Some Observations/Ideas I've Had While Playing
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2022 7:57 pm
I've played 18 seasons of the game at this point, mostly playing out games, and I have a few observations and suggestions. Overall I've been very happy with the experience and am very impressed by how far the game has come since the earlier iterations:
1. By far the biggest in game bug I have encountered is near the end of a half or game, sometimes the CPU will spike the ball on three consecutive plays. They will get first and goal with 30 seconds left or something down 4 and then spike it on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd downs before throwing it into the end zone.
2. This might just be something that is necessary for game balance/making scores realistic or something, and it's easy to overlook, but there are an absurd number of 60+ yard punts (by both the player team and the cpu), especially given that we're dealing with college punters.
3. I think that postseason games being home games for one of the teams is something that needs to be adjusted either in this version or next. Even if it says it's at one of the team's stadiums, if the home field advantage (whatever that might be) is taken away that would be helpful. I've also noticed that then the computer is selecting which team will be the home team, the lower ranked team will often be selected, so the #2 team will be the visitor against the #15 team in a conference championship game or something. If home games are a necessity for whatever reason, I think the home team could at least be the higher ranked team.
4. I would personally be more immersed in actual game play if the animations were a bit smoother at times, and if certain things (like blocked punts, etc) were also animated. The current animation is not bad by any means, and the under the hood and recruiting stuff, etc, is obviously more important, but I think there is still a lot of room for improvement in this area.
5. I believe that the logic for determining the Heisman (or equivalent) winner should be looked at. In all my seasons I have only seen a couple of QBs win it, when obviously in real life that award is heavily dominated by QBs. Sometimes the winner is a RB, which is fine, but WRs win the award a TON more than they should. In the years, I've played, the top award has gone to QBs 3 times, RBs 5 times, and WRs 10 times. Maybe some weight could be given to QBs to make them more likely to win?
6. I have never seen a kicking team get an onside kick in those 18 years. I assume this is possible and I've just not seen it?
7. Optional crowd noise and/or game sounds (as in the college basketball game) would be nice.
8. Is it possible for one of your coaches to get poached for a head coaching job? In my 18 years I've been at or very near the top of the league the whole time and have never had one of my coordinators hired for a head coaching job elsewhere. They're 100 reputation 5 star guys who have won multiple national titles and make the playoffs far more often than not, so I think the fact that none of them are ever hired suggests something is off.
9. Another small thing, but it would be good if your job offers included all schools who would hire you, in case you want to leave a big team and go to a team with a lower prestige to be challenged again after building the first program to your satisfaction. The way it seems to work is to only offer jobs you might be plausibly interested in in reality, but for game purposes I think just having those schools there would be nice. In real life Nick Saban isn't going to leave Alabama for Eastern Kentucky, but in the game that might be something a player feels like doing to have a change in gameplay.
10. Another in game thing, but I think there needs to be some sort of Hail Mary option, or an option to force the ball to a certain route or something. I see players (both mine and opposing) throw to dump off routes (or in the case of the computer, running) too often in super late game situations where the only chance the team has is throwing deep.
Most of these are relatively small things, but I figured I'd bring them up.
1. By far the biggest in game bug I have encountered is near the end of a half or game, sometimes the CPU will spike the ball on three consecutive plays. They will get first and goal with 30 seconds left or something down 4 and then spike it on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd downs before throwing it into the end zone.
2. This might just be something that is necessary for game balance/making scores realistic or something, and it's easy to overlook, but there are an absurd number of 60+ yard punts (by both the player team and the cpu), especially given that we're dealing with college punters.
3. I think that postseason games being home games for one of the teams is something that needs to be adjusted either in this version or next. Even if it says it's at one of the team's stadiums, if the home field advantage (whatever that might be) is taken away that would be helpful. I've also noticed that then the computer is selecting which team will be the home team, the lower ranked team will often be selected, so the #2 team will be the visitor against the #15 team in a conference championship game or something. If home games are a necessity for whatever reason, I think the home team could at least be the higher ranked team.
4. I would personally be more immersed in actual game play if the animations were a bit smoother at times, and if certain things (like blocked punts, etc) were also animated. The current animation is not bad by any means, and the under the hood and recruiting stuff, etc, is obviously more important, but I think there is still a lot of room for improvement in this area.
5. I believe that the logic for determining the Heisman (or equivalent) winner should be looked at. In all my seasons I have only seen a couple of QBs win it, when obviously in real life that award is heavily dominated by QBs. Sometimes the winner is a RB, which is fine, but WRs win the award a TON more than they should. In the years, I've played, the top award has gone to QBs 3 times, RBs 5 times, and WRs 10 times. Maybe some weight could be given to QBs to make them more likely to win?
6. I have never seen a kicking team get an onside kick in those 18 years. I assume this is possible and I've just not seen it?
7. Optional crowd noise and/or game sounds (as in the college basketball game) would be nice.
8. Is it possible for one of your coaches to get poached for a head coaching job? In my 18 years I've been at or very near the top of the league the whole time and have never had one of my coordinators hired for a head coaching job elsewhere. They're 100 reputation 5 star guys who have won multiple national titles and make the playoffs far more often than not, so I think the fact that none of them are ever hired suggests something is off.
9. Another small thing, but it would be good if your job offers included all schools who would hire you, in case you want to leave a big team and go to a team with a lower prestige to be challenged again after building the first program to your satisfaction. The way it seems to work is to only offer jobs you might be plausibly interested in in reality, but for game purposes I think just having those schools there would be nice. In real life Nick Saban isn't going to leave Alabama for Eastern Kentucky, but in the game that might be something a player feels like doing to have a change in gameplay.
10. Another in game thing, but I think there needs to be some sort of Hail Mary option, or an option to force the ball to a certain route or something. I see players (both mine and opposing) throw to dump off routes (or in the case of the computer, running) too often in super late game situations where the only chance the team has is throwing deep.
Most of these are relatively small things, but I figured I'd bring them up.