PDA

View Full Version : NCAA Football 12: Road to Glory Breakdown and Q&A with Designer Alex Howell



JBHuskers
06-20-2011, 08:36 AM
http://thegamingtailgate.com/images/NCAA12/RTG3.jpg

A popular feature within the NCAA Football series, Road to Glory enables you to take control of your own destiny from high school all the way to your senior year of college. Unlike a regular game of NCAA Football, you only control your position as you try to etch your name in the annals of your school’s history. Road to Glory has received significant upgrades in NCAA Football 12 and that is in part thanks to designer Alex Howell. Alex has an unmatched passion for the game of college football because he lived his own Road to Glory as a walk-on at Auburn. Getting to know Alex over the past few months, you can easily see the passion he has put into this mode this year. Check out The Gaming Tailgate Q&A with Alex below, followed by thoughts from Jeremy Bennett (JBHuskers) on Road to Glory for NCAA Football 12.

JB: Alex, when you first stepped into the role of designer on Road to Glory, what was the first thing about this mode that ran through your mind that you wanted to stress or build upon?

Alex: Right from the start, I could tell that I had a lot to build from. RTG has always had a couple of great features that stood out from the rest of the game, such as quick 15 minute games, the single player aspect, and the Playoffs in High School. So my goal was to keep the best qualities of RTG, while expanded others.

JB: It has been noted that you are a huge RPG fan. Which games did you draw inspiration from, and how did you implement them into the game?

Alex: Oh wow, too many. I am a gigantic video game nerd, especially when it comes to RPG’s. My inspiration for what I wanted to do with RTG this year came from many many different games. Instead of trying to cram a couple of good and notable features from other games, I spent a solid month analyzing the various systems of game, to figure out the best possible way to go about designing it. I found so many great ways to take existing systems and turn them into more dynamic, data driven tools. The Upgrade Store and Coach Trust are a perfect example of that. Design is more than trying to take what the community wants and what we think is best for the game and making it. It’s figuring out the smartest and most efficient way to do it.

JB: What specific elements did you implement into Road to Glory based upon your days as a member of the Auburn Tigers?

Alex: Definitely practice. Aside from being under the lights on Saturday, 95% of your time is spent on the practice field. There is so much that goes behind the scenes that fans never get to see, and I really want to bring as much of it as I can, to the game.

JB: What was the biggest challenge that you had to overcome in your path at Auburn and what kind of similar challenges can users expect within this mode this year?

Alex: How insanely physically and mentally challenging the game is. No one person could have ever prepared me for the challenges I had in college. From red-shirt workouts at 5 in the morning every Friday, to tackling drills with Pro-Bowler Carlos Dansby, it was a hard life. But it was worth blood, sweat and tear. The biggest challenge that I want to put into RTG from my own experiences is the way you control your own destiny. As much as football is a team sport, if you yourself are not mentally and physically prepared, you will fail. So finding a way to make the experience very unique, challenging, and rewarding to each person is the route I had to go in.

JB: What is your favorite Road to Glory improvement in NCAA Football 12?

Alex: Easily the new High School Experience. Sure it’s great playing the playoff’s and simulating a semi-real senior year, but to actually play all of your opponents from the whole year is a different ballgame. Add in importing Team Builder teams, a brand new recruiting system, and Iron Man Football and you have my favorite feature of Sports Games this entire year.

JB: Here are some questions from the community. Do users have to do all 25 Practice reps each week if we attain our goals and/or a satisfactory XP level for that week?

Alex: If you want to leave practice, it will save off everything you have done so far, so you can return to practice. So if you finally got enough XP for a certain Upgrade, you can quit practice, buy the item, and return to practice with however many reps you had remaining.

JB: What changes (if any) have been made to the camera angles in this mode?

Alex: Not a whole lot of camera angles have been changed on the gameplay side, but as far as presentation camera’s, that’s a whole different story. Every replay, vignette, and montage camera angle has been completely revamped for RTG.

JB: Can edited rosters be used as part of Road to Glory?

Alex: Another feature that I would have loved to squeeze in, but we just didn’t have the time.

JB: Finally, any last thoughts on the mode you'd like to share with the community or perhaps some tips for success?

Alex: Well I just want to thank the community for the amazing job they have done in not only being great fans of the game, but giving us constant feedback all the time. Whether it’s through the message boards or on our facebook page, we absolutely need/love the input. There is no other game on the market that has an awesome, dedicated group of fans like NCAA has. I cannot wait to get feedback from RTG this year so together we (the community and developers) can continue to make NCAA not only an amazing game, but a game built off Passion and Love for College Football.


http://thegamingtailgate.com/images/NCAA12/RTG4.jpg

I would like to thank Alex Howell for taking the time to answer some questions on what will be a very exciting iteration of Road to Glory on NCAA Football 12. Now, I would like to share my thoughts on Road to Glory this year. Ever since I sat down in January at a Community Day and took it for a test drive, I was excited to see it grow in the months to come. Since January, I have put a good amount of time into this mode and I am probably the second most excited person (next to Alex) to finally get to talk about it.

Right off the bat, the first thing you notice different is the option to choose a second position. I was excited to see that Ironman football was brought into Road to Glory as part of the ‘High School experience.’ Coming from a small high school that played 8-man football, almost everyone on the team would play both offense and defense. The combination I seemed to like the most was playing as an option QB and as a MLB. The option QB is fun because you can attack the defense in multiple ways. On the other side of the ball as a MLB, you can either rush on a blitz or play in coverage. The combination of these two positions gives you a nice mix of everything.

A great addition to your high school career is the ability to play the ENTIRE senior season. Another nice touch is the ability to customize your schedule with TeamBuilder teams. You can create your high school rivals and import them into this mode. Unfortunately, the rosters do not carry over, only the stadium and look of the team. On top of that, if you think the high school opponents in past Road to Glory’s were too easy, you can adjust the difficulty of each team while you are in the setup phase. You can make your high school’s heated rival be the toughest game on your schedule. Before you start your senior season, you get to choose your own personal top three schools that you would like to attend. As you progress through your senior season of high school, schools take notice of your play and will add you to their watch list. After each game, you will earn points based on your performance, and this will go towards the progression of your scholarship bar. Once you hit 100% on that bar, that school will offer you a scholarship. The more prestigious the school, the more you’ll have to do to hit 100%.

Once you have finished your senior season, it is time to make that tough decision. Which school are you going to enroll at? If you had a school that you had your heart set on attending but didn’t hit that 100% to get a scholarship, you can still walk-on at that school. However, your road to become a starter may take some time. Just like in years past, there will be a list of schools, along with the position on the depth chart you would start at. With the flip of the button, you can go back and forth from teams that are offering you a scholarship and schools you can walk-on to.

Now that you are settled into your new school, it is time to go to work. One of my favorite parts of Road to Glory this year is the practice mode. Normally, I do not use practice mode, as my preference would be to just jump into a game to hone my skills. With Road to Glory, practice mode has been tweaked very well this year and I thoroughly enjoy practicing. There are two key stats within practice mode that you need to build up to make your push up the depth chart, Coach Trust and XP. Coach Trust and XP are part of the RPG elements that Alex has infused into this mode this year.

Your XP is used to buy boosts to your players attributes. These boosts can last for one week or for your entire career. Similar to an RPG, Alex and the team created the Skill Upgrades section to spend your XP. There will be many various upgrades you can add to your player and some of these upgrades will be rare, some will be on sale, and some are fairly common. Boosting your skill attributes is very important because the amount of Coach Trust that you need to earn to get to a position battle is based on the difference of your overall rating between yourself, and the player who is one notch higher on the depth chart.

Coach Trust is the key element in achieving your goals in Road to Glory. When you come in as a freshman in college, your overall rating is going to be compared with the overall rating of the player next up in the depth chart. There is a base amount of points that are needed if you are only one rating point underneath the next person up. For any additional overall points that you are behind, the amount of Coach Trust needed to earn a position battle is multiplied by the difference. For example, if the starter is a 90 OVR, and you’re second string at an 85 OVR, you will need 5x the base points to earn a position battle. However, if you use XP to boost your OVR, that multiplier will decrease because the Coach Trust points needed to get that position battle is dynamic with your OVR rating.

Once you have earned enough Coach Trust to get to a position battle, you will need to earn a set amount of XP in practice to be able to overtake the next rung within the depth chart. If you fail to get that XP, you will continue to stay in the same place on the depth chart and you try again next week to overtake the next spot via a position battle.

Once you have battled your way up to starter, the journey does not end. Using the example of the quarterback, the next rung is Starter+ which enables you to flip the play in pre-play. Next up is Captain; where you can have three plays to choose from instead of just one. The next captain tier lets you be able to use hot routes at home games. The next captain tier from there gives you the ability to do hot routes at away games. Even after all of that, there are still a couple more tiers for you to unlock to give you even more flexibility under center. This is another great example of the RPG elements that are infused into Road to Glory.

It’s very clear that Road to Glory is going to look different this year. There are so many wonderful elements that Alex and the rest of the staff have put into this game mode this year and it will only be the beginning of things to come. My personal favorite additions are the Coach Trust and XP to the practice mode and then tying those two elements into the Position Battle and Skill Upgrades sections. This just gives Road to Glory some great depth, and when you add the path that you take from second or third string to the very top rung of your progression, Road to Glory gives you total control of your destiny and truly puts you in the game.

***

You can view the page at http://www.thegamingtailgate.com/forums/content.php?465-NCAA-Football-12-Road-to-Glory-Breakdown-and-Q-A-with-Designer-Alex-Howell

Kwizzy
06-20-2011, 10:39 AM
Nice job JB. Enjoyed reading that. To add to what has already been said. I'll just say that all of us who went to the CDs are really impressed with the things Alex is doing and trying to do with RTG. Even people who haven't particularly cared for the mode in the past were very drawn in to his presentation. The things he has added this year go a long way in making this a deeper, well developed mode. Also, hearing him talk about where he sees the mode going in the future is very exciting as well. I personally have always tried to get into RTG because I love the idea behind it (I love the idea of single player modes) but I haven't necessarily been able to stick with it because of lack of depth. I think that will change this year, for obvious reasons.

xGRIDIRONxGURUx
06-20-2011, 10:46 AM
ive played RTG before since it came to the game... but it was usually out of boredom, or just to pass time... this year, it may get equal playing time to my OD's... i really like the stuff he has done... great work from him... good write up from JB...

"E"

Tarhead10
06-20-2011, 10:54 AM
Yeah I have never really played any of the RTGs from the past games, but after reading this and seeing the videos I might just give it a shot...

JBHuskers
06-20-2011, 10:57 AM
Thanks fellas....this below was a very interesting feature in regards to progressing up the depth chart:


Coach Trust is the key element in achieving your goals in Road to Glory. When you come in as a freshman in college, your overall rating is going to be compared with the overall rating of the player next up in the depth chart. There is a base amount of points that are needed if you are only one rating point underneath the next person up. For any additional overall points that you are behind, the amount of Coach Trust needed to earn a position battle is multiplied by the difference. For example, if the starter is a 90 OVR, and you’re second string at an 85 OVR, you will need 5x the base points to earn a position battle. However, if you use XP to boost your OVR, that multiplier will decrease because the Coach Trust points needed to get that position battle is dynamic with your OVR rating.

TChalla
06-20-2011, 11:38 AM
any news on how they pick the playbooks for the teams?

illwill10
06-20-2011, 11:42 AM
JB told me on another thread, That CPUs is auto assigned and we might not be able to control our playbook.
I would love to assign the Wisconsin playbook for my RTG RB or the Boise State playbook for my QB

EDJ
06-20-2011, 12:54 PM
Great article.

Where did you go to school JB? I also played 8 man football in high school. Crazy adjustment trying to play a 3-3-2 defense.

JBHuskers
06-20-2011, 01:08 PM
Great article.

Where did you go to school JB? I also played 8 man football in high school. Crazy adjustment trying to play a 3-3-2 defense.

Thanks bro...

I went to the now defunct due to consolidation Nemaha Valley. It was a class D school. If you meant college, University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 98-02.

beartide06
06-20-2011, 01:34 PM
Really great write up JB. Nicely done. I haven't really been one to play RTG on this generation of consoles, but with all of the new additions to the mode I could very well play RTG as much as my OD's. I'm really excited about the RPG elements because I too love RPG's. It's something I've been wanting them to implement for a while actually. With coach trust, XP points, and iron man football I think a lot more people will be attracted to this years RTG.

Cipher 8
06-20-2011, 01:47 PM
So you can play Ironman football in High School but not College? I can't be the next two-way player like Stanford's Owen Marecic? I would love to be able to play both offense and defense in college as long as I got a high enough caliber star rating in both positions while playing through high school. It would be a neat feature to add to RTG in NCAA Football 13. Maybe some schools would only recruit you to play offense while others would recruit you to play defense and then maybe one school, maybe a smaller school, recruits you to play both. I would definitely take the chance to play both. Not only more playing time but just the challenge of it.

Paakaa10
06-20-2011, 01:52 PM
So you can play Ironman football in High School but not College? I can't be the next two-way player like Stanford's Owen Marecic? ... It would be a neat feature to add to RTG in NCAA Football 13.

I don't know this for sure, but I wonder whether or not this year's "Ironman" offering in high school is a "test drive" of sorts to see what kind of usage it gets. Part of the appeal for some people who use Road to Glory is that the games don't take as long as if you played the full game in any other mode. "Ironman" football removes this "perk" of time-saving. Maybe if "Ironman" football in the high school season gets a lot of play for NCAA Football 12, there could be more support to extend it to the college years--though "Ironmen" in the NCAA are rare--for next year.

steelerfan
06-20-2011, 02:08 PM
Good job, JB.

For me, my first RTG on 12 will be as a DT. There's not a realistic offensive counterpart to DT, so I won't be playing iron man.

However, in any subsequent RTGs, I'll try different positions and will definitely try to play offense and defense.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk

Cipher 8
06-20-2011, 03:13 PM
I don't know this for sure, but I wonder whether or not this year's "Ironman" offering in high school is a "test drive" of sorts to see what kind of usage it gets. Part of the appeal for some people who use Road to Glory is that the games don't take as long as if you played the full game in any other mode. "Ironman" football removes this "perk" of time-saving. Maybe if "Ironman" football in the high school season gets a lot of play for NCAA Football 12, there could be more support to extend it to the college years--though "Ironmen" in the NCAA are rare--for next year.

Well said. I agree it's rare in college but there have been a few...
A handful of players have started both ways in the last 20 years, most of them at wide receiver and cornerback, such as Georgia's Champ Bailey (1996--98) and Ohio State's Chris Gamble (2001--03). Unlike those two Marecic, a senior captain, is playing a brutally concussive combination that was the province of such football legends as Jim Thorpe, Bronko Nagurski and, more recently, Chuck Bednarik, the so-called Last 60-Minute Man who had menaced opponents as center and linebacker for Penn back in the 1940s before moving to the NFL. Charles Woodson and Eric Weddle also did a little bit of this but Owen Marecic certainly is the most prominent example in recent history and the most impressive playing the two most physical positions (FB/LB). It would be cool to be able to experience that challenge. And like I mentioned...
Maybe some schools would only recruit you to play offense while others would recruit you to play defense and then maybe one school, maybe a smaller school, recruits you to play both. I would definitely take the chance to play both. Not only more playing time but just the challenge of it.

So it would be optional for those worried about the games taking too long then they could just choose to play for a school that recruited them as only offense or only defense. But at the same time for those who want that ironman experience they could choose the smaller school and play both ways. It's more likely a smaller school recruits you to play both anyways because lack of depth on their rosters. I think it would be a unique addition for future versions and they already got the system in place and it working in highschool so it wouldn't be that hard of an addition for the future, the only problems I think could arise is how do they treat the coach trust and xp thing if you had two positions? Do you have coaches trust for each position so maybe you earn your way as a defensive starter first but are only 2nd or 3rd string on offense making you see the field sparingly on offense but be out there on every down on defense. Do you pool the xp together and have to decide which bonuses to unlock, choosing between the two positions like upgrade my tackling this week or upgrade my catching or maybe you can choose to unlock an upgrade that helps both positions like acceleration, speed, and agility for example? Hell if you played cornerback or safety on defense and wide receiver on offense catching would even help both positions. Stuff like that would make it that much more in-depth I think. I think it would be challenging to earn your role as a two-way starter and be effective at both but it would be fun to try. It would continue to separate Road to Glory's gameplay and decisions from all the other modes and gives you a unique gameplay experience.

Paakaa10
06-20-2011, 03:19 PM
...the only problems I think could arise is how do they treat the coach trust and xp thing if you had two positions? Do you have coaches trust for each position so maybe you earn your way as a defensive starter first but are only 2nd or 3rd string on offense making you see the field sparingly on offense but be out there on every down on defense. Do you pool the xp together and have to decide which bonuses to unlock, choosing between the two positions like upgrade my tackling this week or upgrade my catching or maybe you can choose to unlock an upgrade that helps both positions like acceleration, speed, and agility for example? Hell if you played cornerback or safety on defense and wide receiver on offense catching would even help both positions. Stuff like that would make it that much more in-depth I think.

It wouldn't surprise me if logistical concerns just like the ones I've quoted from you here made the possibility of "Ironman" play in college a "Year 2 or later" addition instead of something that would be put in place for the first year of the new Road to Glory setup.

The high school season and the college years use two completely different systems to track your progress, so it would be difficult on the first go to reconcile the differences.

JBHuskers
06-20-2011, 03:19 PM
Yeah there would be a few variables to work out for ironman in college.

RussellWilson
06-20-2011, 06:06 PM
Im staying up all night and gonna wait till the demo on June 28th!!:up::up:

JBHuskers
06-20-2011, 06:17 PM
Im staying up all night and gonna wait till the demo on June 28th!!:up::up:

Hope you don't have a PS3 :D then you'd have to wait til 5PM or so.

Paakaa10
06-20-2011, 06:20 PM
Hope you don't have a PS3 :D then you'd have to wait til 5PM or so.

Such is the curse of being a Sony guy. Thankfully, those Xbox 360 owners tend to record videos of themselves playing the demos early enough so that I can at least live vicariously through the day until the PSN Store updates.

JBHuskers
06-20-2011, 06:41 PM
Such is the curse of being a Sony guy. Thankfully, those Xbox 360 owners tend to record videos of themselves playing the demos early enough so that I can at least live vicariously through the day until the PSN Store updates.

I work til 4:30 anyways so having a 360 isn't beneficial to me for updates either LOL

SmoothPancakes
06-20-2011, 06:51 PM
Such is the curse of being a Sony guy. Thankfully, those Xbox 360 owners tend to record videos of themselves playing the demos early enough so that I can at least live vicariously through the day until the PSN Store updates.

If I owned the software and other equipment necessary to video capture my gameplay, I'd be more than happy to let you live vicariously through my gameplay videos, alas, I do not own said necessary stuff, but I'll sure be thinking about you guys while I'm playing the hell out of the demo since early Tuesday morning. :D

EDJ
06-22-2011, 03:26 PM
Thanks bro...

I went to the now defunct due to consolidation Nemaha Valley. It was a class D school. If you meant college, University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 98-02.

Haha, really?! Johnson-Brock Eagles right here. We were rivals in some aspects!

JBHuskers
06-22-2011, 03:34 PM
Haha, really?! Johnson-Brock Eagles right here. We were rivals in some aspects!

That was THE rival :D