EA Sports CFB 25

[Romang67]

College Football 25 - Launch Weekend Notes + Updates

Hey College Football fans, What a weekend! Coming off of the worldwide launch weekend of EA SPORTS™ College Football 25, we wanted to say THANK YOU! It has been a very surreal feeling for us to see the reception to our passion project. We have been taking notes over the weekend as we watched...

answers.ea.com

Make Northwestern play on a temporary field on the lakefront, you cowards.

 

[trojansoilers]

Every shortcoming is forgivable to me except for the home stadium advantage. The playbook doesn't show receiver icons when selecting a play, then the home stadium advantage makes the receiver icons disappear both pre snap and during the play. How are you supposed to pass at that point? How did they not include an option to turn this off?

If you notice, the play on the pre-snap sometimes changes as well, but goes back to the originally selected play once the ball is snapped.
It's an interesting wrinkle, and probably used to show the confusion a real-life offense experiences as an away team when the stadium gets loud.

 

[BrokenFace]

If you notice, the play on the pre-snap sometimes changes as well, but goes back to the originally selected play once the ball is snapped.
It's an interesting wrinkle, and probably used to show the confusion a real-life offense experiences as an away team when the stadium gets loud.

I get what they're going for, it's just too far imo. The buttons are how you choose who to throw to. In real football, it's not like a QB sees his open WR but accidently throws it to his TE on the other side of the field because he forgot how to throw it to the WR. They can represent a hostile stadium in the game without getting rid of the receiver icons

 

[John Price]

Nearly retired after the defense was being gashed apart by a 1-3 UL Monroe team

This game is fun but holy shit can they not play defense

I had to intervene and play as offense to win that one

 

[Big McLargehuge]

I get what they're going for, it's just too far imo. The buttons are how you choose who to throw to. In real football, it's not like a QB sees his open WR but accidently throws it to his TE on the other side of the field because he forgot how to throw it to the WR. They can represent a hostile stadium in the game without getting rid of the receiver icons

Yeah, the button thing is annoying. Especially since I haven't played a football game in a few years and the options are just different enough to cause this exact scenario to happen a few times.

I get it, but it also is a bit too extreme at times. I wouldn't mind it so much if that only happened in the loudest moments of a game, but it's fairly regularly.


For all of the complaints that I've levied so far...the complaints I have about the vanilla franchise I'm playing are pretty slim right now. Customization is tantalizingly close, but just not there (I still can't load into my Team Builder save). Gameplay, however, feels better than any football game I've played in probably a decade. Growing pains are to be expected, but so many of the shortcomings are self-inflicted. I'm still way more on the positive side than negative, but I'm not going to stop being grumpy that I'm playing as Colorado State instead of Montana.


I really wish the Team Builder stuff was significantly more functional than it is, because for all of its shortcomings it is a pretty sweet suite of tools. I've created a few teams just for the hell of it.

 

[robertmac43]

I finally took the plunge after years of not playing a football game. Man do I suck so far lol

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

I've been playing this for 2 weeks now. My observations:

- It's college football and in a video game, so that alone is pretty cool. You can see they made an effort with the customization of the stadiums etc. and that's definitely the strongest suit of this game.

- There's some pretty significant issues. Road to Glory mode is basically broken. As someone who always enjoys these 'career' modes in sports games, this is a mode I play a lot. It's obvious for starters that it's a pretty skeleton game mode at this point compared to the career modes on other sports games. There isn't a lot to do. Most interactions and optional actions are essentially meaningless and entirely handled by text messages. Definition of 'minimum viable product'.

But the actual mechanics are kinda messed up, too. It's fine to not have any influence over coaching decisions as you are after all a mere player, but the AI coaching your team is completely bonkers. I've seen it call for a QB kneel with 2 mins left in the game and the other team having three timeouts. You're often placed in extremely random situations and what you do has little influence on the outcome of games even if you're a superstar QB or HB. If the game wants you to lose but you keep scoring, the coach will just randomly bench you for a half and the other team will score on every drive. With added coaches' trust (which is the main 'currency' in the game) you can make minor playcalling adjustments, but even that won't help if you're plain benched

The presentation also appears to be quite subpar. They decided to not have a soundtrack unlike pretty much every other sports game in the last 20 years or so. NCAA game soundtracks used to be pretty damn good, too. Yet in spite of skimping on that, they somehow paid for licensing to be able to play the opening 4-5 seconds of Mo Bamba in random in-game moments as a stadium sound? That's pretty bad.

There's also some pretty bad bugs there. Players randomly showing up in the wrong uniforms, fans cheering or booing the wrong moments (I've literally had opposing fans cheer my 40 yard touchdown runs). It also seems like the weather conditions are entirely random. I used Arizona State for a career and I had several rain games, I saw fans in heavy coats and knit hats at Southern Miss in mid-September. This is such easy logic to put in a game, football games in the 90s had this figured out better. It's basically inexplicable that EA can't sort out something so simple.

By and large I feel about this like I've felt about most EA Sports titles in the last few years. If you pick it up in a sale for $25-30 and you enjoy the sport it portrays, you'll probably have some fun with it, but it's deeply flawed and in sometimes staggering ways that expose a complete lack of care on part of EA.

 

[John Price]

The defense was so bad a 3-8 team torched my 5-6 team, making us miss the bowl game

Never had so much frustration over qb's repeatedly hitting open targets, repeatedly completing passes, receivers always making catches and barely dropping anything, especially on 3rd down and 5 or 6.

And this is Varsity.

Every game ended up like a no-defense track meet, the only game I could win by double digits was against the sun belt's only 0-8 winless team. At this point I think I'm just going to take a break and when I return tweak those sliders way, way, way down. There's no reason defense should be this bad

 

[robertmac43]

For those who are also CFL fans, check this out:

https://x.com/i/web/status/1817656663693730012

 

[Your Boy Troy]

I've had a lot of fun playing the game. The presentation is the best that I have ever played in a sports game. There are blemishes in the gameplay and franchise mode that I would like for them to address:

1. The pursuit of defenders can be downright awful. You could try to take the best angle to cut off the ball carrier, but you still won't be able to get the tackle.
2. The AI of the receivers needs to improve when it comes to improvisation. How many times does a play end in a sack or interception because of the receivers' inability to abandon a set route?
3. Why can't you change the jersey number of a computer-generated player? I hate having to see an offensive lineman with low numbers, stuff like that irritates the shit out of me.

 

[Blitzkrug]

This game is awful. I can't believe people are being fooled by the "BUT MUH FIRST COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAME IN A DECADE!" tripe.

Road to Glory is awful. It felt like it was a mode actively designed to piss the user off. I decided to go with a power back and went to Washington State as a blue chipper (essentially good, but you can't just walk your way to a power program and have to earn it.) and the first game went great. 100+ yards with a TD. But then the flaws started to show themselves. Playcalling logic is dumb and you have essentially zero control over it. Coach trust earns you the "right" to change the playcall but only from 3 preselected options. Like, no coach. How about we call something other than HB dive on 3rd and 20?

And then it gets worse, in the games where we didn't suck ass i would make runs that would get the team to inside the 10. Easy TD for XP right? Nope, every time i was in this situation i was stapled to the bench without fail. Not even in the game as a blocker, even as the #1 back on the team.

Still made the Pac-12 freshman team (not hard to do when there's 2 teams...) and then all-american freshman team. Next year i was downgraded to RB4. "You didn't score enough TDs to level up" someone tells me. HOW CAN I WHEN I'M PULLED FROM THE GAME EVERYTIME I HAVE A CHANCE? (and no it doesn't have anything to do with fatigue/wear and tear. i turned it off just to see and it does the same shit)

Dynasty is a downgrade from what it was back in the 360/PS3 days. Why you gotta introduce this more obtuse recruiting system when the system you had back with NCAA 12 and 13 was great? Simulation logic is broken with schools like Georgia and Michigan dropping games to Jabroni University every other week.

Gameplay is laughable. Tackling feels like shit because EA claims "well most kids in college take crappy angles all the time so we decided to replicate that" which in reality feels like an excuse to try and handwaive the fact this game runs on the same "animations dictate everything" trash that Madden does

At first i liked the fact the AI was putting up a fight but then i realized those games were in the minority. QBs literally don't miss to the point Joe Blow starting for Kennesaw State is carving you to the tune of 28-30 with 350 yards and 3 TDs. AI WRs will make the most incredible catches as they get smoked by a guy on each side while your WR will drop a pass if blown on. RBs will make hilariously unrealistic cuts to the point they look robotic. user defensive AI is somewhere between dumb and incompetent as guys will straight up ignore their zones. You will get no time in the pocket, your WRs not getting open and your blocking getting blown up on runs.

I thought at first it was a team issue since i was screwing around with Marshall which isn't a good team. Went into play now flipped the script with me using an 87 overall USC against 79 Cincinnati. Nope, same thing. I would expect this from Heisman difficulty but not bloody All-American or even Varsity i've heard from some people.

The first EA game i've bought since Madden 20 and it's the same old shit.

 

[robertmac43]

And then it gets worse, in the games where we didn't suck ass i would make runs that would get the team to inside the 10. Easy TD for XP right? Nope, every time i was in this situation i was stapled to the bench without fail. Not even in the game as a blocker, even as the #1 back on the team.

This happens as a WR as well. Hopefully they patch it....

 

[John Price]

I put the sliders for QB accuracy and WR ability down to 10 /100 and was still getting torched but at least the receivers would drop passes. Heck in one drive Louisville threw 3 incompletions and went 3 and out!

Won 44-42 only because their 2 pt conversion in triple overtime was incomplete. This game is fun but needs a LOT of work.

 

[robertmac43]

Tried playing this game online and got absolutely cooked lol.

These kids are too good at online gaming.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Nah online football just sucks in general. Defensive AI is way too exploitable.

Nothing says competitive experience like staying in the same playcall and making slight adjustments for 4 quarters.

I forget what year Madden it was but you could basically blow people away by just running a certain bunch call with 3 receivers stacked to one side and audible a guy on an out route. Unless you knew the exact counter, you just lose.

Not much you can do. There's 11 guys on the field and you can only control one at a given time so user skill means nothing defensively.

 

[samabam]

Game is shit, just a lower concentration of shit than recent Madden.
Defense is even worse than madden which is justified by college players being worse than NFL players, but then again it's pretty easy to recruit 5 stars as a 1 star program so I don't think realism is that much of a focus here. Overall gameplay is the same bs as madden , it's just less noticable because the game feels more arcady.
But the biggest gripe I have with this is the total lack of QA which I think ea is pretty much notorious for.
Recruiting actions glitch out and are not usable.
Just had a game where the opponent just got randomly awarded a field goal without actually scoring one and when I finished the game and returned to the hub the score was correct but it still showed up in their kickers stats.
One time I scored a touchdown at the end of a quarter and the game just forgot about the PAT.
If this is the level of polish we get from a non yearly release, madden is even more doomed than I feared

 

[John Price]

New patch released today which fixed defense

I will try it out as soon as I stop working

Game is shit, just a lower concentration of shit than recent Madden.
Defense is even worse than madden which is justified by college players being worse than NFL players, but then again it's pretty easy to recruit 5 stars as a 1 star program so I don't think realism is that much of a focus here. Overall gameplay is the same bs as madden , it's just less noticable because the game feels more arcady.
But the biggest gripe I have with this is the total lack of QA which I think ea is pretty much notorious for.
Recruiting actions glitch out and are not usable.
Just had a game where the opponent just got randomly awarded a field goal without actually scoring one and when I finished the game and returned to the hub the score was correct but it still showed up in their kickers stats.
One time I scored a touchdown at the end of a quarter and the game just forgot about the PAT.
If this is the level of polish we get from a non yearly release, madden is even more doomed than I feared

there are a few glitches and bugs but nothing major

the defense being ass is the worst and that was fixed allegedly today although I haven't had an opportunity to test it out. But yes, incorrect scores showing up, hard defense, kicking meter being out of control, etc. We'll see how many of them get fixed today.

 

[samabam]

New patch released today which fixed defense

I will try it out as soon as I stop working


there are a few glitches and bugs but nothing major

the defense being ass is the worst and that was fixed allegedly today although I haven't had an opportunity to test it out. But yes, incorrect scores showing up, hard defense, kicking meter being out of control, etc. We'll see how many of them get fixed today.

My trust in EA Sports to actually fix things with patches is zero

 

[samabam]

As always excellent work by ea, the patch made the scoreboard dissappear pre snap, so you have no play clock...just what I'd expect from them

 

[robertmac43]

Maybe I'm jus lucky but I have had 0 glitches of note thus far.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

As always excellent work by ea, the patch made the scoreboard dissappear pre snap, so you have no play clock...just what I'd expect from them

They 'fixed' the TeamBuilder crowd & equipment issue and in so doing broke it for the thousands who used work-arounds.

EA is bad at this shit. At least some communication would have helped. Say hey, we're working on fixing this issue so people like me don't start entirely new franchises to bodge the broken crowd/gear colors instead of being mum until dropping an update that suddenly turned my home games from looking like a Texas game to a Texas A&M game .

Now I have to decide if starting over again is worth it or not while at the end of season 3. Doing a Montana throwback (copper & gold) TeamBuilder has been a massive headache...which is incredibly frustrating because the jerseys look so damn good and have from the start. It's just that the crowd was entirely beige at first, then I updated it with a shade of red that had frustrated someone else because their crowd was orange - Syracuse orange was close enough to burnt orange/copper to be a significant upgrade over beige...but now with the update the crowd and equipment is a deep crimson red. Even that would sorta work if that's all that changed because it's reasonably near Montana's usual maroon primary...but it also updated my edited mustardy gold secondary color and turned it orange so the crowd has the same colors as Virginia Tech's...the ugliest color combination in CFB IMO. Awesome.

FWIW this is what I based it on. I darkened the colors to look better in-game as everything looked too beige on my first attempt.

Attached is what things look like in-game. Hardly enough to ruin the game...and it still looks a lot better than everything being beige like it did on the first try (even when using Texas's burnt orange, which is what Montana calls copper). Incidentally the change just so happened to take place in time for me to play Virginia Tech at home. I thought the crowd color was a bug

I really hope they get the Team Builder issues worked out for future versions. The lack of generic stadiums, team intros, fight songs, etc. is absolutely absurd...but the tools that are there are, generally, really good and have kept me interested so far. It just sucks that an update dropped and suddenly my crowd is a different color with no way for me to fix it without starting a new file.

 

[Blitzkrug]

As always excellent work by ea, the patch made the scoreboard dissappear pre snap, so you have no play clock...just what I'd expect from them

I got it worse. Mid-game i lost the ability to see my pre-snap adjustments/coverage adjustments/audible menus.

I was going to say this patch seemed to fix a fair amount but that's kind of not good.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Nope, never mind. EA's claim they fixed the polling logic was an total lie

Like wtf is this garbage? (i play on all-american for those wondering)

I'm the only undefeated team left in the country with two top 25 wins over Utah and more hilariously, f***ing Colorado who for some reason jumped me (and i lost a ranking) despite having less wins and losing their conference title game to #1 K-State. I feel like i should be at least in Miami or Texas's spot.

It gets actually worse, i'm sure you guys can spot the details but i'll point them out

- Miami only losing 1 spot after losing the ACC title game to Clemson. Feel like they should have at least flipped

- SEC champion Arkansas barely making the playoffs while 10-3 Oklahoma somehow loses out to 8-4 USC

- TCU being anywhere near the playoff despite not making their conference championship.

- Texas at #3 (up from 5 despite not playing a game the week prior) at 9-3 because Arch Manning asked his uncles to bribe the committee i guess?

Nice patch guys. And i got the patch right before i started this season.

 

[samabam]

I find the simulation results to be terrible across the board. Just had a fsc school beat georgia 35-10 (didn't play that game,just randomly happened while I was playing with buffalo)
Another big gripe I have is player switching on D.
When my rusher gets blocked and I want to switch to a free rusher, I instead get switched to a DB 30 yards downfield, very annoying, especially because the free rusher cant get the sack 70% of the time

 

[John Price]

TEambuilder giving some ajax errors I just want to create my own uni