NCAA Football 14 Demo Details & Impressions

[GatorfanStovy]

^ one way to counter that is try and take control of the SS or FS and coverage the deep patterns from a user stand point instead of allowing the CPU do it.

[DynastyJunkie]

I know this probably isn't a big deal to anybody else. But I like all of the new names I've seen for players. It's like they really updated their name generator. A small detail but huge to me.

[DynastyJunkie]

There is soooo much to like about this game, but if the passing game is a "money" play then I will pass on this year's game. I still believe that if they would allow us to do individual assignments(bump/loose, shade in/out) that would help some. But passes over the middle are money every time. Zone defense is awful.

I don't neccasarily agree with you about passing defense. I usually have trouble stopping the pass. (In past versions) But after playing many games on the demo I can now shutdown the passing game. The difference in this years pass coverage and past years pass coverage is that you do have to mix up your coverages. (Real defensive strategies) I've effectively used both man and zone coverage. But individual assignments would be a great addition to the game. However, if you do have too much trouble stopping the passing game just tinker with the sliders a little bit. I hope you don't pass on this year's game. It's more than a knotch above last year's game. You would be missing out.

[jaymo76]

Why oh why has the aggressive DB game-planning not been fixed this year??? I have played three games where I have switched back and forth between teams just to see and each team (AA cpu D) is ALWAYS set to aggressive, just like last season. I hope this is fixed in retail.

[Rudy]

If it makes you guys feel any better, Madden 13's pass coverage slider was completely useless last year! The one thing I did like about Madden last year was that I could get the ball to my outside WRs a lot easier. I've never been a good passer and it seems EA always made it a lot easier to throw to the slot WR and TE than to your outside WRs. But Madden was a lot better in this area last year. Maybe it's something that could be tweaked/tuned for NCAA.

Edit: Did they remove the celebration within the last 5+ yards? I hit circle and my guy never celebrates on a long TD play.

[jello1717]

If it makes you guys feel any better, Madden 13's pass coverage slider was completely useless last year! The one thing I did like about Madden last year was that I could get the ball to my outside WRs a lot easier. I've never been a good passer and it seems EA always made it a lot easier to throw to the slot WR and TE than to your outside WRs. But Madden was a lot better in this area last year. Maybe it's something that could be tweaked/tuned for NCAA.

Edit: Did they remove the celebration within the last 5+ yards? I hit circle and my guy never celebrates on a long TD play.

I don't know if you played '13 or not, but it's really easy to get your outside WRs involved in NCAA '13. Some guys in my OD abuse the slot WR and TEs, but my #1 WR always leads my team in yards and receptions and my #2 WR is usually in my top 3. In '13 you can find your outside guys on streaks, outs, ins, drags, slants and curls just as easily as you can find a slot WR.

In '12 and '13 you can't celebrate while going into the endzone anymore. In '12 the best you could do was pull back on the RS and he'd slow down and stand up straight and kinda look like he's high stepping (which he isn't) and in '13 you couldn't even do that.

The best you can do is to dive while near the GL and the sideline and he'll jump and roll into the end zone.

[jello1717]

Edit: Did they remove the celebration within the last 5+ yards? I hit circle and my guy never celebrates on a long TD play.

In '12 the best you could do was this little pseudo-highstep which I do at about the 5 yard line:


and in '13 you couldn't even do that so the best you can do is to jump into the endzone like this (which you can still do in '14):

[Rudy]

I don't know if you played '13 or not, but it's really easy to get your outside WRs involved in NCAA '13. Some guys in my OD abuse the slot WR and TEs, but my #1 WR always leads my team in yards and receptions and my #2 WR is usually in my top 3. In '13 you can find your outside guys on streaks, outs, ins, drags, slants and curls just as easily as you can find a slot WR.

No, I never played NCAA 13 and barely played NCAA 12. My last full experience with NCAA was NCAA '11. Been with Madden the last two years.

[jaymo76]

I don't know if you played '13 or not, but it's really easy to get your outside WRs involved in NCAA '13. Some guys in my OD abuse the slot WR and TEs, but my #1 WR always leads my team in yards and receptions and my #2 WR is usually in my top 3. In '13 you can find your outside guys on streaks, outs, ins, drags, slants and curls just as easily as you can find a slot WR.

In '12 and '13 you can't celebrate while going into the endzone anymore. In '12 the best you could do was pull back on the RS and he'd slow down and stand up straight and kinda look like he's high stepping (which he isn't) and in '13 you couldn't even do that.

The best you can do is to dive while near the GL and the sideline and he'll jump and roll into the end zone.

No, I never played NCAA 13 and barely played NCAA 12. My last full experience with NCAA was NCAA '11. Been with Madden the last two years.

I have to admit, I have always struggled getting the ball to #1 and 2 (with the exception of I twins formations). However, it is a lot easier this years with coordinator cam.

[Body15]

Texas A&M offense

[jaymo76]

I saw two strange glitches earlier.

1. After a td the football slowly rolled up the field (it went about seven yards)
2. Fans were sitting in thin air (that's right, no seating whatsoever)

[WolverineJay]

I saw two strange glitches earlier.

1. After a td the football slowly rolled up the field (it went about seven yards)
2. Fans were sitting in thin air (that's right, no seating whatsoever)

Yep I saw the football floating in the end zone during my first game, but still haven't seen the floating fans.
I finally saw the center keeper glitch during a hurry up no huddle situation the Texas A&M center kept the snap and rambled 4 yards lol.

[Escobar]

There is a glitch when Playing with Oregon. If you pick any of the bottom 4 formations and run no-huddle it glitches and reverts back to Shotgun Spread Flex. Pick Shotgun 4 WR Trio, 4 WR Trio Str, Trio, or the 5-wide formation run a play and go no-huddle. It reverts to Shotgun Spread Flex instead of the original formation. If you try to switch to another formation it shows the names of other formations, but actually goes to the wing sets or double TE sets. It shows 4 WR Trio but is actually SG Twin TE Flex. Really f's up running no huddle from those formations.

[countryboy]

^ one way to counter that is try and take control of the SS or FS and coverage the deep patterns from a user stand point instead of allowing the CPU do it.

But its still too easy to pass against the cpu and the passes over the middle are still "money" plays.

[countryboy]

I don't neccasarily agree with you about passing defense. I usually have trouble stopping the pass. (In past versions) But after playing many games on the demo I can now shutdown the passing game. The difference in this years pass coverage and past years pass coverage is that you do have to mix up your coverages. (Real defensive strategies) I've effectively used both man and zone coverage. But individual assignments would be a great addition to the game. However, if you do have too much trouble stopping the passing game just tinker with the sliders a little bit. I hope you don't pass on this year's game. It's more than a knotch above last year's game. You would be missing out.

In the demo I have set PASS COVERAGE slider to 100 for both teams and QB ACCURACY to 25 for both teams and still teams were throwing the ball around like the defense wasn't there.

I have Season Ticket so I'll see how the retail version plays vs the demo. Hopefully this has been addressed.

[jaymo76]

Last night I played as VT versus Bama. I have played the demo about 12-13 times now and last night was my first loss. I play AA offense and Heisman D. I lost the game 14-7. I put the game down to very slow, used Coordinator cam and I only adjusted two sliders (Ints to 15 and hum cpu acc to 20). My offense was brutal as my qb went 10-23 for 148 yards and 1 int. The game went to overtime as I used the ball hawk feature with a minute left when Bama was driving. I was surprised how poor my qb play was during the game.

I really want to get more into the sliders tonight. The game is a lot better from last year. As people have said, it's EA football so you know what you're going to get. There should be no surprises to how the game plays. I still hope though that the release has a few fixes such as:
1. cpu zone aggressiveness bug
2. no huddle glitch
3. clock run down glitch (after a td)

[DynastyJunkie]

In the demo I have set PASS COVERAGE slider to 100 for both teams and QB ACCURACY to 25 for both teams and still teams were throwing the ball around like the defense wasn't there.

I have Season Ticket so I'll see how the retail version plays vs the demo. Hopefully this has been addressed.

Don't ever judge a game by its demo. Especially, the sliders in the demo. Theirs so much they have to strip from a game to make the demo that their ends up being a lot of glitches. In every demo I've played (even non-sports games) the game itself is a lot better than the demo. Don't you think it's unfair to make a judgement off of three stripped bare games in a demo? I thought (and apparently a lot of other people too) thought the demo was very sharp. I've tested the passing game myself and on my Xbox 360 I haven't experienced these issues. I know the PS3 demo has had a lot of problems that the Xbox version hasn't had. But I don't know what console your using. Just a thought.....

[WolverineJay]

I can't remember if this glitch was in NCAA 13, but I noticed that QB spikes aren't being recorded in the stats. The Ohio St. QB spiked the ball 3x during their last drive and yet his stats say he is 7-8 with that 1 incomplete being a completed pass to my safety. Not sure why the game doesn't recognize a spiked ball as a pass play.

[Rudy]

Don't ever judge a game by its demo. Especially, the sliders in the demo. Theirs so much they have to strip from a game to make the demo that their ends up being a lot of glitches. In every demo I've played (even non-sports games) the game itself is a lot better than the demo. Don't you think it's unfair to make a judgement off of three stripped bare games in a demo?

I disagree. Most of the sports demos I have played were a pretty accurate representation of what the retail game would be. Of course I expect the retail version to have less glitches and be a bit more fine-tuned but I can't think of a sports demo where the retail version was significantly better than the demo. It can be tough if a demo is stuck on a low difficulty level like NCAA last year. I can understand some glitches and even reduced commentary but the gameplay is often very similar imo.

[RussellW65]

I notice the read/pitch keys don't come up on every play they should.

I am having problems with the Inverted Veer. Is the read the playside DE?

I am an option guy so I have been playing as Oregon a bunch. What I do is each game I play in only one formation