u/Cute_Warthog246

I’ve seen a few of these so I’ll try to keep it concise for you. To preface, I’m an offline dynasty player but I dabble in RTG from time to time to time. If you’re looking for online/head to head info this review isn’t for you.

GAMEPLAY - TLDR as a somewhat casual dynasty player I think the gameplay is catered more to us than the competitive crowd. We’ll see if it holds.

I’ll start with the pass game. I personally love the state that it’s in, but I’m not confident it will hold. The passing game feels much more natural but also a bit unpredictable. Great for casual players, not for comp players. Receivers can actually catch some contested passes, and they don’t jump at everything. I haven’t tried the new catch timing feature so I can’t comment on that. Once competitive players complain like last year I’m confident that they’ll nerf it a bit.

The run game feels different, some people will like it some won’t. It’s stiffer, no more spamming L2/LT to change directions (it still works but it’s not as jittery). Run blocking felt fine to me, I was usually using 75-85 overall lineman in my Kansas dynasty and they won some blocks and lost some it was about what I would’ve expected. I will say I struggled with advanced run plays (counters) and HB screens a lot, my RB kept getting stuck on my Tackles but that could be a user issue or something to learn for this game.

Special teams - I think is actually where they took a big improvement. Kickoffs are actually pretty returnable, I had a few good ones and one or two for a TD. Kicking itself felt a bit harder at first, wind is now a significant factor.

Penalties - there were few penalties called by default, although some of them included a Defensive facemask call (I was shocked), a very interesting Defensive PI call (my receivers arm got hooked under the DBs helmet and they called it PI lol). Also you can actually see refs throw the flag which is a cool little feature.

Pre-snap - they adjusted nearly everything so be prepared to relearn configs. Especially on defense. I can’t really comment on what they added because I spent most of the time trying to enjoy the gameplay and not learn the new mechanics.

QB sneak - this one I think needs some work. It’s a new feature so I’ll cut them some slack but it’s very inconsistent. I called it probably about 10 times, so I feel I had a decent sample size but there was one on 4th and goal where I green timed it and my qb just straight stood up like he was looking to pass and obviously I got sacked and turned it over. There were a few that I thought for sure I Green Timed and expected to convert but I was shut down by the DT. My best success in these cases was actually audibling out of QB sneak and into a power run.

Overall Gameplay id give an A/A- in its current state.

DYNASTY - TLDR overall good changes, but we really need some more QoL changes soon.

NIL System - I think it’s a great and much needed addition to dynasty but it’s gonna take a while to learn. Someone needs to make a YouTube video breaking down the mechanics because my first season I thought I had 2,000 points to blow on recruits and then by the offseason it said I was 1,400 in the hole so idk how the match works quite yet. It was an interesting way to go about recruiting. I think my own complain - you’ll need to spend 100-200 NIL to bring in a hs recruit who probably won’t play in year 1. Then when you renew their NIL usually you can set it to 0 and free up that 100/200 to spend one someone else. It’s an interesting mechanic, not sure if it’s realistic and someone will likely find exploits quickly. Theres also not many sliders or any way to turn it off, so we’re gonna be stuck with what we get from EA.

Recruiting - doesn’t feel very different from the current state of 26. Lots of 3 stars go unrecruited, and don’t require NIL so it’s very easy to get them. The catch is that when players get above a 77-80 overall they start asking for money regardless of their original recruit star level (which makes sense). There are still players that won’t get recruited, although I think it is less frequent. I think EA needs to do away with the 35 scholarship limit and go with some other system. You can also usually tell how good a player is gonna be based on their playing time grade and NIL ask although it’s different for each position. Overall, really would like to see some better QOL changes in an update to make this go quicker. Auto recruiting still isn’t really viable, the two seasons I had it turned on my 3 star program had 80% 2 star commits and the rest were 3 stars.

Recruits themselves - there’s definitely a wider variety of recruits, they don’t all feel like clones. Lots of guys coming in with high speed and high throw power which is nice. I’d like to see them buff Pure Runner QBs a bit, they’re still significantly less valuable than most Dual Threat QBs. I think they did some work to the recruits faces which is good, but there’s definitely still some goofy ones. Names too, I landed a 4 star receiver WR with 97 speed out the gate and his last name was Takeoff 😂🙏🏼

Dealbreakers - unchanged for the most part. I had both my backup qbs leave for playing time. I would just get in the habit of recruiting new backups each year. Frustrating but it is what it is at this point. The difference is you now can balance their dealbreaker with paying them more NIL. If you aren’t meeting a dealbreaker, you can pay them more to satisfy them basically. On the other side, if you’re crushing a players dealbreaker you can probably cheap out a bit on them.

Player progression - the new practice mode I’ve noticed allows players to upgrade more during the season instead of relying solely on offseason xp. It feels pretty much the same for the most part, no changes from last year other than some things are a bit more expensive like speed/strength. Also badges are increasingly expensive with each tier, no more bronze and silver being the same price. They also need to fix the colors of the badges, they look like shit.

Position Changes - these are still in the same place they are in 26. Don’t expect many changes here, so yes there will likely still be exploits.

Managing practice - this is a new feature and there’s good and bad from this. It’s tedious if you want to reduce injury and I’ve noticed like all my players start games cold because I didn’t allocate budget towards my practice facilities. This may need some fine tuning but it’s another

Facilities - again, cool addition, but I’m gonna need to watch a YouTube video to understand this in depth and figure out what’s worth it and what’s not.

Coaching carousel - okay, I’m gonna be a little honest here. Do I think it’s an improvement? Absolutely. Do I think there are still areas to improve? Absolutely. In my findings, the schools that are “interested in you” (usually 1 or 2 per year) are still tied to your coach’s pipeline. For example I set my pipeline to Minnesota and the offers I got were as follows - Kansas, NDSU, Cincinnati, and I think central Michigan were the four that I got. The good news is you can apply for any open role, I didn’t get a chance to apply to any that weren’t interested in me though. I also like the addition of hiring whichever coordinators you want, that’s a big W.

Coach mode - I’m a huge Coach mode guy, I think this was an awesome addition to the game. Only thing i want them to add is a few more camera angles so we have the option to view however we want. Preferably broadcast.

Overall - B+ there’s some great improvements, most stuff left to do is QoL and balancing.

ROAD TO GLORY - TLDR this was a huge step backwards. They’re tampering with monetizing offline modes and this is scary.

I’m not gonna be shy about this. I played it for about 2.5 hours and then I gave up. High school has not changed. I got so fed up I created a new QB and skipped high school entirely. I then went to BC as a 5 star QB and my starting throw power rating was an 80. It was completely unusable. But this is intentional from ea because you can now use real money to upgrade your player. For a player that only is eligible to play for 4-5 seasons this is ABSOLUTELY NOT OKAY.

The new progression system has gone full 2k. They’re going to eventually bring this to where you can play RTG with friends and turn it into MyPark, the writing is on the wall. You get to play as those other positions but tbh I don’t think it’s worth it at all. If you’re buying this for RTG DONT.

Mathematically, you can’t succeed in the current state without paying for upgrades. You now have to upgrade each attribute individually, not in bulk like in dynasty. And they are expensive. You may be able to bring one key stat up after each game but then you’re neglecting everything else. The math doesn’t make sense, it’s not balanced whatsoever and I really hope whoever decided to make this switch steps on a Lego.

It pains me to say it but unfortunately I think CFB26 RTG will be the best version of this mode that we will get.

I didn’t play it long enough to give this an overall grade which I think says enough about the mode. Until it’s reworked or rebalanced, I’m giving it an F.

To preface, I’m NOT using timed catching, ratings only, but for me it has to be the catching animations. Deep balls feel amazing, they actually catch over the shoulder passes instead of just throwing their hands up and praying.

I’ve only gotten the “hit from behind” drop animation once in 20ish games. Thank the lord.

You can actually catch balls with contact now, and somewhat frequently too. The new hands on system actually feels somewhat realistic from WR/DB battles. I have receivers with 80-85 speed/acceleration that are actually usable because they can catch in contact and don’t need complete separation.

It’s not to the point where they’re OP in my opinion either, but it’s worth the occasional deep ball if you see one on one coverage, it truly feels 50/50 now and you don’t need 5+ yards of separation.

My concern for this is that at launch the online community will complain that it’s unfair and unrewarding for good defense. To that i say use people with the knockout ability or something because I can’t have another year of 6’5 receivers with platinum 50/50 dropping 90% on contact.

Something that I haven’t seen anyone who’s had the beta talk about yet is the fact that when you create a new dynasty the first question it asks you is “Do you want to use NIL players or generated players?”…

Well why is that a big deal? Because there ARE NO NIL players in the beta. That means that they wouldn’t put this in the beta if it wasn’t going to be in the game release. (Hopefully they don’t take this out and pocket it for next years game)

Okay cool - why do we care about that? The cost for EA to buy the NIL rights for all CFB players AND allow them to be replicated in Madden is very large. Think about it, let’s say some irrelevant 63 overall wide receiver ends up becoming a 93 overall by his senior year because the user decided “hey this is my nephews cousins brother and I wanna boost him”. All of a sudden he’s probably getting drafted. Now they have to account for the possibility for ALL NIL players in CFB. The cost adds up from a business standpoint. Thats not to say it won’t come eventually…

The temporary solution until they can find a way to make real players work is removing NIL players from the equation entirely. If you start a dynasty that is completely auto generated, then you should be able to export to Madden no problem from a licensing perspective.

I’m not sure why else they would include this feature in the game on top of the fact that they’re literally selling these games as a package. They haven’t said much about this feature and I think that’s intentional, but I guarantee you they’re working on it. It’s too big of a feature for them to not attempt it.

The question is going to be - when does this become available… could it be at launch? I think it’s possible but unlikely. The more likely scenario would be in the fall or Christmas to help generate sales for both games during a title update. Or if they were really scummy they could unfortunately wait until CFB 28 which unfortunately wouldn’t surprise me.

Let me know what you guys think about this, am I overthinking this or missing something?

The biggest concern I have is actually that a significant problem from last year’s game may now get significantly worse if they didn’t address the issue at all…

Small programs are now extremely difficult to land decent recruits because of the NIL budget system. Well what’s going to happen at the end of the transfer portal when there’s still 100 three star and four star recruits that don’t have a home because no one can afford them? If they don’t sign anywhere at the end of the portal do they go to the Nether world again like last year? Do they go back to their prior school? To they go get a job at Wendy’s?

Big issue last year was that you’d recruit a 5 star high school QB who’d sit for a year. He’d then transfer out because you didn’t play him. In the portal, he’d show up as a 3 star recruit because his overall was likely below an 80. Then there was a chance no one would recruit him, and he’d just go and die somewhere completely unrecruited. I really hope that they find some way to address this, if anyone has played the beta are you able to comment on this?

I’ll keep it simple.

2 issues.

Issue #1 - too many players going unrecruited/without a scholarship during the transfer portal.

Issue #2 - JUCO players are a wasted scholarship because they stink.

Solution - if a recruit/transfer truly doesn’t have a team by the end of the transfer portal, convert to a JUCO player in next year’s recruiting class and set their recruiting status to open. Give the player some stats during his time at Juco and PROGRESS HIM NORMALLY SO HE’S USABLE.

thank you for coming to my ted talk. EA if you’re hiring please dm me. No further questions your honor.

A few weeks ago I posted about walking into offices that I’d applied to with a resume and suit. Reddit’s response was overwhelmingly “do not attempt to do this or you will go to jail or get someone fired.” Well I said fuck it anyways.

I had originally planned to go to 4 offices. Due to time constraints I only was able to get around to 2. Results? I went 1 for 2 on my cold walk-in attempts and no trespassing charges.

I heavily researched the companies that had open positions that I applied to. I even cold reached out on linked & email to relevant employees ahead of time. The first one was in an office that had a third party lobby service basically register and check in all guests. I let the secretary know I was there to inquire about a specific role that I had applied to and was hoping to speak with someone about the role. They said they would send a note to the office and that I was welcome to wait. Was treated to snacks, drinks and free WiFi so I started applying for more roles. I waited an hour and a half to see if anyone would come down but no luck. So they left my resume in the company’s mailbox for me and I left.

The second one was in a downtown high rise. I walked into the lobby, asked the bellhop for directions to the right suite, and he pointed me to the elevator. To my surprise I got to the office, and the door was wide open. No secretary or anyone, just an open office space with a few people working on the phone. I walked in and stood there for about 2-3 minutes and waited for someone to greet me. Eventually a manager came out and asked what he could help with. I was very respectful and professional and let him know I was interested in potentially working at the company and had a resume with me. He was kind enough to sit down with me and review the resume while I spoke about what I was looking for.

He was not the department head of the area I wanted to work but he said he would cc me on an email to him afterwards (which to me surprise he did). He praised my efforts, and I landed a 15 minute call with the manager of the right department. He said in his long tenure he’d never had anyone walk in with a resume and seek a job and we have set up a more formal interview for the end of the month.

I will say both of these companies were mid-sized companies. I would not recommend trying this with any companies larger than 100-200 employees. Do your research ahead of time and be fearless & confident but RESPECTFUL of their time. If they say no, don’t be a prick about it. Move on.

I don’t have a job, or an offer, but they now know my name and face and we have an interview on the books. It’s worth noting I am also the target demographic for this company that I landed and I was dressed in a suit and tie. I did thorough research on the company ahead of time so that there was no way I wouldn’t impress them with the combination of my effort and knowledge of the company.

Feel free to try this, but if you are too persistent and end up getting yourself a trespassing charge don’t come and blame me. Attempt at your own risk. Just know that most people are more willing to help you than the negative Nellie’s of Reddit will care to admit because they’ve never tried this themselves.

I’ve been big on this since 25 came out, especially once i felt the gameplay getting a bit stale. Just curious what other people think and if they do this sometimes. I also enjoy coach mode but I like slow simming because I can multitask (clean, work, eat, etc) and it’s a lot more rewarding knowing you’re not fully in control.

I just am curious how big the community is for this because I’m thinking about some creative ways to start a YT channel and stream this kind of content but with a twist…

I know it’s not for everyone, a lot of people like fast paced games, but for some of us sim heads it’s the slow burn and grinding path to success that is rewarding. Watching your team, players and coach develop overtime with minimal user interference is really interesting and I’ve even started doing this in other sports games (namely Madden and NHL).

Let me know if you’ve dabbled with this and even if you prefer it over normal gameplay!

Every time I see someone’s web based product the font, spacing and overall organization is the same. How can you overhaul yours to be different? Just feels like it’s all bland with boxes and bubbles everywhere, nothing flows together

I have about $20k saved up in my emergency fund. I don’t want to pull from it because I feel like it’s always better to play with house money first but I also have heard credit card interest can be brutal. What would you do in this scenario?

EDIT: I probably should’ve clarified I would still pay off the CC minimums with the E fund and then would pay off the remaining balance gradually once I am employed again. 26 btw.