NCAA Football 2012

[Enhance]

Although I do like the sliders and would not play the game without them, does anybody else find their inclusion like a slap in the face? It's like EA says 'here, we know this game sucks, so we're going to give the player the option to adjust gameplay settings in order to portray a more accurate football experience.'

EA will say sliders are there for players to play the game how they want to play, but if one really thinks about it, their presence is almost like an admission to mediocrity.

Every other sports game, EA or not, has game sliders.

That may be true, but I've played several sports games unaffiliated with EA, and almost always have a better experience with that game. EA just gets the brunt of my frustrations because I dislike their products so much.

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

Enhance, Z, I think I may have a solution to your problems and it's kind of an annoying one and one that shouldn't have to be made in the first place, but it's a solution nevertheless.

If you don't want LBs knocking down your passes, even when you loft them nine times out of 10, all you have to do is lower the LBs of the team you're playing verticals by ~40 points. It's worked like a charm for me. Any pass that I have had incomplete has usually been the fault of my own, because I darted it right towards them.

As far as sliders go, I think they are kind of a way for EA to say, yeah we can't get the game perfect. But you have to remember that not everyone plays with the same skill sets or desire. So it's virtually [get it] impossible for EA to make a game that would suit everyone's desires. I don't mind the sliders because of this.

What I do mind is the fact that because EA has a "monopoly" on football games, they think they can release a crap ridden game for 2 months before fixing it. People pay $60 to basically become beta-testers, and that is CRAP. The smarter people, who would wait 2 months until the game is operational and could normally get by with getting a better game cheaper now face another problem: the online access code. Buying used games from EA is fruitless because of it. Money-mongering at it's finest right there.

 

[Enhance]

Yeah, it's frustrating, no question.

Most game sequels release several years after the previous. A new sports game comes out the next year. But, at least by my estimations, the best NCAA game came out the year before 360 and ps3 were released. So, if this holds true, the best NCAA game will release just before new consoles, and then it will go back to crap.

 

[nhuskers5]

I've been using these sliders: http://www.operationsports.com/forums/ncaa-football-sliders/494378-secelites-2012-all-american-slider-set-enjoy-100.html

and have had some pretty realistic games. Passing is much improved. It puts much more stock into decision making, rather than luck...

 

[Atbone95]

Seeking more help.

I don't see how this happens. Before you read this, realize that all my recruiting assistances are set to OFF, so I'm not sure... I was recruiting 2 HB's. After week 12, one of the HB visits and commits at the end of the visit. I open the recruiting board back up in the new week... Other HB is gone. I go back into list of 'All Prospects', go back down into HB and find him again. It shows me at a 1200 pt lead still, 1st place... but he no longer has a scholarship offer. And when I called him, I got a 0+ interest gained call. Not on my board, no more scholarship offer, no interest when I call him...

Is this something a recruit themselves can do if another player at the same position commits?

 

[Enhance]

Seeking more help.

I don't see how this happens. Before you read this, realize that all my recruiting assistances are set to OFF, so I'm not sure... I was recruiting 2 HB's. After week 12, one of the HB visits and commits at the end of the visit. I open the recruiting board back up in the new week... Other HB is gone. I go back into list of 'All Prospects', go back down into HB and find him again. It shows me at a 1200 pt lead still, 1st place... but he no longer has a scholarship offer. And when I called him, I got a 0+ interest gained call. Not on my board, no more scholarship offer, no interest when I call him...

Is this something a recruit themselves can do if another player at the same position commits?

I won't say this is impossible, but I've never seen something like that happen. I've recruited two five stars and a four star back in the same season before and nobody decommitted after the first one signed. Either it's a recruiting glitch, or the player really did decide your signing of another running back meant he should look elsewhere.

 

[jsneb83]

Seeking more help.

I don't see how this happens. Before you read this, realize that all my recruiting assistances are set to OFF, so I'm not sure... I was recruiting 2 HB's. After week 12, one of the HB visits and commits at the end of the visit. I open the recruiting board back up in the new week... Other HB is gone. I go back into list of 'All Prospects', go back down into HB and find him again. It shows me at a 1200 pt lead still, 1st place... but he no longer has a scholarship offer. And when I called him, I got a 0+ interest gained call. Not on my board, no more scholarship offer, no interest when I call him...

Is this something a recruit themselves can do if another player at the same position commits?

I won't say this is impossible, but I've never seen something like that happen. I've recruited two five stars and a four star back in the same season before and nobody decommitted after the first one signed. Either it's a recruiting glitch, or the player really did decide your signing of another running back meant he should look elsewhere.

Yeah not sure, but there was one time where I had 1 scholarship available and was going after a 5-star QB and after advancing a week I look and he wasn't on my board, went and found him and he had no offer from me, similar to what happened to Atbone, and I didn't have any of my recruiting assistants enabled either, so I don't know. Can't remember if I ended up signing him or not. But then this past recruiting class I had, I got 6 5-star WRs, never knew if that was possible, and not one of them decided to leave.

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

Well...it's EA NCAA Football 12 so I would suspect it is a glitch.

On a side note, I was playing against Michigan State [who was #1 in the nation ???] with my slider set and the LBs jumping turned way down. The result: I won 65-38 [looking like ole Billy C on my dynasty--I beat Wyoming 85-7 lol]. However, there were a lot of plays that really made the score higher than it should've been [i only had 350 total yards]: a Kenny Bell KO return for a TD, a pick 6 from Andrew Green, and a 74 yard punt return by Rex Burkhead [which was epic, took 3 defenders off of me and ran it to the house]. Plus a garbage TD in the end. Had those plays not happened, it would've been 38-37. So if you ever want to try my sliders out, send me a msg.

 

[ZRod]

The recruiting thing is probably a glitch, like Bye Bye said it's EA. I seem to remember a lot of talk about this on the actual boards for the game, but those things are a joke anyways. EA just deletes what they don't like hearing or ignore it all together.

I'm pretty much playing this game for trophies now, and seriously not considering buy it next year. I could go on such a long rant about this game :facepalm: . EA should honestly be ashamed of this crap. It just needs to be scrapped and totally reworked because everything they tried to fix just created new problems.

 

[zoogs]

Although I do like the sliders and would not play the game without them, does anybody else find their inclusion like a slap in the face? It's like EA says 'here, we know this game sucks, so we're going to give the player the option to adjust gameplay settings in order to portray a more accurate football experience.'

EA will say sliders are there for players to play the game how they want to play, but if one really thinks about it, their presence is almost like an admission to mediocrity.

Yes. Sliders make such a huge difference, it's like, what's the point.

You win a game...maybe your sliders were too easy.

You lose a game...effin' sliders were turned up too much.

Ship a balanced product, or you're doing it wrong, EA. And anyone else who has 0-100 sliders in every conceivable setting for their games.

The truth is that these are arcade games. Fun to play online, fun to play with friends. The franchise/coach career stuff that the SP is built on is not very good. There's no semblance of realism and the player development model is sheer terrible.

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

The recruiting thing is probably a glitch, like Bye Bye said it's EA. I seem to remember a lot of talk about this on the actual boards for the game, but those things are a joke anyways. EA just deletes what they don't like hearing or ignore it all together.

I'm pretty much playing this game for trophies now, and seriously not considering buy it next year. I could go on such a long rant about this game :facepalm: . EA should honestly be ashamed of this crap. It just needs to be scrapped and totally reworked because everything they tried to fix just created new problems.

And you know the greatest part of it all, is that EA CAN delete what they don't like hearing and CAN ignore it altogether because they have a "monopoly" on the college football and pro football domains. If there was competition, we wouldn't be seeing this crap and even if we did, well the other game is better.

 

[Enhance]

Although I do like the sliders and would not play the game without them, does anybody else find their inclusion like a slap in the face? It's like EA says 'here, we know this game sucks, so we're going to give the player the option to adjust gameplay settings in order to portray a more accurate football experience.'

EA will say sliders are there for players to play the game how they want to play, but if one really thinks about it, their presence is almost like an admission to mediocrity.

Yes. Sliders make such a huge difference, it's like, what's the point.

You win a game...maybe your sliders were too easy.

You lose a game...effin' sliders were turned up too much.

Ship a balanced product, or you're doing it wrong, EA. And anyone else who has 0-100 sliders in every conceivable setting for their games.

The truth is that these are arcade games. Fun to play online, fun to play with friends. The franchise/coach career stuff that the SP is built on is not very good. There's no semblance of realism and the player development model is sheer terrible.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I understand the argument somebody else made, saying people need the sliders because we're all on different levels, but that's what the difficulty levels are there for. You don't see games like Gears of War, Assassin's Creed, Skyrim, etc., implementing sliders to make the game more accurate. Can you imagine what that would be like, choosing a difficulty setting in Gears of War, for example, and then adjusting sliders like collision detection, accuracy, player awareness, etc.? It'd be ridiculous.

The idea that I need to choose a difficulty level and then tinker with 30 settings to make the game realistic is just idiotic.

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

Although I do like the sliders and would not play the game without them, does anybody else find their inclusion like a slap in the face? It's like EA says 'here, we know this game sucks, so we're going to give the player the option to adjust gameplay settings in order to portray a more accurate football experience.'

EA will say sliders are there for players to play the game how they want to play, but if one really thinks about it, their presence is almost like an admission to mediocrity.

Yes. Sliders make such a huge difference, it's like, what's the point.

You win a game...maybe your sliders were too easy.

You lose a game...effin' sliders were turned up too much.

Ship a balanced product, or you're doing it wrong, EA. And anyone else who has 0-100 sliders in every conceivable setting for their games.

The truth is that these are arcade games. Fun to play online, fun to play with friends. The franchise/coach career stuff that the SP is built on is not very good. There's no semblance of realism and the player development model is sheer terrible.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I understand the argument somebody else made, saying people need the sliders because we're all on different levels, but that's what the difficulty levels are there for. You don't see games like Gears of War, Assassin's Creed, Skyrim, etc., implementing sliders to make the game more accurate. Can you imagine what that would be like, choosing a difficulty setting in Gears of War, for example, and then adjusting sliders like collision detection, accuracy, player awareness, etc.? It'd be ridiculous.

The idea that I need to choose a difficulty level and then tinker with 30 settings to make the game realistic is just idiotic.

I think that argument was made by me, just trying to get at the crux of why they are in the games in the first place.

The comparison to other, non-sports games such as Gears of War, Modern Warfare 3, Skyrim, Mass Effect...and so on and so forth is very interesting. Makes me think that it really isn't EA in the wrong [only with regards to the sliders] but more so the developing team behind the game...which I believe is EA Tiburon. Why? Because you see other games, such as Mass Effect 1, 2, and soon to be 3 and Battlefield 3 all brandish that EA title and yet they don't have sliders.

Could it be something with the code complexity of the games? I personally doubt it, but maybe a more qualified person could tell me right or wrong.

 

[ZRod]

Could it be something with the code complexity of the games? I personally doubt it, but maybe a more qualified person could tell me right or wrong.

I actually think that is exactly what it is, plus EA Tiburon being lazy. I'm talking out my a$$ here, but here me out. It seems like EA has being working with the same basic engine since the ending days of PS2, many animations are similar and trajectories of balls etc. Sure they have tweaked things here and there and added features from FrostBite and player momentum from FIFA, but that has been added to the core that is already in place. And now with all the patches and added code things are coming to a head, you fix one problem and create two more. Then instead of taking a year off to fix the game, they say screw it lets make money off these guys and just add new features to a broken game. And voila you have NCAA 12. That has to be the only explanation, other than complete developer incompetence.

Despite having a monopoly on the genera EA could have made a killer game if they had simply fixed the issues with NCAA 11. I mean couldn't we have done without the 3D grass, who honestly looks at that? And the coaching carousel is nice but it is pretty half hearted, same can be said for conference alignment. And I for one could do with out Road to Glory. It was a nice thought but everything about it is just screwed up. Lose all that and you could have more people focused on actually making a good all around game.

After last years fiasco I honestly think this is EA's last chance before they start losing significant sales on these games. People are ticked and I can see a lot of them at the least not pre-ordering NCAA 13 and waiting for used copies.

 

[Enhance]

I've already decided to not get NCAA '13 for the exact reasons you mention, zrod. Good post.

If, after several months, the reviews are overwhelmingly good and I don't see the same problems being mentioned from previous years, then I might buy the game. The only reason I got NCAA '12 was because I beat L.A. Noire, didn't see myself playing it ever again, turned it in for $35 and then paid about $30 total for NCAA '12.

If I could tell EA one thing, it would be this - stop adding realistic grass, lighting adjustments, game types (i.e. coaching carousel or road to glory), conference realignment, etc. I want a football game that plays like a real football game. I think you hit the nail on the head, zrod. The core of this game has never really changed, and I get almost the same feeling now that I got when I played NCAA '06. I'd almost rather play that on the next-gen then NCAA '12.