EA Sports College Football coming back!

[GrantDawg]

Just played around a little but with RTG. It was actually pretty fun. Letting the computer pass, but trying to take off and run if the ball didn't come out because the sack cones quick. I think I ran into a bug. I played a practice in the third week and did terrible. Yet the game leveled me up multiple times and gave 127 skill points.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

[Mota]

Can you do CPU vs CPU games?

[RainMaker]

Finally had a full day to mess around with the game.

Gameplay - Despite talk of it not being like Madden, I think it plays a lot like Madden. Same type of plays work, defense is even more non-existent, and Heisman just turns the other team's QB into Tom Brady. It's really smooth and that probably has a lot to do with it being next gen only. Digging the animations and I think it does a pretty good job with simulating blocking. Speed is still the only thing that really matters. It's arcadey and I think will turn off those looking for more of a simulation style game. Definitely going to need some major slider tweaks if you're looking for realism. Online is going to be a cheese fest.

Dynasty - Recruiting is really well done. They definitely nailed that and I really like how you can look for particular attributes and find hidden gems. Targeting speed feels like the best way for smaller schools to build up their roster. I'm enjoying that part more than I ever have in the old games.

With that said, there are a lot of issues. The sim engine is definitely broken as reports have said. There's too much parity in the results and player stats are comically off. It's also not really deep and makes you feel like nothing really matters. I'd say recruiting is better than 2014 but everything else is worse.

UI - Just atrocious. Way too many menus and buttons to find stats on players or even team schedules. This is in dynasty by the way. This doesn't take much away from the game outside of it being a huge annoyance.

Graphics - Incredible. Best in any sports game period. Nailed all the little details too, even at smaller schools.

Overall - A nice start I guess. Thought it would be more polished with the extra year they took. Maybe an early patch will fix some issues as they do seem to be actively requesting people post bugs/issues.

I'd say it's pretty similar to where things were 10 years ago. It's better than Madden and will be fun, but it's still an EA game. I think without some patches, you'll be seeing a lot of people shift back to revamped for their dynasty needs. Still happy to see the series back though.

[GrantDawg]

"Can you do CPU vs CPU games?"

You can turn Supersim to slow and watch the game play.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Speed is still the only thing that really matters. It's arcadey and I think will turn off those looking for more of a simulation style game. Definitely going to need some major slider tweaks if you're looking for realism. Online is going to be a cheese fest.

Someone posted a video earlier in this thread with Donovan Edwards playing H2H with some gamer and that's immediately what stuck out - dude was able to blow past any defender even at pretty tight angles once he hit the afterburner button. And he did it multiple times, even late in the games. On long runs, it looked like he was increasing speed as he headed to the end zone. Didn't like the look of that, but I couldn't tell if they just maxed out Edwards' character since he was playing the game.

[korme]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

And for whatever reason(s), they're still missing an awful lot more players than I would have ever imagined.

Ga State, as a low end example, is missing more than 2 dozen players ... not counting several transfers AND not counting 3 players on their game roster who are long gone from the program (including one that will start against them in week 2)

These rosters seem a lot similar to the route for the "historic" NBA rosters, where they clearly only worried about doing anything remotely accurate with a handful of big names. And that completely killed any value of me playing with those rosters :/

There are usually some pretty good modified draft classes and rosters to download, though.

[QuikSand]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm2rDotcHUI

i'm watching this video on recruiting in dynasty mode... was puzzling for me initially, this is helping a lot

[whomario]

Re: players missing. Watched a bit of a stream yesterday where the guy visited the local college and at least one player forgot to opt in and only send that like a day earlier. Working with uni students full time i can see this happening quite a bit honestly, depending on what the deadlines for the current rosters were. (And how involved maybe folks from the department were or how much EA reminded the non-stars).

Personally i couldn't pick any current players out of a crowd so not exactly an issue for me but obviously not the key demographic here (i'll play because the 'concept' of it all, roster turnover with lots to do, makes for a fun game).

[whomario]

What i'm most annoyed with is Teambuilder likely being a long way out given they'll merely give some update/info tomorrow...

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Someone posted a video earlier in this thread with Donovan Edwards playing H2H with some gamer and that's immediately what stuck out - dude was able to blow past any defender even at pretty tight angles once he hit the afterburner button. And he did it multiple times, even late in the games. On long runs, it looked like he was increasing speed as he headed to the end zone. Didn't like the look of that, but I couldn't tell if they just maxed out Edwards' character since he was playing the game.

He's a 92 in speed in the game which isn't that fast. There are some backs that are 98 in speed.

One thing I'll say is there is a "Minimum Player Speed Threshold" slider that can be adjusted. Similar to like in Madden, this allows you to either close the gap between speeds or make a bigger disparity. Turning this up to like 60-80 should help with making speed less important. Probably just going to take a little time for the slider makers to figure out the right setting, although one popular maker on OS has it at 75.

[GrantDawg]

Teambuilder is scheduled to be released tonight, and it does look like at least on there you will be able to edit players on created teams. I think the biggest negative I saw on it is that most of the school info like coaches/rivalries/schedules/records are going to come from whatever school you are replacing. I wish it were more a blank slate.

[Kodos]

Yep. Limitations like that are annoying to work around. Here's a link to Team Builder info:

College Football 25 Team Builder Deep Dive - EA SPORTS

[whomario]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Teambuilder is scheduled to be released tonight, and it does look like at least on there you will be able to edit players on created teams. I think the biggest negative I saw on it is that most of the school info like coaches/rivalries/schedules/records are going to come from whatever school you are replacing. I wish it were more a blank slate.

Iirc that was the interpretatiom until EA clarified it would not be released because it isn't ready yet? And instead the thing coming out "around" tomorrow is a blog post. Would love to have missed sth obviously ...

IGN Error 403 - Unavailable (IFW-U02)

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by whomario

Iirc that was the interpretatiom until EA clarified it would not be released because it isn't ready yet? And instead the thing coming out "around" tomorrow is a blog post. Would love to have missed sth obviously ...

IGN Error 403 - Unavailable (IFW-U02)

No, this is today:

Team Builder is coming 👀

Learn more 🔗: https://t.co/mqmPrCeDpp pic.twitter.com/kup2bCNLl8

— EASPORTSCollege (@EASPORTSCollege) July 18, 2024



The deep dive says it will be released tonight.


[whomario]

Awesome, thanks for making my day


Hope it's relatively functional. One bug i hope not to see is location not being tracked correctly (iirc an issue for Free Agents with Madden relocation and in this game with Hawaii for example)

[RainMaker]

Pretty cool that you can change the turf color.

[whomario]

Cool little database (incl. filters and sortable) for all the schools in the game, including their letter grades but also historical w/l records, bowl games, draft picks etc (i have no way of judging if it is all accurate).

https://collegepigskin.gg/schools

[Kodos]

Ooooh. That's helpful! I like to pick the teams I replace so that I can dictate the teambuilder team's rivals.

[GrantDawg]

Played around some more with RTG. I am finding doing that with coach mode setting pretty fun. I will say I made a mistake picking Kennesaw State as my first team, though. They are just bad. My teammates keep letting me down, not to mention my coach calls way too many run plays. The run play thing might be true anywhere you go until the coach trusts you more, so when picking a team think about that. You are going to want a team with a good run game or it is going to get frustrating. I'm going to wait to see whether they make a pass at the sim engine before I play Dynasty again.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Played around some more with RTG. I am finding doing that with coach mode setting pretty fun. I will say I made a mistake picking Kennesaw State as my first team, though. They are just bad. My teammates keep letting me down, not to mention my coach calls way too many run plays. The run play thing might be true anywhere you go until the coach trusts you more, so when picking a team think about that. You are going to want a team with a good run game or it is going to get frustrating. I'm going to wait to see whether they make a pass at the sim engine before I play Dynasty again.

I'm confused what you get out of playing RTG in coach mode.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

I'm confused what you get out of playing RTG in coach mode.

Playing. I will never be able to pass, but it can be fun to build a player up and watch him grow. So I let the game pass for me, and I have fun.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm2rDotcHUI

i'm watching this video on recruiting in dynasty mode... was puzzling for me initially, this is helping a lot

Kind of feels a bit backwards that Scouting plays such a small role all in all. Think there should be a mechanic where you can basically target certain regions/positions to get a bunch of recruits scouted at least partially rather than essentially having to min max it.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Played around some more with RTG. I am finding doing that with coach mode setting pretty fun. I will say I made a mistake picking Kennesaw State as my first team, though. They are just bad. My teammates keep letting me down, not to mention my coach calls way too many run plays. The run play thing might be true anywhere you go until the coach trusts you more, so when picking a team think about that. You are going to want a team with a good run game or it is going to get frustrating. I'm going to wait to see whether they make a pass at the sim engine before I play Dynasty again.

I just heard from a pretty casual gamer -- i.e. nobody's joystick jockey -- who absolutely plowed UGA with Kennesaw in season two (dynasty mode).

So is the gameplay in dynasty almost every bit as broken as the sim engine too? (My general impression from both here & elsewhere is that it's pretty much as low difficulty as 2014 was, or as Madden is. That by 2-3 seasons in, you're a title contender every year from that point on)

[GrantDawg]

Team Builder is up.


Team Builder

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I just heard from a pretty casual gamer -- i.e. nobody's joystick jockey -- who absolutely plowed UGA with Kennesaw in season two (dynasty mode).

So is the gameplay in dynasty almost every bit as broken as the sim engine too? (My general impression from both here & elsewhere is that it's pretty much as low difficulty as 2014 was, or as Madden is. That by 2-3 seasons in, you're a title contender every year from that point on)

I'm not seeing that. I was struggling on All-American against schools better than me. The speed disparity in the good and bad teams can really do you in. Part of that was that defense is really tough to play so the computer can score when it wants to. But with all EA Sports games, I feel like I'll grow out of All-American pretty soon and have to play on Heisman.

I also haven't really seen that from other streamers. There is a guy I watch a bit who plays The Show, NBA 2K, and Madden who went 5 seasons deep with UConn. He was playing on Heisman and I think made 1 bowl in the first 3 years, made the playoff his 4th year but lost in round 1 and was deep in the playoffs in year 5. He's way more skilled than most people are, so I feel like there is going to be some difficulty for us casuals.

With that said, the recruiting is a little too easy for small schools. I'm guessing that's less a glitch and more a choice since people want to build up schools and if you're limited to 2 star guys only, it's just not going to be as fun. And the sim engine does mess up everything in a Dynasty. He was ranked #2 with UConn at like 9-3. This is mainly because there is so much parity that you don't have a bunch of 11-1, 12-0 teams at the top.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I just heard from a pretty casual gamer -- i.e. nobody's joystick jockey -- who absolutely plowed UGA with Kennesaw in season two (dynasty mode).

So is the gameplay in dynasty almost every bit as broken as the sim engine too? (My general impression from both here & elsewhere is that it's pretty much as low difficulty as 2014 was, or as Madden is. That by 2-3 seasons in, you're a title contender every year from that point on)

Foe sure context would help, was he playing varsity, sliders etc? One common thing is the difficulty levels are scale a lot harder than in the past.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

Foe sure context would help, was he playing varsity, sliders etc? One common thing is the difficulty levels are scale a lot harder than in the past.

No clue, his wife (a family friend) was relaying the story to me

[RainMaker]

I'd avoid playing the FCS schools in dynasty for now. Their ratings are weird and they're better than most G5 schools. But the bigger issue is they have way too many injuries. I think it's the "wear and tear" system but the game gets messed up because each one of those FCS schools is playing like 6-7 teams each week. So it's treating those players like they've played a ton of games. I legit had like 20 injury timeouts against a school.

And that's with injuries at default where I've seen only one for my players so far. Definitely need to up that slider a lot.

[whomario]

How does pipeline for your coach work? Is it basically an aditional bonus or does setting it to a different region (than the team you take over) make it harder to get local players than if you'd set it there?

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by whomario

How does pipeline for your coach work? Is it basically an aditional bonus or does setting it to a different region (than the team you take over) make it harder to get local players than if you'd set it there?

It is a bonus, but it still looks like you get other pipeline bonuses and they are tiered. Other than that, I don't know exactly how they work.

[Izulde]

The number of dropped passes by WRs has been kinda stupid so far and has contributed to passing game woes people are experiencing I think

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Izulde

The number of dropped passes by WRs has been kinda stupid so far and has contributed to passing game woes people are experiencing I think

Yeah, i think WR catching needs to be upped in sliders and QB accuracy down to adjust that.

Outside of the defense being bad, I do think a lot of issues can be fixed with sliders. I'm on the verge of turning off roughing the kicker penalties though because I'm seeing way too many.

[Kodos]

Holy cow is Team Builder detailed. Although I can't figure out how to type in the endzones...

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

No clue, his wife (a family friend) was relaying the story to me

I fired it up last night after it unlocked and played a game on All-American default sliders. Definitely not easy on this mode IMO, I had a great first drive. missed a short field goal and lost 20-0 to a team I was rated higher than. Gameplay is amazing and felt real, computer adjusts on both sides of the ball.

Small sample size, but I didn't just jump in and run over the CPU. Possible they are playing Varsity.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Holy cow is Team Builder detailed. Although I can't figure out how to type in the endzones...

Yeah, I gave up on that. Could change the design in the endzone, but couldn't figure out how put words in there. I'm sure you can, I just didn't see how.

[GrantDawg]

Just playing around with a Teambuilder team in dynasty. The team you replace is where the team is going to be considered located regardless of where you place the team in the creator. Just a heads up.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Just playing around with a Teambuilder team in dynasty. The team you replace is where the team is going to be considered located regardless of where you place the team in the creator. Just a heads up.

Does it also get that schools letter grades and reputation (which, unless i am missing it, you can't customize)?

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by whomario

Does it also get that schools letter grades and reputation (which, unless i am missing it, you can't customize)?

Looks like it. You basically need to replace a school of the type and place you want to emulate. The school records also are added to the new team. The plus is that you can edit the players attributes in Teambuilder, and you can change their names in game.

[dubb93]

My son that plays last years Madden and finds All Madden too hard but full games on All Pro too easy and instead uses super sim to keep himself from winning every Super Bowl lost a game on varsity playing as Indiana playing one of the FCS schools. Both teams scored in the 50s with 5 minute quarters so I think any fear that the game is too easy at launch is probably unfounded although I personally question how much defense was being played.

[Ghost Econ]

And here I am, played my first game on All-American and was up 24-7 on Michigan as South Carolina at UM and I'm generally mediocre at Madden. But it could just be an adaptive AI. I was a turnover machine while winning. 2 fumbles and an INT before I had to cook dinner.

Then I realized I can just remote play, but I had already ended the game. But I was cooking dinner while digging into dynasty mode through my phone. 15 year old me wouldn't recognize me.

[RainMaker]

The adaptive AI is interesting. There's a couple plays that are my go-to in short yardage (goalline dive, QB sneak). After using them a couple of times in a game, they were obliterated when I'd run them. Haven't played long enough to see how it plays out but it will be cool if the AI actually adapts to the plays you run a lot.

A really cool feature would be if it adapted throughout the season. They notice you run a particular play 10% of the time and the next team just has it on lockdown. Could even adjust based on how good the coach of that team is.

My gripe with football games dating back forever is that once you figure out your money plays, you usually just run the same 10-15 and rarely deviate.

[GrantDawg]

Played a good bit today. Spent most of my time working on Teambuilder. Lots of little quirks tweaking it. It is frustrating that the only stadiums you get to use are existing team stadiums, and their signage will be up around the stadium. There are so many little annoying things they could have done to make things better, hand in hand with so many big things.
I will say that I did enjoy the games I played. The games play out decently using coach mode, as long as you don't ever call a screen. You take frustrating sacks at times, and the defense definitely has magic hands and the ability to be in a full run one direction and suddenly jump up and intercept a ball every once in awhile. For the most part though my team did pretty well.
One thing the coach mode QB does surprisingly well is run RPO's. I created a spread playbook that I added some Pistol plays to, taking out the screens but adding almost all options and RPO's. They aren't cheat level money plays or anything, but this game does the quick pass to the WR better than any game I have ever played. The QB does a good job on the read as well, Usually when he hands it off it will be for positive yardage, and when he throws it it will be complete if not for a lot of yards.

It also plays CPU-CPU pretty well. I haven't seen any QB runs, which is disappointing. I don't know if some slider work will fix that or not. I haven't touched anything yet. Going to wait for the slider experts to have time with it.

[GrantDawg]

I played a quick Play Now game after I adjusted my resolution (I think it looks better in HD than in either 2k or 4k on my size monitor), but I did see a QB run finally.



Also, I want to give props to the one thing they did very well. Play calling. This the best play calling set up I have seen in a game like this. Plays are broken down by formation, player focus, play type down to even more selective play types, it really makes it easier to vary things up.

[Sweed]

Played my first game as Iowa. I input sliders and settings by "Armor and Sword" I found on the OS boards. https://forums.operationsports.com/f...e-sliders.html

I went on the road to Marshall having not played a football game in quite a long time, with a few turns at a passing mini game before. The sliders above are set to 13 minute qtrs where I played 15. This resulted in around 180 plays total, a bit too many. With that in mind I won 56- 17. The biggest reason is I ran for 260 yards with two runs of over 30 yds. My passing was pretty bad but I did fine Lachey (sp?) for a 30 yd TD when I rolled left and he came free. Hit him in stride and a safety met him at the GL but lost that battle. Also add I had a pick six and three picks on the day (I also threw 3 picks).

I didn't think the running was too easy despite the 260 yds. It is Iowa, with their line, vs Marshall.

With folks talking about the lack of defense I was surprised to see my Hawks absolutely shut down Marshall. In the first qtr Marshall struck with a bomb down the sideline and I thought "oh no" this looks too easy. After that they struggled against the Iowa D. FWIW on D I only play the left D-end for every play and never switch players.

It was a quick first game with little thought, ie just play it as it comes and see what happens. With that in mind I thought it played a fairly realistic game.

With that much success from my Iowa offense my next test will be a top tier team. I'm thinking Ohio State. If they man handle my offense and are at least pushed to play well against my D I'll feel pretty good about these sliders and the game. If I put up an easy 30 points against them? Yeah not a good sign. If it's 56-10 at the end of the 3rd qtr I'll probably quit but go away feeling happy(?).

First impression. It was fun to play, great visuals, and acceptable stat outcome for the teams involved.

Edit: Meant to ask about wear and tear and subs..

In my game my HB showed wear and tear to his shoulder with high risk. I went to coaching to sub him out and there was only "depth chart" as a way to try to do so. I moved him from #1 down to #4. #2 then came in for a play or two but soon my #1 was back in the game, huh? I then moved him below #4 on the chart with 4 being the last numbered slot. He still came back in the game. I could not see any way to stop him from playing. Did I miss something simple? Is it because it was a "Play now" game? If I were in my dynasty and not be able to keep him on the bench I'd not be a happy camper.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

[dubb93]

Originally Posted by Ghost Econ

And here I am, played my first game on All-American and was up 24-7 on Michigan as South Carolina at UM and I'm generally mediocre at Madden. But it could just be an adaptive AI. I was a turnover machine while winning. 2 fumbles and an INT before I had to cook dinner.

Then I realized I can just remote play, but I had already ended the game. But I was cooking dinner while digging into dynasty mode through my phone. 15 year old me wouldn't recognize me.

I think South Carolina is gonna be a popular pick. I just had a random video pop up that mentioned that one of their WRs is probably the best player in the game due to 99 speed, 99 acceleration, 98 jumping and he’s 6’5.

[GrantDawg]

I'm trying Coach Gunns CPU-CPU sliders. I'm calling plays in coach mode on offense and letting the computer do defense and watching in slow sim. Playing as GT (blasphemy I know) versus Florida State in Ireland, and FSU is killing me. I can barely get a completed pass.
Btw, the sliders guys have discovered that you need to set the gane to classic passing to be able to lower the completion percentage. It looks like no matter what you do, the QB will always throw a catchable pass with dynamic passing turned on, which is why there are so many drops but hardly any miss throws.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

[whomario]

For those redoing the Pac12, a quick tip: After adding teams and the going to Conference rules the Number of conference Games will be empty by default (which is why you'll see comments/vids about them not playing games in conference) and can't be changed. However, once you back out and back into the conference settings you can then adjust the No of games and the game will create a conference schedule when starting the dynasty.

[GrantDawg]

As the game played out, Tech started to tighten it up. It was 13-7 late in the second quarter, then FSU took complete control. It ended 39-7, with the FSU Qb having a 66% completion percentage and no picks. Meanwhile GT Qb had a 52% completion and 3 picks, mostly because the 4th quarter was just constantly slinging it to try to get back in the game.
I did an adjustment on the sub sliders as well, but still the primary RB took almost all the non-qb carries. That is going to be another real concern. Players should be regularly subbed out, especially since the whole year and tear system was implemented. It drives me crazy that there is no consistent auto subs.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Players should be regularly subbed out, especially since the whole year and tear system was implemented. It drives me crazy that there is no consistent auto subs.

Wasn't there some sort of issue with the Madden version of wear & tear (fatigue? or some such) that could leave you with multiple starters not only missing games late in the regular season but all well into the playoffs?

[RainMaker]

Yeah, progressive fatigue was put in Madden but was a disaster they never fixed.

Seems like the bloom is coming off the rose with NCAA. They got some good publicity by buttering up to streamers, but now that you dig a little deeper in the game, it's buggy and kind of sucks.