EA's NCAA Football 14 Catch-All

For those that missed it: Leroyog has started a dynasty thread...

The SEC will not allow its "brand" in the next NCAA football game.

I don't understand from that article whether this applies after the 3 year deal that was signed recently by EA and the college branding agency or already for next year.

firesloth wrote:

The SEC will not allow its "brand" in the next NCAA football game.

I don't understand from that article whether this applies after the 3 year deal that was signed recently by EA and the college branding agency or already for next year.

This is good news. It sets the table for the inevitable SEC Football 2015 video game made by 2k Sports. We all know the rest of college football doesn't matter. Might as well make it official.

Also, random thing, I picked up NCAA Football after my buddy hectored me into it. He's playing the game and wants to play online with someone who isn't playing as Oregon (apparently that's who everyone uses).

I started playing it this week. So far I really like it, actually. And I really enjoy Ultimate Team in this game. I played that mode in FIFA, but I don't know the players so I only partially connected with that mode in that game. In this game I know the players. It's a fun mode. Even if it doesn't hold up over the long run or the economy breaks down a bit. We'll see how that goes. But it's fun.

I might have the time / be interested in a league at some point. Not sure if I'm welcome, but just in case.

You should hit us up for the 2* league, as we are about to launch. There is a thread for it, but send interest to Leroy, and he will get you set up.

I know you like the digital versions, and it happens that they already have NCAA 14 out as a digital download, at least for the 360. It's the full $60, but the way I play this game it is really nice to have it in when I want to hop ion and update my recruiting real quick and stuff like that.

I am back and forth on Ultimate Team. I did have some fun playing it last night. I'm assuming it is from being a Season Ticket user, but I get weekly free packs, and I popped out a Gold Deon Sanders last night. I have yet to spend a dime but IU have the cheesers dream team. I have Vick at QB, Randy Moss and Hines Ward at WR, and Bo Jackson as my HB. and for added cheesiness, I have Barry Sanders at FB, but picked up the West Virginia playbook, whick lets me use him like they did Tavon Austin, getting him the ball in space. I even picked up an achievement last night as my team hit 85 OVR.

Where it will break down is when their contracts come up and you have to decide who to use your game extensions on. That is how they game the system in order to get you to pay. So I would actually be smarter to use Jackson and Sanders separately, getting primo HBs for more games.

I've only played one Head to Head game, and lost it. What I have been doing is working through the Conference Challenge, which nets you an increasing amount of Coins. I'm not sure how much online I will ever play. It would be nice if they allowed, like NHL's version, for you to play friends with your teams. In NHL, you don't earn coins and your players don't lose games in these matches. But it is a fun way to show off the team you have created. And I think we would use that a lot in this game. But that is not a feature in the NCAA version, and I don't really care about the leaderboard.

But I play UT completely different than I do the dynasty mode. There is nothing sim about UT. The quarters are short, like how it was in demos, and it encourages aggressive wide open play.

Jayhawker wrote:

You should hit us up for the 2* league, as we are about to launch. There is a thread for it, but send interest to Leroy, and he will get you set up.

Okay. Thanks.

Jayhawker wrote:

I know you like the digital versions, and it happens that they already have NCAA 14 out as a digital download, at least for the 360. It's the full $60, but the way I play this game it is really nice to have it in when I want to hop ion and update my recruiting real quick and stuff like that.

That's part of why it happened. My buddy talked me into getting it while I was at home and all the stores were closed. I went to XBox On Demand on a lark and found out I could "impulse buy" the game through my preferred method.

Jayhawker wrote:

I am back and forth on Ultimate Team. I did have some fun playing it last night. I'm assuming it is from being a Season Ticket user, but I get weekly free packs, and I popped out a Gold Deon Sanders last night. I have yet to spend a dime but IU have the cheesers dream team. I have Vick at QB, Randy Moss and Hines Ward at WR, and Bo Jackson as my HB. and for added cheesiness, I have Barry Sanders at FB, but picked up the West Virginia playbook, whick lets me use him like they did Tavon Austin, getting him the ball in space. I even picked up an achievement last night as my team hit 85 OVR.

I played against the cheesers dream team a couple nights back. He had Michael Vick and a slew of all-pro talent. That's my biggest misgiving about the Ultimate Team thing. The fact that it could force you to pay to play or else opt out entirely. And it could homogenize how teams are built once the cheese players are found. So far I'm still enjoying it. The best players I've gotten so far are Hines Ward, RG III, Barry Sanders and Terrell Suggs. I'm considering auctioning RG III to buy more packs and to try and round the team out more. That meta game of auctioning, buying, etc. is the part of the mode I like. I have mostly played SP games so the verdict is out on whether actually playing the games is fun.

Jayhawker wrote:

Where it will break down is when their contracts come up and you have to decide who to use your game extensions on. That is how they game the system in order to get you to pay. So I would actually be smarter to use Jackson and Sanders separately, getting primo HBs for more games.

What games do the contracts count against? I've only played 1 online game and it wasn't obvious to me how many games I was using up / had left.

Jayhawker wrote:

But I play UT completely different than I do the dynasty mode. There is nothing sim about UT. The quarters are short, like how it was in demos, and it encourages aggressive wide open play.

Yeah. And, unfortunately encourages major cheese. At least from the 1 game I played. So we'll see how much I actually go online. It's one of those things that's frustrating because it could be great. And with a game like FIFA in many ways it's become one of the cornerstones of the franchise. Not sure it will ever get there in America.

A new patch is out...doesn't seem like it really did much for most of us.

firesloth wrote:

A new patch is out...doesn't seem like it really did much for most of us.

Not true. I've been losing sleep over...

Old Dominion Update
Fixed an issue where Old Dominion is referred to as “Big Blue” and not “Monarchs”

By the way, I was playing a game yesterday as Colorado, and my QB was passing horribly. His aim was way off for about a quarter. He was rattled or something, even though we were at home.

Still, the great thing was that on two separate 3rd-and-long plays his throws were so far off of the receiver I passed to that the ball went RIGHT TO other receivers for first downs! Gotta love it when things just work out...

Stele wrote:

EA drops NCAA '15.

Well just hell...

Damn. I could have seen them continuing without the NCAA license, but the loss of conference support probably made a big impact.

This is really too bad, as I couldn't even get a full quarter into Madden before turning it off. FIFA, anyone??

simpilot wrote:
Stele wrote:

EA drops NCAA '15.

Well just hell...

Called it two months ago.

On July 31st, Jayhawker wrote:

Former NCAA athletes win video game lawsuit against EA

In a 2-1 vote, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court that EA had used the images of several ex-NCAA athletes without their permission in its NCAA Football and Basketball series. The decision comes two weeks after EA lost the rights to put the NCAA logo and name on its games beyond this year.

Judges said EA's game "literally recreates [Arizona State University quarterback Samuel] Keller in the very setting in which he has achieved renown."

The decision could open up a class action suit against the video game publisher from other former college athletes who have been unhappy with their likenesses being used in the games without compensation.

I have to believe the days of college sports games are numbered.

Yeah but right after you called it they said they would have College Football '15 instead of NCAA '15.

Oh well.

Stele wrote:

Yeah but right after you called it they said they would have College Football '15 instead of NCAA '15.

Oh well.

Exactly. Without the ability to negotiate with the players, I didn't think EA would move forward. I was surprised when they claimed to be moving forward. This result makes more sense given the current situation.

If the APU movement is successful in allowing the players to organize and then be allowed to negotiate the use of their likeness, EA might return to the franchise. The problem is, it sells fewer copies than Madden, but requires the rights to far more teams, and now players.

I think players should be able to organize and get paid, but I always assumed it would also doom the franchise.

Frickin iPad.

And again.

Stupid, teasing EA bastards!!

EA posted on the NCAA14 Facebook page:

Our heart still beats for the big game... ‪#‎NationalChampionship

...with a video of an EKG scan. Some thought: wow, a heartbeat for the series!! But, it's all just a tease, it seems:

EA wrote:

We have no new plans or announcements to make regarding the EA SPORTS NCAA Football series. Today's National Championship game reminds us more than ever that the hearts in our community still beat for college football.

So sad they couldn't patch for playoffs.

I did play another 2 seasons of my dynasty a couple months ago. Felt weird winning the BCS in 2015, but whatever.

Went back to dynasty again recently with football starting up again.

Played a game tonight, and it crashed and locked up my whole PS3 during the post-game replay type stuff. So before menus and saving. An hour of life wasted. Might be enough for me to not play again.

Anybody still play? I dove back into my dynasty after my real team lost this weekend. Cruising along at 10-0 towards another championship, maybe. Looks like the #3 team is VaTech, also undefeated. ACC title game is going to be crazy in a few weeks.

Still love the recruiting and roster management. Funny the game predicts me to be 25th next season but then 2nd and 1st, based on my recruiting classes. We'll see how far I get.

Most of my seniors are still real players from 2013 original rosters I got. Been fun seeing some of these guys again. Hopefully I will have fun with the kids I've recruited. I never played more than 2-3 seasons of dynasty with the last 3 or 4 versions of this game since there was always a new one the next year.

I did have one hilarious play yesterday where my WR got stuck on DB and then suddenly teleported to the ball when I threw it. Good for my TD but so buggy and strange looking. Not sure I can upload replay clips anymore but I saved it.

Stele wrote:

Anybody still play? I dove back into my dynasty after my real team lost this weekend. Cruising along at 10-0 towards another championship, maybe. Looks like the #3 team is VaTech, also undefeated. ACC title game is going to be crazy in a few weeks.

I jumped the gun. The Georgia Tech team I beat way back in week 2 reeled off 10 straight wins after that, including upsetting #3VT to win the Coastal when they were #5 themselves.

So a flip flop and I got to beat them again in ACCCG. Ohio St jumped me to #1 when they beat Michigan by 3 TDs week 13. But then they went to overtime against Iowa in B1G final and almost dropped out of championship. I got #1 spot back and might have had to play #3 UL Lafayette (12-0) if the buckeyes hadn't won. Wow. Nice that little guys have a chance in the BCS in the game anyway.

Got Heisman, RB, OL, DL and LB awards for the season. And like 5 or 6 All Americans. Then today won the championship at lunch. Had a fun 6 minutes (whole quarter) TD drive to control the entire 3rd quarter and pad my lead.

On to the off-season! Filled all my needs but had 5 guys or so on the board left uncommitted after the week 15. Recruit, train, position changes, etc. All the fun roster building for another year.

I have missed this game.

2 weeks later, another national championship.

No Heisman though. RB was 2nd. Won another 5 awards or so, including best WR, which was new for me. I did sim a couple games where the CPU seems to throw a lot more than me so that might have helped. This season I finally got the #1 class, although I used a couple tricks. Namely the insta-commit, but keep redoing it until they commit hehe.

Anyway, my coordinators both left... AGAIN. And somehow Larry Fedora is my new OC. Haha. The game is trying to assign me UNC's playbook from back then. I'm looking around and trying to tweak a spread playbook like theirs, to switch things up. I also have a RS FR QB that had 87 speed so I'm trying to get more option and read option in. I still have a senior QB that is a few points higher, but I'm hoping to use formation subs and get the kid in for some speed, and build him for the future. I've been doing it to spell RBs for the last few seasons so time to try with QB.

Although I've got my PC in a good state to run revamped now... I'm considering trying to copy my save file and continue it from there. Not sure if that works, but it seems like some people have done it. Might screw with some of the new teams that are added in revamped. But I really would like to play that, and I hate to abandon my old recruits. We'll see if I can get it to work. Or maybe I'll be running 2 dynasties at once. Hah.

There's also Fang's recruiting mod, which works very easily when you can drag and drop your files from PC. Here's a new video. And and older one.. You can see the crazy high recruits in both videos. But also the balance. Having a lineman #1 or a CB #2 is amazing. Even having some as 5-stars. The old game is really weird about only ATH, QB, WR, RB as 5-stars pretty much. There's a lot more balance in real recruiting.

And there are a lot of freshman that come in and play immediately in the real world. In the standard 14 game, even with the #1 class, I redshirted maybe 15 of my 21 players because my depth chart is so full, and after spring training, even my old crappy players are in the high 70s or low 80s now. And only a few of my 4/5 star recruits are over 80.

Although using that mod is probably a point in favor of starting over new in revamped. Otherwise my current #1 class might end up useless in 2 years haha.

Still I've definitely rediscovered the fun in this game. And there's' a lot of cool stuff out there, including playoffs. Yeah, it's a mod that uses dummy BCS teams and then flip-flops them with your semifinal winners. Pretty damn amazing.

Honestly, I'm kind of shocked modders haven't essentially created a whole new game at this point.

CFB Revamped released v20 this weekend. Lots of graphics improvements and of course new rosters. I had just started up my new dynasty so I guess I'll keep rolling with the players I have instead of starting over.

Got pretty deep into the mod tools last week and have used a few but avoided a few others. There's a set of sliders (gator?) that apparently tweak more than just the sliders, a lot of stuff. I haven't jumped into that yet.

There's Fangs recruiting tool which you do in the preseason after generating recruits. It fixes a lot of names, has things like hyphenated last names, real Hawaiian names, etc. It also changes the ratings a ton. You can actually have 90 rated freshmen that play immediately. OL and other players can be 5-star top recruits, not just athlete, QB, WR, HB. It's pretty cool. It also has huge swings in gem/bust. I've personally seen +/- 14 which is a lot. Not sure I love that part. It also starts with a lot more recruits at 90-100%, so basically at lock stage in week 1. Which is realistic I guess. There are just some guys you're never going to get. Where the original game you could muscle in on almost anyone if you got big enough. Seems cool mostly.

There were also mods to start dynasty in 2020, or 21, or 22 if you wanted to since current rosters in 2013 feels weird. Plus several people releasing full schedules for 20 through 23 already. You can import those as you progress seasons too.

Playoff mod mentioned above.

There are also stat compilations, load end of season save and it will scrape conference champions, bowl games, etc. to a spreadsheet. Much better data than you can see in game once a season is gone.

There's also a transfer tool that makes a more accurate list of transfers and you will see 100+ players transferring and it makes more sense with rosters. Not sure I'm going to use that one but it's there.

There's also things like remove impact players that you can run every week. Apparently guys on permanent hot streak makes it too easy? Hah. Lots of people seem to be too good at this game I guess.

Bunch of playbook mods as well, and changed coach tendencies, to try to get things more accurate when simming. Haven't looked too deep into that but some people love it.

And then there are tons of custom teams, fields, uniforms, etc. Just a bunch of stuff in community mods that people make for their school or for a whole conference, whatever. Custom scorebugs so you can play a game on ESPN, Fox, cbs, whatever.

And there's also this guide someone wrote last month to help you keep track if you want to run a dynasty with all of this stuff. When to run it and instructions. Pretty handy.

Guys I just had a 35-7 quarter. 2 kickoff return TDs. I've never had 2 in a season before much less a game.

A 29 yard pick 6. 1 short drive after a 25 yard punt return. 40 yard pass. And the other drive was long. 66 yard run but I got caught at the 10 then punched it in a couple plays later.

IMAGE(https://preview.redd.it/hhunhfci74aa1.jpg?width=1274&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=35433a0b8586710e683b58246164c14f5cb7f82d)

IMAGE(https://preview.redd.it/3gv4h9x5p5aa1.jpeg?width=1198&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7e6ae3e3b6ab75f3423de091c6e3c06504e4904a)

So after the real Cards finished the season with 2 losses in a row, decided to dive back into this. I never did check about transferring my PS3 save to PC. But I just jumped back into Revamped on PC with the existing dynasty there. Looks like I had left it right at the beginning of a season with Fang recruits generated back in January or so. And I was playing myself, as OC of Louisville. It's pretty weird relying on the PC for defense but I guess in a couple years I will take over as HC maybe.

Anyway got through some recruits and played the first 3 games of the season. Had to do practice mode for a few minutes to remind myself of my custom playbook.

Think there's been some updates and I know the tools have changed. You can have 12 team playoffs now. But I'll probably update more next season.

Honestly I might end up doing some custom conferences. So many have went to division free schedules. And I'm not going to erase the PAC 12 just to match reality. Maybe I'll do one of the true geographic conferences that get posted in Reddit and just make it truly a fantasy dynasty. But until then one last ACC championship to win...