Unlock CPU Aggressiveness | Guide
If you are wanting the CPU to play more aggressively these settings will unlock that from my testing. My definition of aggressive revolves around the CPU play calling tendency to want to attack your weaknesses from your play calling habits, to your teams attribute weaknesses, to CPU taking more chances. These are designed for Heisman difficulty and I'll explain toward the end why, but here are the settings
1.) ADAPTIVE A.I SETTING (change setting to aggressive)
This setting can be found in the "edit coach" section in Dynasty mode. Despite it being in the edit coach section of your coach, according to EA this will effect the CPU and in many ways "Additionally, the AI now has access to the full range of adjustments, just like a human player would make. As a result, you can expect to see teams employ an array of adjustments such as shade techniques, showing blitz, run commits, QB contains, and Spy's, to name just a few situational adjustments. different coaches will react and adapt differently to successful run or pass games, thus creating a more authentic, dynamic, and unpredictable game environment" -EA Deep Dive
Turn this setting to aggressive. From my testing (over 20+ games) this triggers something under the "coding" hood that makes the CPU start to try and attack your playcalling habits and areas where you have lower rated players. I experimented with trying to run the same play over and over and they adapted. Here's the best part of setting this to aggressive The game coding doesn't seem to cheat and automatically know what play you're going to run, they respond more to the formation you pick and how many times you've run a certain type of play from that formation. Example is I picked I-Formation and did all my running plays out of that and only did passing plays from shotgun for a full first half to test it. Second half, I start with a play action out the the I-Formation that I've been running exclusivley out of... CPU bites heavy and over the top touchdown. Next drive I get the ball and try play action a few times that drive from I-Formation and they didn't bite hard. Just like we can choose to predict what we think the offense is going to run by RB/R1 + RS to guess pass or run, this setting seems to trigger that for the CPU where they start to guess both offensively and defensively what youre going to do based on your tendencies of the formation you're in and what plays you've run out of that. I played a game with my lowly rated teambuilder team vs Florida and they attacked and ran the ball way more than usual bc the CPU engine recognized how lowly rated my D-Line was. When I tested this and played Florida with a team of highly rated D-Line (Miami) they did not attack using the run as much bc the game recognized there wasn't as much of a mismatch and Floridas CPU QB was constantly making adjustments at the line looking like he was shifting his pass protection more bc of Miami's D-Line was highly rated.
Change this setting to high ASAP
2.) Player Speed Parity (turn down 35-40 range)
The lower this setting, the bigger disparity between fastest and slowest players on the field. Something seems to happen under the "coding hood" when this setting is lowered to show the difference between the fastest and slowest players on the field where the CPU will start to look for mismatches more. The CPU coding seems to get triggered more frequently to target slower players/cross-matches in man-to-man situations just like offensive coordinators do in real life. This makes CPU play-calling more aggressive to exploit mismatches. This makes you feel like you have to be selective of your play calling knowing the CPU coding will seem to be triggered more to attack your slow rated players. Think of this how in NBA 2k when one of your smaller players gets switched onto a Big man, the CPU recognizes and tries to post your small defender up. That seems to be what happens here when lowering this setting except it is CPU trying to attack slower players on a football field. This setting should be lowered anyway to replicate the visible disparity in real life between the fastest players in CFB vs just the avg. speed players.
3.) CPU Player Reaction Time (turn down to 40-45 range) Pass Coverage UP (55-60 range)
EA has an issue like many sports games where increasing the difficulty turns the CPU players into mind readers instead of reactors. Turn CPU player reaction time setting down slightly to simulate the normal human response of having to react instead of the DB's reading the Wr's minds and basically running the WR's routes for them. To balance, slightly increase pass coverage setting. This will allow CPU's to be more disciplined with the pass coverage but reaction time to be more like humans and less like robots.
4.) Play on Heisman and scale down not All-American and scaling up
I understand that people feel Hall of Fame on 2k or Heisman on CFB 25 can feel like the game engine is tinkering with settings under the hood to cheat, and that seems like the case at times with sports videogames on their highest difficulty. However, if you want the CPU, especially using the settings above" to be aggressive Heisman difficulty seems to unlock that the most with the settings above. Again, for CPU aggressiveness, Heisman difficulty and scale some of their sliders down (ex. pass reaction time) to unlock them being more real to life aggressive.
Settings in Action
You can watch these settings in action in the video below. EA said teams/players will play different in the rain and that is ABSOLUTELY true. View the video below to see how QB accuracy and WR catching all took a hit when in rainy conditions as well as the settings I mentioned below in action.
https://<iframe width="560" height="...reen></iframe>
Let me know if you've found any other secrets to CPU aggressiveness.
If you are wanting the CPU to play more aggressively these settings will unlock that from my testing. My definition of aggressive revolves around the CPU play calling tendency to want to attack your weaknesses from your play calling habits, to your teams attribute weaknesses, to CPU taking more chances. These are designed for Heisman difficulty and I'll explain toward the end why, but here are the settings
1.) ADAPTIVE A.I SETTING (change setting to aggressive)
This setting can be found in the "edit coach" section in Dynasty mode. Despite it being in the edit coach section of your coach, according to EA this will effect the CPU and in many ways "Additionally, the AI now has access to the full range of adjustments, just like a human player would make. As a result, you can expect to see teams employ an array of adjustments such as shade techniques, showing blitz, run commits, QB contains, and Spy's, to name just a few situational adjustments. different coaches will react and adapt differently to successful run or pass games, thus creating a more authentic, dynamic, and unpredictable game environment" -EA Deep Dive
Turn this setting to aggressive. From my testing (over 20+ games) this triggers something under the "coding" hood that makes the CPU start to try and attack your playcalling habits and areas where you have lower rated players. I experimented with trying to run the same play over and over and they adapted. Here's the best part of setting this to aggressive The game coding doesn't seem to cheat and automatically know what play you're going to run, they respond more to the formation you pick and how many times you've run a certain type of play from that formation. Example is I picked I-Formation and did all my running plays out of that and only did passing plays from shotgun for a full first half to test it. Second half, I start with a play action out the the I-Formation that I've been running exclusivley out of... CPU bites heavy and over the top touchdown. Next drive I get the ball and try play action a few times that drive from I-Formation and they didn't bite hard. Just like we can choose to predict what we think the offense is going to run by RB/R1 + RS to guess pass or run, this setting seems to trigger that for the CPU where they start to guess both offensively and defensively what youre going to do based on your tendencies of the formation you're in and what plays you've run out of that. I played a game with my lowly rated teambuilder team vs Florida and they attacked and ran the ball way more than usual bc the CPU engine recognized how lowly rated my D-Line was. When I tested this and played Florida with a team of highly rated D-Line (Miami) they did not attack using the run as much bc the game recognized there wasn't as much of a mismatch and Floridas CPU QB was constantly making adjustments at the line looking like he was shifting his pass protection more bc of Miami's D-Line was highly rated.
Change this setting to high ASAP
2.) Player Speed Parity (turn down 35-40 range)
The lower this setting, the bigger disparity between fastest and slowest players on the field. Something seems to happen under the "coding hood" when this setting is lowered to show the difference between the fastest and slowest players on the field where the CPU will start to look for mismatches more. The CPU coding seems to get triggered more frequently to target slower players/cross-matches in man-to-man situations just like offensive coordinators do in real life. This makes CPU play-calling more aggressive to exploit mismatches. This makes you feel like you have to be selective of your play calling knowing the CPU coding will seem to be triggered more to attack your slow rated players. Think of this how in NBA 2k when one of your smaller players gets switched onto a Big man, the CPU recognizes and tries to post your small defender up. That seems to be what happens here when lowering this setting except it is CPU trying to attack slower players on a football field. This setting should be lowered anyway to replicate the visible disparity in real life between the fastest players in CFB vs just the avg. speed players.
3.) CPU Player Reaction Time (turn down to 40-45 range) Pass Coverage UP (55-60 range)
EA has an issue like many sports games where increasing the difficulty turns the CPU players into mind readers instead of reactors. Turn CPU player reaction time setting down slightly to simulate the normal human response of having to react instead of the DB's reading the Wr's minds and basically running the WR's routes for them. To balance, slightly increase pass coverage setting. This will allow CPU's to be more disciplined with the pass coverage but reaction time to be more like humans and less like robots.
4.) Play on Heisman and scale down not All-American and scaling up
I understand that people feel Hall of Fame on 2k or Heisman on CFB 25 can feel like the game engine is tinkering with settings under the hood to cheat, and that seems like the case at times with sports videogames on their highest difficulty. However, if you want the CPU, especially using the settings above" to be aggressive Heisman difficulty seems to unlock that the most with the settings above. Again, for CPU aggressiveness, Heisman difficulty and scale some of their sliders down (ex. pass reaction time) to unlock them being more real to life aggressive.
Settings in Action
You can watch these settings in action in the video below. EA said teams/players will play different in the rain and that is ABSOLUTELY true. View the video below to see how QB accuracy and WR catching all took a hit when in rainy conditions as well as the settings I mentioned below in action.
https://<iframe width="560" height="...reen></iframe>
Let me know if you've found any other secrets to CPU aggressiveness.
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