Staff Roundtable: How Are We Feeling About NCAA Football 12 Now?

[tbook24]

look i think people lose sight of the fact that this is a video game and there are still limits to what you can put in agame. it will never be perfection but out of the box it is a great game. as we go along patches will come down and the product will get even better. i think its great for what it is being the second tier football game at ea.

[oldman]

I was loving this game until last night when I tried to advance my online dynasty. I have a 10 person online dynasty which is basically the only reason I play this game and we can't advance past week 1. We even waited a week and a half to start so that hopefully some of the kinks would be worked out. What a joke.

[JaySmooov]

I'll put it like this: Just played against a guy. Ranked 104 in the nation. Used Oregon. The guy runs out of ONE formation - It has a RB, two FBs, a TE, and a OLB for some reason. Kept running to the strong side LITERALLY ALL GAME until I figured out how to stop it.

Then few times he passed, out of 4 wide, he cheesed an outside slant to #7 on Oregon. Picked off one though for a TD. I shut that down after about the second time he ran it.

THEN he comes out in some formation that has 4 QBs and 6 WRs and a CB, and they all huddle up at the ball. I don't know if it's a bug, but I know my DT was somehow called for offsides one play, and he accepted it quick. He came out in it again later, so I moved the DT and he couldn't do anything, and got a delay of game.

Let's not forget, he used a nano blitz. Told me it was in the 3-3-5 stack.

In my mind I beat him. Technically, no, because I was up 31-24 (I kicked an onside kick and got it, just to be an a-hole) and since I couldn't just stop while I was ahead and run the clock out, I tried throwing on 3rd down instead of just taking a sack. I didn't expect to get the pass off because he was nano blitzing, meaning one guy always came off the line untouched, making it impossible to make reads. You can run the ball fairly well, Jeff Demps had like 3 TDS (All outside runs I believe). I ended up giving him like 6 seconds and he did some cheesy play and threw it to Oregon's 6'5 WR and he caught it with no attempt by the DB to even at least jump, even though he was in perfect position to swat it/pick it off. I dashboarded, and he didn't get the win, I also didn't get the loss I believe.

What's the point of this rant? Basically, if EA can let these things in the game, YEAR IN, YEAR OUT, it shows they just don't give a f**k about people who want to have fun. And yes, that one game literally drained all the fun out of playing NCAA 12. This happened like 30 minutes ago BTW.

Combine that with all the bugs and glitches, and it's amazing EA is even allowed to put this crap out. Custom Playbooks that don't work (for some), roster editing/tendency bug (tendencies mean NOTHING in the game outside of QBs anyway - you tell me what's the difference between a speed RB and a power RB in game. Don't worry, I'll wait....), dynasty recruiting bug, etc.

Don't get me wrong, the game is WAY more enjoyable against the CPU, and enjoyable on all fronts. Just online, it feels like I have to beat/trick the video game as well as beat the guy you're playing.

To think, the biggest online gripe (I've heard) for NBA 2K11 was how you could drive to the hole with the Miami Heat, and they fixed that to the best of their ability. I'm not even sure EA CARES about how you play online. "Yeah, nano blitz all you want, just make sure you buy the new commissioner pack!"

If they did care, they'd address the fact that the SAME guys are on top of the leaderboards EVERY year. There are probably videos of guys doing these things; pay them off and have them find glitches in the game so they can be removed.

Part of me wants to stomp the game into oblivion, but I know I'll keep playing. It kind of feels like EA is blackmailing us IN SOME form or fashion.

[LambertandHam]

Quote: Originally Posted by tbook24

look i think people lose sight of the fact that this is a video game and there are still limits to what you can put in agame. it will never be perfection but out of the box it is a great game. as we go along patches will come down and the product will get even better. i think its great for what it is being the second tier football game at ea.

True in the fact that all software will have bugs one time or another. The game itself is fun, in messing around with my dynasty. I'm still amazed that the freezing bug got by the testers. You'd think in all the development they'd realize that the game would tank in dynasty or in general.

[chargers17]

Overall I feel like the game this year is the best in a long while and lets not forget that most of the gameplay bugs and glitches are because of a new gameplay system that ea has adopted. Like anything else, when you move to a new operating system you are not going to be able to fix all of these problems, especially in the case of a video game because the production team has a set date to have all of their new features completed and tuned by. Having said that, I have some head scratching moments that I think should be taken a look at for next years game.

The #1 flaw that I see on the defensive side of the ball is when the defense is a zone coverage, in this case we'll say cover 2. Now if i have 4 verts from the normal or spread shotgun set called against cover 2 its almost a guarantee that I'm going to get at least 20 yards from a throw to either of the inside receivers. So I drop back and when I feel that one of the receivers is 3 or 4 steps past the dropping linebackers I throw him the ball. At this point this should be an easy completion and all I should have to worry about is protecting the ball on the rac, but about half the time I see a linebacker turn his head away from the quarterback, start running in the direction of a receiver and without turning his head back around to track the ball, he will throw up a hand and swat the ball away. Come on ea, we all know that this type of play might happen once a game, if that, so why is this happening 3 out of 6 times that I run this play? This glitch often happens when a receiver gets past any defender playing zone, not just in that situation. I think many people would agree that they are tired of seeing zone defenders with eyes in the back of their heads.

The next problem that i have found occurs on bubble screens, halfback screens, and swing routes. When I throw a bubble screen it seems that almost every time the QB throws the ball 5 yards in front of the receiver and sometimes resulting in an interception by the corner who would otherwise be completely out of position. HB screens and swing passes are missed because the RB just stops ant the QB throws the ball way out in front of, or in the case of swing passes, way over the head of the intended receiver. on screens the qb should know where the running back is going to stop and on swing passes 90% of the time the RB should swing to the sidelines and if the qb is still standing upright, start up the sideline.

All in all I feel that this is a very good game and imo the best since 2006 on the ps2, but there are some glaring head scratching problems that need to be fixed moving forward.

[Daniels2386]

Quote:

THEN he comes out in some formation that has 4 QBs and 6 WRs and a CB

He was using Custom Playbooks and what you saw was it glitching up on his end. He wasnt able to pick an actual play because all he saw was (?) question marks on every formation. So when you finally select one of those plays your team either all huddles around the ball OR they try to line up in a defensive set...Really random and stupid I know, I used custom playbooks and it happened to me at least 3 times every game I play with custom playbooks ( why I said in a earlier post I dont even play online anymore). Whats even crazier is when the offense DOES randomly line up in a Defensive set iF they make contact with ANY of your players its offsides on the defense :/ ... Only way I could get out of the glitch is call a time out.

[rudyjuly2]

I don't get how people say the cpu AI is smarter. On offense I still see slow QBs running the option, I don't see the cpu QB getting the ball in the hands of the best wide receivers, I see terrible clock management, etc. We are still a long, long way off before the cpu actually calls good plays and use their personel properly. They don't act play like a human in any way unless you say the person calling the plays is Forest Gump. All of the cpu RBs run the same way. Big backs and small backs seem to use the exact same logic when running. I see no personality in this game. Great players are often invisible.

The lack of real physics and player momentum is really going to hurt long term. Football needs this more than any other sport and without a big improvement I'm not sure NCAA 13 will be a first day purchase.

One of my biggest complaints has been the neutered RBs. The stiff arm, r-stick juke and truck move all suck. Those were fun and now they are not. I can't seem to make any good moves in the open field anymore.

[Illustrator76]

Quote: Originally Posted by rudyjuly2

I don't get how people say the cpu AI is smarter. On offense I still see slow QBs running the option, I don't see the cpu QB getting the ball in the hands of the best wide receivers, I see terrible clock management, etc. We are still a long, long way off before the cpu actually calls good plays and use their personel properly. They don't act play like a human in any way unless you say the person calling the plays is Forest Gump. All of the cpu RBs run the same way. Big backs and small backs seem to use the exact same logic when running. I see no personality in this game. Great players are often invisible. The lack of real physics and player momentum is really going to hurt long term. Football needs this more than any other sport and without a big improvement I'm not sure NCAA 13 will be a first day purchase. One of my biggest complaints has been the neutered RBs. The stiff arm, r-stick juke and truck move all suck. Those were fun and now they are not. I can't seem to make any good moves in the open field anymore.

Good post. The CPU play-calling is downright bad sometimes. I have seen the CPU snap the ball and then immediately throw the ball directly out of bounds, or to a receiver that is clearly covered. Sometimes it almost feels predetermined before the snap who the CPU is going to pass to, covered or not. I will say that the CPU run game is very deadly and feels very fair, even when I am giving up lots of yards. Besides that, the entire CPU play-calling logic (Offense and Defense) needs to be totally rewritten IMHO.