NCAA Football 2013 game catch-all

Leroyog wrote:

At least michigan won a bcs bowl game to earn this ranking.... Wtf did notre dame do???

They're Notre Dame.

Leroyog wrote:

At least michigan won a bcs bowl game to earn this ranking.... Wtf did notre dame do???

Gave me tenure.

I'd like in this year if there is room.

Finally got a chance to play the demo last night. I just messed around with the Heisman mode and liked what I saw.

Had a sweet TD pass that I dropped between the middle linebacker and the safeties that had dropped into cover 2.

Trying to decide if I want to do the whole coaching carousel deal this year or just pick a team.

Redhwk wrote:

Finally got a chance to play the demo last night. I just messed around with the Heisman mode and liked what I saw.

Had a sweet TD pass that I dropped between the middle linebacker and the safeties that had dropped into cover 2.

Trying to decide if I want to do the whole coaching carousel deal this year or just pick a team.

I love the "idea" of those modes, but the only implementation where I find myself able to get through more than a season or two has been MLB The Show. Even in FIFA I get burned out around season 2.

Got an e-mail the other day about RTG. EA mail is in my spammy account thought so I just saw it now.

Two different updates here and here.

Highlights:

After extensively looking all over the interwebs for feedback on RTG, there was one gleaming change that needed to happen in NCAA Football 13, and that was the difficulty of the entire mode...
we also tuned the amount of Recruiting Points you get in High School. Last year, you were getting a lot of points on Offense and not as many on Defense, so we adjusted both.

If you have seen my recent foray back into the mode in the NCAA 12 thread, well those were definitely some of my complaints.

We also spent time tuning our play calling logic so that we could avoid situations like a running play when you’re behind with three seconds left in the game and the ball on the 40 yard line. That will not happen anymore

I'll believe this when I see it. It was like that in NCAA 11 and 12 both.

Another highly requested feature from the community was the addition of Kick Returns and Punt Returns. Talk about something that is just an absolute blast to play in RTG. As a RB/WR/DB, you will be able to return every single kick/punt, if you are high enough on the depth chart

This year we have added in eight brand new High School stadiums, bringing the total number of stadiums to 11. These stadiums range from being in small towns out in the middle of the cornfields, to right in the busy part of a metropolitan city.

Nice touch. They had so many cities properly listed for states, even some tiny ones, and the basic 3 fields were far from realistic.

With users having four seasons to move from prized recruit to star player, some Road to Glory fans want to ramp up quickly and get playing time as soon as possible, while others want to move more deliberately up the depth chart after putting in the hard work in Practice and any Playing Time they may receive each week. In NCAA Football 13, Road to Glory has added in difficulty options (Freshman, Varsity, All-American, & Heisman) that will directly affect your progression in Coach Trust, XP, and Gameplay. This will give users the opportunity to play and progress the way they want within Road To Glory.

So if you thought it was crazy to be starting 3 games into your freshman season, you can just play on All American and actually have to earn it. Although I wonder if it will be like dynasty where you have on-the-field difficulty and recruiting difficulty, or if it will just be one set?

Probably because they added in the Heisman mode in the same framework as RTG it sounds like they may have spent more time on it this year getting it right. Find out soon.

Achievements list for NCAA13.

Man are they boring. Plus, there are 10 achievements for winning the Heisman with one of their 10 players (e.g., the "I am Doug Flutie" achievement). Ugh. I'll be lucky to play through with one of those guys unless they've done something really interesting with that mode, but playing 10 different players? I wish they had just done it for winning with a QB or OtherPositions.

The rest of the list is pretty much the same as last year. Way to put in the effort there, guys.

Yeah I saw that the other day. I agree with your assessment on the Heisman stuff. It's just too many. That's 10 full seasons, and you having to play every play that character's side of the ball. It's a good thing they didn't include Charles Woodson or you'd really be screwed, since it's impossible to win the Heisman as a defender. The way RtG was last year, the AI never throws it your way if you're playing good coverage, so INT chances are minimal.

I really can't figure out why they left the "break a 20 yard run" in there. That was supposed to be for last year's 20th anniversary. Change it to 21 or take it out.

The Coach Contracts ones are also a joke because you can still assign yourself to whatever school you want even with that feature on. So you make yourself a HC that went to Alabama or something. You assign yourself to the team. You sim undefeated season. You play/win the BCS Championship game. You then advance to week 1 of offseason recruiting, and recruit the #1 class with whatever spots you have left. And bam you have like 10 achievements. You get an A+ in prestige for winning the NC, you get all the coach contracts stuff (win alma matter, etc), they offer you an extension for winning the NC as well. And then you probably get lucky with scouting achievements while simming, or maybe the Heisman, or you can get the one for convincing a junior to come back to school in that same off-season. Basically 2-3 hours of mostly simming will get you a guaranteed 6 achievements, and a possible 10-11.

It's boring as hell, but it's not challenging in the least.

Same with the win by 35 on Heisman. You can just sim a game with one of the top 10 teams vs one of the FBS schools. As long as you sim on 8 or 10 min quarters, the AI will win by that margin for you. It doesn't make you play the game better, or teach you any skills. Just something more basic like "win a game on Heisman without simming" would be a better achievement. I still might take a top 10 vs a FBS, but you'd have to at least be somewhat decent at the game, even in such a mismatch.

The Heisman ones are going to be a pain in the ass though because you can't sim. And unless they've changed the voting logic from RTG last year, it can be tough to win the Heisman. There are all kinds of people who led the nation in Rushing by 500 or more yards and still didn't win it.

I do not like the Heisman achievements either. Add 1 or 2 achievement, and be done with it. Win a bowl game in an online dynasty, something like that could have been added. Hopefully they put more effort into the game than they did the achievements.

Game Informer review. Game of the month, for whatever that's worth.

Also saw a post about the Season Ticket thing on Facebook. Apparently you can start playing today/tonight if you have that.

My download was at 47% a few minutes ago. It's been going for about 50 minutes. It's 7.8 gigs, but I'm sure EA's sercers are getting hammered right now.

I will hopefully have some impressions late tonight or tomorrow sometime.

Heck I'm just happy that I might have rosters ready to go on Tues with people getting to work on them tonight.

Jayhawker wrote:

My download was at 47% a few minutes ago. It's been going for about 50 minutes. It's 7.8 gigs, but I'm sure EA's sercers are getting hammered right now.

I will hopefully have some impressions late tonight or tomorrow sometime.

Totally forgot I had the EA Sports early access thingie. Downloading now!

I think I might purchase the season ticket as a way to get an extended demo. I doubt I'll buy the game unless they've significantly fixed things.

I'm in, will pick up on Tuesday.

Question for the group: In the BCS league (which will be a free for all), we ban 6-star teams. Should we ban 5-star teams as well? My caviat to that rule is: if you get offered a job with a 5-6 star school along the way, you are allowed to trade up. Thoughts? I figure this way, we keep HvH matchups competitive (no more Michigan vs Marshall matchups), and there's a chance to reclaim Notre Dame and Michigan for Leroy and Firesloth.

Also, learned my lesson, I am leaving the maximum school prestige setting alone to allow people to drop and pick up their team again, should they make 6-star status. I trust you guys enough not to take a 6 star school, and if you do, I can always boot you

I like that idea coupled with your skip ncaa 14 and keep rolling with 13

Sounds good to me. Of course, I'm a 2* Jayhawk.

I've gotten some good time in with the game, and the best news is, they didn't break what wasn't broke. It feels like NCAA 12 through and through. But the new passing system is a nice tweak. It feels like the DB's play a more fair game, but I'm sure a Youtube jockey will expose all of their faults shortly.

Been playing playing on default AA, and it seems a bit too easy. But it's not really bad out of the box. Eight minute quarter seem to produce good stats.

Recruiting seems really cool. They did not make scouting tedious at all. And the new pitch system works well. Once I get deeper into my dynasty I will have a better feel. But overall, it seems like a good upgrade.

In eight minute quarters, the updates are not quite so annoying. Otherwise, it's the same presentation.

So far, it's an easy buy if you like college football games.

Jayhawker wrote:

I've gotten some good time in with the game, and the best news is, they didn't break what wasn't broke. It feels like NCAA 12 through and through. But the new passing system is a nice tweak. It feels like the DB's play a more fair game, but I'm sure a Youtube jockey will expose all of their faults shortly.

I liked the QB movement in the pocket on the right-stick in the demo. Kinda miss the easy pump-fake, but I think not getting sacked is more important.

APF2k8 had that right stick sack avoidance bit...I never found I could make use of it. My eyes were always downfield, so I didn't see clearly enough that I was about to get sacked.

Incidentally, I think we should start the leagues sooner rather than later. Especially the 2* league. We've had such a good run with it for the last two years that we shouldn't wait several months to fire it up. If it feels like too much, we could keep the number of HvH games low in the first year just to make progress. Last year we waited a long time to get that started...I think we all enjoyed it quite a bit, so why not start early?

firesloth wrote:

Incidentally, I think we should start the leagues sooner rather than later. Especially the 2* league. We've had such a good run with it for the last two years that we shouldn't wait several months to fire it up. If it feels like too much, we could keep the number of HvH games low in the first year just to make progress. Last year we waited a long time to get that started...I think we all enjoyed it quite a bit, so why not start early?

I think one of the reasons we've had so much fun was the fact we waited a little for good sliders. Of course, I don't think we should wait as long as we waited last year. I think 2 weeks after the release date should be a good goal.

firesloth wrote:

APF2k8 had that right stick sack avoidance bit...I never found I could make use of it. My eyes were always downfield, so I didn't see clearly enough that I was about to get sacked.

Same here. Although it looks cool when I accidentally pull it off!

I preferred the easy pump fake, but I'm actually enjoying the strategy of choosing who to pump fake to in order to give yourself a little better window to complete a pass. And it works pretty well. And I'm happy to report that I've already gotten used to the RB for 5th receiver. It makes sense that they needed the LB to perform the pump fake, so it was a good trade-off.

It's pretty clear that penalty sliders are going to have to be bumped way up again. We'll see if we actually get ny pass interference this year.

But Dayne Crist is completing a little better than 50% of his passes for me on default sliders, and that is pretty fair. I think the CPU pass rush is kind of overpowered right now, although it has created a way more realistic level of difficulty in throwing the screen pass. Running the ball feels really good. So far, I don't think we will have to hammer those this year.

I'll have to play some other teams, as KU's defense sucks big time. But I do think the CPU QB needs to be toned down a bit.

Kicking power needs to be dropped a bit.

Turnovers have seem fair both ways. We'll see how it goes long term. But I'm not seeing a lot of INTs or fumbling from either side. But turnovers are a part of the game.

But honestly, default AA feels like the developers have been playing on some of the sliders you see put up at OS. We're never going to get enough penalties on default, because their biggest consumer, the pick-up and play casual guys, would hate it.

Jayhawker wrote:

Kicking power needs to be dropped a bit.

Always seems to. In FBS last year, only 39 kickers made a 50+ yard kick, and of those only 15 made 2 or more. 49 in 2010. 41 in 2009. 46 in 2008. And so on.

So you should only see one in about 4-6 games a season.

Saw way more than that last year. And the stupid mascot would look shocked. I was never shocked. CPU would never miss. Jerks. :p

Sliders are your friend. You can lower CPU and USER accuracy.

As for power, I'm talking more about the ease of kicking into the endzone on kickoffs.

Is that because they changed the kickoff starting point?

Yeah, it's for safety Jayhawker.

Kickoffs from the 35 instead of 30. Touchbacks (kickoffs only, not punts) on the 25 instead of 20. Only a 5-yard run for the kicking team instead of 10.

firesloth wrote:

Is that because they changed the kickoff starting point?

Yep.

Granted you now see kamikazes running it 7 yards deep out of the end zone instead. The kickoff return touchdown being one of the most emotionally backbreaking plays.

On the demo... As meh as I am overall the Heisman mode is interesting. I like the ability to slow down time. It's video game-y and definitely not sim in any way. But for that mode and that idea (getting to be a bad as* legend) I like it.

The CPU has decided to take the ball on the 20 way more often than in NCAA12 from the 4 or 5 games I've played. I didn't realize the NCAA had gone to the 35 as well, so that makes sense.

I tried a 57 yard FG and came up a several yards short with Michigan's kicker. So kick strength may be good.

The more I've messed with the new recruiting, the more I like it. Scouting is not tedious, but rather an effective use of limited resources, as you choose who to spend you time scouting.

I also like having all of the promises open. i'm wondering if some of the promises are worth more, and you risk losing them if you use them and fail. I'm anxious to see how it plays out over a few seasons.

Actually, I want to sit and just sim some seasons to see how good future recruiting classes are. It feels like it has been improved, but I'm curious if we will see a build-up of teams with crappy kickers.