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Launch Day Update
Hey Everyone, Ben Haumiller here and since we are just a few short days away from Tuesday’s launch I wanted to give you the low down on the launch day title update as well as give an update on the new Week Advance Anywhere feature for Online Dynasty. The update has already been approved by both Sony and Microsoft so the first time you pop that disc in the tray you will get the prompt for the update as long as you are online.
Before I get into the details of what’s in the update, I first wanted to talk about why an update is available on launch day. With the timing of the development cycles for NCAA and Madden we always reach a deadline where we can no longer take updates from the central gameplay team. Once we reach that point our focus is 100% on getting the game ready to submit to Sony and Microsoft so that we can meet our street date and get the game on the shelves. While all of this is going on the gameplay guys are still hard at work as they are driving towards Madden’s deadline. A lot of our launch day update is comprised of the tuning and bug fixing that was done after our cutoff date. This allows us to provide you with a gameplay experience that has received an extended development cycle as we are able to reap the benefits of Madden’s later release date.
Also, the feedback we received from you in the community based on your impressions when playing the demo played a part in determining what made it into this update. A number of issues that were brought up through the demo are addressed in this update, and there are others we are continuing to look into for future updates.
Now that I’ve had a chance to talk about why the update exists, let’s get to the goods and go into what’s in that update:
The first update I’ll mention is 100% the result of you in the community making your voice heard about a feature you wanted to see added. With the update you will now be able to edit rosters from inside of Dynasty mode. Plus, in Online Dynasty the commissioner will have the ability to edit rosters. It’s almost unheard of to have a new feature added during a title update as we tend to focus more on updates to what already exists in the game, but we wanted to take the opportunity to show you guys our appreciation for being such a dedicated, hardcore fan base.
In Dynasty mode, many of you expressed frustration over CPU controlled teams over signing players at certain positions in future years. This is an issue we fixed early in the cycle for NCAA Football 12, but as can sometimes be the case in software development, a fix to one bug can introduce a bug or revert a fix somewhere else. Unfortunately that was the case with this issue as we reached the end of the development cycle. In this update, position maximum caps have been instituted to prevent the CPU from being able to over sign at a position.
Fixing exploits and issues that can cause one person to grieve another in an online game are major things we look to address in updates. We were able to identify a number of those issues and include them in this update. Here are the exploits and the potential online grieve we have addressed:
- Fixed an exploit involving manual direction changes for receivers that was allowing for “jetpack catches” on streak routes.
- Fixed an exploit where defenders were not switching assignments properly when an outside receiver was put in motion.
- Removed an exploit that allowed for pitching on QB sneaks.
- Fixed an exploit that involved hot routing a PA pass while under center and running with the QB.
- Fixed an exploit in the 4-2-5 where the ROLB was not being blocked in certain offensive formations.
- Fixed an exploit with the QB Contain assignment.
- Fixed an exploit with the Fake Punt Pass which was caused by linemen getting cut blocked too frequently.
- Fixed an online grieve that could be performed on Xbox 360 by repeatedly pulling and inserting a Memory Unit during a play.
Here are the other issues addressed in this update:
Gameplay
- Fixed an issue with the velocity of receivers when attempting to catch a pass that prevented catch animations from playing in certain situations (i.e. the ball bouncing off of a receiver without them making an attempt to catch it).
- Fixed an issue with blocking assignments where offensive linemen were not correctly picking up defenders that went from man coverage assignments to chasing down the ball carrier on running plays.
- Fixed an issue with offensive players who were out of position to make a block too often due to their assignments getting crossed with another player when determining who to block mid-play.
- Fixed an issue where defensive coverage assignments were not updated correctly when the offense called an audible.
- Fixed and issue that was causing defenders to play the curl route too effectively.
- Fixed an issue where the play was not always whistled dead when the kicking team touched the ball.
- Tuned and fixed issues with AI ball carriers running decisions and use of special moves (jukes, spins, etc.)
- Fixed an issue where fumbles were being called too often on a late throw away during a sack.
- Fixed an issue where a safety playing deep zone did not cover properly against a Trips set.
- Fixed an issue in 2 Man Under where the Free Safety did not cover the deep post route properly.
- Fixed an issue with Cover 1 in the 4-2-5 where the safety was attempting to cover a WR on the other side of the field.
- Fixed an issue during post and pre-play where player’s heads would snap to change what they were looking at, which looked very awkward.
- Fixed an issue to prevent linebackers from man aligning when in Cover 3 Zone.
Dynasty
- The PAC-12 Championship game logo has been added and appears both in the UI as well as on player’s uniforms during the game.
- Fixed an issue on the Job Openings screen of the Coaching Carousel that always defaulted you back to the top of the list.
- Fixed an issue in Online Dynasty where multiple Dynasty members using the same playbook caused a bug preventing both users from being able to edit their playbooks.
- Fixed a timing related crash bug that occasionally occurred when backing out of a Dynasty from within the coach editor.
- Fixed an issue with Custom Conference scheduling with moving a school from one division to another in a 13 or 15 team conference that resulted in some schools only having two conference games in a season.
- Fixed a rare issue where as a coordinator you were not on the field for plays when you should be.
- Fixed an issue with record breaker banners in Online Dynasty that caused the banner to appear too often.
- Fixed an issue where custom playbooks were not displayed properly for coaches when at the Coaching Carousel screen.
- Fixed and issue where edits to a coach where not being saved properly if you went directly into an online game after making the coach edits.
Online
- Fixed a very rare crash that occurred when entering online games on PS3.
- Fixed various disconnect and dysnc issues.
Road to Glory
- Fixed an issue that prevented you from using team colored gloves once you got to college.
- Fixed an issue where stat banners in-game showed only solo tackles instead of total tackles for a player.
General
- Included the ability to change the CPU controlled team’s playbook at team select.
- Fixed an issue in Custom Playbooks where removing too many formations resulted in an empty playbook.
- Fixed an issue with the look of the sparkle on helmets in night games.
- Fixed an issue where extremely long highlights would start to get choppy after the first five seconds of playback.
Week Advance Anywhere Update
One of the new features we have added for Online Dynasty is “Week Advance Anywhere”, a premium DLC feature that allows commissioners the ability to advance the week of their Online Dynasties from the dynasty.easports.com website. To ensure that we are delivering a feature that is of the highest possible quality, we have made the decision to delay the launch of Week Advance Anywhere until August. Our other premium DLC feature in Online Dynasty is “SuperSim on the Web” which will be available at launch for a new onetime fee of $1.99. If you decide to purchase the Commissioner Bundle DLC for $6.99 before Week Advance Anywhere goes live, you will receive the ability host up to five Online Dynasties as well as access to SuperSim on the Web. Once Week Advance Anywhere becomes available it will be automatically unlocked and available to be used.
If you purchase the Commissioner Bundle after Week Advance Anywhere goes live you will get the ability to host up to five Online Dynasties, SuperSim on the Web, and Week Advance Anywhere for $6.99. After Week Advance Anywhere goes live, you will still be able to purchase SuperSim on the Web for $1.99 or you can purchase Week Advance Anywhere for $2.99 which will also include access to the SuperSim on the Web feature.
Well, there you have it. The launch day title update for NCAA Football 12 with a ton of great improvements, as well as an entirely new feature, is ready and waiting. Tuesday can’t get here soon enough.
Before I get into the details of what’s in the update, I first wanted to talk about why an update is available on launch day. With the timing of the development cycles for NCAA and Madden we always reach a deadline where we can no longer take updates from the central gameplay team. Once we reach that point our focus is 100% on getting the game ready to submit to Sony and Microsoft so that we can meet our street date and get the game on the shelves. While all of this is going on the gameplay guys are still hard at work as they are driving towards Madden’s deadline. A lot of our launch day update is comprised of the tuning and bug fixing that was done after our cutoff date. This allows us to provide you with a gameplay experience that has received an extended development cycle as we are able to reap the benefits of Madden’s later release date.
Also, the feedback we received from you in the community based on your impressions when playing the demo played a part in determining what made it into this update. A number of issues that were brought up through the demo are addressed in this update, and there are others we are continuing to look into for future updates.
Now that I’ve had a chance to talk about why the update exists, let’s get to the goods and go into what’s in that update:
The first update I’ll mention is 100% the result of you in the community making your voice heard about a feature you wanted to see added. With the update you will now be able to edit rosters from inside of Dynasty mode. Plus, in Online Dynasty the commissioner will have the ability to edit rosters. It’s almost unheard of to have a new feature added during a title update as we tend to focus more on updates to what already exists in the game, but we wanted to take the opportunity to show you guys our appreciation for being such a dedicated, hardcore fan base.
In Dynasty mode, many of you expressed frustration over CPU controlled teams over signing players at certain positions in future years. This is an issue we fixed early in the cycle for NCAA Football 12, but as can sometimes be the case in software development, a fix to one bug can introduce a bug or revert a fix somewhere else. Unfortunately that was the case with this issue as we reached the end of the development cycle. In this update, position maximum caps have been instituted to prevent the CPU from being able to over sign at a position.
Fixing exploits and issues that can cause one person to grieve another in an online game are major things we look to address in updates. We were able to identify a number of those issues and include them in this update. Here are the exploits and the potential online grieve we have addressed:
- Fixed an exploit involving manual direction changes for receivers that was allowing for “jetpack catches” on streak routes.
- Fixed an exploit where defenders were not switching assignments properly when an outside receiver was put in motion.
- Removed an exploit that allowed for pitching on QB sneaks.
- Fixed an exploit that involved hot routing a PA pass while under center and running with the QB.
- Fixed an exploit in the 4-2-5 where the ROLB was not being blocked in certain offensive formations.
- Fixed an exploit with the QB Contain assignment.
- Fixed an exploit with the Fake Punt Pass which was caused by linemen getting cut blocked too frequently.
- Fixed an online grieve that could be performed on Xbox 360 by repeatedly pulling and inserting a Memory Unit during a play.
Here are the other issues addressed in this update:
Gameplay
- Fixed an issue with the velocity of receivers when attempting to catch a pass that prevented catch animations from playing in certain situations (i.e. the ball bouncing off of a receiver without them making an attempt to catch it).
- Fixed an issue with blocking assignments where offensive linemen were not correctly picking up defenders that went from man coverage assignments to chasing down the ball carrier on running plays.
- Fixed an issue with offensive players who were out of position to make a block too often due to their assignments getting crossed with another player when determining who to block mid-play.
- Fixed an issue where defensive coverage assignments were not updated correctly when the offense called an audible.
- Fixed and issue that was causing defenders to play the curl route too effectively.
- Fixed an issue where the play was not always whistled dead when the kicking team touched the ball.
- Tuned and fixed issues with AI ball carriers running decisions and use of special moves (jukes, spins, etc.)
- Fixed an issue where fumbles were being called too often on a late throw away during a sack.
- Fixed an issue where a safety playing deep zone did not cover properly against a Trips set.
- Fixed an issue in 2 Man Under where the Free Safety did not cover the deep post route properly.
- Fixed an issue with Cover 1 in the 4-2-5 where the safety was attempting to cover a WR on the other side of the field.
- Fixed an issue during post and pre-play where player’s heads would snap to change what they were looking at, which looked very awkward.
- Fixed an issue to prevent linebackers from man aligning when in Cover 3 Zone.
Dynasty
- The PAC-12 Championship game logo has been added and appears both in the UI as well as on player’s uniforms during the game.
- Fixed an issue on the Job Openings screen of the Coaching Carousel that always defaulted you back to the top of the list.
- Fixed an issue in Online Dynasty where multiple Dynasty members using the same playbook caused a bug preventing both users from being able to edit their playbooks.
- Fixed a timing related crash bug that occasionally occurred when backing out of a Dynasty from within the coach editor.
- Fixed an issue with Custom Conference scheduling with moving a school from one division to another in a 13 or 15 team conference that resulted in some schools only having two conference games in a season.
- Fixed a rare issue where as a coordinator you were not on the field for plays when you should be.
- Fixed an issue with record breaker banners in Online Dynasty that caused the banner to appear too often.
- Fixed an issue where custom playbooks were not displayed properly for coaches when at the Coaching Carousel screen.
- Fixed and issue where edits to a coach where not being saved properly if you went directly into an online game after making the coach edits.
Online
- Fixed a very rare crash that occurred when entering online games on PS3.
- Fixed various disconnect and dysnc issues.
Road to Glory
- Fixed an issue that prevented you from using team colored gloves once you got to college.
- Fixed an issue where stat banners in-game showed only solo tackles instead of total tackles for a player.
General
- Included the ability to change the CPU controlled team’s playbook at team select.
- Fixed an issue in Custom Playbooks where removing too many formations resulted in an empty playbook.
- Fixed an issue with the look of the sparkle on helmets in night games.
- Fixed an issue where extremely long highlights would start to get choppy after the first five seconds of playback.
Week Advance Anywhere Update
One of the new features we have added for Online Dynasty is “Week Advance Anywhere”, a premium DLC feature that allows commissioners the ability to advance the week of their Online Dynasties from the dynasty.easports.com website. To ensure that we are delivering a feature that is of the highest possible quality, we have made the decision to delay the launch of Week Advance Anywhere until August. Our other premium DLC feature in Online Dynasty is “SuperSim on the Web” which will be available at launch for a new onetime fee of $1.99. If you decide to purchase the Commissioner Bundle DLC for $6.99 before Week Advance Anywhere goes live, you will receive the ability host up to five Online Dynasties as well as access to SuperSim on the Web. Once Week Advance Anywhere becomes available it will be automatically unlocked and available to be used.
If you purchase the Commissioner Bundle after Week Advance Anywhere goes live you will get the ability to host up to five Online Dynasties, SuperSim on the Web, and Week Advance Anywhere for $6.99. After Week Advance Anywhere goes live, you will still be able to purchase SuperSim on the Web for $1.99 or you can purchase Week Advance Anywhere for $2.99 which will also include access to the SuperSim on the Web feature.
Well, there you have it. The launch day title update for NCAA Football 12 with a ton of great improvements, as well as an entirely new feature, is ready and waiting. Tuesday can’t get here soon enough.
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