NCAA Football 13 - Dynasty Mode Improvements

[gschwendt]

Kwizzy, do you know what time the podcast is tomorrow?


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I think they're probably recording it tomorrow. They've been made available on Thursdays in the past and the one three weeks ago was released around 3pm CT. We'll be sure to make it available once they release it.

[Jayrah]

Unfortunately you won't see updates for user games regardless of when they are played. They had hoped they'd be able to implement it but the way that they store results from user OD games made it difficult to bring those into other games.

Oh well. Not a huge deal as I'll get the updates from my dynasty forums anyways. Would've been cool though. Maybe next year.

I don't know for sure but I imagine it will be a semi-random timeframe that coordinates with yours. So if you've completed 60% of the 2nd quarter, you might see CPU games that are in the 50%-70% completion range of the second quarter. That's 100% a guess.

This is how I see it happening too. That's really the only way to simulate those games and start other games up during your game.

Another question relating to time range: Progressive lighting is play by play this year, so is that going to change by percentage based on what qtr length you're on as well? Hopefully that's the case because it brings more immersion to how fast you are moving along in the day.

[Treadstone6700]

Has anyone asked why 85 man rosters can't get in the game and gotten a clear answer?

I understand it's not a big issue for some people, but it would make a HUGE difference when doing a rebuild of a small prestige school.

When I play as Miami it's not an issue to just bring a new 4 or 5 star kid in to replace transfers or guys leaving.

But 1-3 star schools stay competitive by grabbing the 2 star kids they can get, redshirting them and benching them until their junior or senior year until they are developed. Boise State is a great example of how they have grabbed 2-3 star kids and they redshirt almost all of them and have them sit on the roster until they are ready to play.

Right now you can't do that accurately because of roster size restrictions.

It's not an issue if you are playing with Alabama or one of the big schools, but the small tiered schools 85 man rosters are necessary especially for realism.

Just wondering if any of the guys have ever asked them why it's not in and gotten specific answers. Thanks

[Deuce]

Has anyone asked why 85 man rosters can't get in the game and gotten a clear answer?

I understand it's not a big issue for some people, but it would make a HUGE difference when doing a rebuild of a small prestige school.

When I play as Miami it's not an issue to just bring a new 4 or 5 star kid in to replace transfers or guys leaving.

But 1-3 star schools stay competitive by grabbing the 2 star kids they can get, redshirting them and benching them until their junior or senior year until they are developed. Boise State is a great example of how they have grabbed 2-3 star kids and they redshirt almost all of them and have them sit on the roster until they are ready to play.

Right now you can't do that accurately because of roster size restrictions.

It's not an issue if you are playing with Alabama or one of the big schools, but the small tiered schools 85 man rosters are necessary especially for realism.

Just wondering if any of the guys have ever asked them why it's not in and gotten specific answers. Thanks

I wonder what issues it would create if only user teams were allowed to go over the 70 player limit? ...and the only players that could be over that limit would have to be red shirted. So 70 active players and 10 or so red shirts.


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[JBHuskers]

It's not a snap of the fingers to add 2000 players to make an 85 man roster. Development cost is probably the #1 reason.

And as Deuce said. Uneven teams would just be a nightmare.

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[JoeyJojoShabadoo]

I suspect the majority of the issue here is that NCAA is using a legacy DB (at least 2004, maybe older) for storing teams and rosters, and to be frank, the code is probably so brittle that making changes to this would probably have a cascading effect.

after that, you have to remember that they tend to work on back of the box bullet items, and "85 man rosters" is nowhere near as marketable as "RECE DAVIS OMG"

unfortunately, the direction the series has taken makes the core football experience secondary to marketing that can be sold to magazines

[BigBob]

I looked around through the entire thread, used the search function as well for this specific thread.

I see that it's been stated that there have been no upgrades to "Custom Conference" then "Dynamic Conference Prestige". Is this confirmed or just speculation at the moment? I wonder because the only thing I had been hoping for was the ability to add a few extra teams, even if it's only 12 teams, to NCAA so that we could add teams such as Villanova whom we know is probably going to make the jump within the next few years.

[gschwendt]

I looked around through the entire thread, used the search function as well for this specific thread.

I see that it's been stated that there have been no upgrades to "Custom Conference" then "Dynamic Conference Prestige". Is this confirmed or just speculation at the moment? I wonder because the only thing I had been hoping for was the ability to add a few extra teams, even if it's only 12 teams, to NCAA so that we could add teams such as Villanova whom we know is probably going to make the jump within the next few years.

The only change related to custom conferences is indeed the dynamic conference prestige. You won't be able to add any teams to the current included 123.

[Deuce]

unfortunately, the direction the series has taken makes the core football experience secondary to marketing that can be sold to magazines

I disagree. I think the addition of Rece Davis is the ONLY 'back of the box' feature that doesn't appeal to the hardcore football fan. ...and even that can be argued since presentation is very important to many hardcore gamers.


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[JoeyJojoShabadoo]

fixing recruiting after they broke it 2 (3?) years ago isn't a feature
the team grade tuning is fantastic, but that's hardly a meaty feature
RTG is hardcore? Heisman Challenge?

they've been at this for years, presentation is fluff, after the first 5 or so games, most people will skip "the...big...matchup...in" videos

[Treadstone6700]

It's not a snap of the fingers to add 2000 players to make an 85 man roster. Development cost is probably the #1 reason.

And as Deuce said. Uneven teams would just be a nightmare.

It's probably the #1 reason, but do we know that for a fact? Do we know how long it would take?

If we got a specific answer like: well it would take x amount of man hours so we chose to add x instead would be a lot better than all of us just saying "well the game would have to carry 2,000 more players in the database so it's not possible."

If it's not possible, then I want to know why it's not possible.

Essentially isn't the database comprised of rows (players) with values (appearance value, attribute value) as the columns. It's not adding new artwork it's adding 2,000 new rows and values to the database & the corresponding simluations to change those columns (progression).

If it is infinitely more complex than adding space to an existing database then I just want to know that.

It's not that I'm going to go nuts if the answer is "no" I just want to know why the answer is "no" for more of a reason than it would add 2,000 players so it must be hard.

[JoeyJojoShabadoo]

well in a traditional DB (sql, mysql) you would have a schema like: FirstName varchar(15), LastName varchar(15), Number int, Height (int) , Weight(int), Speed (int), etc

so the rows would be like

Michael, Jackson, 4, 72, 210, 85,...

like i said the DB in NCAA is pretty legacy, i know it goes back at least to NCAA 2004 (that's a 9 year old implementation), maybe back to the PS1 days
so they don't actually storage "rows" as variant arrays, rather they store them as bit vectors

since you can only use alpha characters for a name, instead of using 8bits for a character, they use 6 bits (52 upper/lower case letters). Height/Weight aren't stored either, i think you can have guys be between 5'0" and 7'0", against they can store height in a 6 bit vector, so 5'0" is stored as 0, 7'0" is stored as 34. Attribute values are all from 0-100, so you wouldn't waste 8 bits, you'd only need 7

although once upon a time 40 was the low value, so they only needed 6 bits to store attributes

now with that out of the way, this sort of thing is great for storing data, i can pack a guy into in 120 bytes. there problem now arises from how i unpack each player, how efficient (or inefficient) that process is, how i store and perform calculations, etc

changing that to accomodate a 21% increase should be trivial, my guess is there is some concern about what the effects are

[Treadstone6700]

now with that out of the way, this sort of thing is great for storing data, i can pack a guy into in 120 bytes. there problem now arises from how i unpack each player, how efficient (or inefficient) that process is, how i store and perform calculations, etc

changing that to accomodate a 21% increase should be trivial, my guess is there is some concern about what the effects are

I guess I'm just looking for some specifics and if someone could press about it at a community day or someone who has access to the EA devs.

It's a big deal to a lot of people who like to build up 1 & 2 star prestige schools, and I'm just trying to understand why the answer is no on the topic of 85 man rosters.

[cdj]

Kwizzy, do you know what time the podcast is tomorrow?

Unless I missed something, the podcast doesn't come out until Thursday. They may record it tomorrow and then edit and post on Thursday.

For some CD guys who may know, I have a question referring to the in game updates in reference to the online dynasties with users involved. To my knowledge, we will still receive studio updates during our games, correct? If so, my next question is if my game is at 12:00pm, and another user has a game at 6:00pm, will the games played across the country during my time be updated accordingly? For example, if I am Alabama, and Auburn plays Florida at 12:00pm, will it update me of that game during that time, or other games similar to that? Then if the other user plays his game later or at the same time as me, will scores update based on what time his user game is played at?Does all that makes sense? I know it seems a bit confusing, but I'm interested in how games will update when different users have games at different times. What would happen if we had games at 12:00pm and 6:00pm?

Like the other guys said, you won't get any updates or tickers from other user-games.

As for matching up, games in similar timeframes (kickoff times) will be in the ticker as in-progress games and (I'm not 100% sure) but I believe you will get more in-progress scores in Studio Updates than recap/update of a completed game. Though, I think the webcast did show one completed game in the two-panel screen, so it will happen. I think they are staggering (don't ask me how exactly) the games in your same timeframe so they won't all be at the same point for updates.

Question: [/B]Is there any mention of coaches to tie in with CC even more with Rece and Brad or is it just teams and players?

A lot of the Rece stuff was still being added, so we'll be hearing the vast majority of it for the first time on July 10 like everyone else. Overall, I don't think there's any major new commentary or overlays regarding coaches.

[MM Boost]

Joined this site today from Operation Sports to see if you guys can answer a question of mine.

I am a HUGE stickler for dynasty, and one thing that has bothered me year in and year out is Neutral Site games. It is such a huge part of college football these days along with wild and new uniforms, and I am curious to see if they included them this year? If not, do you guys know why they can't do this? It is included in play now games, so how can they not do it in Dynasty? With the Dallas/Cowboy classic kickoff and the Chic Fil A kickoff, it adds so much more to the college football season and always starts the year off with a bang. Without having these neutral site games, it absolutely kills the dynasty mode in terms of keeping things fresh and seeing new environments. Having to play Alabama at Bryant Denny in 2013 with my Hokies will kill the excitement...playing them on a neutral field for the Chic Fil A kick off at the Georgia Dome would be so awesome.

Thanks!

[souljahbill]

If they were in, I'm sure it would have been mentioned.

[gschwendt]

Neutral Site Games are not in this year as far as I'm aware. Not sure why they haven't been added.

[Jayrah]

@treastone and joey, I really don't think 85 man rosters will change as much as you think it will. You make it sound like players will get an extra year to progress or something which isn't the case. 1 and 2 stars are just not going to progress enough to play by your 4th 5th seasons of the dynasty when you're starting to pull in 3* recruits. And the fact is that there are always career backups on every team or guys that never end up playing for one reason or another. As much as a couple of you would like to believe it would help, it just wouldn't. I can see 5 extra guys but 15 is just completely unnecessary. Not trying to start an argument though. Just honestly there's no way you'd use all those spots.

[beartide06]

I would say to make sure you listen to the EA podcast tomorrow. When I asked Deuce's question earlier, it was made clear to me that they plan to go into detail about how these presentation elements are handled for TB teams AND in ODs with USER games. I think all of us can try to answer you but in the end, your best bet for understanding how it will all work and WHY things will work the way they will, is to listen to EA break it down for ya.

I appreciate it, man. I will definitely be looking out for the podcast and listening to it. I thought it was on Thursday?

I know it won't be "breaking" if 2 sets of games that are at the same time in game are being played at the same time IRL, that would be too sick. I would just hope that any user games that have already finished within your dynasty could upload the scores to your game and show it that way where appropriate. In other words if Kenny's game is before or at the same time as mine and he goes in and plays it before I start, I hope I can get those updates. If his game is after mine in game time than I hope I get the appropriate "to be played" ticker and if it's within 2 to 3 hr start time I hope I get the start of the updates, just like all other cpu games in that time span. The only problem I forsee there is how the updates/ticker evaluates time in game. The game seems like it will evaluate based on the real time difference for cpu games in concordance with your game on a 15 minute quarter scale, but most user dynasties are only 7 or 8 minute qtrs. So I don't know how the cpu will account for that in the updates???

Well, I am sure they have a system for evaluating scores during user games. Yeah, that guess that Chris mentioned sounds like a good one. It sounds like that could be right.

Like the other guys said, you won't get any updates or tickers from other user-games.As for matching up, games in similar timeframes (kickoff times) will be in the ticker as in-progress games and (I'm not 100% sure) but I believe you will get more in-progress scores in Studio Updates than recap/update of a completed game. Though, I think the webcast did show one completed game in the two-panel screen, so it will happen. I think they are staggering (don't ask me how exactly) the games in your same timeframe so they won't all be at the same point for updates.

Oh, I knew that the user games would not update in the ticker or during studio updates. Ok, here’s a question, when I complete my game and the scores are updated from the studio and ticker, when I finish my game and get back to the dynasty/schedule screen, will those games be completed with scores or will they still remain incomplete?

[beartide06]

This post was in reference to the voting poll. I must have accidentally placed it in the wrong area. My apologies.

This was a tough choice for me, personally. I decided to go with dynamic recruiting pitches. It was between that, scouting, or studio updates. I feel they can elaborate on all three a great deal in the future.