Recruiting Question

[NCAAFBall00]

My question is I have a WR who does my kick return and punt return. My question is hes returned two so far this year one at 99 yards and also just set another record with a 103. My question is is it offense players overall that get the push who we are recruiting or because he is a WR that it affects the WR's

[The Red Scourge]

I don’t understand the question. Are you letting the CPU do the recruiting?

[NCAAFBall00]

Quote: Originally Posted by The Red Scourge

I don’t understand the question. Are you letting the CPU do the recruiting?

My question is I have WR as my kick return.... Is the points that you get like say for example u put 300 on a player for recruiting the points that recruit gets that week like the bonus and such does that kick return that he does work for WR...

For example my WR who does the kick return got 2 kick off TD in 1 game now does that give extra pts to just my WR that I'm recruiting?

[Tuscaloosa]

Quote: Originally Posted by NCAAFBall00

My question is I have WR as my kick return.... Is the points that you get like say for example u put 300 on a player for recruiting the points that recruit gets that week like the bonus and such does that kick return that he does work for WR... For example my WR who does the kick return got 2 kick off TD in 1 game now does that give extra pts to just my WR that I'm recruiting?

I think I understand what you're asking. Go to Recruiting/My School - this will give you letter grades for 14 different categories surrounding your (and every other) team, and how to improve in each category. One category is "Playing Style". This will tell you how to how to improve your grade for each position, and sometimes, specific player types within the position, like "Pass", "Scrambler" or "Balanced" for QBs.

I'm not sure if any other "hidden credit" is given for in-game accomplishments. "No" would be my guess, as I figure they would have told us if that were the case.

[Rieux]

Knowing EA, I don't know that they would've told us =P but I agree with the above poster - my guess would be that PR/KR stats have no effect on recruiting, since when they're returning kicks, the position they're technically playing is KR and/or PR on the depth chart, rather than WR, HB, CB, whatever their "normal" position is, if that makes sense. When your guy housed those kickoffs, he was temporarily not a WR at all according to the game engine, but a KR.

Of course, if you play a TE at WR all year (without changing his position, just playing him at WR out of position) and he gets 100 catches, and gets 0 snaps at TE, he'll probably still win the Mackey Award - I'm not sure of this, so someone feel free to correct me, but I assume that would be the case. So maybe I'm wrong - I often am! - but I'd be surprised if that were the case.

The KR and PR positions could use a lot of clarifying in general. Each player has their own "Return" rating, but also their own unique OVR rating at the KR/PR positions, which the Return attribute doesn't seem to be a huge part of (i.e. if you auto-sort, the guys that get put at #1 KR/PR will often be 90+ OVR at that position despite a mediocre Return attribute). I'd be curious as to what calculations the game uses both numbers with, if anyone's figured that out. I never know who the best to put at those positions are - I usually try to prioritize the speed and athleticism ratings with KR/PR OVR and the Return attrib, without putting a low-INJ player in those spots unless he's a youngster who isn't in the two-deep at his position.

[GGGswim]

I'd have to voice my agreement with Tuscaloosa as to not gaining any in-game bonus from either KR-TDs or even receiving TDs. If I'm not mistaken, the categories mentioned within your recruiting pages improve or decline when you are transitioning from one season to the next, the CPU taking stock of how you did.
However, bring your guy in for his visit and that's when you want to make sure you hit those possible bonus marks.
As to Rieux' comments regarding who to put where (KR/PR)...I always go with fastest ball handlers (WR, HB, CB, tho I've not had as much success w/ that idea if its FS) for KR. I sort on Speed, but pay attention to the Accel column next. For PR I sort on Accel first, then lean toward the fastest WR/HB/CB who also offers a good agility ##.
I think it was Pocketscout's app/program back in the day that produced a Mobility ## -- (Speed+Agil+Accel)/3 -- that I use in recruiting to this day (even for OL and DL). I find that ## also useful for PR.
My question on PR has always been: which blocking category(s) are most important for the outside 'gunner' blockers?

[Rieux]

Quote: Originally Posted by GGGswim

I'd have to voice my agreement with Tuscaloosa as to not gaining any in-game bonus from either KR-TDs or even receiving TDs. If I'm not mistaken, the categories mentioned within your recruiting pages improve or decline when you are transitioning from one season to the next, the CPU taking stock of how you did. However, bring your guy in for his visit and that's when you want to make sure you hit those possible bonus marks. As to Rieux' comments regarding who to put where (KR/PR)...I always go with fastest ball handlers (WR, HB, CB, tho I've not had as much success w/ that idea if its FS) for KR. I sort on Speed, but pay attention to the Accel column next. For PR I sort on Accel first, then lean toward the fastest WR/HB/CB who also offers a good agility ##. I think it was Pocketscout's app/program back in the day that produced a Mobility ## -- (Speed+Agil+Accel)/3 -- that I use in recruiting to this day (even for OL and DL). I find that ## also useful for PR. My question on PR has always been: which blocking category(s) are most important for the outside 'gunner' blockers?

Another great question. We really need to round up a bunch of uber-smart coding types and get them to analyze the game, the data on the disc, and the info that the editor returns, and get them to figure all this out lol.

Run Blocking (RBK) is the natural assumption, or at least makes a lot more sense than PBK, but of course there's no way to be certain the game uses the RBK value during kick returns. I'd also assume STR is used as well, since it's weighted so highly in the OVR formula for O-linemen. And Impact Blocking seems a reasonable assumption as well.

If I were testing in Practice, I'd start with those 2 or 3 values - maybe 5-10 returns with blockers edited to have max RBK and STR, and 5-10 with those ratings around 20 or 30 (I wouldn't want to go as low as 0 - I'd stick to whatever the lowest values for those ratings are that occur naturally in-game, since 0 might confuse some of the formulas? Hmm) It might be interesting to formation sub in offensive linemen at those positions and see what happens.

I've always been curious about the potential of tweaking subs on special teams formations, and putting in more talent, but it uses up your 50 allowed subs pretty fast.

Another question of interest that could shed some light: I can't check right now, but does anyone recall offhand what players the game puts into ST formations by default? Is it just specific depth chart slots, the same for every team across the board? i.e., SS #2 (or whatever) at Right Gunner for every team? If no one has compiled this info before, we might consider testing these things and seeing if we can verify each other's results. OS is the best resource of NCAA 14 info online, this board is basically the NCAA 14 Wiki, and the info might help other people figure out more stuff down the road, on top of just being of interest to us.

Another caveat, which probably goes without saying but still should be pointed out, is that stuff that people have confirmed about how NCAA 13 works, or other earlier games, may be completely different in 14 because of the Infinity engine. I say that because I'm sure folks have asked these questions, or similar questions, in the years before - so if anyone finds some potentially related info that someone found about NCAA 12 or 13, it would still be helpful, but we shouldn't necessarily take it at face value.

So maybe someone will pop in with some insight. I've definitely always had a ton of questions about how special teams work in the game in general. And your question about how blocking works - given that ST forms use such a wide variety of positions as blockers and gunners on both sides of the ball - is a good one to figure out, if we can!

btw, I love that mobility number idea - I need to read more of PS's stuff, he's done maybe more than anyone in figuring out how the game works under the hood. It might be more interesting to give speed some more weight, maybe ([SPD x 1.5] + AGI + ACC) / 3, but just using the sum of the 3 and finding their average is easier to do in your head. Either way a number like that will definitely help me decide how to order some of my skill position guys on the chart!