NCAA Football 2012

[cornhuskers4ever]

Keep getting notified to vote on the player to grace the cover of 2012. All I can think about is Nebraska in the Big 10. Game should be awesome.

[GSG]

Agreed. What's on everyone's wish list for the new game?

[Parl Celini]

Vote for Mark Ingram for cover athlete.

[ADS]

I hope they simplify the recruiting in dynasty mode, 2011 was almost impossible. I would 2nd Ingram.

[GSG]

I like the idea of simplified recruiting. It would be nice to be able to assign assistant coaches to certain positions/states.

 

I'd like to see a change in the Road to Glory feature. Instead of Skip Until Next Play when your player is out, make an option to watch until your player is back on the field. I lose the feel for the game flow sometimes.

 

One thing that has really ticked me off in all the past games is trying to pass to guys coming across the middle behind the linebackers. You either have to have a bullet inbetween them or throw a mile high lob because the LBers jump so damn high. There's not a lot of touch to be put on those throws.

[ADS]

I hope they change the Erin Andrews segment on RTG, I mean I do like looking at her by man it is just so repetative.

 

I also hope that they make it a little easier in pass coverage, in RTG its easy to get burned when you play as a SS or FS.

[Enhance]

My wish list:

 

1) Raise the computer's recruiting ability. Not only does the computer lie about the positions you need to fill, but if you ever let it auto-recruit it quite often does not fill up your roster to the 70 limit. It consistently under recruits the amount of offensive linemen you need, often to the point where any time the second stringers comes in you have wide receivers or defensive backs filling in on the o-line.

 

Furthermore, I don't want to devote a lot of my time to recruiting in every dynasty mode I make. Even if I set the recruiting difficulty to freshman and let the computer do the rest, why on Earth does it only auto recruit two linemen when I lose four to graduation? Why does it only recruit 10 players total when I lose 15? Why does the roster menu that shows you what positions you need to fill say you only need to recruit one running back even though you lose two? It doesn't make any sense and I shouldn't have to be a hard-core recruiter just to make sure my roster reaches the 70 max and I have all the positions I need.

 

2) A middle linebacker should not be able to block every single pass I throw over the middle of the field in Heisman difficulty, and I shouldn't have to adjust the sliders just to make the game experience more realistic. That's your job, EA, not mine.

 

3) The new team entrances feature was a nice addition, but only a portion of the schools actually have unique entrances while the rest of the lesser known schools don't. And some unique entrances (even some of the coolest in the nation) were left out i.e. Tennessee's opening of the T and the players running onto the field. I understand some schools may not have anything interesting like a touching of a rock, horseshoe, a sign, etc., but they should at least have something more immersive than just standing in a tunnel.

 

4) Some school bands do unique formations while others don't. What's up with this? How does Missouri have a unique band formation plus no unique entrance while Nebraska has no unique band formation and a unique entrance. Can't we have both?

 

5) The game's ranking system is flawed, to say the least. Teams in power stay in power and very rarely lose, and they are often impossible to jump in the BCS rankings. How can I play a tougher schedule than Alabama and Ohio State, have no losses and still not leap frog either of them into the title game? Also, how is it that I finished a 12-1 season with Troy (moved them to the SEC) and finish in the Top 15, yet fall out of the Top 25 before the next season starts in favor of a team like Georgia Tech that went 9-4 and finished ranked #22? I returned almost all of my starters save five or 6 and this isn't enough to keep me in the Top 25?

[VectorVictor]

1. Agree. EA hasn't been able to get recruiting right the whole time they've added it. Considering their track record, color me pessimistic that they'll fix this with '12.

 

2. Agree with sliders, and adjusting sliders shouldn't kill chances for achievements. If anything, give players X points of slider leeway per difficulty to use as they see fit. That, or fix your ******* game, EA.

 

3. It's a programming and expenditure issue. It wasn't until '09 that this gen had all of the FBS stadiums in the game. '07 and '08 had about 70 and 90, respectively, IIRC. EA is willing to let things slide as they have a monopoly on the market.

 

4. See #3. Plus, IIRC, it's a friggin' Whorn that's produced the last few of these--I'm sure they would care to not do any favors for DONU in this game.

 

5. See #3.

 

---

 

Personally, they need to make '12 flexible to account for possible changes in conference alignment in the future. Allow conferences to expand up to 16 teams and the ability to add/remove divisions and title games. IIRC, you can move Nebraska to the Big 10 and Colorado to the Pac-10, but neither conference has a title game, and the Big XII still has one with ten members.

 

That, and they need to do a better job modeling the stadium. I swear they're using the same stadium model from '07 in '11 from what I saw, and it looks like ****.

[Nebula]

I'm with both of you guys (Enhance and matthew_m_g) on all points.

 

The only thing I would add, (and this has been my number one gripe since I made the transformation from PS2 to X-Box 360,) is the lack of formation substitutions. If I'm recruiting my own players I sure as hell ought to be able to design my own playbook. I'm to the point where I flat out will not buy a new version* until they allow me to a.) devote less than 10 hours a season on mind-numbingly boring recruiting and b.) set up my own offense.

 

The whole bent of the game now is focused on online play it seems, and more importantly, how they can profit even more off of us AFTER we've already purchased the game. Recruiting sucks because they're trying to design it in a way where hoards of players will pay for a recruiting advisor, or whatever. Other aspects of the game suffer as they devote large amounts of time and effort into designing newer ways for us to spend more money on something we've already purchased. I get more annoyed the more I think about it.

 

*Yeah....sure. I've bought every single version since 1998 but I'm going to refuse to buy the first version that has us in our new conference. Here's my wallet EA. My eyes are closed. Do what you will.

[hosker]

anyone know when the templates for custom covers come out?

[Fuzzy]

1. Recruiting, let us pick which topics we want to talk to a recruit about, not the random crap that was implemented to bring a more "realistic" edge to the recruiting process.

 

2. Road to Glory, let us change the length of the quarters. 5 min per quarter is way too short. There would be times that the offense takes the field once per quarter or probably 3 times in a half, that is not realistic in game and EA should know that. At least extend the quarter length for Road to Glory, but giving us a choice would be nice.

 

3. Road to Glory, updated video and lines. I think everyone can agree on that.

 

4. Roughing the passer, how many times have you passed the ball, counted to 2 or 3 and then watch the QB get hit and yet no penalty? Even with the slider all the way up, i keep seeing the QB get hit after every pass he throws. That needs to change.

 

Now maybe this is just me, but how many of you have had difficulty running the zone-read? It seems as soon as Martinez gets the ball and before Burkhead or whoever gets to me there are 2 or 3 defensive linemen waiting to see what i do with the ball. The end result is no matter whether its the QB or RB it usually equals a loss of yards. I find myself only picking up positive yards with Martinez on either a PA scramble or on the option. I would like to see an easier way to run the zone-read.

[nhuskers5]

1. Recruiting, let us pick which topics we want to talk to a recruit about, not the random crap that was implemented to bring a more "realistic" edge to the recruiting process.

 

2. Road to Glory, let us change the length of the quarters. 5 min per quarter is way too short. There would be times that the offense takes the field once per quarter or probably 3 times in a half, that is not realistic in game and EA should know that. At least extend the quarter length for Road to Glory, but giving us a choice would be nice.

 

3. Road to Glory, updated video and lines. I think everyone can agree on that.

 

4. Roughing the passer, how many times have you passed the ball, counted to 2 or 3 and then watch the QB get hit and yet no penalty? Even with the slider all the way up, i keep seeing the QB get hit after every pass he throws. That needs to change.

 

Now maybe this is just me, but how many of you have had difficulty running the zone-read? It seems as soon as Martinez gets the ball and before Burkhead or whoever gets to me there are 2 or 3 defensive linemen waiting to see what i do with the ball. The end result is no matter whether its the QB or RB it usually equals a loss of yards. I find myself only picking up positive yards with Martinez on either a PA scramble or on the option. I would like to see an easier way to run the zone-read.

 

I agree with all of them, especially with the zone read...i can usually run it a few times succesfully early, then it fails miserably, almost an instant loss. Then, when you try a play action pass or a screen off of it, you get sacked or covered. Ever since i changed the sliders though, things have been better

[huskerscott]

1. Recruiting, let us pick which topics we want to talk to a recruit about, not the random crap that was implemented to bring a more "realistic" edge to the recruiting process.

 

2. Road to Glory, let us change the length of the quarters. 5 min per quarter is way too short. There would be times that the offense takes the field once per quarter or probably 3 times in a half, that is not realistic in game and EA should know that. At least extend the quarter length for Road to Glory, but giving us a choice would be nice.

 

3. Road to Glory, updated video and lines. I think everyone can agree on that.

 

4. Roughing the passer, how many times have you passed the ball, counted to 2 or 3 and then watch the QB get hit and yet no penalty? Even with the slider all the way up, i keep seeing the QB get hit after every pass he throws. That needs to change.

 

Now maybe this is just me, but how many of you have had difficulty running the zone-read? It seems as soon as Martinez gets the ball and before Burkhead or whoever gets to me there are 2 or 3 defensive linemen waiting to see what i do with the ball. The end result is no matter whether its the QB or RB it usually equals a loss of yards. I find myself only picking up positive yards with Martinez on either a PA scramble or on the option. I would like to see an easier way to run the zone-read.

 

I agree with all of them, especially with the zone read...i can usually run it a few times succesfully early, then it fails miserably, almost an instant loss. Then, when you try a play action pass or a screen off of it, you get sacked or covered. Ever since i changed the sliders though, things have been better

I agree with all of these also.

 

Recruiting is damn near impossible to figure out. I lost 4 star guy to a school that didnt even offer him a scholly, but it was his top choice. I won the NC the first year and got whopping 9 recruits in that class, basically all 3 stars. I dont even run the zone read anymore because its a 3 yard loss everytime. I run the jet sweep fake PA pass out of the 2 back shotgun set its pretty successful, but you got to make decision REAL quick with the ball. Usually dumping to the RB gets about 10-15 yards. One time I threw it back to the slot receiver that came in motion for the fake and he scored. Granted it was against Okie Lite, but I havent tried against a good defense yet. I pretty much line taylor up in the gun, run the spread option or Qb draws. Then line up in the I or single back when I wanna run Rexy or Helu. Taylor seems to get hurt alot in the game, especially on passing plays.

[Fuzzy]

Usually if i want to run Taylor, I call a passing play and wait for the LB to clear out the middle and then take off between the tackles, usually gives me close to 20yds each time. Sometimes i run the normal Option or Triple Option and pick up 10yds without pitching it. Zone Read is only successful with Taylor when I call it and hand the ball off to RB several times, but as soon i keep the ball and take off with it, the next time i find myself facing either a jump snap or all out blitz.

 

As for recruiting, my biggest loss was going after the #1 kicker from Wyoming during Henery's senior year, the kid had me at the top of his list and i was the only one who offered him, his visit was an +A and everything looked good until for some reason he dropped the Huskers to #2 as Texas A&M took the top spot but did not offer him. I ended up still trying to recruit him into the offseason, made the in house visit that was +A. He commited to Rice. TO RICE!!! I ended up taking a walk-on kicker the next year, i was pretty freakin pissed.

 

I'm hoping that they make the recruiting somewhat like what they do with their soccer game.

 

It would be nice to have a recruiter (or recruiters) go to a certain state and then come back with a list of potential athletes who are interested in your school. Rather than have one big list of players from all over the place and half of them aren't even interested in your school. Or you can even make it position driven. Say you want one recruiter to go to Texas and look at QB's and another one to go Florida and look at WR's and a third one to go to Cali and look at DB. I truly think that they should combine some positions together. Like CB-FS-SS should all be DB. I mean after Hagg, Amukamara and Gomes left, i couldn't find any good CB to really replace them, so i ended up recruiting some really fast four star FS or SS and moved them over to play the CB position and worked out great. Maybe combine the TE/FB position, but i might be just that because finding a FB to come to Nebraska is hard so i just recruit a TE and move him over to play FB.

[Enhance]

4. Roughing the passer, how many times have you passed the ball, counted to 2 or 3 and then watch the QB get hit and yet no penalty? Even with the slider all the way up, i keep seeing the QB get hit after every pass he throws. That needs to change.

 

Now maybe this is just me, but how many of you have had difficulty running the zone-read? It seems as soon as Martinez gets the ball and before Burkhead or whoever gets to me there are 2 or 3 defensive linemen waiting to see what i do with the ball. The end result is no matter whether its the QB or RB it usually equals a loss of yards. I find myself only picking up positive yards with Martinez on either a PA scramble or on the option. I would like to see an easier way to run the zone-read.

Penalties in general need to be re-evaluated. The roughing the passer is a huge one, but I also never see a late-hit out of bounds call when I'm playing, even though there have been a couple of times that my guy has stepped out and been walloped out of bounds.

 

And the zone read complaint is so true it's not even funny. I think it has to do with two things:

 

1) The inability for offensive linemen to hold blocks in this game.

2) The lack of acceleration by offensive players.

 

As far as the linemen complaint goes, I just don't understand why my offensive linemen will let corners or linebackers just blow right off them. It's so infuriating. I'm glad that EA has decided to get rid of the stupid slide-to-position tackles that have been relevant in this game for YEARS. You all know these tackles - they're the ones that even when a defensive linemen is engaged and you run past him, he magically slides out of the block (sometimes yards away from it) to tackle you.

 

As far as acceleration is concerned, EA made a big deal out of their locomotion concept last year. It is a great concept, but it is played out unrealistically. Very rarely if ever do running backs gain enough speed in the game like they do in real life. And because defensive linemen seem to blow off blocks super easily, there's no way you can get your back up to speed in time to make the zone-read successful.