NCAA Football 12 Dynasty Info Q&A thread

[gschwendt]

At this time, we can answer questions regarding Coaching Carousel, Custom Conferences, and general Dynasty information. We cannot discuss the new Dynasty Wire features.

One I can remember being asked right off the bat. Sharing edited coaches.

Coaches can be edited from the main menu and are saved as part of the roster file so when you share rosters, you're also sharing coaches.

Do you still have to swap teams out so that a Teambuilder team can be in a dynasty?

Yes. You are still limited to 120 teams in your dynasty.

Are custom rivalries in?

No. The only aspect of "protected rivalries" is to ensure that certain matchups are played every season when they're in separate divisions.

Can you make changes to the dynasty after starting? I.E. change conferences around, or change the amount of conference games after a few years?

Yes. After every season, you can make the same changes that you can at the start of the dynasty.

I got a bunch for coaching carousel:

1) What are all the ratings that coaches have?
2) Do coaches have ratings that can be edited(before and during Dynasty)?
3) Do the coach ratings impact my players during gameplay or are they purely cosmetic?
4) Do coaches have an impact on player development or is it still tied to your team prestige?
5) Do coach ratings impact recruiting or is it like before based off of your team prestige?
6) Does the game create new head coaches and coordinators every year? Can we create new coaches during Dynasty like we can prospects?
7) Is the entire pool of coaches available in the off-season or are we offered limited choices based on our playbook styles?
8) As a head coach can we designate playcalling duties to one or both of our coordinators and limit the side of the ball we can play on the field?
9) How is the sorting feature for available coaches? Alphabetical? By prestige? By ratings? By Age? By Playbook style?
10) How do custom playbooks tie into this new feature?
11) On gameday do coaches have ability to make an impact during timeouts like last gen? How about half-time adjustments?
12) How difficult are the goals to achieve in order to progress from a low D prestige coach to a highly sought after A prestige coach?
13) How quickly can we progress from a D prestige to an A prestige? One letter grade improvement max or can we make huge strides in just a year or 2?
14) If our coordinators contract is up do we have first dibs on re-signing him or is he automatically added to the pool of available coaches?
15) How does recruiting work with being a coordinator? In other words are we limited to offensive recruits if we are an OC?
16) What is the maximum and minimum length of contract for HC? OC? DC?
17) How is the progression system for the coach ratings? Is it stat based? W-L based? Awards based? Age based? Team prestige based?

1) Prestige and Job Security
2) No
3) They do not effect during gameplay, however during simulations, the prestige rating does effect performance
4) Not certain for an answer on this... it was discussed with the developers but never received distinct confirmation.
5) The Prestige and Job Security ratings both factor as pitches but beyond that, they do not
6) Yes, during each offseason, new coaches are created to help fill openings that aren't filled by existing coaches. To my knowledge you can't create coaches during a dynasty.
7) If I understand the question correctly, all coaches are available for job openings. Having a similar playbook style is only a boost, not a prerequisite.
8) As the head coach, you have full control over all duties.
9) You can select coaches when editing by sorting via Conferences or Coach Type (HC, OC, DC).
10) When editing coaches, you can assign one of your custom playbooks to any of the coaches and once in dynasty, you can obviously change your own playbook as often as you choose.
11) No. That was essentially all transferred to the "Gameplanning" feature when it was introduced and obviously will carry over this year.
12) In one year, was able to go from Akron OC to offers from Baylor & Okie State to be OC. Did not play long enough to get top HC offers.
13) If you win the National Championship you can make a relatively large jump, but overall you aren't going to jump several letter grades in one year.
14) The school/Athletic Director handles the hiring/firings. You just worry about your own tasks.
15) Whether one of the Coordinators or the Head Coach, you are considered the "Recrutiing Coordinator" meaning you make all recruiting decisions. As cdj eluded to in his article, it leaves you with the decision to focus solely on your side of the ball or do what's best for the team as a whole
16) I believe it is 1-7 years, but you can be fired at anytime if you fail your goals.
17) Contracts are based on Team Prestige and Contract Length. Within these contracts are the goals that will define your coach progression in terms of Job Security and Prestige. Goals at higher Prestige schools are more difficult to attain than lower Prestige programs.

Other Dynasty questions:
1) Medical redshirts?
2) Spring game?
3) Off-season drills?
4) Homecoming game?
5) Heisman presentation show?
6) Scouting feature during recruiting?
7) In-season progression?
8) Dynamic player ratings from week to week like Madden?
9) More accurate sim stats?
10) Senior day/night?
11) Create or lose rivalries?
12) HS All-American Bowl with ESPN top 150?
13) Senior Bowl?
14) Designate Impact players and team captains?
15) Full editing of existing players during a Dynasty?
16) Editing of recruits in Dynasty?
17) Changes or improvements to the slot machine recruiting system?
18) National signing day show with player announcements from a select group of top recruits?
19) Can we update our Stadiums over the course of a Dynasty? Specifically the ability to change the seating capacity of the stadium? Change the field color? Endzone and Midfield art? Field type (grass, field turf, art. turf)?

1) No
2) No
3) No
4) No
5) No
6) No
7) Yes, though it was in last year
8) No
9) Overall, these look pretty good with Special Teams the only area that may need some work. Did not look at them much in 11, so I can't give a comparative answer.
10) No
11) No
12) No
13) No
14) No
15) No
16) No
17) None specifically to the function of recruiting
18) No
19) No

Can you hire/fire your coordinators as a HC?

No. The school/Athletic Director handles those duties.

Can you just pick HC/OC/DC?
1)When you're the head coach do you have more assistants than DC/OC and 2) do you fire/hire DC/OC's while you're the head of the team?
3) Do playbooks travel with a coach?
4) Anything else new and cool in Dynasty Mode?

EDIT: I looked at the photos and it looks like only HC/OC/DC are in the game. 5) So based on that and the photos do you get a chance to counter offer people? Like on one of the screenshots it said Stanford's OC was hired as the HC at Penn State so they had to hire the OC from Arkansas whose contract expired. Do you get a chance to offer them an extension or anything else maybe make them HC in waiting if you have a tenured coach?

1) No
2) You only have OC/DC and the school/Athletic Director is in charge of the hiring/firings.
3) Yes
4) Coaching Carousel, Dynamic Conferences, and Custom Playbooks are the major improvements. However, they did touch on some of the smaller aspects of the game, one specific example is the new Pipeline screen that not only shows what pipelines you have but also shows ones you're in danger of losing after this season and ones that you're near to adding. As well, when you are viewing the list of all recruits, each player has the 3 logos of his Top 3 school choices next to his name and vital info. This makes finding players who have you listed in their Top 3 much easier than it has been in the past.
5) No. When offered, you get to view the Contract of the school offering.

1. Are conference invites finally added to Online Dynasty?
2. Have medical redshirts been added?
3. How does sharing coaches work? Could someone enter all the coaches names and would I have to download each coach one by one or could I just download the file and it would have all of the changes for every coach?
4. Is there any new commentary that refers to the HC, OC or DC?
5. Will future conference moves happen automatically (IE, TCU to Big East in 2012, etc)?

1) No, however since you can modify conferences after every season, you can set your own rules for conference progression
2) No
3) Coaches are attached to the roster file and shared with it when rosters are shared
4) Not in specific detail, but GameTrack will reference them.
5) No, but you can make them on your own at the end of the season

1. Will the OC/DC have ratings that impact game play, like ratings in teaching, offensive knowledge, defensive knowledge, etc ?

2. Can you fire your OC/DC ?

3. Do playbooks follow the OC/DC ?

4. Lets say you hired your rival's OC/DC. Does the commentary make mention of this during dynasty ?

1) No
2) As head coach, you indicate what playbook your OC/DC will run as you are then playing out their duties on the field. If they fail, you fail and vice versa.
3) Yes
4) No. I don't think the game currently tracks coach movement.

Not an important question...just wondering how it will all work with Teambuilder. I assume you'll swap your TB team then edit coach? ...or I wonder if this will be a TB update. Adding all the edit coach functions to the Tb site?

We really don't get a chance to mess with Teambuilder much at Community Days as the dev kits are not connected to the public internet.

Is there still an option in dynasty mode to create a new coach as time goes on? Or, perhaps a better option, if I get fired in my dynasty, can I continue to play with the same school as a new coach? I want to be able to remain with one team throughout my dynasty, but still have coaching changes (fire my coach, have him retire, and hire new ones)

I know you can turn off the carousel but don't think you can leave it on and also force it to keep you at a certain school
When fired, if you decline all offers the game will automatically place you on a squad. Likely as a coordinator at a very low Prestige school.

I'm most interested in the recruits. What are incoming freshman ratings...how many blue chippers etc.
Gracias!

I don't think there has been a drastic change to the number of 5* recruits, but I didn't specifically count. The top end for Freshman OVRs is 82, except for kickers and punters for whom I believe the high end is 85.

1) Will the conferences automatically shift for the new teams coming in at the respective time? I.E TCU to the Big East in 2012.

2) Also, since we saw the SPARQ logo before, does that mean we will get a Stars and a Sparq Rating?

1) No, but you can make the changes manually each season
2) Recruits will have a Star Rating and the top recruits will appear in the SPARQ rating listed.

Also, can we denote neutral site games and pick where we want them to be played at?

No.

Any added information on coaching carousel that isn't talked about by Monday. Such as:

1. Will coaches recruit to their style of play?

2. Does a coach's playbook and tendencies move with them?

3. Will there be other ratings for coaches besides prestige?

4. If so, are there different ratings for offense compared to defense?

5. Are new coaches added to the pool after old coaches retire?

6. Can coach "rosters" be edited and downloaded like player rosters?

7. Do prestige and other ratings increase or decrease depending on game performance?

1) Yes... more specifically they'll recruit to the style their playbook is set at. It's determined by the player "style" (ex. scrambler, pocket passer, etc.)
2) Yes
3) Job Security
4) No
5) Yes
6) Yes, though they're attached to the roster file
7) Coach and Team Prestige will drop if your team struggles.

Also, I'll throw in these question on recruiting and progression:

1. Do recruits, especially skill positions, have better speed, agility, acceleration, juke, and spin move compared to last year? These ratings seemed to be more random compared to the rest of the ratings? Do they reflect the base roster more?

2. Is cpu recruiting better about managing a team and getting quality players?

3. Any changes to player progression? Is it more based on performance now, like Madden is doing?

4. Are there actually good punters and kickers in the game after 4 years?

5. Are there hidden gems and future superstars who blow up at small schools?

6. Are there more quality 2* and 3 * recruits?

Thanks in advance!

1) Yes... they seemed better. How much is subjective but I certainly noticed that there were more WRs with decent ACC even with good SPD
2) We don't have a specific answer to this... it's something we mentioned to the developers but not certain how much they were able to do with it
3) Player progression has been tweaked, but it is not what Madden is doing.
4) Yes
5) Nothing specific has been changed in this area
6) Sorry, we don't have concise data in this area

1. How does signing coaches work? Do you just get first dibs on any coach you want within your prestige range or is there bidding and a budget involved?
2. Do players gain an appropriate amount of height & weight during there careers? (No more 4* DEs coming in at 200lbs and graduating at 205)
3. Will we be allowed to have more than 120 teams in a dynasty through Teambuilder? Or will we still have to swap out one team for each Teambuilder team?

The rest of my questions have already been asked. Can't wait till monday.

1) The user doesn't sign the coaches. The CPU does, since the user IS a coach. For each job opening, there are six top candidates (three that you see on the main Carousel screen). The CPU will then take one of those six candidates. Prestige plays a big part in the decision, but a coach's alma mater also can play a small part in it as well.
2) Sorry, we don't have concise data in this area
3) No, still limited to 120 teams.

1) Who controls the playbook, The coordinators or the HC? Assuming it is a coordinator, is there a way for HC to keep the playbook if he fires the coordinator? Or do you have to hire the right guy for your system? How does the cpu logic play into that game?

2) With all of the different coaches coming in and moving out, will coaches have current team playbooks attatched to them via random or alma mater, or will all new coaches have a generic playbook?

3) Will new cpu coaches utilize custom playbooks within their selected style of offense/defense?

1) You can choose your playbook any time. The playbook will default to that coordinator, but when he is fired, the new coordinator's playbook is defaulted. But at the pre-game screen, you can choose any playbook, or a custom one.
2) All set coaches will have their playbook from Year One of the dynasty. Any newly created coaches that come in will have a random defensive playbook, and I "think" the OC's playbook is tied to their alma mater, but I'm not 100% sure.
3) Yes

I was wondering this too. If I have custom playbooks, do I really need coordinators? If they don't have any kind of ratings or bonuses or whatnot, then coordinators would be simply cosmetic for a user team.

1) Coordinators are basically a user position within Coaching Carousel. In regards to in-game, the playbook will default to that coordinator's playbook, but if you use custom playbooks, then the coordinator has no effect in-game. The main focus of coordinators in within Coaching Carousel this year. Their goals are tailored specifically to being an OC or DC.

It'd be cool if they did co-op online. 12 people on 6 teams. Two on each team. 1 as oc and the other dc. It would be interesting as people got promoted and left for other schools. After time everyone would have their own team.

Unfortunately two users can not be at the same school. At least part of this is due to the fact that currently no more than two people can connect in order to play a game... if two schools both had user OC & DC, that obviously would require four people to connect.

If there are coach ratings, does that affect recruiting, specifically the OC and DC ratings?

If you are a OC/DC do you recruit? If so do you recruit all players, just your side of the ball, or geographic as most is in real life?

1) No. The ratings are used for Carousel, and doesn't really affect anything in-game, but it is definitely something to add for the future.
2) You are the recruiting coordinator (whether HC/OC/DC) so you do all recruiting

Can you change which games are considered BCS games?

No... BCS games are still pre-defined.

Can you get rid of a conference... for example take all the teams in the Big 12 and put them in other conferences, thus ending the Big 12??
...or do all the conferences have to be kept alive with a minimum of 4 teams [which i read was the smallest number allowed].?????

All conferences are required to be kept with a minimum of 4 teams (with the exception of Independents allowed to have 1 team).

Here's a question for ya. You know how you can control 12 teams in dynasty, right? I assume you can start at any school as a coordinator but could I eventually get an OC and a DC working at the same school at the same time?

No... only one user can be at a school at a time

how do the oc and dc affect recruiting (if at all)?

This new feature's ratings are just tied to Carousel, but it is something to possibly have added in the future.

1. Can you choose the team captains AND impact players ala last gen???
2. Does the Natioal game of the week show up on the schedule every week?
3. If you are the OC/DC do you recruit each week?
3b. Does the cpu sim the opposite plays or do you watch them?
4. Does the cpu pull the starters in a blowout/pull the QB after 3-4 ints???
5. Spring game and/or ALL-AMERICAN game?
6. Heisman ceremony?
7. FCS? or FCS teambuilder to replace the generics?
8. Can you set the date/time for your home games?

1) No
2) Unsure... didn't check
3) You are in charge of all recruiting whether HC, OC, or DC.
3b) You have the choice of either watching or using the super sim function
4) I think they did this to some extent last year... not positive. Either way, not certain about any specific changes regarding this.
5) No
6) No
7) No
8) No... aside from the conference editing, you don't have any control over date/time

[psuexv]

Nice work Tommy.....

[psuexv]

Is it too early to start a Wishlist thread for next year

[Deuce]

1) Yes... more specifically they'll recruit to the style their playbook is set at. It's determined by the player "style" (ex. scrambler, pocket passer, etc.)

This is great news...hopefully we won't see option teams with pocket passers.

[gschwendt]

Can you adjust the number of conference games? I'm thinking of bumping the Big Ten to 14 for my teambuilder dynasty, but only if I can have 9 conference games.

I don't believe you can. As I understand it, they have basic generated schedules for the various conferences sizes and it will use one of those depending on your conference settings.

[psusnoop]

Great job guys on the write up, very nice!!

[jwallace0317]

How do conference championship games work in the context of custom conferences? Are you required to have one once you have a certain number of teams (12 in real life) in the conference?

[gschwendt]

This is great news...hopefully we won't see option teams with pocket passers.

One thing regarding that, if a very highly regarded player is very interested in a school, the school will still give him a look even if he doesn't necessarily fit into their scheme. However in an option team instance, they'll weigh the scrambler QB considerably higher than the pocket QB so they might go after a 4-star option QB instead of the 5-star pocket QB.

[Boucher]

How about pride stickers? Can you see them now? Do the right schools have them?

[gschwendt]

How do conference championship games work in the context of custom conferences? Are you required to have one once you have a certain number of teams (12 in real life) in the conference?

I'm not 100% (maybe one of the other community guys can jump in) but I believe once you hit 12 teams or more, you will have a conference championship game.

[JBHuskers]

How do conference championship games work in the context of custom conferences? Are you required to have one once you have a certain number of teams (12 in real life) in the conference?

Yeah once you get 12 teams, you can set up a conference title game. I think it makes you have one, but you HAVE to have 12 in order to have a title game.

[rhombic21]

After hearing more about it, I'm a little underwhelmed by the Coach carousel feature. Would have been nice to see them do more with hiring/firing assistants, and with these ratings having a substantial impact on player development and recruiting.

The custom conference feature sounds really well done. It doesn't look like you can change the name of the conference, or create a custom conference logo. Those might be the only two things I can think of. It would be cool if the team could secure the rights to all the old alignments and conference logos and then give the user an option to start a dynasty under an old conference alignment setup.

[Boucher]

How many hirings and firings will there be every year?

[JBHuskers]

How many hirings and firings will there be every year?

For head coaches, I would say anywhere between 6 and 12. Which is on par with real life.

It will ramp up a little bit after years two and three as contracts run out.

[gschwendt]

After hearing more about it, I'm a little underwhelmed by the Coach carousel feature. Would have been nice to see them do more with hiring/firing assistants, and with these ratings having a substantial impact on player development and recruiting.

Yeah, there's still quite a bit more that they can do with it and I definitely think it will be something that they build on in the future. But as a first iteration, I think it does a decent job of covering a lot of the wishes from the community. They just didn't hit all of the "nice to haves" of it.

[JBHuskers]

Considering the huge undertaking of Carousel to mesh with offline and online dynasties, this is a nice base to start with.

[JBHuskers]

For head coaches, I would say anywhere between 6 and 12. Which is on par with real life.

It will ramp up a little bit after years two and three as contracts run out.

To add on to that, you will see a great deal of coaches being resigned after their contract runs out. There are good measures within contracts for getting 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 wins depending on the prestige of the school to give coaches a boost in their job security.

[jaymo76]

So if you are a head coach and you get fired do you get offered a mixture of say head coach AND offensive coordinator jobs or once you have the big seat, that's where you stay re: offers?

[rhombic21]

Yeah, there's still quite a bit more that they can do with it and I definitely think it will be something that they build on in the future. But as a first iteration, I think it does a decent job of covering a lot of the wishes from the community. They just didn't hit all of the "nice to haves" of it.

Yeah. It's something worth expanding on in the future. I'd like to see them add position coaches too. So you start out and can only control one position (and can't make any playcalls), and then work your way up to coordinator and then head coach. And then having more coach ratings and implementing those ratings in a way that affects the dynasty more. Could be a huge feature in future years.

[gschwendt]

One thing to note, with Online Dynasties and coordinators, vs the CPU you'll only control your side of the ball but against another user, you have full control. They did that because they knew it would get boring if two guys were on the same side of the ball and you had to watch your opponent torch your defense and there's nothing you can do about it.