• NCAA Football 13 - Second Game Update

    The second NCAA Football 13 Game Update is now available on both XBL & PSN. While an early blog from NCAA Football Lead Producer Jason French detailed some of the improvements planned at that time, more game update details have been announced.

    Continue on to read the full blog from French with added game update aspects italicized. After you download the update, share your thoughts here with the community.


    Title Update Information

    Hello NCAA Football fans, I'm Jason French, lead producer for NCAA Football 13. I'm here to give you some information on the post-release updates that we are currently working on.

    Once the game was released, we started watching the forums and talking to our EA SPORTS Game Changers community to see what areas needed to be addressed. It came to our attention that there were two big issues that we were facing with the game and I commissioned a quick title update in order to get those two issues fixed as soon as possible. The first issue was a loss of functionality on the Playcall screen, which created a situation where you couldn't change the formation without pausing the game. The second issue was a random crash in our Dynasty mode while loading into a Dynasty game. Once we became aware of these issues, we got fixes in and submitted a title update to Microsoft and Sony. The first title update in order to fix these two issues will be released on July 31st.

    Our second update, which will be released by Sony and Microsoft on August 15th, will address the following issues that we have seen from our telemetry and heard about from our community:

    Gameplay

    • Zone Defense has been updated.
      1. We improved receiver leverage logic as well as predicting when a receiver will be in or out of their zone.
      2. Improved Deep Half Zone decision making about when to split between uncovered receivers. Also, allow more zone overlapping in deep half to cover more area.
      3. Deep half defenders were dropping too close to the sideline or dropping outside when no receiver was outside of their position.
    • No-Huddle QB Spy bug fixed. Defenders will no longer go into spy assignments while in man coverage.
    • Receivers weren’t looking for hot-read passes.
    • CPU QBs passing during the drop would get set passes instead of on-the-run inaccurate passes.
    • Change the logic of man defenders so they don't run into the backfield and past the receiver they are covering.
    • Route running near sideline was causing issues especially on comeback routes.
    • Fixed players not respecting global show blitz/press/back off coverage after handing off a receiver.
    • Fixed sideline streak routes so they don't get clamped in a way that the route would end after 10 or 15 yards.
    • Drive summaries should now reset after each scoring drive.

    • Fixed HB stretch play issue where TE’s would be frozen in place during certain blocking animations.
    • Fixed an issue where if a defender made an interception in the end zone and fumbled the ball before his feet touched the ground, it was being counted as a fumble and not an incomplete pass.
    • Resolved an alignment issue where DB on HB would pick up FB instead of HB when HB was put in motion
    • Removed exploit that allowed users to create slant routes to the sideline by motioning a WR and flipping the play.
    • QB Rushing up the middle from under center effectiveness has been balanced.
    • FG holders are no longer downed by contact.
    • Increased frequency of AI using ball carrier special moves.
    • AI play call tuning: No 4th and long run calls; less draws and screens.
    • Ball Hawk feature implemented for user pass defense.
    • Fixed frozen players after celebration dives.
    • Fixed wildcat Play Action exploit.
    • Fixed Defenders not reacting to the QB on read option and option plays when the users defensive adjustment vs. option is set to Aggressive.
    • Fixed shake blitz exploit.
    • Fixed exploit that allowed kicking team to recover squib kicks using low rated kickers.
    • Fixed defensive hot routes after offensive play flip.
    • Fixed issue where waiting for the defense to make their adjustments before picking a play when running ho huddle/hurry up offense caused the defense to reset their play back to the original play.
    • Fixed ‘Jump the Snap’ blitz exploit.
    • Resolved issue where defenders would not react or would be stuck in read and react behavior vs. the option.


    Dynasty

    • Once a promise becomes active, it was duplicating after each week advance.
    • Recruit Reports & Advisory options remained even after the "Allow Time Savers" setting was turned off.
    • Schools with a D+ Program Tradition could not get their grade increased through wins and championships.
    • In the off-season, post season games were not shown to have been played.
    • Fixed an issue where walk-on players were not appearing on the Online Dynasty Web Site.
    • You will now get your points back if a recruit instantly commits during a phone call.
    • Fixed an issue where swayed pitches and grades weren’t being displayed correctly.



    Custom Playbooks

    • Fixed an issue where if CPU coaches were given a custom playbook, the players were occasionally lining up close to the ball.
    • Fixed an issue where the user was unable to create an offensive playbook that consisted of 1 of every formation.
    • Fixed an issue where the user was sometimes losing functionality after the UI disappears in Custom Playbooks.
    • Increased the stability of the product by fixing various crashes.



    In addition, we will be adding a "Uniform Store" to the game. In the past, we have had a cut off of mid-April for uniform submissions from schools in order to get them onto our disc in time. Sometimes those came in after the deadline and we would have to wait until the following year in order to get those default uniforms in. The "Uniform Store" will allow us to give you updated uniforms during the season. If it's an update to a team's default uniform, you will get those uniforms at no additional charge, via download in the store if and when available.

    After these title updates are released, we will continue to monitor forums and look at our internal telemetry to see if there are additional updates we should release. The NCAA Football Development Team is committed to releasing a fun and stable product for all of its fans.
    Comments 112 Comments
    1. Lohusker's Avatar
      Lohusker -
      Quote Originally Posted by jbmorden19 View Post
      I installed patch yesterday - my online dynasty is failing to cleanly update at the end of the week because of a fail in the weekly recap step - been a mess - finished a year last night and the ps3 tried to autosimulate the entire offseason after I hit circle to break out of stalled weekly advance - its really messy now.
      Same. I have not had a successful story recap upload since the patch
    1. JeffHCross's Avatar
      JeffHCross -
      New Gameplay Tuning update today ...

      First person to figure out what it does gets ......... the gratitude of the entire TGT/NCAA community?
    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes -
      Quote Originally Posted by JeffHCross View Post
      New Gameplay Tuning update today ...

      First person to figure out what it does gets ......... the gratitude of the entire TGT/NCAA community?
      Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out what the hell it is. Nothing from Pasta, nothing on OS. No one has a clue.
    1. gschwendt's Avatar
      gschwendt -
      According to @EASPORTS_AJ:
      I've been told by dev it's to repair some desync issues. Nothing major gameplay wise

      Perhaps this fixes the issue with not being able to connect in OD games and thus being DCed immediately after the coin toss.
    1. Coach Kernzy's Avatar
      Coach Kernzy -
      My guys still can't even get into our OD after this tuner so I doubt this tuner did much of anything worthwhile.
    1. JeffHCross's Avatar
      JeffHCross -
      Quote Originally Posted by Coach Kernzy View Post
      My guys still can't even get into our OD after this tuner so I doubt this tuner did much of anything worthwhile.
      If it was designed to combat desync issues, as the tweet said, then a couple things you've been experiencing (like the disconnect on coin toss) could have been affected. Which, of course, doesn't do any good if you can't get in the OD.

      Have any of them tried retiring and then re-joining? What errors are they seeing? Can they log into the dynasty website? Have they tried deleting their Game Data folder (not sure what it's called on 360) and re-downloading the patches and tuners?
    1. shaggy23sj's Avatar
      shaggy23sj -
      when will the uniforms be in the uni store
    1. gschwendt's Avatar
      gschwendt -
      Quote Originally Posted by shaggy23sj View Post
      when will the uniforms be in the uni store
      My bet is the first tuesday after the first weekend... So a week and a half.
    1. PeteyKirch's Avatar
      PeteyKirch -
      Quote Originally Posted by gschwendt View Post
      My bet is the first tuesday after the first weekend... So a week and a half.
      Which is a complete freaking joke.

      All teams with new mains should have their uniforms in the store prior to kick off. Save the one offs for the week after kick off.
    1. JeffHCross's Avatar
      JeffHCross -
      Petey, we don't know the circumstances for why uniforms haven't been released. For all we know, the schools/companies involved requested they not be released until after the season had started.

      Also, consider that, in past years, uniforms that weren't on the disc wouldn't be available until next year's game .....
    1. PeteyKirch's Avatar
      PeteyKirch -
      Quote Originally Posted by JeffHCross View Post
      Petey, we don't know the circumstances for why uniforms haven't been released. For all we know, the schools/companies involved requested they not be released until after the season had started.

      Also, consider that, in past years, uniforms that weren't on the disc wouldn't be available until next year's game .....
      I can understand schools wanting to be the first to release the news of new uniforms, but every main uniform change has been known and released for sometime. It would've been a better option to have the store stocked, but the uniforms grated out until X-date. EA still hasn't even given anyone confirmation on what will be available, despite saying we'd know by the end of August, they got 5 days to spill the beans if that was true.
    1. gigemaggs99's Avatar
      gigemaggs99 -
      I would think it's more like Jeff says, it probably has something to do w/ the teams and how/when they want to release them.

      When A&M had their scrimmage they had the new tops but not pants (they had the old pants...the ones without the state of Texas logo w/ the ATM in the Texas outline on their hip), and of course like other teams didn't have the ATM on their helmets yet. Maybe it's some sort of deal with Adidas, maybe....