CPU RB Ballcarrier Logic Issues

After playing a large sample of games at 0 Offsides, I can confidently say it has no effect on RB Pathfinding. The game mentioned above vs Alabama was a pure outlier and subsequent games, even vs Alabama again, did not reproduce the same results. I don't know why that lone game had solid RB pathfinding logic, but the others did not.

I tested various sliders, gameplay and penalty, and none seemed to effect RB pathfinding, which didn't surprise me. I never expected penalty sliders to effect gameplay, but I approached it with an open mind. I didn't expect Ball Security to change RB pathfinding or skill move usage, but I tested it to be fair. It didn't.

I hope CPU ballcarrier logic can be improved in a patch because it's one of the few major issues I see with the gameplay vs the CPU.

I forgot to mention, EA Sports developers don't actually read through forum posts. They do check social media posts like Twitter and Facebook. Try tagging Ea CFB 26 or one of the top gameplay devs

You did a real service for the community by taking note of all of this and sharing it. Unfortunately, EA Sports doesn't care about football IQ nor actually making a true football action simulation game. They want to produce a game that will attract casual gamers to buy their product. Even if they claimed to address this issue it would be a long process of fixing it with a patch then breaking it with the next patch or a 3 year process of getting the CPU's AI to understand running lanes. They are going to stick their formula of highly rendered graphics with arcadey gameplay to try and generate a new fanbase currently between the ages of 11 and 18.

But I do thank you for your time and effort to show us and help us all see this issue for what it is.

Still in the early stages of testing things, but there's a theory that the Offsides slider is impacting player perception. With the penalty set to a value of 0 in one test game, Jam Miller ran the ball 20 times for 83 yards and didn't try to bounce one single run outside the entire game. In all prior games vs Bama with a 50 or higher offsides slider, Miller would practically try to bounce nearly every run outside like the Love images above.

1 game isn't enough to say anything definitively, but should this feedback be reaching the dev team, it's something to potentially note. Will be getting more test games in to see if there is something actually going on here or not.

The issue isn't only effecting run plays either. On kickoff returns, where vision is just as important as run plays, the CPU is constantly getting pulled to the sideline by some unknown force.

Below is the catch point. The way the return team has aligned to this point indicates this is a middle return call.

And we see that the blocking is actually shaping up pretty well, however, the return man is already bouncing this outside despite having no blockers out there to take on the 3 coverage guys. He should be taking this straight up the field along the right hash mark or just inside it a yard or two. If he takes this down the middle, that changes the pursuit angle of the guy in front of 23 as he'd be coming in at a more vertical angle that would allow 23 to get hands on him. And, had he gone inside, the blocker directly in front of the return man would have a very easy angle on the nearest free coverage man standing on the F in FIELD. If those two blocks are made, the return man has a TD.

But he doesn't do that. He continues heading outside. And, like I noted before, when the CPU decides to cut, it's often too late, and it is here.

The cut was so late he doesn't even complete it and is just take down in the middle of it. The return is over, the ball is at the 21.

In short, this return was actually set up extremely well to be taken to the 30 at minimum and potentially to the house. The lane was huge, this wasn't a hard read to where you'd expect a guy to need to have a high return or ballcarrier vision ratings to see it, if ballcarrier vision even comes into effect on return plays. 

What we get is the return man willingly running into 3 guys that aren't being blocked and have little chance of being blocked based on where they are, where his blockers are, and the angle he's taking. For some reason CPU ball carriers are inexplicably wanting to take everything as wide as they can even when it's the clear wrong decision.

This issue is having enough impact as is with it severely hurting the CPU's ability to run. Realizing it also hurts the CPU in the return game in ways like this and completely kills off the chance to have a game changing play like a return TD just makes it all the more impactful.

I truly think this is one of the biggest issues the vs CPU crowd is experiencing at the moment. if the CPU cannot run the ball properly at all, that's a gigantic hit to their offense and removes a lot of the challenge and strategy that many of us are seeking from the game. Like I said previously, the game is great in so many other areas, that's part of what makes this stick out like a sore thumb even more. If this issue could be fixed and the CPU became a legitimate threat in the run and return games and behaved much more like a user/real football player would, that would take the gameplay to a special place.

I'd like to correct myself. This was actually dive, not inside zone. That doesn't really make Love's decision making anymore understandable here. If anything, it's more questionable because with dive it's a gap run where he should be making it a priority to hit that A gap that's literally wide enough to drive a car through it.

This is definitely the most significant issue gameplay wise right now. Fantastic writeup and spot on !

I want to provide some pictures of what I am seeing on a routine basis to hopefully provide some clarity on the situation. It might also help show how I came to some of the conclusions that I did. This is only one play as my other images from another didn't upload from the Xbox, at least not yet, but this play shows off some of the issues well enough, I think.

Again, remember that Love is one of the highest rated backs in the game and this is on Heisman.

First up, the mesh point. 

I provided this just so you could see the initial blocking and what Love should be "seeing" in game. It's inside zone, it's blocked extremely well as he has multiple large holes visible at the moment and he has one unblocked LB to account for at the moment. A back of Love's caliber should feast in this scenario. In real life, you'd expect him to press and cause the LB to declare and make his cut off of that, potentially ripping off a big gain on the play.

As we get a few steps into the play, we see the double team is properly peeling off and taking on that LB. All other relevant blocks are being maintained and this looks like a play where only the DB's will keep Love from taking this all the way. Do note the safety (#7) is disengaging and coming free, but given where he is at, he really shouldn't be influencing anything Love does here. There's no reason to cutback on this play given the blocking we are seeing from the #70, #56, and #59. The leverage they have along with the LB going into the C gap should have Love running right up the backside of #56 for a huge gain.

Instead, he's already starting to cut hard to the right despite the leverage his blockers have here. If he could get around the #9 here and #1 can keep that edge sealed, then we probably still have a good run here.

But Love just runs straight into the LB that #56 had taken on. No gain on the play. We can see #70 actually level his LB out and had Love just ran right up the backside of $56 this would have been a massive play where he could have potentially split the 2 deep guys for a TD.

Here's Love, on the ground, paying for his decision making mishaps. We can see everyone to his left, outside of Bain (#4) is on the ground, so had he just stayed up the middle and left of where he ended up, this play was a guaranteed success. 

As you can see from the grabs, Love tries to bounce outside on the right side for about no reason. The only thing I can think of causing him to make this decision here is #7 that we noted earlier that become disengaged shortly after the give to Love. He shouldn't have influenced the play much at all, but if the radius for the pathfinding checks is too large, him being disengaged could be what is pushing Love to the right side of the play instead of up the middle.

And, if that is indeed what is happening and the radius is that large(which I don't know if it scales with the ratings or not, which could ironically be making the higher rated players more indecisive) then that would explain why it is so common for the CPU RBs to freakout and twitch dance behind the line on runs between the tackles. The checks are understandable, but if they are large and the logic is sensitive, it's going to cause issues like this and the want to to bounce every run outside. 

I want to reiterate that this play was not a one-off that drove me here. This is the consistent CPU RB play that I am seeing on Heisman. These pathfinding issues are causing RBs on Heisman to not be able to run effectively despite the 97 Run Block slider for the CPU. You can see the holes were huge, half my defense was on their backs and it was all for naught as Love's pathfinding too him straight into a defender that had no other chance of making a play here.