NCAA 09 Gameplay Issues (response from EA)

[Ian_Cummings_EA]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dbrentonbuck

Sorry Ian!!! There are a lot of Devs running around these days which is AWESOME! I guess I wasn't asking you to talk about specific issues as much as I was about a quote one of the devs made saying that if there was a patch they only want there to be one patch. So, if you have to issue a patch right away, will that mean that you will not be able to fix some of the stuff that weren't game killing fixes but stuff the community wanted and you guys said you would try to do it. Does making one patch quickly hurt the chances of a less important patch being issues later?

I don't know for sure. We only want to patch major issues where possible...so I'd say if we get all the major complaints taken care of in the first patch, then a 2nd one might not be needed as much, but I really can't say positively.

[WDOgF0reL1fe]

Yes Ian, I own the game and have experienced most of the issues you had listed in your initial post.

I think the QB percentage is ridiculous seeing as how I was testing sliders as Florida vs. San Jose State...

The SJSU QB went 11 for 13 in the first half with QB accuracy and WR catching both at 20 (Heisman difficulty)

What I noticed is this though, the accuracy slider does work on the human side of the ball, I was throwing inaccurate balls with Tebow every once in a while (Accuracy at 25 for Hum). But with the CPU side of things, they will throw slightly off, but the WR will still make the catch, even if he has to go back 5 yards to do so.

Hopefully you can be amazing and fix all of the stuff you mentioned, thanks a lot man

[bad_philanthropy]

Ian, I just looked over your updated "Muy Importante" list and if you could get all of those issues you listed dealt with I think the game would truly be legendary. Those are significant improvements to fundemental gameplay that the series would really benefit from going forward.

[WDOgF0reL1fe]

Quote: Originally Posted by therizing02

With the QB ACC slider that low were you noticing less velocity and distance on the throws? That's what has always seemed to happen when lowering that slider. Are you seeing more INTs?

The thing is, i didnt notice a difference in the QBs throws. The velocity i think was a slower if i recall but the WR would seriously do what they can to make the catch (even if it meant losing 4 or 5 yards)

I forgot to mention that the 2 inc passes he threw were INT's. However, INTs arent a problem it seems, its just that when INTs are the only way the QB has incompletions it feels really cheap.

[ODogg]

Quote: Originally Posted by sEcTiOn8

TheFuture15, This is just my opinion and please don't take it personal. I think EA needs a better QA system. The people that test appear not to be purist or hardcores. They need to give the Community Leaders, since they trust those guys, the Alpha/Beta builds early in the process so you guys can take notes of possible bugs and glitches. Then they can focus on fixing those things that are fixable. They never catch all these bugs because they are the creators. Its easy to miss things when you run things they way they are supposed to be run because you created it! I know this all too well as a web developer. In my profession it happens all the time. Users see and find things that we totally miss as developers because we aren't trying to break the product, and we miss things. That's why in our QA process, we have layman web users test our products and report back to us in a specified period of time so that we can test and fix bugs and errors. EA should be ashamed. As a big company that they are, they should know that. If its a resources issue, then they should bump up their budget or reallocate resources to put a bigger priority on testing. I know they can't fix everything, but some of these bugs are ridiculous and easily found with quality testing.

Not only do I agree that the EA testers are obviously incompetent but EA could actually save money this way (albeit not very much) because i'm sure myself and other community leaders would be happy to get the game early in alpha or beta build and report back issues even without being paid the minimum wage that EA pays testers. Why EA wouldn't take advantage of free labor in the community that is far superior to what they are paying for now is beyond me!

[bad_philanthropy]

Quote: Originally Posted by Craigsca

This would work for the first year, but the second year would be the same schedule. I blame calendars and their damn reliance on 12 months EVERY year.

The release date isn't in their control anyway, marketing, and the higher ups decide beforehand on a release calendar for the company that ensures the games will be most profitable at the times they are released. I'm sure if it were up to the developers the game wouldn't be released until they were completely happy with it, but it's just not their call.

[LBzrule]

I shall say it again, please patch rocket catching. This is going to be a big online gameplay problem.

[bad_philanthropy]

Quote: Originally Posted by Anti Honor

I went from questioning to how certain issues can slip through into another year, to just hoping the patch will fix them. Every person who owns the game, one I know, says the same thing about the CPU deep ball - It's far too rare. You seriously need to look into this issue enough, so you can add it to the ''important'' category. Because that's where it belongs. I already ordered the game, in hopes that the patch will fix the few potential game killers, at least for me (Lack of CPU deep ball, kickoff/punt returns, simmed stats), so heres to hoping.

He updated the list and said he will investigate the CPU deep ball.

[Illustrator76]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheFuture15

If you guys can do me a favor, if you have MAJOR gameplay issues that you feel are must-fix for a patch in 09, please post with: - Do you actually own the game and are you seeing this yourself? - If not, can you quote the post and/or thread where you're passing on their feedback? What we don't want to happen is make changes to the game that are possibly an over-reaction due to a very small sample of gamers. An example would be the Bill Abner threads...there was this massive panic about the number of INT's based on one half of play that turned out to (hopefully) be an over-reaction. We don't want to fix things until we actually have good feedback from a large set of users. Just to re-iterate what Adam hinted at, we can fix gameplay issues, but they do need to be MAJOR. The ones I've listed in Muy Importante qualify as major IMO.

I have the game and I honestly feel that everything in your top two tiers are very important, if you could address all of them in some way then that would be great.

[Ian_Cummings_EA]

Quote: Originally Posted by clemsontiger32

This is ridiculous...I paid $60 for this? What a joke

More specifics?

Just curious...how/where did you get the game?