10 Years of Forced Wins/Losses

[spartyon6686]

For science and no other reason, I decided to force every win for Michigan State and every loss for Michigan. After ten years and ten national championships I have concluded that the games do not matter.

After ten years of force simming and auto recruiting as Michigan State, I have a Team Prestige rating of 4.5 stars. Whilest Michigan has one of 3.5 stars despite not winning a game against an FBS opponent for ten years.

After Michigan did not go down below 4 stars in prestige or OVR rating after five years, I moved them to the MAC conference. That finally got the OVR rating down and at one point their star rating went to 3 stars. After another 0-12 season, They are back up to a 3.5 star program.

Michigan State is still struggling to recruit (18th overall) and Michigan just landed a 5 star prospect while in the MAC (47th) despite opposite trajectories.

I test again while usering the other program with the same experiment and maybe while usering a neutral team.

I went into this thinking I could imagine a different world but instead found that the game is just as rigged as the one on the field.

Go Green!

[underdog13]

Re: 10 Years of Forced Wins/Losses

I mean that does not seem entirely unrealistic... You got half the state of Michigan growing up wanting to play for U Mich. That's dads making their sons grow up to want to play there. I don't see a decade of terrible football taking that all away. I will say Mich St. should be 5/5 A+ everything if they never lose in 10 years.

[Ghost Of The Year]

Re: 10 Years of Forced Wins/Losses

Yeah, it seems like force winning isn't going to be nearly effective as earning a W the hard way. Maybe it should be that way, and force winning used sparingly. In any event, it appears science is the big winner lol.

[jello1717]

Re: 10 Years of Forced Wins/Losses

For science and no other reason, I decided to force every win for Michigan State and every loss for Michigan. After ten years and ten national championships I have concluded that the games do not matter.



After ten years of force simming and auto recruiting as Michigan State, I have a Team Prestige rating of 4.5 stars. Whilest Michigan has one of 3.5 stars despite not winning a game against an FBS opponent for ten years.



After Michigan did not go down below 4 stars in prestige or OVR rating after five years, I moved them to the MAC conference. That finally got the OVR rating down and at one point their star rating went to 3 stars. After another 0-12 season, They are back up to a 3.5 star program.



Michigan State is still struggling to recruit (18th overall) and Michigan just landed a 5 star prospect while in the MAC (47th) despite opposite trajectories.



I test again while usering the other program with the same experiment and maybe while usering a neutral team.



I went into this thinking I could imagine a different world but instead found that the game is just as rigged as the one on the field.



Go Green!

It sounds like you’re not aware of this, so I’ll say it. The game doesn’t update team ratings OVR/OFF/DRF automatically. So you saying that Michigan’s OVR never changed til reaching the MAC could be completely inaccurate. It’s likely changing, but it’s not refreshing in game, so you only think it’s the same.

The only ways I know of to see the change is to play a game against them, or, more plausible, simply look at their depth chart in season. You can have a team as 91/90/89 in 2024 and see that it’s also 91/90/89 in 2025. Then you look at their depth chart (which’ll still say 91/90/89 the 1st time you look at it) and every time afterwards you’ll see the updated (and correct) ratings, I.e. maybe 87/89/85.

[sherrane]

Re: 10 Years of Forced Wins/Losses

For science and no other reason, I decided to force every win for Michigan State and every loss for Michigan. After ten years and ten national championships I have concluded that the games do not matter.

After ten years of force simming and auto recruiting as Michigan State, I have a Team Prestige rating of 4.5 stars. Whilest Michigan has one of 3.5 stars despite not winning a game against an FBS opponent for ten years.

After Michigan did not go down below 4 stars in prestige or OVR rating after five years, I moved them to the MAC conference. That finally got the OVR rating down and at one point their star rating went to 3 stars. After another 0-12 season, They are back up to a 3.5 star program.

Michigan State is still struggling to recruit (18th overall) and Michigan just landed a 5 star prospect while in the MAC (47th) despite opposite trajectories.

I test again while usering the other program with the same experiment and maybe while usering a neutral team.

I went into this thinking I could imagine a different world but instead found that the game is just as rigged as the one on the field.

Go Green!

I wonder if the Forced Win / Loss has the same affect on prestige as playing the games and winning or losing. I am halfway through season 5 playing Kennesaw State. In my 4 post seasons I have made the playoffs every year going 0-1, 1-1, 2-1, and 3-0. I was undefeated last year and so far this year and I am currently running a 4 star program. Either the 5th (complete) star is nearly impossible to earn or I should achieve at least a 4.5 star program in the next 5 and a half seasons provided I can maintain winning as I have been. I can't imagine Kennesaw State has a higher ceiling than Michigan State does in this game.

[noarmsduck]

Re: 10 Years of Forced Wins/Losses

Idk what to tell you. I haven't paid much attention to prestige but I have forced-win a few random teams on a regular basis. UTSA, WKU, Charlotte, Tulane, Buffalo. Their recruiting results as well as their overall ratings went up significantly.

[Raumdeuter]

Re: 10 Years of Forced Wins/Losses

For science and no other reason, I decided to force every win for Michigan State and every loss for Michigan. After ten years and ten national championships I have concluded that the games do not matter.

After ten years of force simming and auto recruiting as Michigan State, I have a Team Prestige rating of 4.5 stars. Whilest Michigan has one of 3.5 stars despite not winning a game against an FBS opponent for ten years.

After Michigan did not go down below 4 stars in prestige or OVR rating after five years, I moved them to the MAC conference. That finally got the OVR rating down and at one point their star rating went to 3 stars. After another 0-12 season, They are back up to a 3.5 star program.

Michigan State is still struggling to recruit (18th overall) and Michigan just landed a 5 star prospect while in the MAC (47th) despite opposite trajectories.

I test again while usering the other program with the same experiment and maybe while usering a neutral team.

I went into this thinking I could imagine a different world but instead found that the game is just as rigged as the one on the field.

Go Green!

School prestige is linked to their their program ratings, some of which are hard coded and don't change at all. So basically, it's impossible for a school like Michigan to fall below a certain prestige star threshold.

[tessl]

Re: 10 Years of Forced Wins/Losses

Iowa State beat Texas 3 years in a row when Purdy was quarterback at ISU. There was little impact on recruiting for either team.

[moTIGS]

Re: 10 Years of Forced Wins/Losses

School prestige is linked to their their program ratings, some of which are hard coded and don't change at all. So basically, it's impossible for a school like Michigan to fall below a certain prestige star threshold.

I'm not sure hard coding it to specific unchangeable program ratings is the best way to do it, but in general I'm glad EA found a way to make it difficult or impossible for historically great programs to lose prestige.

The scenario in the original post is extreme, and it highlights the limitation of EA's current solution, but in general, as others have said, a decade of poor football rarely sinks a top program. It's good that we can all play a decade or two of this game and still see some familiar faces among the better programs.

[superjames1992]

Re: 10 Years of Forced Wins/Losses

It sounds like you’re not aware of this, so I’ll say it. The game doesn’t update team ratings OVR/OFF/DRF automatically. So you saying that Michigan’s OVR never changed til reaching the MAC could be completely inaccurate. It’s likely changing, but it’s not refreshing in game, so you only think it’s the same.

The only ways I know of to see the change is to play a game against them, or, more plausible, simply look at their depth chart in season. You can have a team as 91/90/89 in 2024 and see that it’s also 91/90/89 in 2025. Then you look at their depth chart (which’ll still say 91/90/89 the 1st time you look at it) and every time afterwards you’ll see the updated (and correct) ratings, I.e. maybe 87/89/85.

1. How did I not realize this after all this time? Very helpful! Just tested it out myself!

2. How did EA manage to butcher this? This is a great game, but there's so many stupid things like this that hurt the experience little by little. Still the best game I've played in a decade since I can look past this stuff because I love CFB, but damn...

[ChaseB]

Re: 10 Years of Forced Wins/Losses

Just want to say I enjoy petty science like this, A+ posting.