400 hours later, final thoughts

[_-King-_]

Played the **** out of this game the first couple months it was out. Took a break. Just played again for the first time in a while. Here are some Friday morning ramblings.

Huge fan of NFL 2K5 and the old NCAA games. Virtual football died for me when those went away. I hadn't played a football video game in 11 years since (not counting buying Madden 19 on sale and playing maybe a couple games before deciding it was junk).

CFB 25 has been some of the most fun I've had in gaming. The nostalgia of having college football back. The joy of learning different playbooks and play styles, building a 1 star school into a contender. Yes, some of extra bells and whistles left a bit to be desired, but the core game was fantastic. I joined an online dynasty with friends I hadn't spoken to in years and re-kindled friendships.

That said, incoming rant. And before I do so, yes 400 hours is a ton of time. I bought a PS5 just for this game and I feel I got my money's worth. I'm not complaining, I love this game. I'm just ranting because I'm bored at work.

A couple reasons I'll probably be retiring this game for good.

One is the updates that nerfed certain aspects. Namely options. I assume this was done for gameplay balancing purposes. At release, option heavy offenses were a lot of fun. Maybe they could be slightly OP, but they tuned it to where a lot of the option plays are totally broken. At best, they're pitch plays with an added step and risk. There's almost no outside/speed options where keeping it with the QB isn't a TFL. It really kills the variety of the game and made every team start to feel the same. My senior pocket QB just left and is being replaced by a scrambler. I was excited to install a new offense to play to his strengths. It doesn't matter. He's noticeably faster, but not fast enough to outrun any opposing Dline with any consistency. He plays basically the same as the pocket QB.

The bigger problem is maybe more a symptom of getting old and breaking the illusion. After enough time with the game, I realize what plays work and which don't. I try to spend some time getting creative and learning new plays, but it's mostly a wasted effort. Certain plays/concepts/routes just have a way higher success rate than others. Every move or formation has a counter. Once you learn those, it takes away all the mystery. It's true for both playing against the CPU and users. There's no amount of slider adjusting you can do. You know what works and what doesn't.

If I buy CFB26 I might move to fully CPUvCPU slow sim.

TLDR: Rant about existential dread of getting older and realizing the limitations of video games. Great game, thanks for the memories EA.

[noarmsduck]

Devs will always make balancing decisions that people disagree with. I only play offline dynasty, and I did have trouble defending against good option teams early on. I kind of enjoyed the challenge that presented though.

Your second point is definitely a symptom of getting old and lots of older gamers including myself feel it. Not sure I qualify as old. I'm 36 almost 37, and I realize there are guys that enjoy these games in their 50s, but I see a LOT of people who play CFB and Madden mostly in HS and college and in their 20s.

Every sports game has a meta, and certain plays that get used more than others. The first thing I do when I get a new Madden or when I first got CFB 25, is make a custom playbook. The default team playbooks have so many plays that are just a waste of space in that playbook and that are bad plays. Either guys won't be open, the routes are bad, or it's a run that very rarely gets any yardage. So I put in all the plays that look like they'll work, rate them for situations, and then remove and add plays as time goes on based on what actually ends up being effective or not. It kind of sucks because it feels like a chore to sink 4 hours or so into doing that when I first get the game but the default playbooks are so limiting it's a necessary chore for me.

Looking back, I used the same types of plays in past games. NCAA 14 the comeback routes were meta and what I used when I needed a big 3rd and medium type situation. Madden 12 I remember they used to have a shallow slant out route. I would call a play out of shotgun spread, the 2 outside receivers would run streaks, and I would audible the 2 inside receivers who were originally on normal out routes into the slant outs. Most of the time either one of the outside guys would be open, or if the DBs covered them, the slant outs would be wide open. They took the slant out hot route out of the game the next year and it only recently made it back into the game in M25.

And that's just looking at CPU gameplay. I remember back when I used to play MUT h2h lots of guys would use a technique called rocket catching. Basically they would run 4 verts, throw to a speedy WR, then switch to user him and kind of move in a circle around the ball target and the animation that happened when he caught it made it almost impossible to defend. That's one of the reasons I only play against CPU nowadays though.

Anyways, this stuff was always in the games, I remember certain plays being very effective and others not being effective back in NES Tecmo Super Bowl. I think it's just as we get older we notice it more and it becomes more apparent and more boring as our focus dulls. When I was young I couldn't get enough watching football so I'd play the video games and endlessly replay scenarios chasing titles and awards and all sorts of stuff. Once you've done that for 30 years of your life the novelty wears off a bit. I still get a good amount of enjoyment out of these games, but I definitely don't have the vigor about them that I once did.


EDIT: If CFB 26 ends up being release on PC and if you have a gaming PC, I would highly recommend getting it on that platform. The Madden modding community is spectacular, and a PC release of CFB would certainly bring a ton of awesome mods. To speak to what you're talking about, there are several different gameplay mods for Madden that adjust gameplay parameters in a way that sliders just don't.

[TarHeelPhenom]

I’m playing exclusively on the Day 1 build nd it’s been a blast. It’s a noticeable difference between how the CPU play on the early build compared to the current. My Maryland Terrapins are about to play for the National Championship tonight against Oklahoma. I haven’t played/won a Natty since NCAA Football 06.

[Playmakers]

Quote: Originally Posted by _-King-_

If I buy CFB26 I might move to fully CPUvCPU slow sim.

This is definetly a great way to enjoy the game as I've been playing this style for years.

I really wish they would include some classic teams because that would make this style of gameplay even more awesome just to sit back and watch a bunch of former college legends go at it.

[khaliib]

Quote: Originally Posted by TarHeelPhenom

I’m playing exclusively on the Day 1 build nd it’s been a blast. It’s a noticeable difference between how the CPU play on the early build compared to the current. My Maryland Terrapins are about to play for the National Championship tonight against Oklahoma. I haven’t played/won a Natty since NCAA Football 06.

I went back-n-forth several times between the Disc & the Updated version

Hands down gameplay wise, they’re complete opposite of each other across the whole mode

Because of the excitement for early play, most gamers got the Digital comprising of pre-release gameplay tweaks & never got to play the Disc version

AI QB play definitely stands out immediately, deep shots, scrambling logic& just OVR Pressure Avoidance in the pocket

- Teams Run the ball down your throat
- AI QB Audibles a lot to create Run or Pass mismatches

etc, etc, etc

Folk should go to GameStop & buy a used copy, download it Offline, then return for refund

[BallinVol]

Quote: Originally Posted by khaliib

I went back-n-forth several times between the Disc & the Updated version Hands down gameplay wise, they’re complete opposite of each other across the whole mode Because of the excitement for early play, most gamers got the Digital comprising of pre-release gameplay tweaks & never got to play the Disc version AI QB play definitely stands out immediately, deep shots, scrambling logic& just OVR Pressure Avoidance in the pocket - Teams Run the ball down your throat - AI QB Audibles a lot to create Run or Pass mismatches etc, etc, etc Folk should go to GameStop & buy a used copy, download it Offline, then return for refund

Gameplay wise, I agree. It felt amazing out of box. I just couldn't get past all the upsets and bad poll logic, etc. to enjoy dynasty.

It's not perfect now, but the polling logic, etc. is much better than it was out of box. The problem is the gameplay doesn't feel as organic as it did. I still play the heck out of the game and got some sliders dialed in to play a very competitive game. It would be nice to have that organic feel again however.

[_-King-_]

Quote: Originally Posted by khaliib

I went back-n-forth several times between the Disc & the Updated version Hands down gameplay wise, they’re complete opposite of each other across the whole mode Because of the excitement for early play, most gamers got the Digital comprising of pre-release gameplay tweaks & never got to play the Disc version AI QB play definitely stands out immediately, deep shots, scrambling logic& just OVR Pressure Avoidance in the pocket - Teams Run the ball down your throat - AI QB Audibles a lot to create Run or Pass mismatches etc, etc, etc Folk should go to GameStop & buy a used copy, download it Offline, then return for refund

I have the disc, but I'm part of an ongoing online dynasty so I don't think I can delete the updates and continue that.

Is it possible for me to create a 2nd account on my PS5 and play the disc version on that without updates while keeping the updates on the other profile?

[jello1717]

Quote: Originally Posted by _-King-_

Played the **** out of this game the first couple months it was out. Took a break. Just played again for the first time in a while. Here are some Friday morning ramblings. Huge fan of NFL 2K5 and the old NCAA games. Virtual football died for me when those went away. I hadn't played a football video game in 11 years since (not counting buying Madden 19 on sale and playing maybe a couple games before deciding it was junk). CFB 25 has been some of the most fun I've had in gaming. The nostalgia of having college football back. The joy of learning different playbooks and play styles, building a 1 star school into a contender. Yes, some of extra bells and whistles left a bit to be desired, but the core game was fantastic. I joined an online dynasty with friends I hadn't spoken to in years and re-kindled friendships. That said, incoming rant. And before I do so, yes 400 hours is a ton of time. I bought a PS5 just for this game and I feel I got my money's worth. I'm not complaining, I love this game. I'm just ranting because I'm bored at work. A couple reasons I'll probably be retiring this game for good. One is the updates that nerfed certain aspects. Namely options. I assume this was done for gameplay balancing purposes. At release, option heavy offenses were a lot of fun. Maybe they could be slightly OP, but they tuned it to where a lot of the option plays are totally broken. At best, they're pitch plays with an added step and risk. There's almost no outside/speed options where keeping it with the QB isn't a TFL. It really kills the variety of the game and made every team start to feel the same. My senior pocket QB just left and is being replaced by a scrambler. I was excited to install a new offense to play to his strengths. It doesn't matter. He's noticeably faster, but not fast enough to outrun any opposing Dline with any consistency. He plays basically the same as the pocket QB. The bigger problem is maybe more a symptom of getting old and breaking the illusion. After enough time with the game, I realize what plays work and which don't. I try to spend some time getting creative and learning new plays, but it's mostly a wasted effort. Certain plays/concepts/routes just have a way higher success rate than others. Every move or formation has a counter. Once you learn those, it takes away all the mystery. It's true for both playing against the CPU and users. There's no amount of slider adjusting you can do. You know what works and what doesn't. If I buy CFB26 I might move to fully CPUvCPU slow sim. TLDR: Rant about existential dread of getting older and realizing the limitations of video games. Great game, thanks for the memories EA.

Not sure if you’re only talking about under center options (which I don’t run) or if you’re including spread options (which I run a ton), but I find spread option options very effective (but not too effective).

I only use scramblers, so my slowest QB was 82 spd, but I’ve had QBs with 92 and 94 spd, and the difference between those dudes and my 82ish spd guys is very noticeable. If I run a speed option/load option/wr motion option and the pitch read goes with the pitch man, my qbs can easily turn it upfield and he’s only getting tackled by a DB and definitely not getting chased down by a DL and prolly not by an LB.