No Progression in NCAA Football 11 Dynasty mode? Blame EA Online Pass.

by Mike on August 23, 2010

We had three comments last week on one of the NCAA Football ‘11 threads about players seeing zero progression on their recruits in Dynasty mode.  This is an issue that I raised across forums when the 2nd patch came out for NCAA ‘11, and my concerns have been validated by these posts.  So, I’m creating a new entry to hopefully bring some attention to the issue and also just get more information out there.

NCAA Football ‘11 is a solid game, perhaps EA’s most complete football game in years, but there have still been a host of problems, many of which have been tuned and patched since the release of the game.  Patch #2, however, brought on a weird circumstance.  When Patch #2 was released, many X-Box 360 gamers noted that progression in Dynasty mode stopped, that upon simulating seasons, players had 0 improvement across the board.  There was a rush of concern over sports gaming forums but the “fix” came very quickly:  the Tuner #2 set solved this glitch and they were supposed to be released at the exact same time, but on the 360, there was a slight delay in the Tuner #2 set being released, so anybody who first downloaded Patch #2 but didn’t download Tuner #2 would have seen this problem until they went to the main screen and were prompted to download tuner #2. It goes without saying that this was a very isolated problem, as you are prompted to download both the tuner and patch when the game loads.

However, it raised an interesting dilemma that has since been confirmed.  On August 11, just after the release of the patch, I warned that we could run into a real problem with EA’s new “Online Pass” feature and the mandatory title updates.  Naturally, my thread was too dense and it got zero replies (no surprise for me), but now the problem has begun to start hitting the masses.  Here it is in detail:

In NCAA Football ‘11 if you download Patch #2 but do not download Tuner Set #2, then your players in dynasty mode won’t progress, they will be stuck at the level that they come in with.  Naturally, the argument is, well, download both the patch and the tuner update — because both of them together have made a really enjoyable dynasty mode.  But, here in lies the problem.  Title updates are mandated by Microsoft and Sony:  you cannot boot up the game and stay on X-Box Live or PSN without updating the game; you are logged out of XBL if you reject the prompt to update.  Again, I have to stress this, they are mandatory for the players to download.  Tuners, however, are not mandatory and even further, to download a tuner set from EA (which is almost like a mini-patch), you have to have the new, exclusive “EA Online Pass” enabled.  Now, if you bought the game new, then this isn’t a problem, every new user enters a code that can be found in the manual and, voila, you have access to the EA Online Pass, which grants you access to tuner downloads, online play, online dynasty, and more features.  However, if you bought the game used, second hand, or have simply forgotten to type in your Online Pass code, then you will not be able to download the tuner set.

The result is this:  The player starts up NCAA Football ‘11, they are prompted to download Patch #2, which is a mandatory requirement of Microsoft & Sony.  Patch #2 downloads.  Then, when the game loads, they are not prompted to download Tuner Set #2 because the player does not have EA Online Pass.  The result is that offline dynasty mode is completely borked by this.  This is completely contradictory to what EA originally intended and explained Online Pass as being:  It would enable certain functions of online play, dynasties, team builder, online matches, and so on, but would not effect the offline game.  Well, clearly, somebody at EA did not think the Online Pass idea through completely, because they’ve made a situation where offline play is functionally ruined by title updates being required but tuners being hidden behind the Online Pass layer.

If you are having this problem where your players do not progress in dynasty mode, please post a comment.  We had a few comments about this on the last NCAA blog, so I’m hoping to get some more feedback to be able to turn it over to EA — not just to fix this problem for NCAA ‘11, but just so that they can also reconsider their Online Pass strategy, and think the initiative through completely.

{ 12 comments }

NCAA Football 11’s Dynasty Mode Problems

by Mike on July 25, 2010

While this blog typically relates to Madden releases, the sister football project at EA, NCAA Football, has been a largely popular release this year.  While glitches and bugs have hurt EA’s football franchises for years, NCAA Football 11’s annual release seems to be one of the best yet, if not the best.  Unfortunately, it sounds like the game’s premier mode — Dynasty Mode — is fatally flawed, with recruits coming in too low, team prestige hampering recruiting, and ratings errors that are pushing mid-year dynasties to the IR.

Folks first started to note a problem on EA’s support forums, but the most informative thread has been on OperationSports (surprise surprise), where gamers have simulated several seasons into the future to find a vastly changed NCAA landscape.  Any player one season into NCAA will notice that their recruits are significantly lower rated than in previous years.  This isn’t that much of a problem if other settings were tuned up, but it looks like not enough changes were made to balance this out.  For instance, most 1-star recruits come in at the bottom rating, 40ovr, in the game.  2-Star recruits typically fall in the 40s and low 50s, while 3-star recruits fill most of the 50s and some into the 60s, overall.  Four and five star recruits are exceptionally difficult to come by, unless your team has a 5 or 6-star prestige rating, meaning that the majority of teams in the game are falling well below the ratings that they begin the game with.  Many players are noting that by year four and five of dynasty mode, the “FCS East / West / South / North” teams are easily beating teams in major conferences.  An OS member named “TracerBullet,” noted that teams like Syracuse, Idaho, Ohio, and others, were being pasted by FCS East, one of the “Fake” teams in dynasty mode used to fill the spot of a “Division 1-AA” college (renamed the “FCS” several years back).  To quote TracerBullet from this thread,

Any team that gets a D rating in a big conference looks to be screwed. Duke didn’t win a game and only put up a fight against Wake who went 6-6 and started the season ranked 20th. Cuse lost to FCS East 23-3. Kudos to Navy as they are still playing tough and are the only good service academy. besides a 3-40 loss to Notre Dame they never gave up more than 10 points. Looks like some of the small schools are actually benifitting from the bad conferences. Ohio is now a 4* school, CMU is now a 5* school, Toledo is a 3* and Temple is a 4*. Everyone else but NIU sucks in the MAC starwise but. Auburn got creamed 38-0 by CMU. Vandy is another awful team in a big conference only managing to beat D rated UTEP. Idaho lost to FCS West 31-7 en route to an 1-11 record. The WAC as a whole is terrible besides Fresno(5* school now)

A major problem with the low ratings is in skill positions, like kickers.  I noticed in my own dynasty that the only kicker I could recruit was a 1* overall kicker, who came in with a kicker rating that was lower than some of my other players — noteably, my Corner Back and Sophomore Middle Linebacker had higher kicking power and kicking accuracy ratings than the incoming kickers.  In my own team, I was able to use my punter as my kicker, avoiding having a kicker with 40pwr and 40acc (the lowest rating), but computer controlled teams simply aren’t that intelligent.  EA member Dan457457 posted this video of a shanked kick from approximately the 20 yard line, which is more common than not several years into dynasty mode.

Now, of course, we could all find the most embarrassing moments in our franchise videos and upload them, but this happens on the majority of kicks in multi-year dynasties, for even major teams.  My own kicker, who I recruited heavily, cannot kick past the 19-yard-line, that is his limit.  Now, I am not a talented athlete by any means — I played intramural basketball in college — but, yes, even I can kick a football beyond the 19 yard line.  It is hard to believe that a player being recruited by a major college program as a kicker could not kick a ~35 yard field goal.

The problem persists across all teams, with roughly a third of the league slowly succumbing to their worst players, a majority of teams sporting QB’s who’s overall ratings barely climb out of the 50s, who can’t throw any accurate passes.  The best teams in all of college football end up being B- and B overall teams, with gaping holes at certain skill positions.  Top teams will have 5 of 6 highly rated QBs, no offensive line, no kicker, no punter, and won’t change their offensive scheme to an offense that accommodates having five quality QBs (.. kidding there, but the point is still true).  Take this example posted by a player who simulated to 2017.  He is counting the number of quarterbacks and corner backs on certain team’s rosters:

2017 season -

A few teams had 6 QB’s on their roster
Clemson had 7
Eastern Michigan had 10!
Florida had 7
Kent State had 8
La. Tech had 7

CB’s

Maryland had 15
N. Carolina had 13
Syracuse had 12
Texas Tech 11
UL Lafayette 13

It isn’t to say that there aren’t any talented players in the game.  A poster named “Alex the Great” outlined that several years in, there were still a handful of quality players.  The problem as he saw it was that most recruits seem to average about 11 total points of progression over their career, so 3*, 4*, and 5* players are serviceable at that level, but 1* and 2* recruits who enter at the 40-overall rating improve only to 50-overall, a functionally useless player in the game.  The talented players are also often front-loaded onto a single team, with teams having 12 cornerbacks at 80+ overall, while other teams can’t field any CBs.  Several issues seem to be with the juking and spin ability of Wide Receivers, which are garbage-can low, down in the 40s and 50s, and then also with the awareness rating of all players, which is so low that most have hit the floor at 40-overall ratings.

Now, there was a rhyme and a reason for toning down recruiting in this year’s NCAA product.  In previous years, it was too easy to take a 1 or 2-star prestige team and turn them into a powerhouse, easily recruiting four and five star talent, bringing in players who were well into their 80s overall to start on a program.  This was toned down with a patch midway through the release cycle of NCAA ‘10, which produced a well balanced game.  NCAA ‘11, however, seems to have done away with the patched logic, and put the problem in the other direction.  Teams deteriorate fast and progression is rarely more than 2 or 3 points overall in a given season.  If you redshirt every player on your team, that is a maximum of 8 – 12 points of progression over their entire career at a program.  Now, if the player comes in as a 75-overall, then progressing to 87 isn’t bad, and that’s understandable, but when they come in at a 45, progressing to 55 or 57 is still a D- overall: the lowest rating that the game awards a team.  It is statistically impossible for the CPU AI To improve a team with a low rating, and their low ratings perpetuate.  Take in point something that a poster, GopherFan, analzyed in his dynasty several years through:

On some of the worst teams their best players will only be around 60 overall.

He then follows up several posts later:

Yea New Mexico State’s best player was 58 overall

I will be adding more to this post as more information appears.  Check out the thread on OperationSports for more up-to-date information as well, including folks who have simulated multiple years to detail where the real sore spots are.  Hopefully with enough information out there, EA can institute a patch before it is too late.  Also, be sure to comment and tell us what you’ve seen — have you run into the same dynasty mode problems years down the line?

Being that this is primarily a Madden-related blog, this can be tied back into EA’s premier sports title.  Many players enjoy adding NCAA recruits from the college game into the pro game in Franchise modes, matching year-for-year their in game recruits.  Well, if players are entering the NCAA game with rock bottom ratings, how will they come into Madden?  Exactly — rock bottom ratings.  There is some hope:  NCAA ’10’s development team patched NCAA with little more than a whimper of press, a welcome change in the videogame industry.  I can see why EA might be quiet on a patch until nearing release, nobody wants to draw attention to glitches and bugs until a fix is already nearing release (or else, sales suffer considerably; the same effect happens when a price drop is announced… the period of time between the announcement and the price drop sees a plummet in sales as consumers wait for the new price).  But, hopefully we can get some quiet word soon that EA recognizes the problem and is dedicated to fixing it.

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Madden ‘11 Top Player Ratings

by Mike on June 24, 2010

OperationSports published the list of the top players at each position for Madden ‘11.

Top Players
C. Johnson HB – 99
P. Willis MLB – 99
D. Revis CB – 99
J. Allen RE – 99
D. Brees QB – 99
P. Manning QB – 99
R. Clady LT – 98
A. Peterson HB – 98

Top Quarterbacks
D. Brees – 99
P. Manning – 99
T. Brady – 95
A. Rodgers – 94
P. Rivers – 94
B. Favre – 92
T. Romo – 90
M. Shaub – 89

Top Running Backs
C. Johnson – 99
A. Peterson – 98
M. Jones-Drew – 96
S. Jackson – 95
F. Gore – 93
D. Williams – 92
R. Rice – 90
M. Turner – 90

Top Fullbacks
T. Richardson – 94
L. Polite – 91
L. Weaver – 90
L. McLain – 90
L. Vickers – 89
O. Mughelli – 88
M. Hedgecock – 86
M. Karney – 85

Top Wide Receivers
A. Johnson – 98
L. Fitzgerald – 97
B. Marshall – 96
R. Wayne – 96
R. Moss – 95
R. White – 93
S. Smith – 92
D. Jackson – 91

Top Tight Ends
Tony Gonzalez – 98
J. Witten – 97
V. Davis – 96
A. Gates – 96
D. Clark – 96
H. Miller – 90
C. Cooley – 89
K. Winslow – 89

Top Left Tackles
R. Clardy – 98
J. Long – 96
J. Thomas – 95
M. Roos – 95
J. Gross – 95
D. Ferguson – 91
J. Brown – 91
B. McKinnie – 90

Top Left Guards
S. Hutchinson – 97
L. Mankins – 95
B. Grubbs – 94
K. Dielman – 93
C. Nicks – 91
E. Steinback – 91
A. Faneca – 91
T. Herremans – 89

Top Centers
N. Mangold – 97
A. Gurode – 92
J. Saturday – 92
S. O’Hara – 91
M. Birk – 91
R. Kalil – 90
J. Brown – 89
D. Koppen – 88

Top Right Guards
J. Evans – 98
C. Snee – 96
L. Davis – 89
D. Joseph – 88
B. Moore – 88
B. Williams – 88
H. Dahl – 87
J. Scott – 85

Top Right Tackles
J. Stinchcomb – 90
D. Stewart – 89
D. Woody – 89
J. Otah – 86
J. Gaither – 86
V. Carey – 86
R. Harris – 85
E. Winston – 85

Top Left Ends
R. Mathis – 95
J. Tuck – 92
R. Seymour – 92
L. Castillo – 88
A. Smith – 87
C. Campbell – 86
S. Ellis – 86
R. Edwards – 85

Top Right Ends
J. Allen – 99
D. Freeney – 97
M. Williams – 95
T. Cole – 95
J. Peppers – 95
H. Ngata – 94
D. Dockett – 94
W. Smith – 90

Top Defensive Tackles
K. Williams – 97
V. Wilfork – 95
J. Ratliff – 94
K. Jenkins – 94
S. Rogers – 93
C. Hampton – 91
A. Franklin – 90
R. Starks – 89

Top LOLB
L. Woodley – 91
S. Phillips – 91
D. Smith – 89
T. Davis – 87
B. Cushing – 87
J. Peterson – 86
B. Orakpo – 85
R. Maualuga – 85

Top MLB
P. Willis – 99
J. Beason – 96
R. Lewis – 94
D. Harris – 91
B. Ruud – 91
L. Fletcher – 91
D. Ryans – 90
J. Vilma – 90

Top ROLB
D. Ware – 97
J. Harrison – 97
E. Dumervil – 93
L. Briggs – 92
T. Suggs – 90
C. Greenway – 88
K. Rivers – 86
C. Matthews – 86

Top Corners
D. Revis – 99
N. Asomugha – 98
C. Woodson – 97
C. Bailey – 95
A. Samuel – 94
J. Joseph – 93
L. Hall – 92
C. Finnegan -92

Top FS
E. Reed – 97
A. Bethea – 95
D. Sharper – 94
N. Collins – 93
O. Atogwe – 92
B. Dawkins – 90
T. Jackson – 88
K. Rhodes – 88

Top SS
T. Polamalu – 97
A. Wilson – 96
B. Sanders – 89
B. Merriweather – 88
L. Landry – 87
T. Branch – 86
J. Leonhard – 85
B. Pollard – 84

Top Kickers
R. Gould – 95
N. Kaeding – 95
R. Bironas – 93
R. Longwell – 92
S. Gostowski – 91
S. Janikowski – 90
J. Hanson – 89
D. Akers – 89

Top Punters
S. Lechlar – 98
A. Lee – 94
D. Jones – 94
M. Scifres – 93
M. McBriar – 92
D. Colquitt – 91
B. Moorman – 90
S. Koch – 86

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Franchise, Superstar, & Online Franchise Modes Getting Snubbed?

June 11, 2010

Our friend PastaPadre recently shared unflattering news about some of the most popular game modes in Madden ‘11 this year, mentioning that it sounds like EA has not put much time into Franchise, Superstar, and Online Franchise modes.  Citing the most recent development blog, Pasta quotes –
While that meant not making any major overhauls to [...]

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What direction is Madden ‘11 going in?

June 11, 2010

With the announcement of the “gameplan” features, many fans decried that Madden was moving away from it’s “hardcore” audience and more towards a casual audience, with simplified play schemes and playcalling.  At the same time, with the addition of dual-stick controls, it seems like they’re catering to a more simulation audience by allowing players to [...]

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Madden NFL ‘11 Team Ratings

June 5, 2010

Team ratings for Madden NFL ‘11 were announced a few hours ago. Here’s all of the ratings for the teams…
AFC EAST
New York Jets – 89
New England – 86
Miami – 78
Buffalo – 67
AFC NORTH
Baltimore – 90
Cincinnati – 86
Pittsburgh – 84
Cleveland – 70
AFC SOUTH
Indianapolis – 91
Houston – 78
Tennessee – 77
Jacksonville – 74
AFC WEST
San Diego – 85
Denver – [...]

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Gus Johnson: The New Voice for Madden NFL

May 22, 2010

For years now, one of the biggest complaints about Madden has been it’s commentary. Madden and Micheals was decent last gen but after Madden 2005, things started to get pretty stale. Practically no new lines were being added and just about every line being said by Madden could be quoted by a person who played [...]

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How EA’s “Project Ten Dollar” & “Online Pass” Will Change Madden and Why it Shouldn’t

May 10, 2010

Last year, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello espoused a new profit-making strategy for the company called “Project Ten Dollar.”  As we’ve known for years, used games sales amount to a significant chunk of annual videogame sales — some $10million of official numbers, which don’t include many vendors or private sales.  The concept for Riccitiello was [...]

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Encouraging NCAA ‘11 Video Shows off AI Blocking Assignments

May 3, 2010

AI blocking was a major complaint in Madden ‘10 and NCAA ‘10, it’s been a lingering complaint with the Madden-engine games for years.  Blockers have always just been dumb.  In the days of yore (ie, last generation’s console: PS2, X-Box), EA implemented a short-lived and useless feature to try and fix this called “playmaker.”  Inspired [...]

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Developer Blog on Game Flow and Game Planning

April 28, 2010

EASports just added a new developer blog focusing on game flow and game planning, two of the major additions to Madden ‘11 this year.  The blog goes into some depth of the new changes, showing how previous playcalling screens had remained relatively unchanged in roughly 18 years of Madden games.  Game Flow and Game Planning [...]

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