NCAA 07 XBox 360 Thread

[MizzouRah]

This is my problem.. the manual sucks. I've been using the RT button for speed.

There is no manual...I think you have to pay EA extra for it.

Amen. It does say "both sides of ball" sprint is the RT button. but it does nothing for the QB.. seems like it works for the ball carrier though.

[TheGamer]

why not just remap all the controls to your liking?

[JRod]

I'm not one to pimp sliders but Heelfan's sliders at OS are the ones I'm using and getting great results.

[MizzouRah]

why not just remap all the controls to your liking?

I am going to do that for sure.

..and yes, Heelfan's are pretty good.

[bkrich83]

Yup, it's offical I am addicted to dynasty mode. Got the game playing just the way I want.

Couple of Rose Bowl pics I took. (I can't stop taking snapshots.)

[billharris44]

It's damn good this year. I'm playing on Heisman and I haven't felt once like the A.I. is cheating, and there don't seem to be speed cheats on that level, either.

[Danimal]

It's damn good this year. I'm playing on Heisman and I haven't felt once like the A.I. is cheating, and there don't seem to be speed cheats on that level, either.

Where are those sliders you promised on your blog old man?

[billharris44]

Where are those sliders you promised on your blog old man?

Here's what I've changed on Heisman so far. It's much harder to do this year because they removed the ability to run a CPU vs CPU game, so adjustments are much more subjective this time.

These settings are the same for Human/CPU. Default settings are 50.
lowered QB Accuracy to 40 (and will probably take it to 35).
increased defensive Awareness to 65 (that might still go higher).
increased Tackling to 65.
increased FG Power to 80.
reduced FG Accuracy to 25.

The field goal adjustments are based on taking Colorado's kicker, who's the best in the game (97 or 99 power, which I can't remember), and using him on the practice field. With distance at 80, he could just barely kick a 60 yard field with no wind. My kicker with Texas Tech, who had 87 for kick power, can barely kick a 50-yard field goal. So that might power slider might even go higher. With accuracy, even with it at 25 it's still pretty easy. So that might wind up being a separate rating for the CPU after I watch a few games--25 might really kill their FG percentage.

That's all I've done so far. I've been really happy, for the most part, with how the game has played.

[Danimal]

Thanks Bill, I was only joking about the old man part, I think I am older then you.

[billharris44]

Okay, Danimal prompted me to take a close look at field goals, and the CPU/user settings aren't equal. Here's how I tested:
1. I took three kickers: Rice (power 78. One of the very worst kickers in the game), Texas Tech (power 87. That power level is pretty much the median for the default ratings), and Colorado (power 98--the best kicker in the game).
2. I tested both Human levels (I kicked field goals until I maxed out the power meter about ten times for each kicker) and CPU levels (just watched 5-10 kicks for each--power is roughly consistent).

Here are the ratings that roughly "match":
Human:
--FG Power 80
--FG Accuracy 0
CPU:
--FG Power 15
--FG Accuracy 0

The weak Rice kicker's (78 power) range is roughly 40 yards. Remember, he's one of the very weakest kickers in the game.

The Texas Tech kicker's range (power 87) is 49-50 yards.

The Colorado kicker (power 98), with a human, is roughly 62 yards (which I think is fair, because he's the best kicker in the country). With the CPU, though, his range is only about 58 yards. The ratings don't appear to be scaled equally at the top end. Since the CPU kickers are more accurate than they should be, this works out okay.

An easy way to remember all this (roughly) is that at these settings, the 78 power kicker has a range of 40 yards, and you can add one yard of range for each additional point of power.

I did some less extensive punting tests and it looks like some "pretty close to real" ratings are 20 punt power, 35 punt accuracy. But they haven't been tested as thoroughly at this point.

[JRod]

Bill you have the CPU kicking power at 15 even though the CPU gets less power in their kicks?

[MizzouRah]

Do you and the CPU run well on heisman with these settings (assume yours are at defaults)?

Also, what length quarters and penalty settings are you using?

Thanks!

[Danimal]

Bill you have the CPU kicking power at 15 even though the CPU gets less power in their kicks?

You're saying you see the CPU kicks getting less power? I haven't studied it, but man the cpu seems to hit field goals 10 - 15 yards longer then mine on a consistent basis.

[JRod]

Bill you have the CPU kicking power at 15 even though the CPU gets less power in their kicks?

You're saying you see the CPU kicks getting less power? I haven't studied it, but man the cpu seems to hit field goals 10 - 15 yards longer then mine on a consistent basis.

Nah, I haven't studied it but his post seems to contradict itself. He posted saying that CU's kicker averages shorter kicks. So from that I didn't understand why the CPU slider is set at 15. I was just wondering what he meant.

[billharris44]

Bill you have the CPU kicking power at 15 even though the CPU gets less power in their kicks?

I didn't say that very clearly--they have less power in their kicks for very highly rated power kickers (like Colorado's) when the human kick power setting is 80 and the CPU kick power setting is 15. That's when the results wind up being as equal as I can make them across all possible power ratings.

So when CPU kick power is 15 and Human kick power is 80, up until roughly 90 power rated kickers, the distance is almost exactly the same. At the very highest power ratings (98, for example), humans have a 3-5 yard advantage. But in theory, we're also going to be less accurate, so some of that should wash out.

What happens if you try to match at the high end--so 98 power rated kickers have the same range with the CPU as humans--is that your median kickers (87 power ratings) will have a 3-5 yard range advantage with the CPU over humans. You can set it up either way, but I preferred to have a power match with as many kickers as possible, so I took the discrepancy at the highest end of the ratings (where there are the fewest kickers).

[billharris44]

Sorry for the confusion. If you guys watch the CPU kick on the default power settings for both CPU and Human--50--the CPU clearly has an advantage. I was talking about there roughly being parity when the CPU kick power slider is set to 15 and the Human kick power slider setting is set to 80. At that point, the only range discrepancy is for kickers in the 95+ power range, where the human will have a slight advantage.

[Danimal]

Has adjusting the accuracy for the cpu kicker caused them to miss any field goals wide? I have yet to see this happen.

[billharris44]

Well, they're certainly not missing enough. Even at 0 they're too accurate. I have seen them miss, though.

Instead of me giving you guys slider settings, I can give you the actual data and you can adjust things the way you want. These tests are on Heisman setting--I don't know if All-American would give different results or not.

Here are the results with the default slider settings of 50 Human, 50 CPU:
Kick power rating of 78= 42 yard range CPU, 36 yard range Human.
Kick power rating of 87= 52 yard range CPU, 46 yard range Human.
Kick power rating of 92= 57 yard range CPU, 52 yard range Human.
Kick power rating of 98= 59 yard range CPU, 57 yard range Human.

It's not 1 ratings point=1 yard in range, but it's reasonably close. And Human players definitely have a range disadvantage.

Here are the results with the adjusted slider settings of 80 Human, 15 CPU:
Kick power rating of 78= 40 yard range CPU, 39 yard range Human.
Kick power rating of 87= 49 yard range CPU, 49 yard range Human.
Kick power rating of 92= 54 yard range CPU, 57 yard range Human.
Kick power rating of 98= 57 yard range CPU, 61 yard range Human.

I think the first time I tried the 80/15 settings I came out with a range of 50/50 for the 87 power rated kicker, so there was a small variance. I don't know if I spotted the ball in-between yards or what, of if there's just about 2% variance built in. It was probably me.

Like I said previously, the vast majority of kickers seem to be in the 85-89 power range, so you have parity for most kickers. And I don't feel bad having a slight range advantage with great kickers, because the CPU kickers have an accuracy advantage.

If you guys want to start a separate slider thread so that we don't bore people to death in this one, it's fine by me.

[JRod]

Bill, you are a sick sick man. As a reader of the blog, I have to make this comment from today's post...Did the time it take for your wife to tie her shoes take longer or shorter than it did for you to figure out kicking distances in a videogame. That should tell you something about the differences. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read Bill H's blog).

I guess I'm worse, I found that slider post exciting.


Anybody have any ideas in getting the outside run game for the CPU a little less horrific. On AA outside pitches and sweeps get killed for losses.

[jondiehl]

This is my problem.. the manual sucks. I've been using the RT button for speed.

Sorry, I made a typo. It's the right trigger for sprint.

Yes, the manual sucks. However, like almost every other sports game, the control config page in the game itself is very easy to read/use and always at your fingertips. That would show you which buttons do what function. Also, the loading screen before a game seems to show the offensive control tips page like every other time.

[kevinpars]

I was afraid to open a new thread for this, so I will stick it here. What follows are the results of my 10 year sim on the 360. I set 12 teams to human owned but did no playing or recruiting. I did make choices as far as conference changes and team changes, but that's it.

The scores are from the National Championship game and they are followed by the Heisman winner.

1. Oklahoma 31 - Mich 14 (HB TCU)
2. USC 31 - Oklahoma 24 (OT) (HB NC State)
3. USC 41 - Mich 21 (QB WVU)
4. USC 41 - WVU 38 (OT) (QB WVU) Note - not the same player
5. LSU 48 - FSU 32 (QB Colorado)
6. Tenn 21 - UNLV 11 (WR Toledo)
7. ND 45 - Texas 29 (QB ND)
8. Arizona St 24 - Louisville 17( QB MD)
9. Iowa 59 - Arizona St 23 (QB Tenn)
10.Tenn 27 - WVU 24 (Utah)

In year 1, Oklahoma finished 14-0 and Texas was second at 12-1.
In 10 years, FSU and UF met 3 times in bowl games (2 Chick-fill-A and 1 Music City bowl)
Northern Illinois went to the Big 10 when Indiana was thrown out.
WVU went to the ACC and replaced Duke who went to the Big East
Notre Dame went to Conference USA. (replacing SMU). They played 1 year in the conference and won the conference and NC and then went to the Big 10 where they replaced Illinois.
Southern Miss took Miss St's place in the SEC.
The team with the best record was WVU who went 120-15 in ten years. The team with the worst record was Baylor at 11-109.
Duke was not far behind them at 21-99.

The only thing that was way out there was UNLV making it to the NC game. That was a shock.

[Bill_Abner]

Good stuff Kevin. Looks like the 360 version suffers from the 'high score' syndrome just like the Xbox.

[billharris44]

Here's punting data. Apologies for copying and pasting from the blog. And yes, punting is imbalanced in the opposite direction from FG power--for punting, you have to adjust human power downward significantly.

The slider settings for Punting Power that balance CPU/Human are 45 for CPU, 5 for Human.

The worst punters in the game have 82 ratings for kicking power. The best punter in the game has a 94. Here's the data using the adjusted slider settings:

KP, CPU,...... HUM
82--(37-42)--40
88--(41-45)--43
92--(43-47)--46
94--(44-49)--48

The numbers for the CPU are a range--punting distances are less consistent than field goals. The human results are the max punting distance with the meter filled up. I thought there was less variance with the human player when the meter was maxed, so I just put a single distance instead of a range.

Those distances might be slightly low compared to real NCAA numbers. Punters who hit the coffin corner or just punt into the end zone aren't going to get their regular full punting distance when averages are calculated, and I saw some active punting career leaders averaging 45 yards a kick (in the real world).

[MizzouRah]

Interesting findings on kicking to say the least Bill.

I might restart my dynasty and this time try Heisman with some of the slider settings you recommend. I've been using 8 min quarters, but I might have to bump it a tad for better stats. Penalty sliders as usual.. most need to be close to maxed.

[JRod]

Well tonight I've been messing around with the run blocking slider. One of the things that I started to see was lineman get too fast into the back field disrupting a lot of plays that shouldn't get busted up. Before I start on my findings I want to post an observation.

I know a lot of you aren't paying attention to the run blocking this year and that's a good thing. In year's past blocking was downright non-existent. Usually it was just aligning your offensive player to get in the way of the defense. If that didn't have the defense has a clear path to the off. player. This year the blocking is downright the best I've seen in any game. Players actually cut block. When a lineman is beat or tries to block someone that he's not assigned to, the player will try to do enough to stop the def. player.

There are even varying degrees of blocking. Sometimes a lineman will get a great push and move the DL 5 yards back. And sometimes its the exact opposite. And there's everything in between. In past Madden/NCAA versions the blocking was uniform in that everyone pushed or everyone got beat. I'm impressed with how NCAA 360 handles blocking.


Back to sliders... I think the def. line gets too good of a push. I'm not quite sure if its due to play design or mechanics of blocking. But you will notice far too many times that d-line men push into the backfield immediately after the snap. Once in the while is okay but after playing an AF-Navy game it completely ruins the option were more times than not the defender pushed the OL in the path and the QB can not get out of the way. The human player can deal with this but the CPU can't. Either they will get stuck or pitch the ball the DL in pushing his blocking in the path of the ball. It's not that this doesn't happen but it happens so quickly, so often than some running plays are busted.

Right now I've moved to Heisman the CPU has a more potent offense. I've also drastically increased blocking for both sides. The other thing I did was increase Hum. running. I've put blocking at 100 and h-rushing at 100. And it doesn't break the game. I don't know how the will play out over a series of games but it fixes the option without breaking the game.

It also addresses some of the other things I found problematic.
- DL can catch up to fast QBs.
- LBs can get caught from behind from slower players.
- 100 for Run blocking doesn't break the game on Heisman.

Hopefully this will address some pathetic running games I've seen for running teams.