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This post needs to be prefaced with this. I only do the sims with my friend, we don't play (it's more even this way). We do all the managment, but don't play at all.

'04 is much better than '05.

Reasons?
Speed. Jesus H. Christ, did they borrow the Madden engine used to advance from offseason step to step? The weeks take forever to get through. The game used to go so much faster in '04 all the way around. We used to be able to knock out a season of NCAA '04 in about an hour and a half or so... now we're lucky to have one done in two and a half. Madden's become an even worse disaster, 4+ hours sometimes. We knocked out 2 full NCAA sessions in '03 (120 years). We knocked out a full 60 in '04 while importing onto madden and simming there too... and this year we're still on our first 30. It's ridiculously bad.

Recruiting. So retarted that the #1 T, #1 SS, #2 SS, and #1 ATH in the nation all decided it's time to pass up full rides and just sit out a year. Awful, awful design.

More flaws than '04. For the example, I had 3 RBs involved in this example... a Sr, a Jr, and a Soph. The Sr. gets a season ending injury, so I place him on IR. The Soph is a little better than my Jr., so he's 2nd ont he depth chart. He rushes for like 5.9 a carry, scores 22 TDs, finishes 2nd in the Heisman, wins the Maxwell, gets like 320 carries, and THEN TRANSFERS. TRANSFER?! What, are you kidding me, game? Was 300 carries, the Maxwell, and the Heisman not enough for you? Of course, the Jr had like 150 carries in garbage time, got like 5.7 a carry, and left for the NFL. Top 3 RB? Gone, in one way or the other. The Jr. part was ridiculous

One time, my friend's contract with NU ran out. During this span, he had ONE confrence loss. He won 12 B10 titles in 12 years, 5 national titles including the last two, and I think 7 losses overall. He was on a 30-something game winning streak, and they fired him. Completely ridiculous. We've had some pretty bad firings in the past, but I think this was the worst of them all.

Other than that, it's not a whole lot different. The new features, IMO, don't outweigh the other things. The "convince the players not to go to the NFL" is a nice change. I like the fewer recruiting points, but other than that recruiting's gotten worse. The probation thing is kinda cool, but it's ridiculous. The NCAA takes interest in your team if kids miss practice? Things don't add up there. One time, I was put on sanctions, and NO ONE got in trouble the next year. So two years down the road, when my sanctions were up, they re-imposed them because I hadn't lowered NCAA interest. When in reality, there was no way to dole out tougher punishments because NO ONE was getting in trouble. The simple fact that no one was being a jackass should have lowered NCAA interest... really it's just another case of bad programming.

Another small pet peeve, the naming system. From '03 on I know it hasn't changed, and I've seen guys in the game with the following names.
Ray Ray (insert African American joke here)
Blair Blair
Sterling Sterling (the most ridiculous one to date, but a very quality LB)
Mitchell Mitchell
Clinton Bush

I'd like to see a feature where you can change out the bowl system for a playoff system. I'd also like for the game to let the user decide which/any confrences get a confrence championship. Mainly, fix the damned load times!

Don't get me wrong, football has BY FAR the best sim of any sports game (I need a good baseball sim!), but I still see much room for improvement.


P.S... I have credentials. I'd say between all the dynasties my friend and I have gone through together, we've racked up over 400 seasons of NCAA, and probably 200 of those we imported classes from NCAA onto madden and had full drafts and full seasons of madden, all since NCAA '03. I've also simmed many many by myself, but I don't keep as accurate of records on those. We have fairly accurate records of our sims up to this point. I have the all time NCAA lead record-wise.
Coach Hayes has won over 4000 regular season games, while maintaining a win% around 89%. He's won 161 national titles, including an unprecidented 11 in a row. His longest winning streak was 139 games.

One 60 year span in Maryland, Coach Hayes only had 56 losses. His best player ever was Wesley Slaughter, a QB. He was a three-time Heisman winner (including his true Freshman year), and a four time first-team All American. He threw for 16784 yards and 198 TDs, while only being picked off 33 times. He also rushed for over 3300 yards and compiled 26 rushing TDs.

Wow, we're nerds.
 
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MistriBuck said:
i'm thinking if you have the top 5 heisman candidates and 3 of them were freshmen the year before that your level of difficulty might be juuuuuust a tad too easy............personally i don't understand people who like to rack up astronomical stats and ridiculous win streaks............i set my sliders to a level that makes each game a dogfight, where i lose to teams i should lose to, unless i play my A game, and get a few breaks..........and beat teams i should beat, unless i play sloppy..........it's a lot more fun for me this way...........it's much more satisfying when you finally do reach the top of the mountain, knowing you struggled to get there
I started my first two seasons on All-American difficulty because I had a very poor team (I created a school with the "Academic School" template) and I had not figured out how to pass. I still managed to go undefeted my first season and since there was little competition remaining on my roster (like I said it was a poor team) the QB was the #2 prospect but had unbelievable speed. The HB was recruited as an ATH and was huge AND fast. I thought about putting him at LB, TE or DE but I needed a runner really bad.

The receiver Holbrook was my created player and was stacked...that's why he was on the list. The QB was on the list because I ran him so much when receivers weren't open down field. I took very few chances and so his percentages were through the roof and he had a lot of rushing TD's. My RB made it because of A. The option, B. I gave him almost all the goal line carries C. I had a policy to give him at least 100-150 yards per game. The corner didn't have that great cover skills but was a burner. I play 3-3-5 or Nickel 90% of the time and I LOVE blitzing the 3rd corner and he had a TON of sacks and even intercepted a few screens for TD's. Since he was the third corner, even when I put in backups he still played. The last WR I really don't understand. He didn't have that great of stats I didn't think. but I just got lucky that he didn't go pro after his junior year.

You don't have to sit up at night worrying about me anymore...ever since the end of the second season I've been playing on heisman and only 2 of the players that started the season on the list finished on it. I don't mess with sliders because I like to be able to simulate how the game will be when I play against my friends. I like being able to predict what the AI will do in situations. I am still undefeted (27-0) against human opponents as a result of using AI to prepare me.

I posted the feat, no because I was proud of the fact that I could light up a defense on "All-American" level, but because I thought having all 5 preseason heisman candidates was a pretty odd event, no matter what level you are laying on. Mostly because the odds of having a heisman contender go pro are pretty high.
 
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I follow a similar strategy on defense, although I always recruit the fastest possible linebacker that is on the board. (that is one of the goofy quirks with this years game, I have 2 LB'ers who run in the 4.3 range and have 89 speed and one guy is 6'3 230 that is just wrong.) I usually run a 3-4 or Dime depending on down and distance. I have all formations with an LB blitz in my audibles and depending on the formation I will audible to the formation that best fits where my LB is going to be blitzing from. My OLB has had 58 and 48 sacks the last two seasons on Heisman. This season I am giving up on average -13 yards rushing per game and averaging about 8-10 sacks per game from the whole team. I have never tried to mess with the sliders, but maybe I should.
 
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souL said:
I'd like to see a feature where you can change out the bowl system for a playoff system. I'd also like for the game to let the user decide which/any confrences get a confrence championship. Mainly, fix the damned load times!
That would require them to spend a ton of money developing an optional feature... which unless it was extremely popular (which it could be, but there's no guarantee of this) would be unlikely to be risked by EA. Also, this is a game that is trying to model the NCAA as closely as possible, so I would almost wonder if the NCAA would prefer them to stick to the BCS system.
In terms of load times, do you have a ps2? :)
 
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OK, this one's not a huge feat, but it was fun.

I was playing online with some guy who played as (who else?) Texas. After scrambling for his *first* first down of the game, he gets on the headset and starts talking trash.

I hate playing people with an attitude, and I like to beat them in some demoralizing way if I can. So, four quarters later, Branden Joe had rushed for 150 yards, and had over 100 yards receiving. The guy quit at some point in the third quarter, with 6 total yards of offense. :)
 
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My greatest feat ever has to be holding Navy to exactly 1 point in a game.

I'm cheating because this is actually 2004, but I was some made up team from Rhode Island and the game was @ Navy. I was up around 14-0 at the time and Navy had the ball. The Navy QB threw an INT and I took it all the way back for a touchdown. But, as I was crossing into the endzone I saw that flash of yellow. Penalty: Clipping on the return. I was pissed. I'm thinking they're going to take away the TD and move me 15 yards beyond the spot.

Then the playcalling screen comes up and I'm on defense. Now I'm pissed because I'm thinking they gave Navy the ball back. My friend points out that I now have 6 more points than before and I'm completely confused. I choose a defense and I'm schocked to see that Navy has the ball on the 2 going in and their kicker is coming out. The kick is good, Navy gets 1 point, someone kicks off (can't remember who), and I spend the rest of the game trying to stop Navy from scoring. Final score was something like 20-1 and I would constantly kneel inside the redzone instead of scoring just to screw navy's chances of scoring.
 
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its in the game said:
HAVE A BUTT KICKING DEFENSE 1# IN NATION FOR 5 DYNASTY SEASONS

OLE MISS PLAYED IN 4 N C GAMES:osu:
unless you play 15 minute quarters you will always have the #1 defense in the nation. they compare your 5 minute quarter games to the computers 15.
 
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