Madden 25 - CPU is too weak
Hi folks,
Madden 25 is better than Madden 23 and 24. It plays cleaner, the playbooks are better, the franchise experience has some nice improvements. However, we need improvements to the CPU - both offensively and defensively - and clarity on how simulation works.
Here are the current sliders i am playing with -
All Madden, 10 minute quarters, Simulation.
Injury: 30, Fatigue: 60, Speed Parity: 75
Play cooldown on offense 5; max play calls 3.
Player Sliders:
QB accuracy 30, WR catching 35, pass blocking 15, run blocking 0, ball security 12, pass defense 0, pass defense reaction 100, interceptions 0, tackling 25.
CPU Sliders:
QB accuracy/pass blocking/run blocking/ wr catching/ ball security/pass defense all set to 100.
Pass defense reaction 0; interceptions 30, tackling 65.
You probably think this is so insane it's impossible but it isn't. There is a difference in the sliders but... not that much. You can still move the ball and control the clock, and, on top of that, the CPU has difficulty sustaining drives.
A few things i've noticed:
- If you're struggling, they struggle. You get close games when your offense is developing, and your defense is decent. Your first season in this kind of rebuild will be solid. You'll win games, you'll lose games, it'll be competitive. The experience you're after.
- Once your offense is humming and you can score on every single possession, their offense will eventually get better. I had a game where i won 49-45, with the difference being that they settled for a field goal (because of running out of time at the end of the half) and every other drive was a touchdown. It feels silly.
Could someone at EA answer a few questions for me:
- Are sliders applied to in-game quick sim, in-game slow sim? Are they the same as when you're acting as the user?
- Can you recommend a set of sliders or settings that will achieve a meaningful challenge?
I've done about 50 franchise rebuilds, and I sim ahead 10 years into the future with max regression to force the non-CPU generated players out.
- The first season my defense does okay, even with terrible OVR. Like i intentionally neglect defense and it does fine. top 5-10 defense. Offensive output is low. 21-25 ppg. I've literally had defenses that are sub-70 overall play better than my defenses later on that are 80+
- The second season, my offense now has a super star qb, and at minimum drafted hidden dev receivers who are solid, stars or better. My offensive output JUMPS, 30+ ppg, even with those sliders. Defensive quality dips, even as players are added.
- By the third season not only do i expect to win every game, as long as i don't play carelessly, i will. 15-2 or 16-1, super bowl. Usually i have a loss because i just make a boneheaded lazy mistake at this point because i expect to win and it's autopilot, i get greedy trying new plays, etc.
- Additionally, regardless of how difficult it is... if you make the playoffs, you expect to win every game. the difficulty actually decreases when you make the playoffs.
I've attempted to mitigate this by turning down player experience to really throttle development, but, this just neuters the CPU completely.
Are there any planned sliders for future maddens or any settings that allow us to create a more simulation experience?
If there is dynamic difficulty, can we have sliders to control it?
Is there a way we can have morale be a slider as well? Player morale gets too high too fast. Morale could be an excellent mechanic for evaluation cpu vs cpu games to create seasonal variance. But we need better control here.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but franchise mode needs to be meaningful past the first season.
A few simple things:
- A 13+ win season should be considered great. It is not common.
- Winning the super bowl should be rare. Even good teams lose in the playoffs.
The point is that winning eventually doesn't feel good, it feels expected. Anyway in case someone from EA stumbles across this post, I'm happy to go into details or share any details you'd like.
