NCAA Football 14 at E3

[AustinWolv]

For anyone concerned with CPU playcalling in late game situations, check out the 4th quarter of the Akron at Maryland videos... Akron is the CPU and comes back from down 15 in the 4th to tie it. The playcalling and execution is on par with many human players.

That is fucking exciting. Can't wait to give it a shot personally and see what happens.

The thing I love about the coordinator cam is that it's an "all 22" cam so that I can see all of my receivers, unlike in '13. @ 3:56 of Q3 of the Akron game, the CPU is on the left hash and has trips right. You can't see the outside WR at the start of the play. He runs a streak and from the snap of the ball until the QB throws him the ball, he's never on the screen.

While I've been dying for an "all 22" cam, it looks like in some situations, coordinator cam still isn't it.

Haven't watched the video as I'm stuck at work, but if you can see the DBs/coverage, doesn't matter *that* much about seeing the WR.........and it should still be better than past versions.
Understand your point though, can't wait to try out coord cam.

[jello1717]

He runs the coolest looking option play I've ever seen (the Shovel pass option), but never does the shovel pass portion of it even though Akron went directly for him twice.

Those plays seemed doomed to failure. Both times the pitch reads are the RE and the FS. Both times the RE takes away the RB pitch guy so the correct read is to keep it and then read the next guy to either keep it or pitch to the LB guy. But both times, the impact ROLB flies through untouched and takes out the QB, forcing a pitch to the RB guy. Then the FS (who was supposed to be the 2nd pitch read) comes in to make the tackle.

Both of those plays were blown up by the ROLB who comes through untouched, even though he's not a pitch read.

[jello1717]

That is fucking exciting. Can't wait to give it a shot personally and see what happens.


Haven't watched the video as I'm stuck at work, but if you can see the DBs/coverage, doesn't matter *that* much about seeing the WR.........and it should still be better than past versions.
Understand your point though, can't wait to try out coord cam.

In this particular play, you can't see either the WR or the DB. If this were a user and you chose to throw it to that WR, you'd be doing so completely blindly. Even in '13 I don't think I've had a guy completely off the screen for this long.

[Rudy]

Do you guys think All American will be tougher this year and the main difficulty for most people on the forums?

[PDuncanOSU]

At the 4:48 mark of the 3rd Q of the Maryland-Akron game you can see an Inside Zone run, a playaction pass, and a read option in the playcalling screen that all have a similar motion by the TE. Does anyone know how similar plays like this will function together? Do plays "link" similarly to how they did in NCAA13? In NCAA 13 I had trouble getting linked plays to work in a custom playbook.

[morsdraconis]

Do you guys think All American will be tougher this year and the main difficulty for most people on the forums?

From watching MS's videos, absolutely not. The silly stuff he was doing was the reason why those games were as close as they were. He lost to Akron because he went for 2 twice, kept throwing the ball in the 4th quarter after he was up 15-0, and, above all else, PICKED THE SAME DAMN DEFENSE THE WHOLE GAME. I don't know what the fuck his fascination was with the 2-4-6 Dime formation, but good god it's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. I can only hope he was doing it to show how the CPU can take advantage of stupidly choosing the same thing over and over again (I doubt it).

He never throws to his outside receivers unless it's a curl route (the big play he got off that curl route is a pick against a defender that isn't a 60 overall player) and pretty much only targets his TEs or HBs when throwing the ball unless it's over the middle after holding the ball for 4+ seconds. He clearly doesn't read blockers because the first play of the game, it was CRYSTAL clear that the MLB was gonna come untouched up the middle to stop the run before it had a prayer of going anywhere.

So, long story short, no way All-American is gonna be the main difficulty because it's still the pushover that it used to be (at least default wise). I haven't touched a NCAA game in ~2 years and I'm pretty sure I could still throw for 350+ against default All-American with pretty much any team.

[jello1717]

At the 4:48 mark of the 3rd Q of the Maryland-Akron game you can see an Inside Zone run, a playaction pass, and a read option in the playcalling screen that all have a similar motion by the TE. Does anyone know how similar plays like this will function together? Do plays "link" similarly to how they did in NCAA13? In NCAA 13 I had trouble getting linked plays to work in a custom playbook.

I had very few plays that I could set up in my CPB in '13 either. As for your linked plays question, yes the mechanic still exists in '14. There's even a coach skill that improves it.

Setup Artist- Successful run plays will set up the play action pass plays faster and vice-versa.

Level 1: Decreases the yardage needed for Setup Plays by 10%. Choose plays that are in the same formation type (pass or run).

[PDuncanOSU]

At the 4:48 mark of the 3rd Q of the Maryland-Akron game you can see an Inside Zone run, a playaction pass, and a read option in the playcalling screen that all have a similar motion by the TE. Does anyone know how similar plays like this will function together? Do plays "link" similarly to how they did in NCAA13? In NCAA 13 I had trouble getting linked plays to work in a custom playbook.

I had very few plays that I could set up in my CPB in '13 either. As for your linked plays question, yes the mechanic still exists in '14. There's even a coach skill that improves it.

Thanks for the reply. I didn't remember seeing that coach skill. I wonder for this example which one of those run plays will setup the playaction pass? It'd be great if either of the runs would, but I doubt it.

[gschwendt]

I may be wrong but I want to say that to get them to setup in NCAA 13, you actually had to have the plays side by side in the playbook. Again, that may not be correct but hopefully it's fixed for NCAA 14... I know it was discussed while we were there in March but admittedly I was only half listening while concentrating on something else.

[ram29jackson]

He runs the coolest looking option play I've ever seen (the Shovel pass option), but never does the shovel pass portion of it even though Akron went directly for him twice.

From watching MS's videos, absolutely not. The silly stuff he was doing was the reason why those games were as close as they were. He lost to Akron because he went for 2 twice, kept throwing the ball in the 4th quarter after he was up 15-0, and, above all else, PICKED THE SAME DAMN DEFENSE THE WHOLE GAME. I don't know what the fuck his fascination was with the 2-4-6 Dime formation, but good god it's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. I can only hope he was doing it to show how the CPU can take advantage of stupidly choosing the same thing over and over again (I doubt it).

He never throws to his outside receivers unless it's a curl route (the big play he got off that curl route is a pick against a defender that isn't a 60 overall player) and pretty much only targets his TEs or HBs when throwing the ball unless it's over the middle after holding the ball for 4+ seconds. He clearly doesn't read blockers because the first play of the game, it was CRYSTAL clear that the MLB was gonna come untouched up the middle to stop the run before it had a prayer of going anywhere.

So, long story short, no way All-American is gonna be the main difficulty because it's still the pushover that it used to be (at least default wise). I haven't touched a NCAA game in ~2 years and I'm pretty sure I could still throw for 350+ against default All-American with pretty much any team.

hehehe

[jello1717]

I may be wrong but I want to say that to get them to setup in NCAA 13, you actually had to have the plays side by side in the playbook. Again, that may not be correct but hopefully it's fixed for NCAA 14... I know it was discussed while we were there in March but admittedly I was only half listening while concentrating on something else.

In my CPB all of my formations are ordered like this from left to right, top to bottom:

1. HB runs
2. QB runs
3. WR runs
4. Options
5. PA passes
6. screens
7. short passes
8. medium passes
9. deep passes

and while I rarely had setup up plays, I'm 90% sure that some of the rare setup plays I had weren't side by side (or even on the same page) in my pb.

[PDuncanOSU]

I may be wrong but I want to say that to get them to setup in NCAA 13, you actually had to have the plays side by side in the playbook. Again, that may not be correct but hopefully it's fixed for NCAA 14... I know it was discussed while we were there in March but admittedly I was only half listening while concentrating on something else.

I made sure the plays that I thought should link were always side by side but it still wouldn't always work in my custom book in '13. There's a good chance it was just user error though, with me thinking plays should link that really weren't.

Anyway, for NCAA 14... I'm excited to learn in the demo and real game how the personnel-based play calling works both when huddling and no-huddle, if formation audibles are any different and how the linked plays will work. These will all affect getting my no-huddle spread-option set up how I want.

[Escobar]

In NCAA '13 I used a custom playbook and routinely got plays to be setup w/o having them next to each other. I just put my plays into my playbook and didn't even worry about ordering them. Sometimes after having a big play I would get the Setup play highlight coming up. I think most people can't get them to work, because it is often plays that you wouldn't think are the setup/linked plays.

[cdj]

While at E3, Shopmaster was kind enough to ask for some community questions about NCAA 14. Due to time constraints, he wasn't able to get to all of them but he did get to ask three:

- More on Dynamic Impact Players: New to Dynasty Mode, your Impact Players will change throughout the season based upon their stats compared to conference & national leaders. (I'm not sure when or how often it checks or changes them, however.) This feature has been mentioned in passing a few times, but yet to be detailed by EA.

- Some info on EA's plans to release more uniforms throughout the year compared to last year.

- If you are a Season Ticket subscriber, your NCAA Football perk will be Ultimate Team packs. (Not a huge surprise, but EA has yet to formally announce it.)

[Escobar]

Looks like I won't be getting Season Ticket this year. I will be out of town that weekend and Ultimate Team doesn't interest me at all.

[ram29jackson]

[ram29jackson]

Beaver teeth on a helmet ? haha

[bdoughty]

Beaver teeth on a helmet ? haha

You are on the West coast and I assume get a lot of PAC-12 games? Been the same helmet for 10+ years. Less time playing Dress Up, more time watching football.

[ram29jackson]

You are on the West coast and I assume get a lot of PAC-12 games? Been the same helmet for 10+ years. Less time playing with Dress Up, more time watching football.

nope they have different helmets this time around and a bigger beaver

[Jayrah]

nope they have different helmets this time around and a bigger beaver

That video has the old helmet though....