It’s been a few weeks since the launch of EA Sports College Football 25 and while the game has been an absolute delight, it also has featured the usual share of bugs and issues that we see from games at launch.
There have been rumors of a big patch coming for the last couple of weeks, and on Thursday, EA Sports sent out that patch at 10 a.m. ET that they hope will address a lot of the issues players have been frustrated with. The patch touches on everything from gameplay to Dynasty to Road to Glory, and you can see the full details of what’s being updated, fixed, and added today on the EA blog. Here we’ll look at the biggest things that should be smoothed out by the new patch.
Additions
Every patch we get in the game figures to include some additions, and in this first one we are getting some new playbook additions as well as new uniform options for a handful of teams.
8 new shotgun formations (added to 35 teams): Bunch Quads Open (Known as Diamond Quads; added to teams including Texas Tech, Western Michigan), Deuce Twins Over (Buffalo, Toledo), Slot F Wing (NC State, Liberty), Split Pro Far (NC State, Liberty), Split Pro Near (NC State), Tight Y Off Flex (Florida), Wing HB Wk Close (Indiana, Minnesota), Wing Slot Over (Texas A&M, Kansas State)
New uniforms: Baylor, Oregon, Iowa State, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Bowling Green, Northwestern, UTEP, Boise State, New Mexico State, App State, Texas State, Louisiana, New Mexico, and South Alabama
Gameplay
Tuned pursuit angles logic to differentiate players with high and low pursuit ratings. It’ll be interesting to see how this impacts how CPU players on defense get to the ball and if it leads to more bad angles being taken by worse players/teams.
Reduced frequency of broken tackles from trailing defenders. Anyone that has played has realized you would shrug off (or get shrugged off) trailing defenders going for tackles way too often. This was especially the case on pick-sixes as offensive players were basically unable to tackle guys from behind. We’ll see if this adjustment fixes that.
Adjusted press animations to be more of an effective counter to the Takeoff Ability. I have taken full advantage of how bad press defenses are at getting a jam on the line of scrimmage, as it basically is an auto-win for a good WR on a vertical route. I’ll be interested to see how this changes that matchup on the outside.
Adjusted AI QB behavior on shot plays to make more lob throws vs. bullet passes. I will miss how often I could get interceptions when my defender was a step or two behind a receiver because the ball came in low and hot.
Adjusted AI offensive line behavior resulting in fewer illegal man downfield penalties during RPOs. Honestly, I felt like they probably had this right with how often guys are illegally downfield, the thing that wasn’t right was how often the officials were actually calling it.
Fixed an exploit where players would leave a QB contain player unblocked and run around them. This should make the read option game a little trickier.
Adjusted the thresholds required to receive the most effective Juke and Spin moves. Probably won’t be able to shake multiple defenders with a spin by anyone anymore.
Dynasty
Numerous fixes for score summaries, box scores, and news stories. Hopefully this means the final box score will no longer sometimes feature the wrong score.
“Discovered that FCS SE, MW, and NW were secretly using professional players and passing them off as collegiate players. Gave them sanctions and ensured they are now using properly-rated players.” I’ll miss the chaos, but it’s probably for the best that FCS schools won’t pull as many upsets. However, this will only go into effect for new Dynasties.
Fixed wear and tear for FCS teams so they don’t get hurt constantly. It was really wild how every play someone was hurt for FCS teams and apparently it’s because wear and tear was not set to recover for them.
Retuned Toughest Places to Play formula to reduce the impact of large stadiums and increase the value of winning games and filling the stadium. Also updated the panel to accurately reflect the Toughest Places to Play rankings at all times.
Updating your coach’s playbook in Schemes and Playbooks will now update your team’s scheme and should be reflected in Team Needs.
Updated Heisman Watch logic to reduce the value of receiving TDs. There were a lot of WRs that won Heismans in my Dynasty and that likely will change.
Polls: Increased the penalty in polls for schools with more than one loss. Increased the weight of conference prestige in poll calculations. Reduced the difference between CFP poll and media/coaches.
Fixed a number of issues with custom conferences and custom schedules.
Recruiting
Teams won’t pursue as many QBs in high school recruiting. You will no longer lose out on every QB you go after to Georgia, hopefully.
Reduced the number of unrecruited 4 and 5 stars early in the season and increased the number of players that AI schools will pursue at one time. This will make it harder to steal top recruits or to find 4 and 5 stars that have no offers late in the season.
Fixed an issue where you could not schedule visits for recruits. There was nothing worse than losing one of your top targets because it kept you locked out of visits despite being in the top 5 or even top 3.
Visit influence changes: Removed initial influence for simply scheduling a visit. Increased disparity between winning and losing a visit game. Tuned logic for game stakes to account more for ranked teams. Increased penalty for choosing an activity that doesn’t have a high grade or the player isn’t interested in.
Road to Glory
Fixed a glitch that allowed players to max out skill points after completing a practice in Heisman mode. Farewell, viral RTG hack.
Added new scenarios and NIL content.
Fixed a crash when quitting a position battle, among many other fixes.
