Rhombic's Incredibly Massive Wishlist

[rhombic21]

Master Wishlist

Game Play issues

General Game Play issues

The hurdle button needs to be done away with, and players should just automatically hurdle if there is somebody lying on the ground in front of them, and the user runs over them. This should be for both offensive and defensive players. The hurdle button is too difficult to remember to hit while running in traffic, since you are often trying to pull off other moves, and on defense, there are often occasions when a defender will have a clear path to a fumble or deflected ball, but cannot get to it because a team mate, or offensive player, is lying on the ground in front of him. In real life, the defender could just jump over the player, and proceed to the football.

There needs to be something done with the way that players will often times just run into each other in place (often referred to as “Mario running”). For one thing, if there is a big jumble of players, and a big linebacker or pounding running back runs into it, then the pile should be pushed one way or the other. Also, linebackers and running backs need to be able to get through the holes at the line of scrimmage more effectively, so that if they barely clip somebody they don’t just run in place or lose all momentum. Perhaps they need to be made more “flexible” or something so that they can maneuver their bodies better in traffic.

Impact players are a nice idea, and should be continued, because in college there are several occasions when certain players really do put teams on their backs and make big plays in the clutch (ie Braylon Edwards versus Michigan State). But the logic for when guys get “in the zone” needs to be completely re-done, as there are too many instances when guys seem to get in the zone for no reason (in some instances a guy gets in the zone despite having a pretty poor game up to that point). Also, once players are in the zone, they shouldn’t necessarily be elevated to being unstoppable. For running backs and option quarterbacks in particular, it seems like getting in the zone is almost a guaranteed broken tackle, no matter what the situation is. It’s just overdone. Good concept, just tone it back.

Offensive issues

The offensive line does a very poor job of dealing with Defensive line slants. Often times the same slant can be done all game and the offensive line will not adjust, leaving a defensive lineman to come through untouched. This is particularly frustrating when the other team is only rushing its three down lineman, and one of them comes in completely unblocked, despite the fact that the offensive line has 5 blockers for 3 defenders.

In ace sets, particularly when there are 3 or more wide receivers, the offensive line does a very poor job of picking up blitzes in the interior gaps between the center and each guard. This is partly due to the fact that the center will often times not block anybody.

Also in ace sets, the running back is set too close to the line of scrimmage for the “read” running plays to work effectively. He needs to be moved back another yard or so, which will allow him the room to effectively cut it outside or make a cutback, depending on the blocking. As it is now, he is too close to the line of scrimmage to “read” his blocks at all.

There are simply too many broken tackles by running backs, particularly impact running backs. Broken tackles in the open field, when the running back has some momentum, and the tackler is a smaller defensive back are fine, but there should be far fewer instances when running backs break multiple tackles at, or even behind the line of scrimmage, and there shouldn’t be as many instances of running backs breaking 4 and 5 tackles on a single play.

It is probably more a result of the poor run support by linebackers and safeties, and the unaggressiveness of Dlinemen against the run, but there are far too many pancakes by the offensive line. There are way too many instances of linemen racking up ridiculous pancake stats over the course of a season, and it's not uncommon for user controlled teams to have 3 or 4 of the top linemen in the nation, in terms of pancake blocks.

On play action, often times the offensive tackles will simply not block the defensive end. This does not seem to be an issue on other plays, such as drop back passing plays, or even running plays. For some reason on play action, the offensive tackles will often either not engage the defensive end at all, or will engage him only momentarily.

There needs to be a way to hot route tight ends and wide receivers who are lined up close to the line of scrimmage, but not on the line of scrimmage, to stay in and block. For instance, in Ace Big Twins there needs to be a way to have the #2 TE, who is set slightly off the line of scrimmage, to stay in and block, and in Ace Bunch there needs to be a way to tell the receiver closest to the offensive line to stay in and block.

“Block and release,” or ”delay” routes need to be completely re-worked, particularly for running backs. If the defense blitzes, or a lineman comes free, and the running back has to block, then he should just stay in and block for the remainder of the play, and should not go out into his pass pattern. He should only go out into his pass pattern if the defense is not blitzing, and the offensive line has everybody blocked.

Home Field Advantage (HFA) should not affect the ability to hot route backs in the backfield to stay in and block, particularly from the shotgun. In addition, since it is so difficult to hot route wide receivers at the line of scrimmage, it may be worth exploring a way to change the play in the huddle to a “max protect” play, which would simply have all the running backs and tight ends stay in and block. It would also be worthwhile to devise a way to allow the offense to audible to “max protect” at the line of scrimmage with a single button, rather than having to manually hot route each offensive player. As it is right now, it’s far too difficult to move the ball against aggressive blitzing defenses on the road, simply because you cannot hot route guys to stay in and block. Having HFA make offensive adjustments more difficult is fine, but there needs to be more balance so that teams aren’t rewarded for just blitzing every down, and pumping up the crowd. If the offense knows what the defense is going to do even in the huddle, then HFA shouldn’t prevent them from making the proper adjustments.

There needs to be a way to disable the CPU from taking over and throwing the ball if you don’t move your QB after the snap. This would allow people to focus more on where they are passing the ball, because they wouldn’t have to worry about dropping back. It’s too difficult to concentrate on both, but you are basically forced to drop back yourself, especially on plays with quick slants, because if you don’t move the QB, the CPU will often take over for you and throw a costly interception.

There are way too many fumbles on offense. While it’s true that turnovers and fumbles are a big part of college football, and it wouldn’t be a good idea to have it where players almost never fumbled, it’s way overdone in NCAA 2006.

Quarterbacks are way too accurate, particularly on deep and intermediate throws. There just isn’t enough of a difference between a guy like Matt Leinart who has an NFL arm, and a “middle of the road” guy like Paul Thompson from Oklahoma. Even big time quarterbacks like Leinart will have a good number of bad throws on long throws, where the ball is completely uncatchable. There are really two issues at work here. First, all quarterbacks are too accurate across the board, and there needs to be a higher number of throws that are simply uncatchable (thrown too high or too low, or thrown way behind the WR, etc…). Second, there needs to be a bigger difference between top flight, NFL caliber quarterbacks, and lower rated guys that have mediocre arms. This might help make things more realistic in terms of the effectiveness of mobile QBs that have mediocre throwing attributes.

The vision cone on Madden is a brilliant idea, and needs to be implemented in NCAA, so that QB AWR actually matters for human controlled quarterbacks, however it needs to be tweaked to make it easier to rapidly progress through receivers, particularly when under duress (VG's Farmer).

Wide receivers block way too well downfield. There are simply too many times when all the receivers have their assigned man pancaked.

On the wide receiver screens, the blocking AI needs to be tweaked to better deal with zone blitzes. In several occasions the cornerback directly in front of the wide receiver will be ignored, leading to a loss of yardage. In addition, the receiver of the pass’ logic needs to be tweaked so that he makes better use of his blocks. Too many times the receiver of the screen pass gets the ball and the CPU AI attempts to run him the wrong way, so that he doesn’t use his blocks well. For example, on several occasions the blocks will set up a “wall” between the defenders and the receiver, so that he has a clear path to the endzone down the sideline, but when you pass the ball to him, the receiver attempts to run back towards the middle of the field, where the defenders are. Also, the catch animations take too long. Screen passes to receivers are generally very quick plays, and the receiver is generally able to catch the ball and head upfield immediately so as to catch the defense offguard.

Improved CPU hurry-up logic. When the CPU goes into hurry-up mode it will often run the same play for all three downs, even if the play is a running play. The CPU should be audibling to a pass play instead of trying to run three times up the middle when down by a score or more late in the game (Maddenmania's Grasshoppa).

[rhombic21]

Defensive issues

The linebackers and safeties seem way too passive in terms of pursuing the ball carrier. Often times safeties will actually run AWAY from the player with the ball, even after he has crossed the line of scrimmage. Other times they just stand still, rather than moving to fill a lane or gap. The entire pursuit logic needs to be re-worked. Defenders need to be more aggressive, but also more disciplined in terms of taking angles and filling running lanes (obviously this would change depending on awareness so that lower AWR players were more likely to get out of position).

On the triple option, way too many defenders bite on the fake to the fullback. Only the middle linebacker and defensive end should be affected by that fake to the fullback. Also, on option plays in general, the defense is not nearly disciplined enough in terms of staying with the pitch man, or forcing the QB to make a pitch. This leads to many occasions when the user feels like they have to defend both the QB and the HB on the outside, because the CPU controlled defenders seem to do neither.

On deep balls, safeties and cornerbacks seem to be very passive, in terms of going for the football while it is in the air. And then when they do go for it, there are way too many instances when they simply jump and miss the ball.

In cover 3 and Cover 4 zones, where the cornerbacks are essentially guarding the deep sidelines area, they are way too far off of the wide receiver, and do not react well to the ball in the air. This allows for “bullet” passes to be thrown to the WR, who simply stops short and catches the ball well in front of the CB. CBs get turned around way too much in general in these zone coverage defenses, and seem to have too difficult of a time locating the football.

In relation to the two points above this, there needs to be a way to tell the defender to look back towards the ball, and prepare himself to jump for it or bat it down, without completely turning around. Perhaps L2 or R2 could be utilized in this scenario, and it would slow the defensive back down a step or two, making it so that he couldn’t sprint at full speed, but it would allow him to orient himself towards the ball (particularly on lob passes), in terms of turning his head and looking at it, so that when you jump or swat, he jumps for the ball, while maintaining his position between the ball and the WR. The strafe button is just too clumsy to be of much use when covering passes downfield, unless you’re using a safety who is playing over the top.

Defensive tackles have gone from being too effective to not being effective enough. There needs to be more penetration by defensive tackles into the backfield, especially against lower rated offensive linemen. Defensive tackles also need to do a better job of reacting to the run, and trying to fill lanes and eat up blocks. It is good that DTs no longer make as many tackles at the last minute by shedding their blocks at the line of scrimmage, but they need to be more active in terms of getting penetration and blowing plays up in the backfield, or plugging up holes in the middle and forcing the HB to bounce it outside, where the linebackers can pursue him without having to worry about lead blockers. Defensive Ends also need to be made more aggressive, in terms of getting off their blocks against the run (particularly highly rated defensive ends).

The positions ROLB and LOLB need to be replaced by Strong side Outside Linebacker (SOLB) and Weak side Outside Linebacker (LOLB). Teams do not have “right” or “left” outside linebackers. They have “strong” and “weak” outside linebackers. Strong side linebackers line up on the side of the formation where the TE is, or on the side where the “strength” of the offense is, since they are generally bigger players who are better able to defend against the run. Weak side linebackers line up on the side without the TE, or to the side where the offense has less strength, so that they can use their superior speed and acceleration to chase plays down from behind without fighting off blockers, and so that they can blitz more effectively. These positions should then automatically line up on the strong and weak side of the formation automatically. If this is not possible, or is too difficult, then it needs to at least be arranged that if the defense flips the play at the play call screen, the LBs will switch sides of the field.

Strong Safety and Free Safety needs to work like the linebackers, with them switching sides depending on the “strength” of the offensive formation, or at least if the defensive player flips the play at the playcall screen. Also, there needs to be a way to have the strong safety come down into the box, while leaving the free safety at normal depth. Strong safeties are often used to blitz the passer or defend against the run, while free safeties are generally assigned to roam the middle of the field, and be the last line of defense against the deep ball. Thus it often occurs where teams will send the strong safety down into the “box”, where he will essentially behave like a fourth linebacker, while the free safety stays back to defend against the pass.

Special teams issues

Field goals are way too easy. The length needs to be trimmed back significantly. Most college kickers struggle to kick anything further than the 28 or so yard line, and even the great kickers can rarely make it past the 35 yard line. Occasionally there are kickers like Colorado’s Mason Crosby who can make 55+ yard field goals, but those players are incredibly rare on the college level.

There needs to be a way on punts to tell your players to get away from the ball, when you don’t want to field it. Teams do this in real life all the time, particularly when the punt lands inside the 10 yard line, and they want it to bounce into the end zone for a touchback.

There needs to be more bad snaps and high snaps on punts and field goals. Perhaps with the creation of the new Long Snapper position, it might be time to add a “long snap” attribute that would determine how often a bad snap occurred.

The fake punt defense needs to be tweaked so that it can defend against the fake punt run play more realistically. As it is now, the fake punt run will work almost every time in 4th and 2 or less situations, even if the defense comes out in the fake punt defense play.

Animations that need to be added

One major animation that needs to be added on defense is a “grab and pull back” animation, that would occur down on the goal line and in short yardage. As it is now, there are way too many instances when a running back is stopped short of the first down/end zone, but is hit from behind by a tackler and pushed forward. Defenders who approach the ball carrier from behind need to be more aware in terms of tackling the ball carrier so that he doesn’t gain added yards via the tackle animation, especially in short yardage situations.


There should be greater variation between QB animations, and these could be made customizable for created players. Have several throwing animations in the edit are, similar to MVP baseball's pitching styles. This way you could make the QB's look like their real life counterparts. Over the top throws, Normal, side arm, Vince Young cocked arm style, etc. (MaddenMania's Blacklover)

You could also have a few dropback animations particularly how the feet move and how the ball is held; helmet high, shoulder height, chest height, gunslinger style, one hand on the ball, two hands on the ball, etc. The last animation option could be under the center style. Some guys stand up high, some are medium, some squat way down. (MaddenMania's Blacklover)

There needs to be more use of the "goal line dive over the top" animation." It should be used all over the goal line, and not just near the pylons. There would also, of course, then have to be a goal line "high tackle" animation for LBs to occassionally try and jump to meet the HB mid air (Maddenmania's Grasshoppa).

[rhombic21]

Playbook issues

General playbook issues

The total number of plays needs to be increased dramatically. Madden only has 32 teams, and those teams run a much more homogenous style of offense (there are no option offenses for example), yet it contains several times as many plays as NCAA does. There needs to be greater differentiation between the different playbooks, with different versions of each formation depending on the playbook. A team like Texas, for example, will use a decent amount of option, while a team like USC would not, even though they use some of the same formations. This applies not only to the offense, but also to the defense. Teams need to have more specific defensive playbooks as well, like they do in Madden. Obviously it’s not realistic for every team to have it’s own defensive playbook, but they could be made much more specialized depending on the defensive style (4-3, 3-4, etc.., and also the difference between teams that play a lot of zone/zone blitz, and those that primarily use man to man).

Offensive

The Shotgun formations need to have inside zone running plays that use a pulling lead blocker. These plays need to work more like a “power” run than a finesse play like a normal draw. Many teams that utilize a shotgun based “power spread” type of offense use this type of play on a regular basis. Also, the draw plays in general need to be improved so that they don’t take so long to develop. As it is right now, it’s very easy for a defense to shut down the shotgun draw plays even when they are completely focused on the pass, because the play takes so long to develop.

Madden has several “PA boot” plays that are designed as QB runs. Given the prevalence of mobile QBs at the college level, NCAA needs to add this play to it’s playbooks as well.

There needs to be more “quick toss” plays, where there aren’t actually any pulling linemen, but rather the aim is to just use receivers and the halfback’s speed to get to the corner. This is particularly true in spread formations, where there is often no need to have a lineman pull, since the offense already has several receivers on the outside who can block.

There needs to be the addition of inside trap or inside counter plays. These are plays that use misdirection and a pulling lineman to run the ball inside, by trying to take advantage of linebackers who overpursue to the outside. This kind of play is particularly prevalent in wishbone or flexbone offenses that use a lot of misdirection and speed to try and fool the defense.

It would be great if there was a way to have the HB line up on either side of the QB in shotgun formations for pass protection. Perhaps it could just be added as a motion option, where he could go and stand on the other side of the QB if motioned.

It’s not a massively important thing, but I can’t see where it would be a major problem to add customizable hot routes like Madden has.

Defensive

The defensive playbooks need to be expanded so that there are more complex defenses, particularly with regard to zone blitzes. There should also probably be some defensive plays added in that are designed specifically to stop the option, where each defender has a certain assignment (fullback, quarterback, pitch man, etc…).

The “over” and “under” variations of the 3-4 and 4-3, which are included in Madden, need to be included in NCAA as well.

The alignment on the 3-3-5 and 4-2-5 needs to be adjusted, so that the strong safeties don’t line up so far towards the sideline, particularly against I formations, or two tight end formations. Often times these safeties are used to blitz, or contain the running game, and they are simply lined up too far from the play to be effective.

There should be a way to instruct the middle linebacker to drop back further in the zone coverages. As it is now, the MLB will almost always play too close to the line of scrimmage, giving up post patterns over their heads. The user is essentially forced to control the MLB if he wants to play zone defense on third down and long. There should be a way to instruct the MLB to ignore shorter routes that are well in front of the first down marker, and instead drop back to protect against the deeper middle routes. This would be particularly helpful on third and extremely long situations. I don’t know if it’s easier to just add specific plays that have him dropping further back, or to add some sort of defensive hot route to accomplish the goal, but one of those things is greatly needed.

Online Issues

Custom playbooks need to be available online.

Ranked games should have the option be be played on All American, or Heisman (Maddenmania's Liquid Rob).

The playcall screen needs to be like Madden, where you cannot see the exact formation that the offense selects, but can only see the personnel grouping (and the offense can't see what defense is selected at all).

The lobbies need to be made easier to navigate, and less “laggy.” Also, what is up with 20 max to a lobby room now, after 2 straight years of having 50 person caps?

It would be great to be able to organize people in the lobby based on certain stats that help identify “cheese”, such as scrambling percentage or no huddle percentage. For many people, this would cut down greatly on the amount of time that it would take to find another “sim” player in the lobbies, if you could just have the lobbies sort from low to high scramble percentage, or no huddle, or blitz percentage, etc…

The glitch that causes LSU and Georgia Tech’s opponents to wear road uniforms when those teams are at home, even though in real life those teams often wear their road uniforms at home, and have the opponents wear the home (dark) uniforms, needs to be addressed.

It would be nice to be able to select alternate uniforms. Perhaps one way to avoid having people purposely picking the road/home uniform to try and get both teams wearing identical uniforms would be to just code it so that it is impossible for two teams to wear the same color uniforms, and maybe give preference to the home team (as it is done in real life), in terms of giving them whichever uniform they select, and then automatically switching the road team’s uniform to be opposite.

The slowdown on PS2 needs to be addressed.

Greater effort needs to be put into preventing glitches from occurring in the game. This is the third straight year that people have found ways to glitch the server and misrepresent the outcomes of games within a month of release. If people are finding these glitches in so little time, then why aren’t they found in the quality control portion of production?

Greater effort needs to be done to dealing with people who use “free wins”, by playing a friend or themselves on another PS2, and artificially pumping up their ranking. Perhaps the ranking system could be programmed to include a penalty for playing the same names over and over, so that after a certain point, you no longer gain rank points.

When challenged, you should have the option to view their career at the “Accept, Decline, Block” screen. Adding it to the team selection screen is a nice touch, but it would be even better if you could look at the career before accepting or declining the challenge.

It should be made possible to play at a neutral site, or to set weather conditions. This is particularly helpful for online leagues that want to incorporate bowl games or conference championship games. Needless to say, all bowl games and conference championship sites should be unlocked for online play.

Speaking of online leagues, here’s an idea for online dynasties. Instead of trying to do a full scale dynasty, how about having a situation similar to Madden where you could send a dynasty file over the internet amongst maybe 8 or 12 people, using the EA locker. You have one guy who is kind of the administrator, and he is in charge of selecting the settings, or adjusting the sliders, or assigning people teams. Then the users would play computer teams offline, but if two user controlled teams had to play, they could play it online. Obviously for this to work you would have to be able to export dynasty teams to exhibition games, which is addressed later on. For those online games, the server could just treat them like any other exhibition game, allowing you to set quarter length or difficulty level, but the only catch would be that after the game was over, you could save it to the dynasty file. Really the only two hard things here are programming a way to export dynasty teams to exhibition, and finding a way to save exhibition games back to dynasty, both of which I understand are already possible in Madden. The actual dynasty would be run offline, and wouldn’t use server space.

Speaking of the above point, it would be really cool to be able to export dynasty teams, and play with them online. Obviously those games should probably not be ranked, and it would have to be advertised as a different mode, so that people didn’t get tricked into playing some guy with a roster full of 99 OVR players.

In keeping with the two above points, how about adding historic teams and Division 1AA/Divison II teams to be available online? That would be sweet.

[rhombic21]

Dynasty issues

Additions

The biggest thing that needs to be added to dynasty mode is an “AD mode”, which would be similar to Madden’s “owner” mode, but would have some major differences. First, since this is college and not the pros, I think that instead of using money, the whole thing should be run off of a points system. Schools would get points from a variety of things (TV exposure, ticket sales, merchandise sales, bowl victories, conference affiliations, etc…). With the points, teams could save up for things like stadium expansions, or perhaps facility renovations (which could tie in with recruiting), and other things. This would eliminate one of the more annoying functions of dynasty mode, which is that you can start out with a team that plays in a rinky dink stadium and build them into a national powerhouse in terms of talent, and even get invited to a big time conference, but then you’re still playing in that matchbox stadium. I wouldn’t focus as much on things like ticket prices or hot dog sales, as that’s not really what the college game is all about. It would be a lot more stripped down, in terms of the level of management, that would be required by the user, but the overall point would be that programs could grow or shrink based upon things like getting admittance (or getting kicked out of) a BCS conference, or consistently going to bowl games, or selling out the stadium, or getting on TV, etc… The stadium creation would focus on things like the placement of the student section and the band, and would be completely customizable, similar to Madden’s stadium creation mode, with different expansions costing amounts of points. Obviously this would be the kind of thing that would build up gradually over time, so as to make it possible for a team that starts out as a lowly program with a most 15 or 20 thousand capacity stadium, to grow into a national powerhouse like Ohio State or USC.

Also, in addition to just having a stadium/facility upgrade available, perhaps there could be an "atmosphere" category that people could invest in, which would result in increasing things like HFA, or maybe would allow them to add new songs that the band could play at various points, or to create special crowd cheers, or things like that, so that you could turn that cavern of a stadium into a raucous that intimidated opponents and helped your team gain confidence. That way you could have something to invest in if you didn't necessarily want to save up your points for 5 or 10 years to make a major stadium addition, or if you didn't want to alter the stadium for nostalgic reasons. This could maybe tie in with recruiting, and that sort of thing, as players would be more likely to want to play at a school where the fans really get into it during home games.

The discipline system needs to be re-worked. It is a great concept, don't get me wrong, so I don't think that it should be scrapped altogether. But there needs to be more instances where backups get suspended instead of it always being starters, and it shouldn't work off of a points system. The way that I'd like to see it implemented is that you just allocate a certain percentage of your points for "discipline" (as is the current state of things), and those points are essentially used to adjust the "discipline" ratings of the individual players. So if you pump more points into discipline, then your discipline ratings go up for each individual player, and if you put almost no points into discipline ratings, then your ratings go way down. The discipline rating then determines how often guys get into trouble. You can sit guys as often, or as seldom as you like without using points, but the downside of being a disciplinarian on a team with low discipline is that if you have guys that are always getting into trouble, then they obviously won't be out there on the field helping you win games. If your team has high ratings, then you won't have to sit guys as often, because they won't get into trouble as much. There is no need to have the points dictate how often you can discipline your players, because the suspensions already serve as adequate punishment for recruiting undisciplined players, or running a program that isn't focused on putting points into discipline. The NCAA sanctions thing could then remain in tact as is, depending on whether you handed out the proper punishments for various infractions by your players.

With all the debate about playoffs or the BCS, or the bowls the way that they used to be, it would be a great idea to allow the users to choose how they wanted the championships to be decided in their dynasties. I can’t see how this would be all that difficult to program.

How about allowing for the creation of custom conferences? You could even allow people to create their own logos and conference names. This would allow people to re-create old conferences like the Southwest Conference or the old WAC, or you could import an entire conference from Division II, and have it be part of your Division I dynasty. Or people could create their own custom conferences for their created teams, which would be perfect for those that like to create a dynasty using high school teams.

The ability to export dynasty teams to exhibition mode is long overdue. Added with this would be the ability to save your team to your memory card, so that you could play a friend who had a team in a different dynasty. This would also be great to allow people to practice with their dynasty teams.

It would be really cool to have a spring game, or some kind of intra-squad scrimmage mode that would allow you to test your team out before the season starts.

One cool idea with regards to off-season training would be to allow the user to specify what he wanted different units to work on. For example, an option team might not be as concerned with the QBs becoming proficient pocket passers, and would rather have his quarterbacks work on things like not fumbling as much, or becoming better runners. Or a team that is wanting to pass the ball might prefer to have it’s offensive line work more on pass blocking than run blocking. Some teams may prefer to have receivers concentrate on getting stronger and faster for more big plays, while others prefer to have guys that are smarter and catch the ball better for a more precision attack. Defensively, some teams might prefer to work on getting better speed and coverage abilities so that they can bolster their pass defense, while others might prefer to have guys bulk up more to stop the run.

Medical redshirts need to be added, so that players who get injured early in the season can regain a year of eligibility. This should also be an option that the user could select if a player gets injured for 8 or 9 weeks, so that they could just hold the player out for the remainder of the year and get back the redshirt year, as opposed to only playing the player in the season finale and/or bowl game.

There should be a way to edit uniforms mid-dynasty, to create alternative uniforms, or change the uniforms (both for created teams and for regular teams). You should be able to change color schemes, add/subtract logos, change/add/subtract pride stickers, or edit whether or not there are names on the back of the jerseys. In short it would just be made like the uniform editor that is available for created teams (which will hopefully be expanded as is discussed below), so that you could modify your uniforms as you go along. (Maddenmania's Blacklover).

When you put a created team, or divisioin II team in a new conference (or if you get invited to a new conference), there needs to be an option to use that new conference's logo on your field and uniforms (Maddenmania's Croco83).

Fixes

The quarterback stats need to be completely re-worked. Completion percentages are way too high, and QBs don’t throw nearly enough interceptions during simulated games. For accurate QB efficiency statistics, check the following link, which provides the official NCAA statistics for the 2004 Division I-A college season: http://web1.ncaa.org/d1mfb/natlRank.jsp?div=4&rpt=IA_playerpasseff&site=org

The poll logic, and BCS title game logic needs to be re-worked. There are just too many examples of 2 loss teams going over 1 loss or undefeated teams, in some occasions teams which they lost to earlier in the season, which would probably never happen in real life. Also, the bowl game invite logic needs to be re-done, so that teams with losing records don’t end up in bowl games. The only time that a team with a losing record should make a bowl game is if they happen to win their conference. Other than that, teams are required by rule to have at least a .500 record to participate in the bowl season.

[rhombic21]

Create-A-Team Issues

The ability to add multi-letter, and interlocking letter logos needs to be added. (Maddenmania’s nflman2033).

An alternative to the above suggestion would be to just add a logo editor, which would allow the user to either create a logo from scratch, or perhaps import a bitmap or similar format image off the computer. (Maddenmania’s bnckeye27).

The color of the logo should be able to be inverted or altered between the official logo, the field, the away uniforms/home uniforms, and the helmet. OU, for example, has a red interlocking O and U as their official logo, which appears at midfield in the stadium. But on the helmet, the O and U are white, because the helmet is red.

The ability to edit the color of pride stickers needs to be added. (Maddenmania’s nflman2033)

The class of created team players should be able to be modified, since they are fictional players anyways. Perhaps one way to prevent people from just making a team full of freshmen and sophomores would be to install some kind of limit where a certain percentage of the team has to be upper classmen. (Maddenmania’s nflman2033)

The ability to create and add onto stadiums, as discussed earlier with the AD mode, should be made available for created teams as well. The create a stadium aspect should be greatly expanded, in the mold of Madden’s create-a-stadium mode (although it would be tweaked to fit the college atmosphere). (Maddenmania’s nflman2033)

The ability to add the school’s name, or mascot name to the front of the jersey needs to be added. (Maddenmania’s nflman2033)

If a school is created with two or three names that are already spoken (ie. Ohio Tech Bulldogs), then all 3 names should be used (or the announcers should treat it like a normal team, sometimes using school name, and other times using the mascot name). (Maddenmania’s nflman2033)

Created schools need to have school records that can be broken. Perhaps an idea would be to just create generic records for each of the types of teams (smashmouth, cupcake, etc…). (Maddenmania’s bnckeye27).
Created schools “greatest games” should be recorded like games with other teams. (Maddenmania’s Harrar)

Extras/Additions

There needs to be a create-a-play option, which would allow you to create any legal formation, and make any legal play that you wanted. Madden has had this for several years. NCAA 2001 had this. It’s time for NCAA to have it again.

We should be able to modify or create new uniform designs for existing teams, as well as for created teams. Perhaps the easiest thing would be to just make it so that you could use the create-a-team uniform editor for regular teams as well, and then you could save your creation as a separate "uniform" file, that could be loaded off the memory card, and then used in exhibition games, or imported into a dynasty. This would help alleviate any issues if uniforms are incorrect due to last minute changes by the school, because people could essentially just go in and create the new uniforms themselves.

The historic rosters need to either be made a lot more accurate, or scrapped altogether. Often times the numbers, and even attributes don’t even remotely correspond to the real life counterparts, thus rendering the entire point of historic teams pointless.

Presentation
A new TV presentation: Have starting line up introductions scroll across the screen during the first couple of series, and perhaps highlight star players, or returning starters, or if there's a true freshman who the other team is likely going to try and attack, highlight him, and maybe have some commentary about it (MaddenMania's Blacklover)

Another idea would be to utilize several announcing teams (perhaps some of them could be generic), that could announce regional or local games. Perhaps even program in a programming team that is designed to sound like the radio team for the user controlled school (this wouldn't be anything too specific, it would be the same team for every school, but they would commentate the game the way that a school affiliated broadcasting team would, as opposed to an impartial TV broadcaster). This way you could also make it so that there wouldn't be any games with no commentary at all, but that Kirk and Lee would only call the "big" games. It would also get more variation in terms of the announcing, so it didn't get as repetitive (Maddenmania's blacklover for having multiple broadcast teams, rhombic21 for the school/radio team).

Conclusion
The above was not meant as a bash against EA. I actually enjoy NCAA 2006 a good amount, but there are several ways that I feel that it could be improved. The above was my best effort to help EA come up with ideas for how to improve an already great product. I do not claim to speak for any community of gamers, and this wishlist, unless adopted by various message boards, is not intended as any sort of official document. These are just my opinions. Most of these ideas are either originally mine, or are so common spread in terms of acceptance that there is no point in attributing them to a single source, and the remainder have been cited with the name of the originator and message board where I found them. That said, this is my official wishlist for NCAA 2007, I have tried to only include those things that I feel are realistically possible given the current technology and development time. I hope that it was helpful.

[Farmer]

The vision cone on Madden is a brilliant idea, and needs to be implemented in NCAA, so that QB AWR actually matters for human controlled quarterbacks.

If they go ahead and implement this the way it is in Madden, this game will suffer. The way EA has it now, you have to hold down R2 + the button of the receiver you wish to switch your vision cone to, then press the button again to pass the ball to him. They need to make it to where all you have to do is this:

I call a pass play.
I can leave it to where my vision cone goes to my primary receiver or have it on no one at all.
My [] receiver has a step on his man, I tap the [] button and my VC follows him, I'm about to throw him the ball when I notice theres a LB playing a middle zone.
I notice the O receiver make the cut to the middle post and is wide open in between zones, I press the O button to bring my VC on him and press the O button again to pass him the ball.

That would work waaaaaaaaaay better then the way they have it now, IMHO.


-Farmer

[heavy_hitter]

yeah ;) :D :rolleyes:

[Farmer]

How about some playmaker help for the guy that's supposed to blocking for you??

I can't tell you how many times I have a clear path to the endzone [mainly on punt returns and kick offs.] and there is one of my guys running for the sidelines :eek: and making no attempt at all to get out of my way, or put a block on someone!!! :mad:

If I could be able to playmaker him to go and block that guy that's taking a hard angle towards me, that would be great.


-Farmer

[djwill13]

How about some playmaker help for the guy that's supposed to blocking for you??

I can't tell you how many times I have a clear path to the endzone [mainly on punt returns and kick offs.] and there is one of my guys running for the sidelines :eek: and making no attempt at all to get out of my way, or put a block on someone!!! :mad:

If I could be able to playmaker him to go and block that guy that's taking a hard angle towards me, that would be great.


-Farmer
oh wait, i have a better scenario. ever returned a punt only to need 1 block from a guy in front of you on a defender in front of you only to have your team mate either run right into you or run backwards to block someone behind you? happens to me at least once a game.

[CrazyOldGuy]

There needs to be a create-a-play option, which would allow you to create any legal formation, and make any legal play that you wanted. Madden has had this for several years. NCAA 2001 had this. It’s time for NCAA to have it again.

Thank you for including this in your detailed listing Rhombic! :)

[CHFG8R]

Love the ideas. . . fat chance in hell you'll see many of them in the next 5 years. Sorry, but I will bash EA. They're lazy, plain and simple, which is why you are not going to see a create-a-play feature. If they did that it would expose their pathetic A.I. Maybe they'll step up for the next generation, but I doubt it. I mean, look at how EA dealt with the first and only title to really challenge them: 2k5. They used their sizable cash to, essentially, position them out of business. Now that's what I call guts and integrity. Way to step up and meet the challenge like a freakin' punk EA.


I posted this a while back re. an offseason and I'll just paste it in. I like your suggestions, but as you can see, my version focuses more on the football side of things than asthetic stuff like Madden's GM feature.


I'm going to start with a bit on in-season recruiting as this will come into play immediately after the end of the bowl games.

I think it would be redundant to have in-season recruiting AND early enrollments, so this is how I'd work it. Every guy who "commits" during regular season will be an early enrollee for spring.

Now, to the offseason.

1. Budgets. This is fine as is.

2. Players leaving. Again, wouldn't really change things here.

3. Cut Players. This has always needed to be earlier in the process and I'd put it here, where it should be.

4. Recruiting. This will also work the same in practice, though the concept will be redone completely (you'll see later) and will be much more true to life.

5. Spring Drills/Spring Game: This is where the early enrollees come into play. All returning players plus early enrollees will participate in Spring Drills. This will work as such. (Note: You will now see the benefit of a quality in-season recruiting effort)
a. Spring Drills. You will be allotted a certain amount of points to spread among the ENTIRE TEAM. This idea I stole from 2K5s "Weekly Prep" feature. Basically it works like this. You can assign points/time to certain drills for each position, with each drill improving your players in certain areas. The catch is that you only have a given amount of points/time to spread over the WHOLE TEAM, so you'll have to decide who gets the most work. Young Receivers? Young Linemen? Spread it evenly or focus on certain units or younger players? Your choice. Since spring will be less-extensive than Summer, you will be able to take more chances here or focus more on individual units or younger players.
b. Spring Game. Played just like a regular game, except one hitch. You can play the entire game as first team or second team - or play the entire game as offense for both or defense for both. Performance in this game matters as a player's performance in the Spring Game combined with their work in the Spring Drills affects their overall ratings improvement or lack thereof. Do well in the game and you'll get a nice spike in ratings. Do poorly, and you're player won't progress much, if at all, and may even drop points.
c. Progress Screen. Self explainatory.

6. Recruiting: Yes. Recruiting. The pool of recruits for the next season is produced here. Just like real life, this is where you identify who you want to scout/recruit for next season. You'll have a given number of choices and these will become the kids you try to woo in the next season. This pool WILL NOT CHANGE, so no save-cheat next offseason (right after players leaving) to find a more suitable pool. As you can imagine, this will create a much more realistic in-season recruiting for the next year. Also, you'll recruit full-on from the beginning of the season until signing day. Not two separate entities - one complete process. At this point in the off-season, though, we'll just be scounting and identifying our targets. Lastly, I would want this to be very competitive, so that you can't just load up on awsome players and steamroll the cpu by the third season. Recruiting will be important. Doing something with your recruits (through the Spring and Summer drills/games) will be even more important.

7. Summer Drills/Pre-Season. This will work just like Spring Drills except for a few exceptions. All recruits are now in the pool (see the advantage of getting those early commitments/enrollees?) along with early enrollees and all returning players. Also, since there are more kids and summer practice is more extensive than spring, you'll have a larger (perhaps significantly) pool of points/time to work with. . . enough that everybody should get some solid practice - but not so much that you don't have to allot points/time smartly. Summer Scrimmage/Game will work just like Spring Game. Play one team or the other or play all offense or all defense.

8. Begin New Season.

[firety89]

CHFG8R, I love the way you would like the dynasty. I love all the in depth stuff. If you really want to get in depth, have practice during the week where you can focus on certain things, such as things you did poorly in your last or prepare for the upcoming team. I think that would be a little hard to implement though but I would love it.