NCAA Football 14 Pre-Release Q&A: Dynasty

[SCClassof93]

Guys forgive me if this has already been asked/answered (I am trying to keep up) already. In the dynasty promo video UGAg in one screen has 5000 pts to allocate and then later in another screen has 10000 pts. Any details on this?

[CLW]

Guys forgive me if this has already been asked/answered (I am trying to keep up) already. In the dynasty promo video UGAg in one screen has 5000 pts to allocate and then later in another screen has 10000 pts. Any details on this?

I believe they said in the off-season you get more points. There are also Coaching Skillz you can acquire that give you an early season or late season "push". Perhaps its one of those two things.

[JBHuskers]

Yes you get more points in the offseason.

[SCClassof93]

Thanks guys!

[dw6xl]

Hey guys, new member here. This is a question more about gameplay. Did you guys notice any differences in how different teams call plays on defense like one team plays majority man because of their scheme or one teams blitzes alot or does every team still play the same zone defense 85% of the time?

[JPBD]

Also, going back to the Playing Time dealbreaker screen; Will PT be influenced by other incoming recruits as well and how much influence will your ovr scouting play into it, if at all? So say you have a Qb who you've scouted and he committed early as a 77. Late in the process you have a gem emerge as an 80. Will he be impacted by the commitment in the Playing Time portion, even though he would likely play first based on your scouting?

Yes, they will be impacted by other incoming recruits dynamically.

[CLW]

I noticed this little nugget about the Instant Commit Coaching Skill:

This skill provides a 5% chance of instant commitment when you offer a scholarship, and goes up to 10% and 20% over the next two levels.

Two questions:

(1) Does the Instant Commit still only occur if you are the Leader for a recruit? (I've never seen an instant commit unless you were the leader for the recruit)

(2) Is it a 5%/10%/20% INCREASE IN LIKELIHOOD from a normal instant commit OR does that mean that 1/5 times you offer a scholarship that player will commit (assuming you have maxed out this skill)?

[gschwendt]

I've been holding off on answering anything that wasn't already released in the news/info from yesterday but now that the official blog is out, you'll get everything I know. There's still another question or two about stuff I have that I've fired off emails for so I should have more to share after I get answers back.

• Practice Mode is now available during Preseason... a small but very welcome addition for Online Dynasties when you're itching to try out your new team (you're welcome Papa Lonestar)
• Scouting now unlocks a percentage each time you scout; the percentage is a coach skill that you can build on. At the base level, I believe you only unlock like 10% of a recruit. As you upgrade, you can then scout 25% in a week, 50%, and 100% (numbers may not be entirely accurate but you get the idea). However, the costs for those do increase so it's not like you get 100% for the same cost as 10%. This also means that scouting an Athlete 50% costs the same as scouting an OL 50%.
• There's a setting to determine how fast coaches progress (options like fast, medium, slow). That way if you want to become a top level coach in the first year, you can but if you want to struggle to get to the first level, you can do that too.

With the podcast saying visits later in the season being more important, does this mean recruits do not commit until late in the season/it is harder to get them to commit?

I believe more will hold out longer, however with those visits, it's not like you'll get a bonus for being in Week 15, but rather you get a bonus for being the last place that the recruit visits. For example, if I schedule a recruit to visit in Week 10 and you schedule him to visit in Week 9, and cdj schedules him for Week 8, I'll get the most of a boost because mine is last but you'll get a smaller boost over cdj as well. However, if no one else invited him for a visit (should be rare), then I don't get that boost.

Not sure if this is truly a dynasty question or not, but I'll ask it here:

Are there any changes to rosters and/or depth charts? Strongside/weakside instead of left/right DE and LB? Maybe a nickleback position or on offense a hybrid FB/TE H-back spot or a WR/HB spot?

No changes. It's been a push of ours but it's not happened.

I hope recruiting difficulty is still in the game. Please tell me they didn't cut that out. That was a huge addition in '11.

Overall I'm very happy with these changes. Can the guys with hands on talk about how much quicker this has made the time between games?

Recruiting difficulty is still in the game.

Recruiting can be very quick, though you can also spend a lot of time with it (if not just as much as before). You can analyze how you're doing competitive from week to week against other teams... so each week, you'll probably want to check to see how much ground certain teams are gaining on you and then adjust your points for that recruit as needed. As well, in the past, since scouting & recruiting were from separate buckets, you could just use an hour of time on 10 recruits. Now, since they're from the same bucket, you have to budget from that and be more wise on how you spend.

Do OC/DC matter in OD if you're a HC? Will you get the in-game benefit of your OC/DC skill set or is that only if you're a OC/DC? I know last year they were no more than a name on the staff and had absolutely no influence one way or another if you were the HC.

The names and playbooks for your OC/DC don't matter but the skills that you assign to them do. So in a way, you do have control over what kind of OC/DC you have... you determine whether you want them to focus on throwing, catching, carrying, etc. You can over time build them up to where they can master all three but especially in the early goings, you have to decide what you consider most important.

As well, the OC/DC that you're assigned (when yours is hired away or something) is based on your HC level... so if you're a high level HC, you'll get a higher level OC/DC and you'll be able to distribute his points accordingly.

What happens in the pre-season for NCAA 14 regarding recruiting/scouting?
Last year we could jump into recruits top 10 and scout 20 or more players.

Also, from an old Q&A list
Other Dynasty questions:
1) Medical redshirts?
2) Spring game?
3) Off-season drills?
4) Homecoming game?
5) Heisman presentation show?
6) Dynamic player ratings from week to week like Madden?
7) More accurate sim stats?
8) Senior day/night?
9) Create or lose rivalries?
10) HS All-American Bowl?
11) Senior Bowl?
12) Designate my 3 impact players and team captains?
13) National signing day show with player announcements from a select group of top recruits?
14) Can we update our Stadiums over the course of a Dynasty? Specifically the ability to change the seating capacity of the stadium? Change the field color? Endzone and Midfield art? Field type (grass, field turf, art. turf)?
15) Control over the weather in Dynasty games (way too many rain games for my liking-I hate having to always play in a domed stadium)?

In the preseason, you of course go through and add players to your board as before. However, for scouting, you get a bucket of points that would be used to scout.

1) No
2) No
3) No
4) No
5) I don't believe so
6) No
7) Unsure... I don't know that it was a focus
8) As cdj said, may be some commentary regarding that but we don't know for sure
9) No
10) No
11) No
12) As cdj said, those will adjust automatically throughout the season based on player performances.
13) No
14) No
15) No

With regards to the matchup stick, will it be identical to the PS2 version in 06/07? Secondly, how long does it take to "unlock" via rpg?

It's not identical... they were still working on it when we were there in March but my understanding is that it will show different things based on your coach skill level. So at the first level, it might show the OVR difference between the two but on the second level it might show height difference or something like that. Not sure how the levels work exactly but it's not the green/red matchups like before I don't believe.

but another question I had for dynasty is can you still create prospects and add them to the recruiting board? I had fun making boom or bust prospects or rare players from out of my pipeline area for that extra challenge... thanks for reading.

Pretty sure creating recruits in an offline dynasty is still there... I didn't test it specifically though.

Has anything been said about a possiblr release date for the demo?

We never know those things before you guys do... when EA says something, we'll certainly share it.

Two questions:

(1) Does the Instant Commit still only occur if you are the Leader for a recruit? (I've never seen an instant commit unless you were the leader for the recruit)

(2) Is it a 5%/10%/20% INCREASE IN LIKELIHOOD from a normal instant commit OR does that mean that 1/5 times you offer a scholarship that player will commit (assuming you have maxed out this skill)?

1) Yes... still only if you're the #1 team on his board.
2) It's a 5%/10%/20% increase in likelihood... not a 20% chance.

[gschwendt]

If you've asked a question and feel it hasn't been answered to this point, certainly fire away and I'll do my best to answer.

[JBHuskers]

Historically speaking the PT grade was based off your roster not your recruits that you are going after and/or signed.

The trick was to not have any freshman and you would have a good PT grade.

Got an update on this...

Playing time grade will dynamically change, when you add a prospect to your recruiting board.

It will look at your roster, excluding seniors, and count how many eligible players are in that position and the impact on them.

[CLW]

Did you guys get to feel/experience how powerful these Coaching Skills are? There definitely is the potential for it to be WAY overblown (07 momentum meter). I'm wondering if EA quantified to you guys how big of a "boost" they were getting and what the baseline was without these skills.

[JBHuskers]

Did you guys get to feel/experience how powerful these Coaching Skills are? There definitely is the potential for it to be WAY overblown (07 momentum meter). I'm wondering if EA quantified to you guys how big of a "boost" they were getting and what the baseline was without these skills.

I'd wait to answer that until the Coach Skill blog comes out. Seems like a good amount has changed there since March.

[Papa LoneStar]

[*]Practice Mode is now available during Preseason... a small but very welcome addition for Online Dynasties when you're itching to try out your new team (you're welcome Papa Lonestar)

Bless you, sir....bless you!!!!

[azcard480]

Thanks for answering my questions I just really wanted to know if they improved teambuilder, I think it is one of their best features in the game, too bad they couldn't do anything more to it...

[jello1717]

Scouting now unlocks a percentage each time you scout; the percentage is a coach skill that you can build on. At the base level, I believe you only unlock like 10% of a recruit. As you upgrade, you can then scout 25% in a week, 50%, and 100% (numbers may not be entirely accurate but you get the idea). However, the costs for those do increase so it's not like you get 100% for the same cost as 10%. This also means that scouting an Athlete 50% costs the same as scouting an OL 50%.

Are you sure about that? In this SS:

It says that @ level 2 you get 50% for 50 points and then at level 3 you get 100% for 50 points so that makes it sound like it's the same cost for each level (or at the very least for levels 2 and 3).

[SmoothPancakes]

I believe they said in the off-season you get more points. There are also Coaching Skillz you can acquire that give you an early season or late season "push". Perhaps its one of those two things.

We gotz Coaching Skillz, now we just need some Rastahs!

And maybe bring back the apartment and girlfriends, I wanna add some bling! There's no shame in that game.

[JBHuskers]

We gotz Coaching Skillz, now we just need some Rastahs!

I should kick you in the taint.

[CLW]

We gotz Coaching Skillz, now we just need some Rastahs!

Truer words have NEVER been spoken. Were be my mo fo RASTAHS!!!!!

[SmoothPancakes]

I should kick you in the taint.

[Tryhard Nation]

Will the skills trainer be available with your dynasty team?