Some Feedback for CFB26 - Pass Along

Hello,

As we are closing the CFB year and updates to CFB25 starting to slow, and the focus now being shifted to CFB26, I wanted to provide some feedback of issues still in CFB25 that I am hoping gets corrected in CFB26, as well as some feature requests for CFB26 that I think would take the game to the next level.

Let me preface this by saying that, while rough around the edges, CFB25 is the best football game ever created, and it gives me hope that all future games will be built from this template going forward.

I would love it if someone at EA could pass this along to the Dev team for CFB26. I have also attached the fle  🙂

Gameplay

Gameplay is in a solid state. However, I believe these adjustments will greatly help the next game:

1. Offensive line logic

The oline still needs tuning, as they often let defenders run right by them, or don’t help each other when a lineman gets beat. For example a HB that has no one to block won’t pick up an edge rusher that beats the tackle

Counters also have issues. The lineman get in the way more often than not and they just aren’t effective.

1. Shading

Shading could use a little more refining. Shading outside should also effect the blue zones and purple zones to better counter corner routes and deep outs when you know they are coming. While shading overtop should literally never allow you to get beat deep, but leave you super susceptible to underneath routes. For example, if I shade over top in man coverage a streak should never beat my (non press) DB’s (aside from a spectacular WR catch, more on that later), but a comeback or curl should absolutely destroy me. This is the chess match of football

1. Interceptions

While default interceptions are too high as they are currently, they still aren’t rewarded for skill as much as they should be. Currently, all you must do to get a pick as a user is switch to the defender the ball is heading towards and hold Y/ Triangle. This results in your defender getting into position and attempting the pick automatically and getting a “perfectly timed user pick” message. However, there is nothing “perfectly timed” about it. You just held the button and the game did the rest. Users should be rewarded and punished for picks, and they should actually require timing, i.e. you should get an increased chance to get a pick if you literally press Y/ triangle exactly when the ball gets to your defender, and a decreased chance if you press any earlier or later.  

1. Receiving

The same logic above should apply to receivers. If you click on and take control and perfectly time the catch you should get a boost to the catch and vice versa for a drop. But also the rocket catch needs to be brought back. Of course, it should only be available to physical receivers with X amount in Spectacular catch. I don’t think 5’8 95 speed receivers should be able to do it, but currently there really aren’t any jump balls and there should be.

1. AI (CPU) Improvements

Run Nickel Double Mug Mid Bitz (make sure to QB contain) every single play on defense and you will most likely finish the game with 7 sacks, 2 picks, and a dominant TOP. This has to be fixed next year. The CPU needs to be much better at picking up on trends and adjusting. Playing on All American or Heisman, people who spam a handful of plays all game (offense of defense) need to be punished and people who call a varied gameplan should be rewarded.

I can literally run three offensive plays and mid blitz the entire game and win 52-14 with an average team against Bama on AA. This just shouldn’t happen. I don’t know if boosting the CPU’s stats when you run too many repeat plays or what the answer is, but at the very least if you are blitzing a lot, the easiest fix is to start having the CPU constantly block he RB and TE’s and then you’ll get torched (which you should).

In all of the dynasties I am in, the Heisman constantly has 3-4 (User) Defensive Ends/ LB’s in the top because of inflated user sack numbers because the CPU just doesn’t make them adjust. They also all have the top run defense as well. Please address this next year.

1. Kicking

The new field goal kicking bar is great but tap and tap should be retired. It is easier and the new bar is perfect. Icing does need to be brought back when calling a timeout right before a high-pressure kick. Especially to win the game or tie.

1. Hot Routing

Pull up “Money Plays” on YouTube and every offensive video you will find guys calling a play and then subsequently hot routing all 5 receivers. This doesn’t happen in college and is only reserved for elite QB’s in the NFL. The only hot routes we should be able to call are RB hot routes and maybe one other receiver. Limiting this would greatly reduce money plays and might make people actually vary their play calling.

The same goes on defense. Solve the reason WHY people feel the need to hot route and they won’t (ie Mable coverage because corner routes beat every coverage in the game, which as I stated above can be improved with shading).

As for pass/ slide protection, if the logic is improved to better pick up obvious high priority rushers, then it isn’t needed, but if not then it should absolutely stay, as it is a needed feature to combat cheese blitzes etc.

1. Play Action

Play actions should have an increased chance of working when you are running the ball well. I feel like it should be linked to YPC, but nothing is more frustrating than running the ball for 70 yards in the first quarter, averaging 10 YPC, then running a play action and immediately getting sacked because a rusher didn’t bite.

Everyone knows that the entire reason for the existence of Play Action is to freeze defenders and slow the pass rush. Currently this just doesn’t happen. If you are running the ball well Play Action should have some effect. I’m not saying a deep 1/3 safety should bite so hard he gets bombed, but it should cause just a hair of hesitation and actually slow the pash rush (assuming you are actually being successful running). The inverse should be true for draw plays.

1. Run and Pass Commit

These are band aids and need to be removed or severely punished for choosing wrong. Run commit already punishes pretty well but pass commit doesn’t. There isn’t a pass or run commit IRL so it should be taken out. You “Pass Commit” IRL by calling blitzes and certain coverages. You run commit IRL by controlling the gaps.

1. Make Personnel Matter

If I come out in a 46 Bear defense, and you come out in 4 Wide and Run the ball, I should absolutely steam roll the blocking WR’s and it should have very low success rate. Likewise those WR’s should torch the LB’s for easy receptions on a pass play.

If I come out in Dime and you come out in I Form Tight, it should be an easy 10 YPC as the Tight Ends should MAUL the CB’s and SUBLB’s.

Make personnel matter.

Dynasty

Dynasty is functional but needs a lot of work. Please consider improving via the below suggestions:

Sim Logic for non-User Teams – (Power Teams)

I am not sure everyone truly understands how critical sim logic is for non-user teams in Dynasty. It has reverberating effects that are felt across the entire CFB landscape and effect tons of feature in the game:

• Job Openings
• Recruiting Visit Impact
• The CFB Playoffs
• Your ranking for beating a non-user team
• Other teams rankings for beating non-user teams
• School grades like Championship Contender and Conference Prestige

People may not think that Oregon losing to Purdue in the 7th week of their dynasty matters that much, but it could literally have a butterfly effect across the league. It could lead to losing recruits, the Oregon job opening eve thought the team is 94 Overall. A crap Sun Belt team getting into the CFP etc.

I’m not saying these losses don’t happen, they just happen way way way too frequently to too many teams  in Dynasty. This leads to jobs opening up that shouldn’t, crazy rankings etc. This needs to have some better logic behind it.

It also sucks when you have a game against a 90 Overall school at home that you have recruits visiting at, but your reward for winning is one measly pip because they are 2-6. Even though they are actually a strong team.

Recruiting

Recruiting is in an okay state, but I would love to see some features added and a bit more variability. I would also love to see some more strategy and risk. Here are some improvements that would really be quality of life:

1. See if a recruit if already scouted in the Prospects list
2. Be able to reschedule an already scheduled visit
3. Be able to revoke a scholarship offer (at the risk of immediately being locked out forever)
4. The dealbreaker not being known yet until it is discovered (part of the risk I referred to)

Here are some features I think would be a great addition to recruiting:

1. A recruit “flipping” on national signing day (which happens ALL the time)
2. Being able to Sway recruits pitches in favor of your school and AWAY from others
   1. Currently the sway only effects your school, but I think it should literally flip the recruits pitches for everybody. This would create an awesome “tug of war” for schools where you have to decide if you want to hard sell or protect against a sway etc
3. More variability with Interest
   1. I feel recruiting shouldn’t be as linear as it is now. It is a bit too predictable and often times you will know when a recruit is out of reach or locked up before they commit. I think the flipping will assist this but more variability would make it more exciting
4. Bring Back Promises
   1. In NCAA 14 you could make promises and recruits would risk transferring if you failed to follow through. This would be an amazing feature to bring back and I would love to see playing time factor in. Often times big schools will recruit a bunch of players and not even start them. This is especially important these days with NIL, and would give smaller schools a shot
5. Recruits are too highly rated
   1. This was a big issue in NCAA games until NCAA 14, and I think the overall of Freshman need to be brought down a bit. I think transfers should be the highest rated players since they are more experienced. They should be the only ones coming in at 72+ Overall. 5 Star freshman should be 72 overall max and make up for it by progressing well.
6. Recruits should not unlock visits all at the same time (threshold)
   1. Any recruits that are being aggressively pursued by teams usually unlock the ability to visit by week 3. This makes it a crapshoot if you happen to have home games around then and late visits are rarely needed because they commit before you get to week 8. It would be interesting if recruits had a bit of randomness when unlocking visits.

Offseason

Recruiting in Offseason has a bug when you can have a recruit visit multiple weeks by removing them off your board after they visit and rescheduling another visit. This can easily be remedied by enforcing a massive penalty if you revoke an offer.

Coaching Carousel

Coaching Carousel right now is very vanilla and doesn’t offer a lot of immersion. The logic for offers is inconsistent and it can be improved massively:

1. Coach Prestige can be reworked to make the carousel amazing

Coaching Prestige should take a lot longer to build up, and 4+ Star Programs should require at least an A- to even be considered. Too many dynasties have a coach having one good year at Kennesaw State to get offered Auburn. It’s ridiculous. It should take years of climbing the ranks of schools to get to a program like that. This would also make it more fun and immersive, and not to mention more rewarding for when you do land that job.

New coaches should start at a D in coaching prestige, and gain 1/3 of a letter grade every year they make good on their promises. Small schools should have easy promises (Rush for 500 yards in a season, win 5 games, sign a top 120 class etc), and the more prestigious the school the harder the promises. But users should have no problem getting to a B+ by year 7. The following table provides a visual:

Users should have to “sell” themselves on the job and risk their coaching prestige by making promises. Top programs like Bama, Texas, Ohio State etc, should put emphasis on winning National Titles, signing top recruiting classes and making the CFP and coaches should be severely punished (via caching prestige hits) when failing to follow through. This could result in a user vs user mini game of trying to land that prestigious job which would be really fun.

Likewise if you break a contract early by signing with another school your prestige should take a multiple letter grade hit and take years of following through on promises at another program to get it back up. This creates accountability.

Contract requirements for top programs need to be demanding and have severe penalties for missing them. If I and another user are gunning for the Alabama job, and he is willing to promise 3 straight years of top 5 recruiting classes but doesn’t do it he should be fired and his prestige take a massive hit (Two letter Grades). While I take the lesser job at Maryland where the requirement is three years of top 50 classes etc. The reward is keeping the job. The top programs have very high standards and it should be hard to stay, and this would prevent users from over promising.

1. Assistant Hiring needs rework

Right now there is no visibility of assistants leaving until it is too late. No way to persuade them to stay, and overall it is just not a focus.

1. Coaching Perks need a rework

Currently you can just go any route you want regardless of what type of coach you choose to be. If you choose recruiter, you can just choose to go strategy etc. There should be more uniqueness for what type of coach you choose to be. If it’s recruiter, then you should be forced to go down a recruiting path. This should limit you but make also make you more specialized.

Obviously this would require the perks to be expanded.

Encourage Transfers

Where do these players go? Do they become walk ons? Need a little more clarity for this in the next game. Maybe one more week of recruiting after this step to offer scholarships only, they it is randomized who they choose, and then you cut to get under the roster cap and cut players literally disappear from the game.

Position Changes

There is a massive exploit in Positions Changes right now where you change a position of a player several times and it eventually unlocks all of their Development traits. Please address this.

In past games it would take several seasons for a position change to be usable, and I think this needs to be the case again. The whole flipping any player to any position just isn’t realistic.

Training Results

Please combine this week with another and just list it as a summary. There is no need to create an entire week just to see the results, This is clunky with muti-user dynasties

Custom Schedules

These still need a bit of tuning. Many times you will see several schools with no home games from weeks 5-10 which are crucial recruiting visit weeks.

Settings

A couple setting additions would be nice to have in Dynasty

1. Turn Super Sim Off
   1. We play in a serious league, and it is well known that Super Sim can sometimes get a stop a weaker team wouldn’t be able to get. It would be nice to toggle the ability to Super Sim off in Dynasty leagues
2. Custom Playbooks allowed toggle
3. Ability of Commish to reset a game
   1. In prior years, the Commish could throw out a games result. Please bring this back

Immersion

1. Dynasty Hub

In a multiuser dynasty, the first page should be a dynasty hub with all relevant news displayed as it pertains to just the users. Scores, headlines, upcoming matches etc. You wouldn’t even know there was more than just you in a dynasty unless you scroll all the way over the League and view the users

1. Headlines / News

With generative AI being super common, it would be awesome if it could be utilized to write realistic headlines and awesome news snippets with details from the game, the coaches’ comments etc. I’ve even seen redditors using Chap GPT to write backgrounds for generated recruits. The possibilities are limitless.

A few ideas would be high profile recruit signings, rivalry victories, playoff game wins etc

1. Games in progress in the league

It would be amazing to join and spectate other user games, as well as get updates of the scores and stats in our games f they are being played in real time (game tickers and announcers etc.)

1. User Posts in the League

In prior games, the commissioner could post articles for the league to write. Would be cool to bring this back

1. Bring in the volatility of college kids
   1. Off the field issues, academic suspension, and other things would enhance the experience.