The Infinity Engine--Changing the game on and off the field

As we all know, the infinity engine was not present in last years NCAA football game. Everyone had requested a physics engine and EA finally followed suit and granted our wish. In theory, NCAA was about 7 weeks away from having the infinity engine, but the earlier release made this option unavailable. According to multiple sources, Ben Haumiller has gone on record saying an improved version of the physics engine (presumeably Infinity Engine 2.0 with hopefully blocking improments). This new addition to the game will greatly affect not only gameplay, but also Dynasty. In theory, this engine takes into account a persons speed and weight to determine the result of doing things such as tackling, trucking, and blocking. Weight and size are key here because they determine success.

The New Dimension

As I said before, the engine will not only affect you on the field, but also off the field. A players size, along with speed, will directly affect your decisions when recruiting and setting up the depth chart. Why play a 91 speed 5'7, 165 RB when you can play a 90 speed 6'2 210 RB and win a much higher percentage of collisions. In the past, recruiting was a matter of a few, specific ratings, with height and weight having little to no implications on the game. Now you will looking for players within height ranges and cannot build a super-speed team with linebackers that are converted safeties and 210 lbs because the other team will run all over you.



Player Growth
In previous editions of NCAA Football, players only grew by marginal amounts and their height was static. Real life is much different, off seasons are spent in the weight rooms as players shed bad weight and try to develop muscle mass. With size having a direct effect on the game, this must change. A proposed solution to this would be that a coach could tell a player to spend his offseason shedding bad weight. He may suffer a little bit in other ratings but he would lose weight (which we can assume is a negative because between a 210 pound player and a 190 pound player with identical ratings, the 210 pounder is better). In order to balance this presumed negative, physical ratings should change. If a player loses weight he should be faster and more agile and if he gains weight his strength should go up. The total tradeoff is that if you want to have a player work on his weight, then he will not gain as much in position specific skills, but his physical ratings may match your scheme or desired ability. Also, the level of your weight room and/or your strength and conditioning program, will affect your success in doing this.


The Balance
In order to make NCAA dynasty go to the next level EA Sports must add a layer of decision making. As I Peench said concerning some of the general fundamental problems plaguing the mode: , "Choices: There aren’t enough difficult choices or trade-offs when it comes to building your program or picking recruits". There must be a negative correlation between size and athletic ability. This means as size (mainly weight) goes up, the athletic abilities (excluding strength) should go down. It is exactly what is needed, a tradeoff that allows you to really build your program how you want it. There will always be outliers (aka athletic specimens) or slow fat people, but if you took and graphed the size and found a SPARQ rating (without weight multipliers) and put that on the other axis, I think you would see the negative correlation I am speaking of.

Your Values Matter
Do you prefer size or speed? Power Backs or Speed Backs? Does your conference require quick, pass defending outside linebackers or a muscular, run stopping crew? You must ask yourself these questions when recruiting and setting your depth chart. Not only your play style, but also the opposing teams play style, will directly influence your choices on the trail.

Conclusion
EA Sports must execute the Infinity Engine in gameplay correctly to make dynasty mode deeper. The addition of tradeoffs such as weight training and size vs speed. This is just another way to be able to define your program as you progress and add to your legacy

In the recruiting field, I think there needs to be a dynamic that includes "System Fit" as well. I think in Madden it was put in as "Scheme Fit". If a kid doesn't fit the system, no matter how good he is, it should be a big deciding factor on his interest. I think you should be able to sway him with enough recruiting bonuses, but it should be much more difficult to sway these recruits in your favor if they realize they don't fit into your gameplan.

Similarly, I think there should be a system where you can maybe peg up to 3 recruits per season as "must sign" recruits. You wouldn't have to use these and you could only select them in the preseason, but you would get bonuses for pegging them, meaning if you were in a close race it could make the difference. I think this would be just another quick but great game within the game and would make it more fun to recruit. Of course it only works if the CPU uses this on their top 3 initial choices as well (they should have the advantage of knowing the final scouted ratings along with the USERS not being able to see their selections. To balance you could incur negatives in your recruiting fields for not meeting certain individual requirements if they were to sign, along with the chances that they could transfer or leave early.