Community Sound-Off: The Future of Online Dynasty

[JBHuskers]

http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/easports.com/NCAA_Football_11/OnlineDynastyBlog/1.jpg

One of the biggest features to ever hit the NCAA Football franchise is Online Dynasty. It has brought the community together in a whole new way, and it will be in it's fourth iteration with NCAA Football 12 next summer. The ability to fight with your friends for recruits, be able to spoil your friends championship run, and see who has the best horse in the Heisman race are just a few of the things that makes Online Dynasty so great. Now that EA has had some time to tinker and expand the Online Dynasty since its inception, what would you, as the community like to see from this point forward? Please post your thoughts and comments below.

[Kwizzy]

Generally, I would like to see a focus on the things that make an online dynasty difficult to rapidly advance and maintain. Things like multiple weeks of offseason recruiting being condensed somehow, etc... Eliminating "bottle-necks" such as this should be a focus IMO.

I would also like to see the dynasty wire feature expanded upon & integrated more with the console aspects of the dynasty. Most notably things like: ability to set depth charts, correct stats displayed, recruit info, etc...

As far as features go, I would like to see some of the same things I would like to see in offline dynasty mode: Gameplanning, Offseason Training Control, Coaching Carousel with coordinators, Scheduling enhancements, Ability to set minimums for each roster position.

[psuexv]

I think Kwizzy's first 2 points go hand in hand. I think with sustaining a long standing dynasty you need to keep interest in the participants. Improving dynasty wire with expanded features and I think historical depth should keep that momentum. The ability to see who the Heisman winner 5 years ago and still brag about that or compare who's had the most All Americans or Conference Championships.

Also better video/highlight capturing.

[gschwendt]

Probably my biggest request (and likely a relatively easy one) would be on DynastyWire, the ability to easily see who remains in the given week both in terms of games and also in recruiting time remaining. As well, on DW, a better way to browse ODs that you're not in to be able to see what teams are being controlled, who's controlling them, etc. And finally, both on DW and on the console, the ability to sort and/or filter to only show members of the OD, similar to how you can filter by a specific conference. That way if you want to compare stats of only OD members, you can easily do so.

[psusnoop]

Probably my biggest request (and likely a relatively easy one) would be on DynastyWire, the ability to easily see who remains in the given week both in terms of games and also in recruiting time remaining. As well, on DW, a better way to browse ODs that you're not in to be able to see what teams are being controlled, who's controlling them, etc. And finally, both on DW and on the console, the ability to sort and/or filter to only show members of the OD, similar to how you can filter by a specific conference. That way if you want to compare stats of only OD members, you can easily do so.

Completely agree on this, I love seeing how I compare stat wise against other users in the league.

[JeffHCross]

Kwizzy, I don't think it's possible to condense multiple weeks of recruiting. I'd love to see it if it was ... but that's roughly akin to asking someone to have five actual phone calls in one ... difficult, at best.

Just going from existing code, and not thinking about features I'd like added to the game ...

I want to see Conference Invites and Coaching Contracts brought over from Offline Dynasty.
I want the Commisioner to have the option of using an offline dynasty file to start an Online Dynasty. For the sake of fairness, I don't necessarily want the return of the ability to save an offline copy, but I'd like to see the ability to start an OD from an offline file. This would allow interested commissioners to customize their dynasty before starting it, whether that's simulating into future seasons or just customizing the CPU teams' philosophies.
As G just said, the ability to see who's in an OD on Dynasty Wire would be huge. The information is there for teams in the dynasty, but not for anybody browsing.
And filtering stats and other items just for OD members. For some reason, a '11 OD looks like it's a single-player dynasty where the other OD players are just running CPU teams ... and I actually think that's how it's done, mechanically. This is a departure from '10.
On the Dynasty Status tab on the console, I'd like to see information about how many hours are remaining in recruiting return. You get information about games being played, but nothing about whether or not recruiting has been started or completed.

[CLW]

My thoughts in order of my perceived importance:

#1 Coaching Contracts - The ability to turn this off/on would be a great addition IMHO and is something that is still missing that is a feature in offline dynasties. I'd love to have a 12 team dynasty where all of the users start out with the 12 worst teams in the game and then their Coaching determines what school they can go to next or the user could decide to try to turn Utah State into a powerhouse.

#2 Conference Invites/Changes - Again there should be the ability to turn off/on. Another great way for users to take bad teams and if they desire and their performance dictates the opportunity to join the BCS Conferences. Also, this would be "new" to the game but it would be nice for users to be able to change conferences AT ANY POINT IN A DYNASTY. Example, with NCAA 11 I'd like to keep the conferences as is and then for the 2012 season I'd like to have the ability to move Nebraska to the "Big 10" etc.... This would require EA to allow us to change the size of conferences as well as add divisions to conferences at any point in a dynasty. I can envision a ton of "stories" ODs could generate with reforming old conferences and/or creating new ones or seeing how "rumored" conference changes could play out.

#3 Coordinators/Carousel - We talked about this quite a bit in the Features Tourny. I believe it would be great to have a pool of either generic or real life coaches to be able to hire/fire as our staff from year-to-year. I cannot imagine how fun it would be to have a fellow member in an OD try to take away my QB coach and promote him to Offensive Coordinator. Or to lose my Defensive Coordinator who took on a Head Coaching job at a CPU school.

[JBHuskers]

There are a few things...but one that jumps off the top of my head is during recruiting (and this could work for offline too), I would like to be able to go to my depth chart without having to back all the way out of the recruiting hub.

[gschwendt]

Another feature I forgot to mention is the ability to customize conferences at the end of each season. That way, if I customized them to start the dynasty, but then one of the owners leaves, I can bring in a replacement owner and he can pick whatever team he would like instead of limiting his choices. Obviously I'm not the one looking at the code but I couldn't see that this would be anymore difficult than doing so at the beginning of the dynasty. The tricky part would be determining when through the offseason process to have this option.

[steelerfan]

There are a few things...but one that jumps off the top of my head is during recruiting (and this could work for offline too), I would like to be able to go to my depth chart without having to back all the way out of the recruiting hub.

That would be nice. Even if they just added OVRs to that breakdown screen that shows how many players and their class as well as how many targets you have, it would be an improvement.

Lots of good ideas here so far. I just hope the devs realize fully that Dynasties are the lifeblood of the series. In other franchises, similar modes are largely neglected year-to-year which I believe is a huge error. I don't need more quirky Ultimate Team back-of-the-box modes, refine your Dynasty/Franchise/Be a GM modes and more people will be happy than not.

[psuexv]

On the Dynasty Status tab on the console, I'd like to see information about how many hours are remaining in recruiting return. You get information about games being played, but nothing about whether or not recruiting has been started or completed.

I think they should bring back the members "card" screen from '10

[Kwizzy]

I definitely see what you're saying Jeff & I see the difficulty there which is why I said "in some way". I just can't stand how many offseason steps there currently are & was using the recruiting as an example. All of those steps are an obstacle that increases in size significantly for each person you have in your OD. Not saying I have the solution or that there even is one in the current way the game is made, however I think those types of things are something that needs to be the focus going forward.

[JeffHCross]

I know what you mean, Kwizzy. I'm hoping they'll be able to find something (similar to how bowls were integrated into one week this year), but I think we're pretty much stuck in regards to the offseason. Everything in the offseason is sequential. You can't do Week 2 recruiting without Week 1 being fully simmed. You can't do Cut Players without Training Results or any of the previous stages. It'd be nice to see something done, but I'd be surprised.

Speaking of the offseason, I would like to see enhanced access to information in the offseason. Once you advance to the offseason, you've lost access to Awards, Bowl Game Results, and even your team's roster (on the console, though Dynasty Wire does have it). At the very least, I'd like to see a CPU-generated story listing bowl results and awards. Similarly, at the end of recruiting, I'd like to see a story for the Top Classes (which is also lost once you advance past signing day, except it scrolls at the bottom of the screen).

While in offline dynasty you can fly through a post season, Online Dynasties can sometimes take substantial time to get through an offseason (as Kwizzy was saying). If we can't find a way to shorten the time spent, at least give us some information to look at and go through while we're waiting.

[lilheavy]

I would like to see practice mood opened up.

Scrimmage
7 on 7
2 min drill
Setup situational plays like 3rd and longs

Also with the current setup your formation subs don't carry over into practice mode and injured players are allowed to practice so that needs to be fixed.

I think added to practice mode will keep players interested because it allows them to play game like situations while waiting for the week to advance.

[JeffHCross]

When a dynasty is full at 12 members, having a mechanism that prevents people from joining and corrupting the dynasty would be appreciated.

[gschwendt]

When a dynasty is full at 12 members, having a mechanism that prevents people from joining and corrupting the dynasty would be appreciated.
I think it probably would do that in most cases (ie not allow someone to even join), however since our dynasty actually thinks there are only 6 (or however many members), I think that is what caused the issue.

[JeffHCross]

You're probably right. There's still a lot of stability problems with this year's version.

[Traylor]

Probably my biggest request (and likely a relatively easy one) would be on DynastyWire, the ability to easily see who remains in the given week both in terms of games and also in recruiting time remaining. As well, on DW, a better way to browse ODs that you're not in to be able to see what teams are being controlled, who's controlling them, etc. And finally, <a href="http://www.bcduplication.com" style="color: rgb(50, 50, 50) ! important; text-decoration: none ! important; cursor: default ! important;">cheap cd replication</a> and on the console, the ability to sort and/or filter to only show members of the OD, similar to how you can filter by a specific conference. That way if you want to compare stats of only OD members, you can easily do so.

I would like to see this as well :smh:

[cdj]

A big missing item from Dynasty (& Online Dynasty) is the lack of connection to the season at hand (and entire Dynasty career) once you get into games. There's no mention of conference standings, game importance, info around the conference/nation, etc. We get rankings on the score banner overlay and team records during the postgame, but that's it. Nothing separates game one from game ten and nothing differentiates season one from season five from season thirteen, etc.

In terms of new features, I'd go with Coaches & a Coaching Carousel as the 'next big thing' for Dynasty and Online Dynasty. As many mentioned in the Wish List Tournament, there's just so much potential within such features plaus it is a big part of CFB that is currently missing in the franchise.

A secondary item that may be of some benefit is something that would give players their own personality. We get that established in recruiting with the different values for team recruiting pitches, but after that there's nothing. Maybe there is an extra player page that remembers the important team recruiting pitches for each player, maybe certain players have special (randomized, doesn't have to be assigned) celebrations and/or running/throwing styles, etc.

Anything to help differentiate games & seasons and players/recruits as you progress through Dynasty/OD would be huge, IMHO.

[kdog36]

I only have two ideas at this time. I believe they have been touched on but...

Please make the internet part of the ONLINE DYNASTY MORE USER FRIENDLY. Many times I cant get home in time to play the game before a deadline but want to at least recruit. I have logged on before and get really frustrated when I have to search and search. Too much clicking if you will.

As I am sure this has been touched on also... Make the recruits more realistic? Also like CDJ mentioned above. Make me feel like the game I am playing in mean something depending on what part of the season I am in.

I am sure it will be improved.

[JeffHCross]

Make the recruits more realistic?The realism of recruits (and particularly progression) is one thing I think is severally lacking in long-term dynasties, both offline and online. I plan on doing a lot of research in this area soon.

[Pig Bomb]

unless they change the fact that the CPU defense knows if I'm running or passing when I break the huddle this game is dead to me... :smh:

[JeffHCross]

unless they change the fact that the CPU defense knows if I'm running or passing when I break the huddle this game is dead to me... :smh:I watched this closely over the last few days, and I don't think it's nearly as prevalent as we think. Most people point to the fact that the defense comes out in 4-3 against a spread formation ... but even when I'm calling pass plays, I see the same thing.

The problem is just the overall playcall logic, not specifically that they're psychic. Except on audibles ... that is where 'psychic' tends to come in to play, or be more apparent.

[Jayrah]

I watched this closely over the last few days, and I don't think it's nearly as prevalent as we think. Most people point to the fact that the defense comes out in 4-3 against a spread formation ... but even when I'm calling pass plays, I see the same thing.

The problem is just the overall playcall logic, not specifically that they're psychic. Except on audibles ... that is where 'psychic' tends to come in to play, or be more apparent.

To piggyback on this thought. Another big-time feature that is left largely untouched is the team philosophy option. If these are changed to match somewhat real life tendencies for each cpu team you are playing, I have heard that it makes a HUGE difference in how the cpu calls its defenses. Goes along with CDJ's and others suggestions earlier to make an offline dynasty able to switch over.

And to be honest, audibles this year work at a much higher rate for positive plays than in years past. In fact I haven't even noticed the cpu switching hardly at all recently to match my audibles in a cheap way. I have set them, and I will use about half of them as just the quick options, as opposed to completely changing the formations every time.

Speaking of Audibles though, if I run a no huddle offense, and I had the full bevy of options at my disposal at the beginning of the sequence, I would like to have those same options if I decide to change out of the play that I picked. Wouldn't mind if at that point I can't change the formation, just as long as I had a full formation of plays to choose from if I wish. They look back over to the sidelines for just that reason, right?

[Jayrah]

When Carousel is finally added (whenever that would be), it's gonna be a game changer. I want to see that asap. But the immediate thing that doesn't have to do with that which I want to see is an individualization of everything. CDJ started to go into that. But I would like to expand on this thought, because above anything else for me, I love connecting with my recruits in such a way that I can see their role in my system based on their strengths and weaknesses. Then when they finally get to the campus, I want to be able to see things in my players that make it worth my while to go into something like practice mode and take a look at them.

Examples of things that could be added:

1: A small thing and a majorly requested add-on is hair. No it didn't make our top choices, but it's something that should be added because it adds a high percentage of variety to your players without any further gameplay additions.

2: Styles. These have come so so so so so far, just continue in the mold for me. Power back, elusive, fast combo. I can finally tell. Now continue to work on running styles and different subtle animations to differentiate them. Qb's same thing with things like arm motions and release speeds. And MY personal pet peeve: Wr's vs Db's. Really want to see my big wr go up and out-compete the smaller guy for the ball with both actually jumping and coming up with a play on the ball only, as opposed to the db playing the ball and then the man immediately if he doesn't come up with it. Or a speed wr cut to the middle grab a pass and zoom through with quick strides.

3: Strong side, weak side. I would love to see a value added to the left and right sides of every player. I want to know where my lineman is better blocking, down or out. Can I pull the reach play out of my pocket with this guy at Tackle, or could he not make it based on his weakness, rather than based on pure win loss ratio. I want to shade my rcb inside because he has trouble defending anything when that wr crosses his face to the inside left, and if I can force the wr to his right he makes better plays for me.

4: And lastly, Personality. I want to see something as simple and similar to what 2K11 does with their nba personalities, except football is different. 5 types:
Timid: The game is overwhelming at times and this player struggles to make plays even with a good skill set. Rare excitement and celebration. (except team)
Laid Back: This player goes about their business and doesn't do a whole lot of celebrating (except team). Not overly aggressive and lets plays get to him instead of making them.
High Energy: This player can do really well or struggle based on momentum. In the heat of some good vibes, this player is more apt to step up and make a play for his team. He could also cost you a penalty with a late hit or an unnecessary celebration, although most are team oriented. But isn't he worth the risk if his skill level is high enough?
Calm: This player understands football. They are solid for your team in the ways that they can be. Don't take many unnecessary risks, and won't cost your team yardage being dumb.
Leader: Most likely known as your stars and captains. They do it all, and their attitude never waivers, even during a bad game.

Idk, just some ideas of individualization for players.

[xRomo9]

There are a few things...but one that jumps off the top of my head is during recruiting (and this could work for offline too), I would like to be able to go to my depth chart without having to back all the way out of the recruiting hub.

I agree with you on this one Huskers!! I think this should be all in one area .. To me this speeds things up for me and I like the control that would bring ...

[xRomo9]

I like what CLW had to say on the 1st page about Coach contracts..

My thoughts on this would be to sign a contract , but with any team big or small .. If you sign with a small school and build it up you should start to see contract offers from large BCS schools. Now on the other hand if you sign with a big time school ,and you don't do so good "Get Fired" (which I hope is in 12) then you will see your offers only coming from small time schools......:Texas:

[JeffHCross]

Romo, that's pretty much how contracts work in offline dynasty. So hopefully we'll get them into Online Dynasties soon.

[JerzeyReign]

I'm late to the convo and everything I'd like to see has been mentioned. Comparing user stats is huge though. It would save me tons of time in my current online dynasty.

[kdog36]

WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO CONDUCT ALL ACTIVITIES IN THE ONLINE DYNASTY ON THE PC JUST SHORT OF PLAYING THE GAME. This has to be something that will be addressed if they plan on using the PC idea again.

[xRomo9]

Romo, that's pretty much how contracts work in offline dynasty. So hopefully we'll get them into Online Dynasties soon.

LOL.. I have not even done a offline Dynasty this year .. I guess I should have :)

[XxDaMole00xX]

The future of Online Dynasty isnt far away. Simple things like Coaching Contracts would be a great addtion online, but players need to feel like they run the team. What I mean by that is have an owner mode where you have the ability to build a program through its fan, stadium, and National exposure. If I was a small school like Troy, and im playing UL-Monroe, I wouldnt expect Lee Corso, or any of those guys broadcasting the game because we dont have enough National Exposure. But if through the years you start winning and get bumped up to another conference you might end up on College gameday or something. Having the ability to move up to a better conference in Online Dynasty would be awesome.

Also, fans need to be more realistic in order to represent the team and their success. Im in an online dynasty with USF and every game their stadium is packed full, but when I watched them play Conneticut the last week of the regular season, the whole upper deck was empty at the start. So I would hope they would realisticly put in the number of fans (approximate) that would attend a game for a team that had a record of 3-7 because then it would feel like it would in real life. Once you start winning, more fans show up :)

But overall Online Dynasty is 10x ahead of an other online sports league I can think of! :)

[gigemaggs99]

I agree with most comments posted.

I would like coaching contracts and conference changes, like in the offline dynasty part of the game. Make the offline and online features the SAME.

This probably doesn't have much to do with online dynasty but more overall gameplay:

I'm not sure I understand this "fair play" issue. I don't understand why when I'm up by 21 for example in the 3rd quarter and I have 3rd and 7, if I pass the ball 10 yards for a first down I get penalized for "throwing". I'm not throwing the bomb, I'm just trying to get a first down.

However, if the CPU is up by 40 in the 4th quarter they can air it out ALL DAY LONG and they do not get penalized. Why does the CPU not run the ball in that situation? If the "sportsmanship" idea is really going to work, it needs to go both ways. I don't mind running 3 runs in a row and punting when I'm up. I would expect the CPU to do the same though when they are up by more than 21+.

One other thing that would be cool is to have Div II, III and all conferences available to play in online & offline dynasties, not just through teambuilder. I would like to play with those smaller schools and try and build powerhouses out of them, or atleast start there as a coach and progress until I am offered a coaching position at a larger 'main stream' school.

Overall though, I really enjoy this game! :nod: