Share Your Impressions of NCAA Football 11 (Post-patch #2, LTP #2)

I wouldn't mind the hook zones issues with the stock plays so much if they at least gave us some kind of over-ride option. It looks like the issue is that the stock plays have hook zones tied to specific areas on the field. If there was at least some way to manually hot route a hook zone that would essentially just drop straight back no matter where the player lines up, then that would be a workable solution.

Realistically, they could also partially solve the problem by having the drop points tied to where the ball is, rather than to field landmarks. So for instance instead of dropping to 8-10 yards and on the hash mark in cover 3, the MLB could instead just drop 8-10 yards off the ball and about 7 yards to the left/right of where the ball is snapped from.

The problem is that right now there are literally areas on the field that are impossible to cover with zones. There is no combination of hot routes that will get a player to go and stand in the desired place. And there are actually multiple players guarding the wrong spot, so you can't even just manually take control of somebody and do it yourself, because that just leaves a hole someplace else.

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Originally Posted by steelerfan

Jaymo, they said they fixed the problem of teams stockpiling certain positions. Your Dynasty (like mine) would take years to correct itself. A patch isn't going to instantly correct a roster that has 7 Free Safeties and such. That would take a few years for that team to turnover their roster.

That being said, I don't know if it's fixed now. The only way to find out would be to start a new Dynasty and get back to year 5 or so.

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Good point Steerlerfan. I guess beig so far into dynasty it will take a lot longer to sort out. That's the crappy part though... I love my team and I don't want to restart. However, do I want to play the next 3-7 seasons before the issues sort themselves out?

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Originally Posted by jaymo76

Good point Steerlerfan. I guess beig so far into dynasty it will take a lot longer to sort out. That's the crappy part though... I love my team and I don't want to restart. However, do I want to play the next 3-7 seasons before the issues sort themselves out?

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That is my quandry too, brother.

I've only played a couple games since the patch (had to go through offseason in Dynasty Mode), but in a game today the CPU QB was excellent but their run game was very weak. Excluding sacks, I think they had around 10-20 yards rushing for the game. I'm anxious to get into conference play and see if that continues.

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Originally Posted by jaymo76

2. What happened to the cpu rush game? Post patch two not one team has over 100 yards ruhsing.... (the closest was 71)

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In our Online Dynasty, three teams (UNC, Maryland and Iowa) all had 100+ days against top-tier defenses (VT, FSU, and Ohio State).

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Originally Posted by JeffHCross

In our Online Dynasty, three teams (UNC, Maryland and Iowa) all had 100+ days against top-tier defenses (VT, FSU, and Ohio State).

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Are those sim results or are those cpu rushing totals against human players? If those are cpu rush totals against human players then I'm guessing you guys are playing on Heisman or those guys have no clue on how to stop the run. Iowa is a good running team though.

I'm not a great player. For most guys on hardcore sites I'd probably be considered pretty average. The one thing I'm good at is playing as a LB and stopping the run game. EA ALWAYS releases a game with a neutered cpu running game. I usually have to do big slider changes but that's fine. Now I can't do anything because the sliders are screwed in this area. I've played quite a few games after this second patch and it's a real problem that I think more and more people will find. Right now I don't think people believe me in how screwed up the sliders are. Glad Jaymo tried cpu run block at 100 and human rush defense at 0 to see the horrible results.

Rhombic - have you experimented with the pass coverage sliders in the gameplan section to see how they affect those zone coverages? I do like playing with aggressive zone as it seems better but haven't tried anything else.

The gameplan settings aren't viable. Aggressive zones leaves huge gaping holes down the seams and over intermediate-deep middle.

Your best bet when using a zone coverage on the hash is to call a C3 rotation "Cloud" coverage. You will leave the flat to the boundary side open, as with any coverage you will leave something open however.

The Problem though is that EA didn't supply us with a lot of rotation coverages.

In the 4-3 playbook there are only 6 plays that are designed hash zone defenses.

4-3 Normal: Zip Shoot Gut (Blitz)
4-3 Under: Over 3 Strong
4-3 Under: Zone Blitz (Blitz)
Nickle Normal: Over Strong
Nickle Normal: 3 Weak Roll
Dime Normal: Strong Roll 3 (Blitz) will work but you will need to hot route the boundry slot corner to a buzz zone.

There are a few others that you can get to work with hot routing however. Always make sure the cloud corner (plays the flat) is to the field side, if he is playing on the boundary side the buzz defender to the field side will over run the curl leaving it wide open.

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Do not use Nickle Strong: Cloud Zone for this purpose as it covers nothing on the weak side flat or curl, unless you want to hot route a defensive lineman to a buzz zone.

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Originally Posted by Rudy

Are those sim results or are those cpu rushing totals against human players?

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CPU rushing against humans. All-American difficulty with Oneback's sliders.

To be fair, Iowa only broke over 100 because of a single 74-yard rush against me. No clue how the other two gave up their yards.

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Originally Posted by JeffHCross

CPU rushing against humans. All-American difficulty with Oneback's sliders.

To be fair, Iowa only broke over 100 because of a single 74-yard rush against me. No clue how the other two gave up their yards.

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By boosting cpu RBA we can have the cpu break the long runs but it's impossible after the second patch to have them establish a consistent ground game unless you go to Heisman imo. Iowa's ground game sounds pretty pathetic against you when you remove that 74 yard run. I know most college backs average 5 ypc in part to longer runs but the cpu doesn't get consistent 3-5 yard runs. There are tons of plays stopped for negative yardage now. Way too much. My NT in 7 games has 21 tackles for loss. It's terrible now.

I even tried a game on Varsity yesterday just hoping the cpu run game would be better (some claim it is) but it still sucked like AA. In a couple Heisman games the cpu can definitely establish a more consistent ground game. At least I have the option of deleting the second patch. You guys don't.

What I really don't understand about this second patch is that they boosted the kickers to make them more accurate and have stronger legs. They boosted the QB accuracy (how much can be debated). They dumbed down the cpu running game. NOBODY asked for this stuff. Most people felt these were good or needed to be pushed in the opposite direction. Why on earth would they have adjusted those things? It makes no sense to me.

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Originally Posted by Rudy

What I really don't understand about this second patch is that they boosted the kickers to make them more accurate and have stronger legs. They boosted the QB accuracy (how much can be debated). They dumbed down the cpu running game. NOBODY asked for this stuff. Most people felt these were good or needed to be pushed in the opposite direction. Why on earth would they have adjusted those things? It makes no sense to me.

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If true (haven't tested it, but I believe you), that's pretty discouraging. I really liked how they were toned down out of the box this year, but hopefully this is something that a LTP can address. I wonder if they were bumped up to help users who had very poor kickers several seasons into Dynasty Mode before the first LTP arrived.

In terms of sliders I don't think the punters were affected too much but the FG kickers have about at least a one click boost in length and accuracy. The one thing I do like about the special teams sliders the last few years is that they are universal across difficulty levels. You don't have to adjust them when you bounce between AA or Heisman.

I actually squeezed in 3 freaking games on Heisman this morning. What I've been doing the last four games is playing a "same" game. Ie. This morning I played VT vs. VT, LSU vs LSU and OU vs OU. It's a really good way to identify imbalances in your sliders when figuring out what to do. I must say I'm very happy with Heisman at this point. It doesn't play cheap imo. It's just harder than most people like at default. With some tweaks in your favour the game plays really well. I don't notice any cheating at all. The only negative is how aggressive the cpu is on defense. They really press and blitz more than on AA. Too many blown coverages where you can hit a player racing down the seam. And I do agree with the one poster on OS that is saying that they tend to do this more on 3rd downs. I hope they tone down the cpu blitz tendencies. I think the cpu can get too pass happy at times but their running game is a lot better on Heisman.

The coach sliders according to guys on OS do not work as well as pre-patch #2. I've never really played with those run/pass tendencies and def aggressive sliders (only available in dynasty under coach positions I think) but some good people are not happy with those either.

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Originally Posted by Rudy

What I've been doing the last four games is playing a "same" game. Ie. This morning I played VT vs. VT, LSU vs LSU and OU vs OU. It's a really good way to identify imbalances in your sliders when figuring out what to do.

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I suggested this exact technique in the Community Sliders threads. ;)

Weird....not sure if this is coincidence or not, but the CPU rushed better for me on RTG.

I played four games today on AA with slightly tweaked sliders (+5 to CPU Run Blocking & +5 Run Ability). Best run game for CPU was 18 for 65, worst was -2 yards, but sacks buried that number. I'm going to bump up each by 5 again and see how that works out.

Yeah, played another AA game vs Oregon.... under 50 total rush yards for the cpu. Whatever EA did, they need to fix it. Here's the question though? Was running affected by the PATCH 2 or Tuner set 2? If it's tuner set two that should be an easy fix??? Hopefully...

I'd like to know if the devs are reading some of these concerns. The broken sliders (cpu run block and human run defense) are a huge concern for me. I want those fixed.

I personally think the problem is that across the community boards, kids that get the game and have a difficult time adjusting start complaining that everything is too hard. "OMG it's too hard to run against the cpu. Defense needs to be toned down", etc. That's my read on some of the changes. Like cdj said it was nice how everything was toned "down" to start, and also the recruit rating issue probably is to blame for the special teams boost.

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Originally Posted by Rudy

I'd like to know if the devs are reading some of these concerns. The broken sliders (cpu run block and human run defense) are a huge concern for me. I want those fixed.

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That's weird because across the board in about 6 games between mine and my brother's dynasties (post patch) the cpu avg rushing has been higher than before, at anywhere from 135-156 yards/game. TF LoC Sliders on all 3 dynasties I'm in.
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