NCAA Football 13 Playbook #5 - Road to Glory Dev Blog

 

What’s going on NCAA  Football Community? It’s Alex Howell, back again to fill you in on my pride and joy, Road to Glory. Last year we introduced a lot of new and exciting features, so let me tell you a little about what we worked on this year.

The biggest feature coming to RTG, which you might have seen during the Heisman Challenge reveal, is Reaction Time. Without going into a terrible amount of detail since the cat is out of the bag, Reaction Time slows down the game when you hold the Left Trigger/L2. It’s simple, fun, and highly addicting. 

 

Reaction Time is counted in seconds, and is depleted as you use it. So any time during the play when you hold LT/L2, you're instantly thrown into Reaction Time. Then, when you release the trigger, you're back at full speed. The transition flows extremely well from being in Reaction Time to being out ofit, because it does not take away from the overall game experience. Every camera angle for Reaction Time was tuned to bring you as close to the action as you could get, without losing track of what’s happening on the rest of the field. 

 

Reaction Time is not unlimited either. You will have a meter in play-call that shows you how much time you have left. You can also earn more Reaction Time by performing well on the field. The more TDs you score and the more first downs you gain, the more Reaction Time you restore.

But Reaction Time in RTG is much different than from how it is in Heisman Challenge. In RTG, Reaction Time is completely based off your Awareness rating. The higher your awareness rating, the larger your meter grows. When you start out the mode, you will have a small amount and as you progress throughout college, you can use the upgrade store to buy Awareness boosts, which in return increase your total amount of Reaction Time.

After extensively looking all over the interwebs for feedback on RTG, there was one gleaming change that needed to happen in NCAA Football 13, and that was the difficulty of the entire mode. So this year the very first feature we worked on was adding in Difficulty Options to RTG. Each level effects your progression for Coach Trust, XP and Gameplay. If you want the easy road, play on Freshman, but if you want the ultimate challenge, try playing on Heisman Difficulty. Trust me, it’s hard.. On freshman difficulty, XP points will be much easier to obtain, Coach Trust is easier to grab, and the gameplay difficulty is set on the easiest level. Meanwhile, players opting for Heisman difficulty will have to grind hard to create the ultimate big man on campus.

 

We also spent time tuning our play calling logic so that we could avoid situations like a running play when you’re behind with three seconds left in the game and the ball on the 40 yard line. That will not happen anymore. Instead, we have completely revamped the playcall system to make sure that you are having more fun and getting more of the plays called just for you. Along with tuning the playcalling, we also tuned the amount of Recruiting Points you get in High School. Last year, you were getting a lot of points on Offense and not as many on Defense, so we adjusted both.

Another highly requested feature from the community was the addition of Kick Returns and Punt Returns. Talk about something that is just an absolute blast to play in RTG. As a RB/WR/DB, you will be able to return every single kick/punt, if you are high enough on the depth chart. It’s also another way to get out there and prove yourself, and even though you might not be starting, you can still return kicks and punts. Also, returning the ball with Reaction Time is a ton of fun. You can really see the lanes develop and follow the key blocks that will lead you to the endzone. 

 

I briefly touched on this in the Heisman Challenge presentation, but we have also added improvements to the existing accomplishment system in RTG. These accomplishments are ways to really test yourself and see how good of a RTG player you really are. Every single NCAA, school, year and season record you could think of is including in the Accomplishment screen, along with position-specific goals which will really challenge you throughout your college career. This year they are shown off in a much more user-friendly way, via medals, which are added to your overall Legend Point score. 

 

Of course we had to revamp the Leaderboards to accommodate the new skill levels, so we also reworked the Legend Point system as well. There are two sets of Leaderboards now, one of Varsity difficulty and a joint leaderboard for All-American/Heisman. This will really let fans duke it out to see who can get the most Legend Points, since you now have over 70 different accomplishments that make up your overall Legend Point score. 

 

Now for a little High School love. This year we have added in eight brand new High School stadiums, bringing the total number of stadiums to 11. These stadiums range from being in small towns out in the middle of the cornfields, to right in the busy part of a metropolitan city. These stadiums really bring a diverse atmosphere to the already broad way you can play RTG by importing TeamBuilder teams. 

 

Along with new stadiums, we added in a brand new practice facility to the College portion of RTG. Now instead of playing on forever field that has gotten a bit long in the tooth, you get a realistic facility that actually has two fields on it. Since most Universities practice Offense and Defense on separate fields, we thought that bringing this to NCAA was an absolute must. We’re also very proud of another brand-new feature, the Scouting Report. Every single time you walk onto the practice field in College, you will be greeted with a Scouting Report screen that will give you every single bit of information about what you need to know for that week of practice. If you are on the scout team, working your way up to the top, you will see who you are practicing with, what playbook you are using, and even the key players that you will be mimicking.

 

Thanks again for taking the time to check out the blog and I really hope you all enjoy the new features in Road to Glory this year! Also, if you are able to win the Heisman with any player in Heisman Challenge, you can use that player’s model in RTG. A fun little addition we thought would extend your playing time even more! War Eagle and Go Trojans!