. There is merit in what I am saying as far as physics, the proof is in games like Half Life 2, engines like those found in Gamebreaker (which relates directly). The time has come for a new engine which no longer relies upon, dare I saw it, two systems ago or on physics limitation that systems like the PS2 and Xbox had upon their launch.
>>
On the offensive side of things:
>>

• QB Scramble Accuracy. Every year in every game we see players that use teams like Michael Vick’s Falcons and West Virginia in NCAA ’09 because they can move their QBs around in an insane and unrealistic manner simply because it isn’t penalized in serious manner what so ever. I love the idea behind the All Pro Football ring that fills as a QB sets his feet indicating how ready he is to throw the ball. THAT makes realistic football sense. The faster a guy is on his release, the quicker he sets his feet, or the less his has to set his feet (if you want to look at it that way) before he can deliver a good ball. This is a crucial part of football. Even Vick, as mobile as he was, had a very poor completion rating, why, because a QB cannot throw 50 yard bombs with laser like precision. It’s like making and NBA player maintain his shooter rating despite constantly pulling up for fade-away three pointers. Further to this point is what direction he is running in. A right handed QB will throw better rolling out to his right, then if he were rolling out to the left. It’s just physics!
• Accurate Player Motions. You guys have never implemented accurate motions in your games and it’s driven me crazy since there have been times where I could have exploited the defense for major yards in certain situations by moving a tight end to one side while moving a full back in the opposite direction. This is legal in football as long as the first player has finished moving before the second one starts his motion and the second player does not cause an illegal formation as a result of his motion i.e. too many players on the line of scrimmage or too many players on one side of the ball. I fear that the reason this has not been implemented comes in three parts. The first being that the D in your games is already so shotty that having this many motions would render the game too easy. The second is that you can’t figure out how to keep the computer from doing so with any degree of control and that lastly, and quite possibly the scariest reason, you guys simply didn’t/don’t know that you can do this in football. Kind of like returning missed field goals until you saw teams do it last year. The thing is that you must have known that multi-motions were possible as you allow players to flip plays at the line often resulting in several people moving around at one time.
• RB Hot Routes. I had stated this a few posts back and apparently this has made an impression as it was seconded by several people afterwards as well as on other boards. When calling a running play audible, teams don’t just call dives. They call various runs from dives, sprints, cut backs, sweeps and many more, along with directional headings. It would be as simple as bring up the RBs HR screen the same as it is for a WR and selecting between 8 different kinds of running plays. Once selected the player can then, same as now, use the right stick to determine the direction they want the play to be run. As a result of the first point, passing has always been the better option on offence due to what you can do, those of us that enjoy the running game, or would if given an even playing field often have fallen short do to the various short comings we’ve had to face over the years such a pile diving, and squeezing between small holes which have just recently been implemented.
• WR Catch Cone. This is something that I’ve come up with in an attempt to not only curb jet packing on offence and defense. How this works is kind of like how the QB vision cone works, only in reverse. The tip of the cone indicates where the ball will hit the ground. The cone fans out, fading out towards where the pass came from. The degree to which the cone fades is impacted by how the WRs jump and catch ratings are and what kind of pass was thrown. A lob will have a shorter/wider cone as the balls is coming down from higher but allows receivers a chance to adjust to the ball where as a bullet pass will have a narrower/longer cone as it got heat on it making wider catches harder but giving some nearer the line of scrimmage a chance to make the catch and/or tip the ball. This should obviously be an option that one can turn on or off, if desired, but at the very least should be a consideration on how to design the physics of how to make the sprites catch the football. It can also be something that is adjusted via a slider as well under the title of something like WR ability. If a player is out of these zones, they cannot interact with the ball. They can jump and what not, but they will not impact the trajectory what so ever on the ball. The more faded the cone, the less likely they are to effect the desired action like tip or catch the ball.>>

>>
On the defensive side of things:
>>

• Defensive Match Ups. Why this has never been implemented in the game before, I’ll never know. Beating the defense in your games is as simple as making your starting WR the second or third WR in the depth chart. Why because you can’t make players match up. I don’t care if it is in zone coverage, you’ll never see some third string DB line up against a guy like Moss. If Champ Bailey is on the field, he is told before the game, you’re on Moss, where he goes, you go. This in and of itself lends itself to all kinds of strategy and adds a depth to the game that this franchise has been sorely missing since its inception. It such a simple and fundamental part of the game that one would assume that it would have been in a game since the very start. The same goes for linebackers and RBs, TEs, QBs, etc. We shouldn’t have to forced to play great players with lack luster defenders simply because the option to match them up doesn’t exist. And if for some reason there is a lower ranked DB with more speed then the starter, again we should be able to match them up to what ever player we want on the offence.
• Defensive Assignment to Pick Plays. Simply picking a set up D package where everything from the linemen, backers, DBs and Safeties is chosen for you is annoying. It also makes for exploits on offence. What I propose is that when picking defensive plays we be allowed to first pick the formation, then pick what the D-line does, stunt, bull rush, pinch, contain. Then pick what the linebackers do, zones, blitzes, man. Same for DBs and Safeties. This would make playing D not only entertaining but a lot more effective. Common plays like prevents and what not should also be pre-made, but the option to create on the fly defenses would be a huge asset in making this franchise dominant on a realistic level.
• Simplified Defensive Hot Routes. Making adjustments to the D should not be a complicated thing where one can only adjust a very small portion of what takes place on the field. As an example DBs playing Man in a zone formation. By the time one has done all of the button pushes and pressed and held all of the directional sticks to simply set one guys up, the ball is snapped and no one else has even been adjusted. Simply make it so that when you select a group to adjust you use buttons to represent the various members in that group hit a button and you get that player’s personal options. It can be as simple as by default having it that once you select someone, opposing players are not represented by a button and you simply hit that button and the guy plays man on them… This is not new, this was in 2K and it worked like a charm!
• See Catching Cone. Only that one defense, we reduce the number of buttons to defend passes. If the player isn’t in the cone, the button performs a tip and a tip only. If the player is in the cone, the computer must decide weather or not the player will attempt to intercept based on ratings, or swat it. Resulting in a fairer passing defense.

>>
Special Teams
>>

• Better Kick Off Controls. Year after year, we see changes made to every aspect of the game but here. Why can’t we do squib kicks? Why can’t we pick coverage team stunts? We get four options of onside, left, right and center. We can’t even really determine fully how far we want to kick it. Needs work.

>>
Franchise
>>

• Practice Squad players.
• Preseason Rosters.
• Variable contract types i.e. Front loaded, back loaded, even, ect. Had it before and lost it for some reason.
• Player Bonuses i.e. yardage, tackles, receptions, touchdowns, ect.
• Create a Stadium.
• Uniform Editing with downloadable content.
• Create a Play that acutely works and doesn’t come from another game that has nothing more to offer people who play Madden, then this feature.

>>
>>
There is a lot more work that needs to be done to this franchise. If those who say they want a real football game acutely mean it, I hope they print forums like this out, but I’ve really lost faith of the years. Things like patches have ruined the video game industry as companies use them to complete games, fix bugs which should have been done before release, and not to simply upgrade rosters and features as I believe patches were intended to do. I remain hopeful, yet skeptical in these matters as year after year we’ve been getting eye candy and roster upgrades with little to no substance to back it up…
>>
>>

*** As a side note this was copied from my other post in Madden but most of this retains it's points for NCAA as much as Madden.

[huskerfan101]

Quote: Originally Posted by Swingking77

I don’t really think that what needs to happen would happen as it would require WAY too much time and effort on the part of the producers. Instead of giving us ****ty game modes that don’t mean much and that nobody plays any how, they should be focusing on making a pure football game that only consists of football. fficeffice" />>> Where things started going wrong was when they started making game modes where one creates a player and brings him up through the ranks, blah blah blah… This kind of game would be better suited in a game Head Coach and developing talent is all about coaching, so as such, move it there. If you pass that off to another team, it will open things up for the team working on Madden. Obviously a game where one has a great deal of interaction over what happens on the actual field in a free flowing mode like Madden/NCAA is going to require more attention then something where one simply enters commands, the computer crunches the numbers before the play even starts and gives you a result like in Head Coach. As such, adding game modes that don’t directly reflect a game of football on a field would be better suited in a SIM game environment like Head Coach. Let the Head Coach players design rings and all the other junk that does little for the game if it saves space and time for actual game play development. For years now, we’ve been getting bombarded with fluff features and game modes that do little if anything to develop what the game was founded on… An on-field football game. These additional games have progresses much further and faster then what made the franchise what it is today. People aren’t going online and playing create-a-player online. People aren’t at home playing tournaments about who can make the best star. People aren’t at home doing any of these other things. What people are doing is sitting down and playing head to head with people in their homes or online, so please! Pretty please! Drop the fluff once and for all and give us a solid game of football once and for all. All that’s been happening is that you keep giving us a loaded car with square wheels and a steam engine. The people that are at the core of this franchise will not complain if game modes other then Quick Play and Franchise disappear and those that love these games, which I’m sure there are some of you out there, will be satisfied given that the game modes find their way to Head Coach or even another franchise that you could create and milk in the same manner that NBA the Life has found a nitch market. >> The Engine Needs Work!!!>> >> The engine needs to be completely reworked. This has been the problem with Madden for years now. We still see things like vacuum blocking (which could be a simple as having the linemen suck to the D instead of the D player with a clear line getting sucked into the blocker), vacuum catches, rocket/jet pack catches, the ball turning end over end like the magic bullet from the JFK incident to get into a receivers hands. These all serve as serious clues that something is a muck with this outdated engine. We now have the tools that can deliver physics at an amazing level giving us the ability to create games with physics like those in Half Life 2 and many more. There is no reason other then laziness to continue on your current course of action based on this shotty engine. There is merit in what I am saying as far as physics, the proof is in games like Half Life 2, engines like those found in Gamebreaker (which relates directly). The time has come for a new engine which no longer relies upon, dare I saw it, two systems ago or on physics limitation that systems like the PS2 and Xbox had upon their launch. >> On the offensive side of things: >> QB Scramble Accuracy. Every year in every game we see players that use teams like Michael Vick’s Falcons and West Virginia in NCAA ’09 because they can move their QBs around in an insane and unrealistic manner simply because it isn’t penalized in serious manner what so ever. I love the idea behind the All Pro Football ring that fills as a QB sets his feet indicating how ready he is to throw the ball. THAT makes realistic football sense. The faster a guy is on his release, the quicker he sets his feet, or the less his has to set his feet (if you want to look at it that way) before he can deliver a good ball. This is a crucial part of football. Even Vick, as mobile as he was, had a very poor completion rating, why, because a QB cannot throw 50 yard bombs with laser like precision. It’s like making and NBA player maintain his shooter rating despite constantly pulling up for fade-away three pointers. Further to this point is what direction he is running in. A right handed QB will throw better rolling out to his right, then if he were rolling out to the left. It’s just physics! Accurate Player Motions. You guys have never implemented accurate motions in your games and it’s driven me crazy since there have been times where I could have exploited the defense for major yards in certain situations by moving a tight end to one side while moving a full back in the opposite direction. This is legal in football as long as the first player has finished moving before the second one starts his motion and the second player does not cause an illegal formation as a result of his motion i.e. too many players on the line of scrimmage or too many players on one side of the ball. I fear that the reason this has not been implemented comes in three parts. The first being that the D in your games is already so shotty that having this many motions would render the game too easy. The second is that you can’t figure out how to keep the computer from doing so with any degree of control and that lastly, and quite possibly the scariest reason, you guys simply didn’t/don’t know that you can do this in football. Kind of like returning missed field goals until you saw teams do it last year. The thing is that you must have known that multi-motions were possible as you allow players to flip plays at the line often resulting in several people moving around at one time. RB Hot Routes. I had stated this a few posts back and apparently this has made an impression as it was seconded by several people afterwards as well as on other boards. When calling a running play audible, teams don’t just call dives. They call various runs from dives, sprints, cut backs, sweeps and many more, along with directional headings. It would be as simple as bring up the RBs HR screen the same as it is for a WR and selecting between 8 different kinds of running plays. Once selected the player can then, same as now, use the right stick to determine the direction they want the play to be run. As a result of the first point, passing has always been the better option on offence due to what you can do, those of us that enjoy the running game, or would if given an even playing field often have fallen short do to the various short comings we’ve had to face over the years such a pile diving, and squeezing between small holes which have just recently been implemented. WR Catch Cone. This is something that I’ve come up with in an attempt to not only curb jet packing on offence and defense. How this works is kind of like how the QB vision cone works, only in reverse. The tip of the cone indicates where the ball will hit the ground. The cone fans out, fading out towards where the pass came from. The degree to which the cone fades is impacted by how the WRs jump and catch ratings are and what kind of pass was thrown. A lob will have a shorter/wider cone as the balls is coming down from higher but allows receivers a chance to adjust to the ball where as a bullet pass will have a narrower/longer cone as it got heat on it making wider catches harder but giving some nearer the line of scrimmage a chance to make the catch and/or tip the ball. This should obviously be an option that one can turn on or off, if desired, but at the very least should be a consideration on how to design the physics of how to make the sprites catch the football. It can also be something that is adjusted via a slider as well under the title of something like WR ability. If a player is out of these zones, they cannot interact with the ball. They can jump and what not, but they will not impact the trajectory what so ever on the ball. The more faded the cone, the less likely they are to effect the desired action like tip or catch the ball.>> >> On the defensive side of things: >> Defensive Match Ups. Why this has never been implemented in the game before, I’ll never know. Beating the defense in your games is as simple as making your starting WR the second or third WR in the depth chart. Why because you can’t make players match up. I don’t care if it is in zone coverage, you’ll never see some third string DB line up against a guy like Moss. If Champ Bailey is on the field, he is told before the game, you’re on Moss, where he goes, you go. This in and of itself lends itself to all kinds of strategy and adds a depth to the game that this franchise has been sorely missing since its inception. It such a simple and fundamental part of the game that one would assume that it would have been in a game since the very start. The same goes for linebackers and RBs, TEs, QBs, etc. We shouldn’t have to forced to play great players with lack luster defenders simply because the option to match them up doesn’t exist. And if for some reason there is a lower ranked DB with more speed then the starter, again we should be able to match them up to what ever player we want on the offence. Defensive Assignment to Pick Plays. Simply picking a set up D package where everything from the linemen, backers, DBs and Safeties is chosen for you is annoying. It also makes for exploits on offence. What I propose is that when picking defensive plays we be allowed to first pick the formation, then pick what the D-line does, stunt, bull rush, pinch, contain. Then pick what the linebackers do, zones, blitzes, man. Same for DBs and Safeties. This would make playing D not only entertaining but a lot more effective. Common plays like prevents and what not should also be pre-made, but the option to create on the fly defenses would be a huge asset in making this franchise dominant on a realistic level. Simplified Defensive Hot Routes. Making adjustments to the D should not be a complicated thing where one can only adjust a very small portion of what takes place on the field. As an example DBs playing Man in a zone formation. By the time one has done all of the button pushes and pressed and held all of the directional sticks to simply set one guys up, the ball is snapped and no one else has even been adjusted. Simply make it so that when you select a group to adjust you use buttons to represent the various members in that group hit a button and you get that player’s personal options. It can be as simple as by default having it that once you select someone, opposing players are not represented by a button and you simply hit that button and the guy plays man on them… This is not new, this was in 2K and it worked like a charm! See Catching Cone. Only that one defense, we reduce the number of buttons to defend passes. If the player isn’t in the cone, the button performs a tip and a tip only. If the player is in the cone, the computer must decide weather or not the player will attempt to intercept based on ratings, or swat it. Resulting in a fairer passing defense. >> Special Teams >> Better Kick Off Controls. Year after year, we see changes made to every aspect of the game but here. Why can’t we do squib kicks? Why can’t we pick coverage team stunts? We get four options of onside, left, right and center. We can’t even really determine fully how far we want to kick it. Needs work. >> Franchise >> Practice Squad players. Preseason Rosters. Variable contract types i.e. Front loaded, back loaded, even, ect. Had it before and lost it for some reason. Player Bonuses i.e. yardage, tackles, receptions, touchdowns, ect. Create a Stadium. Uniform Editing with downloadable content. Create a Play that acutely works and doesn’t come from another game that has nothing more to offer people who play Madden, then this feature. >> >> There is a lot more work that needs to be done to this franchise. If those who say they want a real football game acutely mean it, I hope they print forums like this out, but I’ve really lost faith of the years. Things like patches have ruined the video game industry as companies use them to complete games, fix bugs which should have been done before release, and not to simply upgrade rosters and features as I believe patches were intended to do. I remain hopeful, yet skeptical in these matters as year after year we’ve been getting eye candy and roster upgrades with little to no substance to back it up… >> >> *** As a side note this was copied from my other post in Madden but most of this retains it's points for NCAA as much as Madden.

You do know that were all quoting on NCAA not Madden but NCAA so dont even bring all these suggestions for mostly madden .GO TYPE SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Old Gold and Blue]

One aspect that would add more realism is to make size matter. When recruiting I've seen a 180 some pound HB be listed as "power" which isn't very realistic. How many running backs have you seen that small actually be power backs? They are always faster and more agile. This also goes for the 6'2 225 pound backs that are listed as "speed" backs. Sure running backs that size can have great speed, but they also have power so they should either be listed as "balanced" or "power." This can obviously be applicable to any position.

[shyvoodoo]

All I want is..... A BROADCAST CAMERA!!!

especially for cpu v. cpu games (watch mode)!!
OH and please, please, please get rid of the "quick play" during cpu games.
I mean the play is over, then they back at the line in two seconds, ready to snap. Put in some cut sceans or animations to give the game a better flow to it.. like the last gen games did....

Chain Gang..period. Give us a more customization when it comes to presentation like can I have a choice if I want to see the first down line on the field??

Everyone on here has some awesome ideas so you cant go wrong with anything on here... this is a great thread like always.

[tyler289]

i want ncaa 2010 to make me feel like im playing college football. players should come ALIVE in the 4th quarter or after a big play and there should be more player interaction.

not to mention the stadiums are still messed up. I was playing at Midd Tenn State and it was of course a SELLOUT and my senior QB was rattled. dont understand it.

[huskerfan101]

Does EA really look at these and use the best ones for maybeez or are all of us wasting all of our time, really I want to know?????????????????????

[tyler289]

Quote: Originally Posted by huskerfan101

Does EA really look at these and use the best ones for maybeez or are all of us wasting all of our time, really I want to know?????????????????????

In the past, these are ignored. But with Ian and OMT here I think at least some of these issues will be addressed and hopefully they read these to get a feel for what we want.

[slickkill77]

Quote: Originally Posted by tyler289

In the past, these are ignored. But with Ian and OMT here I think at least some of these issues will be addressed and hopefully they read these to get a feel for what we want.

I'll believe it when I see it....


How about different body types? My 175lb CB shouldnt look like a steriod using 250lb player. We need to be able to choose from slim, normal and big. The player models are terrible