NCAA Football 11 Impressions

Smurf

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sammyc521":29atcqki said:
Started up my year 2 of my Western Vikings Dynasty. We got absolutely no love from the Coaches or Media poll. We are a 4-star program ranked 28th in pre-season rankings.

I alter my schedule so I face a pretty-good non-conference schedule. #2 Ohio State, Duke (cupcake), UTEP (Rival) and #25 Notre Dame (at the end of the year to mess with their bowl chances).

First game of the year is Ohio State coming to Bellingham. The game does not go according to plan as the Buckeyes march down the field...and get intercepted!!!! After long, grind-it-out drives the Vikings take a commanding lead and Ohio is stuck playing catch-up. My pre-season All-American/All-WAC DE tears up the O-line for key sacks on 3rd down and I prevail with a shut-out....and still get no love the following week in the polls.

Only after I face Duke, who gave me more trouble with their no-huddle offense, do I finally break the top-25.

Recruiting is going well as I've gotten more 4-stars interested in my school but a lot of them favor Western as their 4-6th school. Not getting the love I thought I would; I'm actually competing really heavily with Boise State and they're ahead of me on a few key recruits right now. So far I've only gotten 1 commit in the first 3 weeks. Hoping with 15 guys coming in for a visit in week 5 will cure my ails.

Three games in and I've only moved up to #23 in the rankings.

IF you are better at ANYTHING than Boise state, sell yourself against the bronco's. It usually results in a +40-90 for me, and a -20-120 for the team I am trashing. As Oregon I convinced a kid that someone died in the Bronco's weight room, and that ours was state of the art, brand new....He signed the next week.
 

Blitzer88

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Sea

Here is my take on the Seahawks. If you want to see the 9 other teams I've made search for "Blitzer88" in the author field of the search engine.
 
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TestMo1337

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Nicely done.

I think I'll leave the pro's out of my college game though. I am enjoying the fight of playing as a mid-major non-BSC school... I get slighted all the time and the game knows it too.
 
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I always play as an independent, use to take Temple, they are gone now so I took Notre Dame's slot.
 
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TestMo1337

TestMo1337

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Emerald City Bowl here I come again... after a 11-1 record (7-1 in the WAC) and winning the conference title for the 2nd year in a row... Stupid Boise State and their 6-star program prestige... *_*
 
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TestMo1337

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Defeated Cal in a romp even though they were rated better than me (simmed the game) and I end up having to chase down 4 more recruits to fill out all of my scholarships. Two 4-star recruits give me top-3 grades but it's a fight. I get down to week 3 and I am in the the chase. I forgo all other recruits and give each guy 60-minutes of recruiting love to sway them to come to Bellingham, the Holy Land of the WAC.

Unfortunately... one of my 2-star recruits that I was chasing gobble up my last scholarship and I only end up with one of the 4-star guys. Oh well.

I finish out with the 6th best recruiting class in large part to my eight 4-star recruits and my thirteen 3-star recruits. Eat that Boise State.

I lose my 2-time Bronko Nagurski Award winning DE after he decides to forgo his Senior year and I'm left lying in the lurch. My defense is ravaged by graduating Seniors and I'm left with a super thin core in my secondary.

Luckily, I'm an offensive-minded coach and my major loss on offense is my two outside tackles... replaced by a rookie and a converted guard.

I alter my schedule so I face some heavy competition at the tail-end of the year to ruin the chances of some big-boy BCS schools. I can't get my Strength-of-Schedule over a "B" rating due to hanging out in the WAC.

I open the year up Bye, Nevada, Bye and I don't get ranked until I thoroughly whoop Nevada... even then it's only a 25-rank.
 

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Just picked it up yesterday -- Was dinking around with the Road to Glory thing to get a feel for the controls (I pretty much ended up skipping football games last year). I'm liking things so far (Working on AA with 10 minute quarters for reasonably realistic play numbers in a couple pre-dynasty tweaking games).

Probably fire up a Dynasty with my local Hawgs tonight or tomorrow. (Aside: Somebody recently jacked with the Razorbacks wiki page. It reads, "The Razorbacks, also known as the losers, ...")

Wanting to see what sort of season Big Tex can have.
 

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Aside: On the 'Things that piss me off about EA' side of things, I'm hearing some -really- bad reviews regarding the long-term viability of Dynasty mode... which is of course where I spend the majority of my game time with these things. From what I hear, by five or six years into a Dynasty, the Powerhouses of the nation are sitting in the B- to C+ range, and a good half of the NCAA is getting routinely dominated by the FCS teams. Kickers routinely missing extra points, WRs with 30-50 ball carrying moves stats, etc.

Anyone confirm or deny? Any word on patches?
 

PAT206

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anyone notice the camera changed from last year its seems like its closer but higher up idk i dont like it as much but the game itself is pretty much exactly the same as last years
 
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TestMo1337

TestMo1337

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TravTex":pjni0qqd said:
Aside: On the 'Things that piss me off about EA' side of things, I'm hearing some -really- bad reviews regarding the long-term viability of Dynasty mode... which is of course where I spend the majority of my game time with these things. From what I hear, by five or six years into a Dynasty, the Powerhouses of the nation are sitting in the B- to C+ range, and a good half of the NCAA is getting routinely dominated by the FCS teams. Kickers routinely missing extra points, WRs with 30-50 ball carrying moves stats, etc.

Anyone confirm or deny? Any word on patches?
I just completed year 3 of my dynasty, going into the pre-season of year 4.

My team was a solid B+/- across the board and now I'm in C+ in everything except Special Teams. Granted, I am running a user-created team but I've had solid recruiting classes (24th overall, 10th overall and 2nd overall).

Only 5-star recruits will get serious playing time as freshman, unless your depth is terrible (mine is at some positions).

I actually like this because I don't think schools should turn into powerhouses in 1-2 years. I've seen my school and coach prestige go up but that's because I've only lost 2 games in 3 years.

As far as the powerhouses falling... I've seen that with some teams, but the traditional powerhouses are always in the pre-season top-25 and there is some moving around but for the most part I see the same teams ranked. I think it's good to see some turnover. I think it add realism if you look at college sports historically.

As far as recruits and low ratings; unless they're 5-star recruits they won't start on most teams. I had to invest heavily in 3-star recruits my first year and they were all in the 60's. In the offseason, players don't progress more than 5 points overall. I like that everything is more gradual, rather than having guys spike-up 10 points overall just because they're the new starter with no playing time under their belt.
 

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There have been multiple sims done across the board, and while I agree with you on a relative level -- No teams leaping to powerhouses in a year or two -- The overall quality of the league nosedives once all original players are graduated. Most sims have 2016 and beyond with zero A+,A,or A- teams, with the bell curve peaking out in the B and B+ region. Fully half of the teams are in the D to D- range (And getting whomped by FCS teams regularly is just utterly idiotic).

I think the distribution is about right -- 5, 4, and 3-star recruits are to a great extent spot-on. The problem arises from a few things:

* Teams stockpile players rather than target needs. A team will have 8 quarterbacks (Making sure less competitive recruiting teams have jack squat) while starting a 40 OVR running back.

* Skill stats are jacked. Around 2015 or so, check your league rosters. Apparently Kickers are -really- affected. You'll have teams with Kickers maxing out 50KPW/50KAC... while the outside linebacker has 70/70 or something. WRs ball carrier moves are on par with those of offensive linemen. Awareness is stunted across the board.

* Too many 1, 2, and low-balled 3-star recruits (And no 'Hidden Gem' prospects). Realistically, how many 1-star prospects end up getting a four year scholarship to a DIFCS school? You end up having New Mexico State having a top player at 58 OVR while 'FCS-East is trotting out averages in the 65 OVR range'.

An aside to the recruiting issue -- Teams don't recruit to their strengths or play to them. An option team targets the 5-star immobile pocket passer and keeps right on running the option, etc.
 

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TravTex":2drrcz9g said:
Probably fire up a Dynasty with my local Hawgs tonight or tomorrow.

Wow you're in Arkansas for a couple of months and you've already abandoned your NM roots?

Just messing with ya, Trav.

I'm bummed to hear about Dynasty progressions. Haven't been able to play the last couple of weeks (probably a good thing since I have a presentation and a paper due tomorrow) but should be able to Friday/Saturday. I wonder if EA will fix it anytime soon.
 

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Snohomie":1k4w55xf said:
TravTex":1k4w55xf said:
Probably fire up a Dynasty with my local Hawgs tonight or tomorrow.

Wow you're in Arkansas for a couple of months and you've already abandoned your NM roots?

Just messing with ya, Trav.

I'm bummed to hear about Dynasty progressions. Haven't been able to play the last couple of weeks (probably a good thing since I have a presentation and a paper due tomorrow) but should be able to Friday/Saturday. I wonder if EA will fix it anytime soon.

Hah! The loyalty lingered until there actually was a local replacement. I've also become a Suffering Fan of the Royals, as the double-A incarnation plays a couple miles from my house. (They're actually a pretty good team, shockingly.)

Yeah, hoping a patch squares it away, but EA is doing its EA thing and hasn't even acknowledged there's a problem yet. I always wonder how this kind of thing ever gets released. THOUSANDS of people latch on to the problem less than two weeks after release... and it never come up over the nine-month development cycle?
 

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it's got a whole different feel then madden 11. i've always liked madden better but this years ncaa aint to bad
 
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EA exclusive deal runs out this year right? Competition is needed.
 

Blitzer88

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TravTex":35qtjc5q said:
There have been multiple sims done across the board, and while I agree with you on a relative level -- No teams leaping to powerhouses in a year or two -- The overall quality of the league nosedives once all original players are graduated. Most sims have 2016 and beyond with zero A+,A,or A- teams, with the bell curve peaking out in the B and B+ region. Fully half of the teams are in the D to D- range (And getting whomped by FCS teams regularly is just utterly idiotic).

I think the distribution is about right -- 5, 4, and 3-star recruits are to a great extent spot-on. The problem arises from a few things:

* Teams stockpile players rather than target needs. A team will have 8 quarterbacks (Making sure less competitive recruiting teams have jack squat) while starting a 40 OVR running back.

* Skill stats are jacked. Around 2015 or so, check your league rosters. Apparently Kickers are -really- affected. You'll have teams with Kickers maxing out 50KPW/50KAC... while the outside linebacker has 70/70 or something. WRs ball carrier moves are on par with those of offensive linemen. Awareness is stunted across the board.

* Too many 1, 2, and low-balled 3-star recruits (And no 'Hidden Gem' prospects). Realistically, how many 1-star prospects end up getting a four year scholarship to a DIFCS school? You end up having New Mexico State having a top player at 58 OVR while 'FCS-East is trotting out averages in the 65 OVR range'.

An aside to the recruiting issue -- Teams don't recruit to their strengths or play to them. An option team targets the 5-star immobile pocket passer and keeps right on running the option, etc.

Yeah I have noticed this especially on the kickers and punters like you stated. I am in year 4 and the top rated kicker to recruit has C- kickpower and D+ kick accuracy. Its crazy! Whats worse is that I to recruit a kicker this year lol. Should of made a recruit....
 

Blitzer88

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TravTex":1eplz0ue said:
Check your roster. You probably have an OLB or some such with better KPW/KAC ratings, heh.


Yeah I did and come to find out my 2nd string RB had 65 kick power and 55 kick accuracy lol. Guess I found my kicker for next year.
 
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TestMo1337

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Updates:

* Increased the default starting values for all Recruits.

* Slightly increased progression for low and mid tier teams.

* Tuned CPU recruiting to prevent teams from signing too many players at any one particular position.

* Increased CPU’s focus upon needed positions in recruiting.

* Top schools will sign 5 star prospects earlier in the season.

* After a recruit Soft Commits, any CPU team that is not ranked in the top three will spend significantly less time calling the recruit.

* Addressed an issue with big lineman jumping too high and deflecting passes.

* Tuned ESPN U Top 150 Players to be more in line with actual top 150 recruits by decreasing the number of Fullbacks and Kickers. Tuned Field Goal, Kick Offs, and Punting in Super Sim.
 

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