More details about the Live Tuning Pack can be found right here.
Quote:
"For gameplay you should notice that larger players cannot jump as high to swat down passes making things look and feel more authentic. In Dynasty mode, it means two things. First, the majority of the teams in Dynasty will be slightly better than before due to having access to higher rated Prospects and slightly better progression. Second, CPU teams will do a much better job of accurately filling their rosters."
It seems like the WR skill ratings are still undervalued. These are supposed to be some of the most nimble players on the field. Seems like there's also too great a discrepancy between speed and acceleration ratings.
A player's running skills as they relate to speed, acceleration, and juking, don't really develop that much over a college career. Freshmen should come in with these skills being more highly developed from the start.
It's the football skills, route running, awareness, blocking, catching, that should start lower and grow substantially from year to year.
Also, though awareness might not have a great effect on gameplay, how do the low ratings affect simmed results?
and to compare, the top tackle ratings for CBs.
81, 79, 77, 77, 77
FSs seem to have a lot of good tacklers though.
Exactly. Russ said it himself. Their evasiveness, juke, spin, and stiff arm are lowered because corners can't tackle good. It evens it out. We don't want to play NCAA 09 again, so it has to be done. And if you time a spin right, you're still getting by the guy.
I like the new update cause I feel that it was needed but I noticed Russ you are not mentioning nothing about man coverage. I hope that it can be fixed with the patch and not something that can't be resolved. I like a good simulation game of football, I like to mix up my coverages but as it stand right now I refuse to play man coverage against.
Also I thing there is a problem with going out of bounds and the clock not stopping...I had that occur a couple of times
and to compare, the top tackle ratings for CBs(simmed 6 season).
81, 79, 77, 77, 77
FSs seem to have a lot of good tacklers though.
That's why most of the time I don't even bother recruiting CB's outside of ones that have high interest in me. When a 6'3 FS has around the same coverage skills and more hitting power then my 5'10 CB, I'm going to start him.
I don't think a freshman should ever come in rated in the 90s, but I do think thats how it should work. The problem is that the bad schools are getting bad players.
but how is this a problem?
Seems to me to get a good team, it might takes years. Which is...wait for it...REALISTIC.
It is bad because 1 * guys aren't even signed by the worst teams in real life. They are D2 and D3 players. Go look at the worst teams you can imagine in the country and their recruiting classes. They are made up of all 2* players at worst. A team that didn't even win 1 game last year in Eastern Michigan didn't sign anybody below a 2 *. Since this is a D1 game they don't belong in the game let alone taking about as much of team's depth charts as they do.
And how would it not take years to build if the bad teams had their players coming in at 50-60. They are still much worse than the better teams incoming recruits.
For the record I don't really disagree with your chart there. Pretty similar to what I would come up with, but it is not the same one the game is using. I have seen mutiple 2* under 50 and some 3* under 60 simulating so far.
Here I'll give you the top 5 in each category. This is from year 6 all CPU generated players.
Top 5 Wr Elusiveness ratings: 79, 78, 77, 77, 76
Top 5 Wr Juke ratings: 80, 79, 78, then 4 guys at 77
Top 5 Wr Spin ratings: 78, then a bunch of guys at 76
I don't know what it looked like w/o the tuner.
They take up roster spots leaving less depth at other positions. And if the computer teams aren't cutting these guys it could be because players at other positions are even worse.
It looked like that.
Guess the WR ratings weren't touched at all. Compared to the default rosters the WR recruits are horrible. Yeah, their OVR looks fine, but trying to use them in slants, screens, end arounds, options or any other play where you want to get them in space and try to make a guy miss....pointless. They can run and catch and get tackled, that's it.
Oh well, Madden comes out Tuesday. I've waited 4 weeks to play football, what's one more?
Its how a player improves over the course of a season or between season. As of right now players don't improve during the season (as many of us believe they should and have in the past) they only progress during the off season.
It seems like the WR skill ratings are still undervalued. These are supposed to be some of the most nimble players on the field. Seems like there's also too great a discrepancy between speed and acceleration ratings.
A player's running skills as they relate to speed, acceleration, and juking, don't really develop that much over a college career. Freshmen should come in with these skills being more highly developed from the start.
It's the football skills, route running, awareness, blocking, catching, that should start lower and grow substantially from year to year.
Also, though awareness might not have a great effect on gameplay, how do the low ratings affect simmed results?
Great post. Until they fix this the WR recruits all feel the same, just some are fast and some are slow. There's no Percy Harvin, Ted Ginn, Desean Jackson type of elusive, juking WR's. Spin rating isn't as big a deal as elusiveness and juke. Too bad none of them are better then an average TE.
I'm going to have to leave the forums for a while (got other things I need to work on). I'll be trying to set up a Live Chat next week to go over some more of the questions (and I'll try and pop in between now and then).
Ive also been simming a few seasons to look at the results and i am disappointed.
I added 12 teams as player controlled (1 and 2 star teams) and looked at all their stats for 4 years.
I am not seeing any noticeable increase in recruits OVR. 1 stars still come in as 40s which are generally pointless since a walk on is 40. 2 stars are in the 40s and 50s still and I have yet to see a 3 star be rated higher than 69. This is exactly the way it was before the tuner.
I am also seeing the CPU recruit redundant players and end up with silly numbers of backups. Lower teir schools also seem be be having a harder time recruiting in general now. They are still pretty much just recruiting what they can get instead of what they need.
I am sure there was some type of tweaking. I don't question that but it is upsetting that what was done had such little impact.
Exactly. Russ said it himself. Their evasiveness, juke, spin, and stiff arm are lowered because corners can't tackle good. It evens it out. We don't want to play NCAA 09 again, so it has to be done. And if you time a spin right, you're still getting by the guy.
I never played 09 but this doesn't make sense to me. If Wrs having higher juke/spin/elusiveness ratings would cause problems in game, then we'd notice them on the default rosters where WRs already have higher ratings.
Looking at the default rosters there are several WRs with juke/spin/elusiveness ratings above 95+, whereas CBs top out at like 85 in tackling. Despite this I never had problems with cbs tackling Wrs on the default roster, so I guess I don't understand where the need to lower all the ratings and even things out comes from.
To be honest I don't even care about WR spin ratings, but this just showcases another area where the recruiting classes are not consistent with the default rosters. I'm glad we got a tuner set that helps with this problem, hopefully we'll see more improvement in the future.
Why does your chart still clearly show teams degrading? Shouldn't teams be in a constant state of flux, every team on this chart has gotten worse.
Exactly what I noticed...then I thought I was on crazy pills because no one mentioned it. Where's the TCU's that all of the sudden get REAL good, then the USC/Notre Dames that all of the sudden have a couple bad seasons. There should be A FEW (emphasis on few) dramatic risers and fallers each season. The top teams should still rebound often since they get the top recruits, but the general static and declining ratings this chart shows is unrealisitc and disappointing.
Its how a player improves over the course of a season or between season. As of right now players don't improve during the season (as many of us believe they should and have in the past) they only progress during the off season.