NCAA Football 2012 game catch-all

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I know there's a 360 league thread already. But a general thread to discuss the game, and where to purchase, and when the demo is coming out and all that other pre-release stuff.

And then of course to talk about offline dynasty mode after the game releases, strategy, recruiting, tips, or anything not in the league threads.

So. Demo June 28th.

Release July 12th.

Pre-Order Bonuses:

Gamestop/EB:
Reserve your copy of NCAA Football 12 and receive Nike Pro Combat uniforms for TCU, Ohio State, Boise State, Pittsburgh and Virginia Tech as exclusive GameStop premium uniforms. Nike Pro Combat uniforms are Born of Tradition, Built for Speed. Available online and in-store while supplies lasts.

Amazon:
Pre-order NCAA Football 12 and get the NCAA Football 12 Starter Guide, which is your handbook for the most essential offensive and defensive plays. Discover how and when to use a run play or explore the short, intermediate, and deep passing routes on offense. Understand how different types of plays work, be able to read coverages, and take advantage of everything that NCAA Football 12 has to offer. The guide will be emailed to you on the day your product ships. Amazon reserves the right to change or terminate this promotion at any time. Offer valid when shipped and sold by Amazon.com, while supplies last. Limit one per customer.

Best Buy:

Exclusive Five Star Quarterbacks (Road to Glory): Your Five Star Quarterback can go from unknown to the most sought-after prospect in the nation. The top schools in the country aren't going to look your way if you are not an elite prospect. While supplies last, when you order NCAA Football 12, you will get a code to access the Best Buy exclusive Five Star Quarterbacks. Access code will arrive in the package with the game.

Wal-Mart:

Reserve your copy of NCAA Football 12 and receive Wal-Mart's exclusive Recruiting Advisor. In Dynasty your Recruiting Advisor will give you inside information about some of the Prospects you are recruiting. Each week he will point out Prospects that you earn double Recruiting points with, have extra pitch information unlocked, or even be ready to sign with your school on the spot.

Love TCU and Boise programs so probably going to have to go with the Gamestop preorder. Although I do like the Amazon guide, although they usually dont include full playbooks - just "samples". I hope they push an Ipad app that has the playbooks like they did with Madden.

Which retailer has the pre-order bonus single player mode where you can go to tattoo parlors and sell your memorabilia to get sweet tats?

Gumbie wrote:

Which retailer has the pre-order bonus single player mode where you can go to tattoo parlors and sell your memorabilia to get sweet tats?

Twin Fair and Gold Circle, I think.

So am I crazy or does the WalMart one sound like the best one? That recruiting advisor stuff was something they charged a few bucks for last year, but I refused to buy on principle.

I'm still on the fence about this one but with Ingram on the cover (Roll Tide!), I'll probably snag it instead of Madden this year.

Thread subscribe.

Stele wrote:

So am I crazy or does the WalMart one sound like the best one? That recruiting advisor stuff was something they charged a few bucks for last year, but I refused to buy on principle. ;)

The recruiting adviser wasn't a game breaker, the only real benefit out of all the things it did was knowing exactly who you were getting a x2 bonus with up front. The make sure you make a pitch to a certain guy because he is going to sign had no advantage because I would've talked to that guy anyway since I'm actively recruiting him. Unlocked extra pitches no biggy, they happen anyway and no real advantage knowing who they were unlocked on. The most disappointing feature was when the adviser would say to add some guy that doesn't have you on his list. By the time that one rolls around you are so far behind in recruiting that player it won't make a difference.

I'll probably do the WalMart or Amazon one myself. I was hoping that someone would run the $20 dollar off deal from last year that hit about a week before shipping.

I think you misunderstood my "principle" objection. More about the charging for extra stuff that could be a feature in the game. Either a staff member, or as your coach got improved reputation, or all kinds of ways those could have been in-game bonuses vs just a money grab.

Weird question: Anybody know if there is a list of the stadiums in the game?

Stele wrote:

I think you misunderstood my "principle" objection. More about the charging for extra stuff that could be a feature in the game. Either a staff member, or as your coach got improved reputation, or all kinds of ways those could have been in-game bonuses vs just a money grab. ;)

You are just sending you $$$ to EA instead of Gameshark now. It's a cheat for the game. I agree that way back in the day it would have been a free unlock code.

But I don't use any of the cheats, as it kind of renders the challenge as pointless. In this case, though, as your school's prestige improves, your ability to recruit improves. There is no need to embellish it with more.

It's when they make the mode too hard, or more likely, too time consuming to do that the cheats become necessary to enjoy the game that I have a real problem. I want the challenge to improve, but if they make it no fun to work at it so that you drop a few bucks, you still don't get the challenge. The NHL and Tiger Woods games are the worst about this.

As it is, only the extra uniforms even seem interesting. Strategy guides typically sucks. And I don't even want free boosts. I turn them off in my leagues anyway.

This is a few weeks old, but dynasty blog post was interesting:

Sway Pitch

One complaint we heard last year was that Sway Pitch felt like too much risk without enough reward and because of this, a lot of fans avoided using Sway Pitch all together which is something I never want to hear as a developer. This year, Sway Pitch has been tuned to provide more of a bonus when you are successful, and less of a penalty when you fail. Additionally, we've adjusted the percent chance that a Sway will be successful to help make Sway Pitch a more effective recruiting tactic, I believe you will now find the Sway Pitch option to have a greater impact during recruiting.

CPU Scholarship Offers

In addition to Sway Pitch, another significant improvement to recruiting is how efficiently the CPU will offer scholarships. Previously, the CPU would occasionally have a recruit that, even though he was ranked first on their board they would not offer a scholarship in order to close the deal and sign the prospect. The CPU will now offer scholarships more intelligently, and as a result, causes some much closer recruiting battles with the CPU against other CPU controlled teams and the user.

CPU Recruiting Based on Play Style

We have heard feedback regarding CPU not recruiting based on their play style, so this was one of our earliest adjustments for NCAA Football 12. Previously, if you were running an option offense, the CPU would simply take the best quarterback that was available, or possibly one just interested in the school. Now, you will find that the CPU will focus upon players that fit their particular play style. That means scrambling QBs will be targeted by option teams, while air raid teams will look for pocket passing quarterbacks.

Another community concern that we addressed for NCAA Football 12 is the balancing of the top 150 recruits. There was some discussion that there were not enough highly rated defensive prospects appearing in the ESPNU Top 150. Based on that feedback we have increased each defensive position's chance of having a prospect worthy enough of being considered one of the top 150 prospects in the recruiting class.

Sim Running Stats

The sim stats for the running backs, backup running backs and quarterbacks were also tuned. Meaning when you sim in Dynasty, the backup HB will get more touches and, in turn, more rushing yards. Quarterback sim stats were adjusted to be more in line with actual NCAA results. The added benefit of tuning these stats is that it facilitated tuning Heisman. Throughout Dynasty you should now see a much better balance of several different position types winning the Heisman.

Incoming Prospect Ratings

Finally, we've updated the incoming ratings for all generated prospects with a focus on ensuring they are consistent with the recruits on the default roster. Now you won't notice a drop off in overall player talent in future years of the Dynasty when the players on the default roster have graduated. I think you will find that some positions, in particular Kickers and Punters, will be far more accurate this year.

Incoming Prospect Ratings

Finally, we've fixed an obvious problem that severely diminished the enjoyment of last year's game. We realize it was boneheaded to miss it last year, and that it was inexcusable that we didn't fix it with a patch. So, consider NCAA 12 to be that patch, albeit at a cost of $60.

Fixed.

That's why I keep talking about the 2-year sports cycle. But alas, it will never happen. $60 a pop every year, and stop patching after a month and start working on the next game. People keep buying so why would they stop?

Seems like they took a good step with this "tuning package" as they call it, where they can tweak a lot of things on the fly without huge patches anymore. Just maybe they need to include even more parts of the game in that.

I believe the demo for the '12 game releases early in the morning on 6/28 if anyone wants to check out some of the changes to the game!

Yeah scheduled for tomorrow but I wasn't sure about a time.

PSN usually does store updates late Tues night I think.

Demo is out on Live.

firesloth wrote:

Demo is out on Live.

Don't say that! I have class in an hour and a test tomorrow! Are you trying to flunk me?

LMAO!

Downloading now but I must be off to work. Will play tonight

I played one game as Texas, beating Oregon 10-0 on All-American difficulty.

Some impressions:

*WHY, OH WHY must developers completely change the migration through the play calling screen from year to year?? In this year's effort, swapping through formation is in the horizontal direction, while choosing three new plays within the current formation is in the vertical direction. This is exactly the opposite of the behavior in NCAA 11. Also, you no longer highlight the play you want, you push one of three face buttons. I thought the play calling screen from last year was very good. I suspect this is motivated by trying to keep people from playing NCAA11 as time goes on.

*What use are the blades of grass if you can't see them during gameplay? You only see them in the cut scenes after a play. If anything, I thought the field looked more murky than last year.

*It seemed the blocking logic on running plays was much better. In particular, FBs, TEs, and pulling linemen seemed to block the people you'd expect them to block. I didn't notice as many linemen who squirted through holes, ignored every defender, and ended up 20 yards downfield while I was tackled in the hole. The FB play, in particular, was very much improved.

*I didn't play enough to really feel the differences in zone play. I'll have to go back and play some more (naturally).

*I did see a super jump from an LB. Only one that was maybe reasonable, but this was a game with 2 min quarters. Seems that may play like last year.

*Tackling will take some getting used to...the X button no longer launches your player. I'm not sure the difference between using X and just running into a guy.

I never dive anymore as it's usually a miss. I play angles and run into the guy.

buddy of mine(hardcore NCAA guy) loves it. Says a lot of the crap has been ironed out. He feels that it isn't as robotic. Can't wait to get home tonight and give it a run.

Leroyog wrote:

I never dive anymore as it's usually a miss. I play angles and run into the guy.

buddy of mine(hardcore NCAA guy) loves it. Says a lot of the crap has been ironed out. He feels that it isn't as robotic. Can't wait to get home tonight and give it a run.

I agree it's not as robotic...for now. Until we learn the patterns.

Edit: So, I've thrown a lot of INTs in three games...

Patterns?!?! What are these patterns you speak of?

Safety play is much improved on flag or post patterns. Seems like route mirroring is back...

As long as they improved the AI to the point where I don't have to defend slant passes all game I will be happy. I swear, anybody I play online will exploit the absolute sheeeet out of slants if you don't guard it manually which means no pass rush

Dammit Sony. I know it's just a demo, but it's just another way you're lagging behind. Nothing up on PSN yet.

Isn't the PSN updated on Thursdays?

Usually it's late Tues night. Which is pretty dumb with Tues being release day. They should do it late Mon night, and get the jump on things instead of being 12 hours behind Microsoft every week.

Since Mr. Green isn't here, I'll do the honors:

CONFORM!!!

firesloth wrote:

Since Mr. Green isn't here, I'll do the honors:

CONFORM!!!

+1

Played two quick games on All-American, and came away pleased.

Blocking is improved. I think running out of the shotgun for spread offenses is going to be much improved. I don't think slants and post patterns to slot receivers ans TE's will be money again, as DB play does seem better.

i threw a lot of INT's as well, but none of them felt cheap. It was more of a case that 2:00 minute quarters force you to play more aggressive, and Texas and Alabama have great defenses.

I beat Texas with Oregon 13-7 on OT. There was no score at the end of regulation. Alabama smoked me when I used FSU, 17-0.

Punt returns are an are ton better. It ereally felt like you getthe ball with time to read blocks and make a play. Alabama ran a kickoff back for a TD on me. It didn't feel cheap. The kick game just feels better overall.

Texas (CPU) missed two fairly easy FG's.

I agree with Firesloth. The changes in playcalling are just dumb. Not a dealbreaker or badly implemented, but just different for the sake of being different. If you are going to force me to learn new settings, there ought to be a good reason.

They added really ugly dreads to the game. Yay! Not!

I think it looks good, and plays like I want it to. It is an easy day one purchase. It's going to make a Madden a very iffy proposal. With the improvements to gameplay and recruits, customizable conferences, and coaching carousel, this feels like a legitimate upgrade and worth the $60.

Sounds like they used Madden 11's play-calling and I agree, wasn't a fan.

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