In a post-Ultimate Team world, finding the balance between fun and realism in sports games has been an increasingly difficult task for developers. Let’s take EA FC 25 as an example. A few months ago, EA released a patch for its leading soccer sim — one that was praised by Ultimate Team players and content creators. However, many of the game’s single-player community hated it and felt it created a ton of issues that weren’t present before. And now, just a week or so removed from its full launch, College Football 26 is experiencing something similar.
Just yesterday, EA released its first significant patch for College Football 26. And, judging by the patch notes, it was supposed to be a slam dunk for the community. Certain bugs and glitches were allegedly ironed out, and certain Road to Glory mechanics were given some slight adjustments based on player feedback. There doesn’t seem to be any mention about how quarterbacks play, but all in due time, I guess. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, some players are less than satisfied with the patch and feel it has ruined the game.
In a long post on Reddit, user ChapsOnTheAT had a less-than-glowing review of the latest patch, saying that the game felt much better before it was instituted.
“EA – CFB 26 was as close to perfect gameplay as I have ever played on a football game out of the box. It was beautiful,” Chaps said. According to the Reddit user, team and player ratings seemed to play a more important role pre-patch, and the results were fair and realistic. However, since the update went live, they’re now struggling against objectively worse teams. There was also mention of interceptions now phasing through receivers’ bodies.
“Originally, ratings mattered. I went from a decent to good OLine blocking well and a bad one getting torched to my good OLine getting beaten by Delaware,” Chaps continued. “I went from throwing INTs on obvious human error and 50/50 balls being won by who had body position and height to DBs reaching through my receiver’s body to intercept.”
These weren’t the extent of the complaints, but these two seemed to take precedence over the others. And judging by the upvotes and comments left on the post, it seems many in the community agree.
“Agreed on the interceptions. I was able to use the whole playbook and all sorts of routes in different scenarios because the match ups and positioning mattered,” one commenter said. “Now, I’m back to spamming the same routes because the DBs are becoming super human.”
As noticed by some in the Operation Sports community, this patch didn’t seem to be a massive title update, but rather a quick hot fix driven by feedback from some in the player base (my money is on the streamers and Ultimate Team players).
To sum things up, it seems a significant portion of College Football 26 players are upset with what the patch has done to interceptions and ratings’ effects on gameplay. The hope is now that the first big update for the game rectifies these issues.
