NCAA Football 14 Impressions Thread

[BenGerman]

Again, I think my experience has been a little different than everyone else. My last five games (as UF):

W: 23-20 (Toledo)
W: 20-17 (Miami)
W: 27-17 (Tennessee)
W: 17-13 (Kentucky)
L: 13-33 (Arkansas)

If anything, I think there has been too much good defense from what I've seen. I've been able to mix in zones, blitzes, and man and had a lot of success with it. The zones are a little too soft up the middle, but I'm hoping that can be addressed via patch or sliders.

Plus, I have been getting a huge pass rush with my front four, which is something that I've never had in a game of NCAA Football.

[tyberious4now]

Buy or no buy that is the question? Right now I'm at the no buy stage until a patch is done and it fix what is wrong with this game!

[Dogslax41]

After logging about 10-15 games (exhibition and Hawaii dynasty) MY opinion of the game has remained unchanged from my initial reaction, a fantastic game that is severely crippled by poor balance creating game-breaking flaws in key technical areas.

This has been one of if not the most frustrating games that I have ever played because it is so close to being the most fun and best football game I have ever played, but fails miserably in areas that right now, unaddressed will keep me from buying the game. The irony of this is that it seems like EA’s additions to the game are the cause of the issue because they have failed to balance gameplay additions with pre-existing gameplay state.

I’ll start with the gamebreaking bad for me.

• Pass coverage for the human and the cpu have some horrendous balancing issues that lead to major problems. If gameplan is set to conservative or normal, zone coverage defenders will ignore players running through their zone and only pick them up if they stop and camp in their circle on influence. This leads to slants and drags running free through zone coverage and make playing zone impossible in key medium yardage situations because players refuse to pick up and pass on receivers. When set to aggressive gameplan defenders will almost run the route for the receiver and take superhuman routes and breaks on the ball. I’ll be honest, I hated and haven’t used these gameplan adjustments after a year or two after they were integrated because I always felt they were cheap and provided an unrealistic boost (big hit, strip and jump snap settings just felt cheesy and guessing run always reminded me of guessing the opponents play on Tecmo Bowl and the jail break that ensued)

I can understand how for some these gameplan additions are great additions to the game and need to be there, but it seems like programmers failed miserably to balance their integration into the game. The coverage gameplan setting seems to trump any coverage slider changes and essentially breaks both human and cpu coverage and the user can’t make any adjustments to fix those issues. Now while playing I know that if I call a pass play and the CPUs secondary’s first step is back I can hit a slant, drag or post with ease. From the snap I can tell if a defender is going to run my receiver’s route and there is no way he is getting separation no matter what the route is, perfect example of this are the curl routes. In reality if a defender is on a receivers hip stride for stride the curl is going to break his ankles, but in the game the defender turns in time with the receiver when in aggressive mode and more often than not picks the pass. From a human side this makes CPU defenses shutting me down impossible unless the defense just simply far outskills my offense (USC v Hawaii). For games where the CPU is equal to or even moderately better than my team the games are not nearly the 50/50 endeavor that they should be because of the ease of completing 5-10 yard passes against zone keeping drives alive.

• This leads to the second major issue for me, CPU running defense is non existent. The irony of this is that this appears to be the case because EA did such a good job with o line schemes, second level blocking and the option game. If you are remotely able to read the blocking scheme and defensive setup you are all but guaranteed 4-10 yards and no adjustment of defensive sliders or game level settings are going to help. The major issue that seems to be impacting this is that EA did a great job with implementing offensive line improvements but since no player rating in the game other than speed seems to have any impact on gameplay, the defenders are at a severe disadvantage because even a dominant defensive line player can be picked up and blocked by the worst of offensive linemen and now that they take proper angles and pick up defenders better you get to the second level with ease now. Granted I have only broken one major run over 30 yards in all of my games, but the automatic 5-10 yards combined with the coverage issues make it almost impossible for the CPU to stop me and I find that I regularly have 15-18 play touchdown drives.

The painful part about all of this is that other than these two issues the game is fantastic and would be a ton of fun to play.

Pros for me

• ESPN integration is finally done well and is almost perfect (give me video highlights during studio updates and halftime and add a weekly wrap up show and its perfect)

In game stat overlays, player specific commentary, team specific commentary and game trend specific commentary all add life to a game
Studio updates highlighting player performance add immersion to dynasties and make you interested in other players around the country

• Recruiting is fantastic. I know some don’t like the removal of the calls but I think its great. Its not time consuming and tedious but still allows you to adjust time focused on players. The randomness combined with the bonus points for pitch correlation to interests and bonus points for performance on the field at a recruits position. Recruiting is now difficult and requires thought and strategy but without being overly time consuming and keeping you off the field.
• Coaching carousel gets a huge upgrade and makes it interesting to me now that there is a progression slider. This for me fixes what was a broken useless system and makes it a huge part of the game. Being able to set progression to slowest means you won’t be Kunte Rockne after one year at SMU and makes you actually invest time. I love that I got use to using the WR matchup feature during exhibition then had it ripped out of my hands when I started my dynasty as a fresh coach.
• Most importantly the game looks and feels beautiful and plays a very smooth and gorgeous game of football. Physics and animations have been blended very well and while there are some comical moments overall the feel of the game is fantastic. It has just enough and not too many of those moments that make you yell out loud and then have to watch the replay over and over just to appreciate what happened.

There are plenty of other smaller pros (vibrant color style works well on the field, menus are gorgeous, Nike skills are a fantastic addition) and cons (atmosphere is still awful with no crowd interaction, uniform inaccuracies, button and menu lag, missing TD replay issues, sidelines are N64 level graphically) but the general feel for me is that EA did itself a major disservice and release an unfinished game because this game feels 2/3 months away from near perfection and jumping into NBA2k and The Shows weight class.

The biggest issue is that the two major gripes that I have with the game can’t be fixed with sliders. I’ve gotten too old to be able to invest all my time adjusting sliders for sports games anymore and had said if that was what NCAA demanded is was going to be a no go for me, but the game is so good that if these issues could be fixed with sliders I probably would have jumped and been forced to do it because the game is really that good outside of those issues.

[gogators]

Quote: Originally Posted by BenGerman

Again, I think my experience has been a little different than everyone else. My last five games (as UF): W: 23-20 (Toledo) W: 20-17 (Miami) W: 27-17 (Tennessee) W: 17-13 (Kentucky) L: 13-33 (Arkansas) If anything, I think there has been too much good defense from what I've seen. I've been able to mix in zones, blitzes, and man and had a lot of success with it. The zones are a little too soft up the middle, but I'm hoping that can be addressed via patch or sliders. Plus, I have been getting a huge pass rush with my front four, which is something that I've never had in a game of NCAA Football.

What is your slider set and difficulty. Want to give them a try. Maybe a moot point because of tuner sets and a patch that is out on retail version.

[hazelhood19]

Quote: Originally Posted by BenGerman

Again, I think my experience has been a little different than everyone else. My last five games (as UF): W: 23-20 (Toledo) W: 20-17 (Miami) W: 27-17 (Tennessee) W: 17-13 (Kentucky) L: 13-33 (Arkansas) If anything, I think there has been too much good defense from what I've seen. I've been able to mix in zones, blitzes, and man and had a lot of success with it. The zones are a little too soft up the middle, but I'm hoping that can be addressed via patch or sliders. Plus, I have been getting a huge pass rush with my front four, which is something that I've never had in a game of NCAA Football.

My only gripe so far with this game is the front four pressure. What sliders are you using, and are you user'ing the dline or leaving that for the CPU?

[BenGerman]

Quote: Originally Posted by hazelhood19

My only gripe so far with this game is the front four pressure. What sliders are you using, and are you user'ing the dline or leaving that for the CPU?

I switch off between user DL and user FS.

My sliders are pretty simple. Heisman difficulty on Offense, AA on Defense.

Speed: Normal
Threshold: 50 (though, I've been debating changing this)

QBA: 5/5
CPU RBA: 60
CPU Run Blocking: 60
PCV: 55/55
INT: 45/45
FGA: 5/45

[hazelhood19]

Quote: Originally Posted by BenGerman

I switch off between user DL and user FS. My sliders are pretty simple. Heisman difficulty on Offense, AA on Defense. Speed: Normal Threshold: 50 (though, I've been debating changing this) QBA: 5/5 CPU RBA: 60 CPU Run Blocking: 60 PCV: 55/55 INT: 45/45 FGA: 5/45

Cool, man. I'll give those a shot and I'll try to user more with a dlineman.

[carnalnirvana]

Quote: Originally Posted by BenGerman

Again, I think my experience has been a little different than everyone else. My last five games (as UF): W: 23-20 (Toledo) W: 20-17 (Miami) W: 27-17 (Tennessee) W: 17-13 (Kentucky) L: 13-33 (Arkansas) If anything, I think there has been too much good defense from what I've seen. I've been able to mix in zones, blitzes, and man and had a lot of success with it. The zones are a little too soft up the middle, but I'm hoping that can be addressed via patch or sliders. Plus, I have been getting a huge pass rush with my front four, which is something that I've never had in a game of NCAA Football.

all our experiences will be different but the underlying issue is that cpu D is weak if you play a certain style..

in my MSU dynasty i am running a pro style offense, games are close and defense plays a factor. in my Memphis dynasty i can schedule Alabama and crush them with the spread. And if i choose to run 5 wide i can score on every possession.

you had mentioned in a post earlier people want a flawless game, no we dont but just like in basketball if shaq was shooting 5+ 3's a game, or jj reddick was dunking from the free throw line that would be an issue. thats what we have here.

when alabama has a 3rd and 17 at their own 30 and choose to throw a hailmary in the first Q.. we have a problem or a 4 vert on 3rd and goal from the 2. we have an issue.

if you are a ncaa regular you can win if you want to, by alot and there is defense in the game if you call cover 2 man all game but most of us dont want to play like that. it sucks to have 200 plays in your playbook but can only rely on 3