The Gaming Tailgate Video Podcast
With Dynasty Mode improvements formally announced by EA SPORTS this week, the Daily Mail was now able to learn from WVU staffers Director of Football Operations Alex Hammond and Coordinator of Recruiting Operations Ryan Dorchester, and also NCAA Football Producer Ben Haumiller on how they helped to improve the game.
Continue on to read some excerpts of the article and click here to read Mike Casazza's full article at dailymail.com.
"It wasn't necessarily how you recruit a kid," Dorchester said in March. "That's hard. I don't know how you can really replicate that in a video game. A lot of it was saying, 'Here are some things that we feel aren't necessarily realistic in the video game and here's how those things happen in real life.' Understanding it can't exactly be simulated in a video game, we just wanted to give them an idea of what it was like on this side of the table."
Dorchester and Hammond stressed the value of managing the time and effort spent on a prospect and how teams need to allocate those resources to make sure they can address quality and quantity in recruiting. Producer Ben Haumiller said it led to an "overhaul" of the week-to-week recruiting function.
"We have now streamlined the recruiting experience so that your main function as the coach is to take a bulk of points each week and determine how you want to distribute them throughout the players you are targeting," he said. "After you've set the number of points you want to apply to a prospect you just manage their recruitment by adding or re-allocating points from week to week."
"Previously there really wasn't much strategy as to when you scheduled a prospect to come on a visit," Haumiller said. "You did get a boost for bringing a prospect to a rivalry game, but you could bring in anyone you wanted for that game without worrying about how many players at a particular position were coming in that week."
Hammond and Dorchester explained that the game needed to allow for the difference between a "competitive" visit and a "complementary" visit. Both can affect recruiting and EA Sports was convinced to make the change.
"So now you will want to space out when your quarterbacks visit, as bringing in two or more will cause a 'competitive' visit and will lower the number of points that can be awarded for the visit," Haumiller said. "'Complementary' visits occur when you bring in, say, a quarterback, a wide receiver and an offensive lineman in the same week. By helping to give them a feel for who their teammates might be at the positions that are crucial for their success, each of those prospects will receive a boost to the number of points they can earn in a visit."
Who visits wasn't the sole concern voiced by WVU's football staff members. They explained the value of timing and why it's important to play host to a prospect as late as possible. Early visits are often forgotten or masked by later visits to other schools. Late visits create a lasting impression.
EA Sports decided it was important to reward a school for being the last place a prospect visited.
"You will receive an additional bonus if you are the last of the prospect's five official visits," Haumiller said. "The fourth visit will have a smaller bonus, the third visit smaller, and so on. So you have to weigh the strategy of scheduling late in the year to get that bonus and risk having the prospect commit elsewhere before the visit happens or do the visit as early as possible if you don't think you will make it to the end of the season before the prospect makes his decision."
The article also discusses additional aspects that WVU staffers feel Dynasty Mode should address in the future.
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Keep up on all the latest NCAA Football 14 news & media heading into the July 9 release date with our NCAA 14 News & Info Central page. We'll provide all the best & latest information regarding improvements to Gameplay & Infinity Engine 2, Dynasty Mode, Presentation, and new features such as NCAA Football Ultimate Team & Play a Season.
NCAA Football 14 News & Information Central: http://tgt.pw/ncaa14info
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