Five Reasons to Be Excited for NCAA 13: #4 Scouting Gems and Busts

[khaliib]

Depends on how much of a Gameplay fanatic you are if this your fancy.

As some have noted, if Ratings actually have an "In-Game" affect during Gameplay.
Otherwise, as it's been proven with videos since being on Next Gen, there's no actual Gameplay difference with most of the ratings outside of speed once you venture away from the QB position.

A CPU 1 Star player will perform the exact same as a CPU 5 Star player.

Some Ratings, Speed/QB AWR/Play Rec/Pursuit, pretty much are the foundation of the gameplay, while most other ratings que when/how animations will play out.

If the on-field AI shows a difference, then it will be an injection that helps the game.

They've already stated they've done nothing to OL/DL so rating scouting with these two positions will be a waste of time, as a K/P will block the same as any OL Recruit.

We shall see if we get a surprise from EA for once!!!

[TheTruth437]

Quote: Originally Posted by BlackJack

the ratings need to mean more in actual gameplay for this to matter to me

Amen. Ratings need to matter much, much more with on-the-field gameplay. For example, if someone has a starting line-up of one-star WRs, then they should have much more trouble getting open then a starting line-up of five-star WRs.

[noplace]

Doesn't ratings have to work/matter in order for this to have an effect on the game?

[kb833]

I'm a Coach Mode guy, so for me the ratings actually matter. Since I don't control players during the game, recruiting is HUGE for me. That's why I am excited about both this and the new athletes.

[acelang123]

I think this will help when you are entering that lull phase in offline dynasty year 5-8. It always seemed to me that the deep years were repetitive when it came to who succeeded in recruiting and who didn't. This will mix it up, I think.

[Elgin2311]

Love the addition of scouting, I think they should hide the ovr rating. All thats left is giving us juniors to recruit anf scout and for the love remove the hard commit, recruiting is what it is because its so. Also it would be nice once you get a commit you can use that player to influence other player during phone calls. One more thing that I wish they would change is making it more about how you fit as a school with a player, the reason why its so easy to turn around a program is because its more about filling the bar the fastest. The bar should represent the relationship with the prospect, then the prosect can CHOOSE which place fits him most based on how his priorities line up with your school. Which in the end puts more importance on the sway pitch (which most dont use). Then if we can get the hard commit removed recruiting can be taken to a whole new level.

[TajDeni]

im alittle confused about scouting..

is it absolutely necessary that i even do scouting? meaning if it just reveals the ratings, well i pretty much already knew exactly how to determine the athletic ratings and the skill ratins i already knew the general range. i never recruit for overall, i more look for the recruits skillset; so i could care less about actual just having the ratings revealed.

but if somehow scouting actually changes the ratings of a players particular skillset, well then thats different. meaning if a guy runs a 4.5 40yrd dash, well i already know exactly what that means in terms of in-game rating. but if scouting a player means that he's listed at running a 4.5 but scouting reveals that he runs a 4.7, the i actually have to take scouting serious.

if just the overalls drop but the skillsets stay the same then i dont care and feel that i dont really need to take scouting that seriously.

dont get me wrong its a nice addition, im just trying to find out it is more of an essential, if its mandatory that i scout players or if i can just recruit the normal way that i do

can someone please provide a breakdown of exactly how scouting works, please only concrete answers as not to confuse folks. thanks

[jello1717]

Quote: Originally Posted by TajDeni

im alittle confused about scouting.. is it absolutely necessary that i even do scouting? meaning if it just reveals the ratings, well i pretty much already knew exactly how to determine the athletic ratings and the skill ratins i already knew the general range. i never recruit for overall, i more look for the recruits skillset; so i could care less about actual just having the ratings revealed. but if somehow scouting actually changes the ratings of a players particular skillset, well then thats different. meaning if a guy runs a 4.5 40yrd dash, well i already know exactly what that means in terms of in-game rating. but if scouting a player means that he's listed at running a 4.5 but scouting reveals that he runs a 4.7, the i actually have to take scouting serious. if just the overalls drop but the skillsets stay the same then i dont care and feel that i dont really need to take scouting that seriously. dont get me wrong its a nice addition, im just trying to find out it is more of an essential, if its mandatory that i scout players or if i can just recruit the normal way that i do can someone please provide a breakdown of exactly how scouting works, please only concrete answers as not to confuse folks. thanks

You're going to want to scout players if you want to know how good they'll be. You can see how it works from some of the vids on youtube.

I don't know if the 40 time will change with scouting, but all of the ratings will. The best way to look at it is that you have guesses as to their ratings, but you won't know for sure until you actually scout them. IE. if you look @ a HB and see that his TRK is a B, in NCAA '12, you'd know that he'll come in with around 83-86 TRK. However, in '13, that B is just a guess. When you scout him you might find that he does indeed have 85 TRK. However, after taking a closer look you might find that it's actually a 90 TRK, or it could be only a 75 TRK. In some of the recruiting vids you can see that sometimes the initial ratings guesses can be off by quite a bit. I think I saw a QB with A- THP only end up in the high 70s after being scouted. If you look @ a QB and you're expecting 92 THP, don't scout him and find out that he actually only has 78 THP, you're gonna really regret not scouting him before spending tons of time recruiting and then scouting him.

EDIT:
Check out this video:


Look at the scouting of Cedrick Walker. He has these abilities scouted:

Expected:
C -> 78
D -> 53
C -> 79
D -> 34
D -> 39
D -> 55

Worse than initially expected:
B -> 74
A -> 86

Better than expected:
C -> 83
C -> 85
C -> 86
D -> 76

So if you initially wanted this guy as a WR, you may be disappointed by his lack of catching ability. However, you may not have been impressed with his cover skills before, but after scouting you see that he's actually quite good at both man and zone coverage.