CFB 25 Simming is Busted — Fans Call for Fix
Update 07/23/2024:
CFB25's first big patch has arrived and with it comes some bug fixes and recognition of things that need to be fixed. Let's start with what's been fixed. They have announced a couple fixes for both audio and logo issues. They fixed commentary issues with Utah, unique stadium atmosphere features like with Florida State's War Chant, and visual issues with team branding.
The audio and visual improvements are nice, but they have not fixed the broken Super Sim Logic. They have, at least, acknowledged that it's broken and have said that they are looking into player feedback and data metrics available to them to fix the poor sim logic. They specifically mentioned looking into FCS teams "potentially creating more upsets than intended."
The long awaited return of EA's beloved CFB series have finally arrived for early access players. People have encountered a wide variety of issues, but one of the larger concerns is with how the game's sim logic is functioning.
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The Problem
Alright, so you're playing a sports game. Obviously, you're not going to do every single thing. You aren't going to play every single second of every single game in the entire league/country (for CFB). So, the game has to sim a lot of stuff for random outcomes.
This sim logic could theoretically be as simple as 50/50 for who wins and loses and a bunch of random stats, however, games are never actually 50/50. If you made Georgia play Vanderbilt 10 times, Georgia would almost certainly win at least 8 or 9 if not all 10 times.
You need smart sim logic that can accurately take the ratings of the teams and players in-game and produce realistic/reasonable outcomes for both scores and statistics. It appears, CFB 25's sim logic is completely busted.
Players have reported seeing Charlotte make it to the national championship within 1 or 2 years. With all due respect to Charlotte, that is not happening; maybe one day, but most definitely not within 1 or 2 years.
It's a problem that runs deeper than just making the top 25 look weird or bowl game matchups kind of funny. It's completely breaking the core experience of the game. Without smart sim logic, the entire aura of the game falls apart. It's not going to feel like you're actively participating in the current landscape of college football if the teams you're seeing win a lot of games are, at the moment, complete and utter garbage while the good teams are losing for seemingly no reason.
The Solution
Is it fixable? Well, that depends. By you? No. By us? No. By EA? Certainly. There's no telling how long it'll take to fix, it could be super fast or it could take a while. It's unlikely EA would let something that completely ruins the entire purpose of the game go on without being top priority to fix, and the game technically hasn't officially released yet.
Some video game bugs have solutions or workarounds players can use until the problem is fully solved by the developers. Unfortunately, busted sim logic isn't one of them. There isn't really anything anyone can do about this. It just kind of has to be put up with until EA, hopefully, fixes it sooner rather than later.
Dynasty and Road To Glory are built on simming. The overwhelming majority of what happens in the season, happens via simming. Who are you going to play in the newly introduced 12 team playoff? Well, it won't be Georgia and Ohio State when the game randomly makes them lose to an FCS team and 2 teams below 80 overalls.
Upsets are a core part of sports and some of the most exciting things that can happen, so some upsets here and there would be awesome and definitely should happen. However, so far in CFB 25, the upsets are so common it's clearly just broken sim logic.
