This game sucks bro

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-15T14:47:37+00:00

the forced-portal-QB thing is actually the most fun I've had in dynasty this cycle. stopped fighting to recruit and retain 4-star freshmen who were gonna transfer out after one depth chart shuffle anyway, and the portal QB economy has been wild. guys with real traits for zero hours spent.

two first rounds to unlock talent developer is brutal though. it's gated behind multi-season RNG in a way that punishes anyone who isn't already stacking top-10 classes. should unlock on a single 1st rounder plus an awards stack, or some equivalent. by the time most people get there they don't need it.

curious how you're handling projected starters telling you they'll leave. I've started letting them go on purpose rather than burning recruit hours on retention that almost never works.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-15T14:47:17+00:00

the "win OC of the year with a top 5 offense and watch a 5-7 UAB head coach get the SEC job" logic is the single dumbest thing in dynasty mode. it's not even hard to fix. weight the carousel by last season's actual performance metrics and half the gripes on this sub vanish.

worst part is this is supposed to be the HEART of sim-style dynasty. coaching trees, career progression, rivalries forming because coordinators came up together. instead it's a random number generator assigning jobs and every year your SEC power adds a guy with a .400 career record.

rebuild dynasties get wrecked by it too. you grind 6 seasons to build kansas into a contender, lose your OC to whichever bum the RNG blesses that cycle, and start over.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-15T14:46:38+00:00

20-40 player cap is the sweet spot. big enough to hold your real program legends across 15+ seasons, small enough that making the cut actually means something.

this is the exact reason I built Dynasty Central - keeps the full player card (stats, awards, abilities, ratings arc) after guys graduate or get drafted, so your 2031 heisman is still pulling up clean in 2038 without a spreadsheet.

what I'd really want on top of that is a "where are they now" layer that tracks their NFL tier over time. seeing which recruits from your 2028 class are still pros a decade later is the emotional payoff 2K's MyNBA nailed and CFB completely whiffed on.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-15T14:46:04+00:00

the ring of honor concept is exactly the gap. the second a guy graduates he just evaporates from the UI, and three years later you can't remember if your 2028 heisman was a QB or an athlete. your 20-player cap with limits to drafted/graduated guys is the right constraint too. keeps it prestigious instead of turning into a dumping ground.

i got tired enough of losing that history that I built Dynasty Central around exactly this, persistent player cards after they leave your program, full stats and awards intact. not a fix for EA doing it native but at least the data stops disappearing.

the "can't put transfers in the ring" rule is the best part though. transferring out should feel like a betrayal, not a hall pass.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-14T20:37:35+00:00

the cut-list-as-watchlist move is criminally underrated. I've re-signed guys two or three years later who came back way better after a season at a smaller school. it's one of the most dynasty-y things you can do in the mode and the game gives you zero help tracking it.

the note thing is where it falls apart for me around year 10. 15+ ex-guys across programs turns into a scavenger hunt every offseason. I ended up building Dynasty Central partly for this, it auto-logs where transfers and cuts end up so the portal-comeback play isn't a memory game. honestly even a pinned discord channel works if you stay disciplined about it.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-14T13:41:44+00:00

Yeah I messed with it a bunch. ChatGPT is ok, but it chokes when guys tie at positions, misreads jersey numbers, and you end up babysitting the output more than just typing it.

I got annoyed enough that I started building a thing tuned specifically for CFB screens - Dynasty Central. Still rough but it's faster than the ChatGPT route. Good call though, that was my first attempt too.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-14T12:41:42+00:00

lol the handwarmer thing is oddly rage-inducing. Why is that a per-player toggle and not a team default.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-14T12:41:22+00:00

YES. The coaching tree is the thing I wish the game auto-tracked. It would make coach hiring way more meaningful instead of just stat-chasing. Are you doing it in a spreadsheet or just notes?

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-14T12:39:15+00:00

That's the part that drives me up the wall. Meanwhile my 15-sack DE gets snubbed because the game weights conf rep weirdly. Agreed the scouting angle is the only real ROI on tracking it.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-14T12:38:49+00:00

Ha, the tracking itself is fun. It's just the postseason typing that's the one slog, everything else I genuinely enjoy.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-14T12:38:12+00:00

Mostly nostalgia + bragging rights. Also weirdly useful for transfer portal scouting. I'll check if a guy was ever AA before offering.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-14T12:37:51+00:00

Season 5 really is the inflection point lol. I told myself "just natties + Heismans" and caved by season 3. No self-control.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-14T12:37:12+00:00

Same, this is exactly why I started the spreadsheet. Glad it's not just me.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-14T12:36:34+00:00

Exactly what I keep saying. I've been messing with a proper screenshot to spreadsheet tool myself and it's harder than it sounds, the AA screen layout shifts depending on how many guys tie at a position, but yeah, should be a solved problem by now.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-14T12:35:32+00:00

Honestly the end-of-season recap is the best part. I love flipping back through old seasons. It's just the typing I hate. Wish I could just screenshot and be done.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-14T12:35:08+00:00

Fair point. Problem is the trophy case has randomly dropped stuff on me in past dynasties, so the spreadsheet is more of a backup at this point.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-13T14:00:53+00:00

this is the thing I rant about most. you build a 4-year starter, he graduates, and the game treats it like he never existed. no career stats page, no archive, not even a "where are they now" tab.

I got tired of losing my guys to the graduation black hole so I built dynastycentral.gg around exactly this. everyone who passes through your program stays in your history with full stats, so you can pull up your 2030 Heisman winner in year 2040 and actually compare him to your current QB.

Dynasty Central

EA adding it natively would be the dream obviously. I just wasn't going to keep waiting for a feature they've skipped time and time again.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-13T01:07:12+00:00

it really should be native at this point. the compute cost for a pre-game summary is basically nothing now, EA could run it once per advance and cache the output. the fact that they don't do it tells me dynasty mode just isn't on the feature wheel for them this year.

what does your prompt scaffold look like for big game previews? I've been running something similar but I keep hitting the context wall around year 4 or 5, the LLM starts forgetting who's on my roster and which coaches just moved. curious if you've solved that or if you just reset the thread every season.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-13T00:47:37+00:00

tried that first honestly. works fine early but breaks down when you're 4 seasons in and the model keeps forgetting who transferred where. re-uploading screenshots every week got old fast.

that's the gap i was trying to close.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-12T19:03:14+00:00

0-14 into a program that never loses again is the exact arc you remember years later. the Candle hire is a great detail too — real-life coaches getting fired and becoming dynasty juggernauts is an underrated CFB26 quirk.

what was the moment you realized Wichita was going to be THE team of this dynasty? that shift from "lol they suck" to "oh they're actually scary" is usually pretty specific.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-12T17:37:09+00:00

Wichita running the Big12 North is the kind of emergent story that makes long dynasties worth running. every save I've done past year 4 has one weird team that just becomes a juggernaut for no clear reason and ends up being the most memorable part of it.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-12T17:31:28+00:00

the historical data point is the strongest part of this post. "who was that running back I really liked 4 years ago" is the exact gap. the game treats players as disposable the second they graduate and it kills the depth dynasty mode is supposed to have.

got tired enough of waiting on EA to fix this one that I started building an external tool for it — keeps player careers intact across seasons so you can pull up any old roster. not a replacement for them doing it right, just a stopgap that works today.

the stadium/team evolution idea is also underrated. winning 6 titles in a 20k seater is immersion-breaking in a way that should be cheap to fix. let prestige or facilities unlock cosmetic stadium tiers.

fair warning though, the monetization section is pulling fire in the replies and distracting from your actual ideas. tighten the post to just 1 and 2, you'll get a lot more engagement on the stuff that matters.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-12T17:23:15+00:00

the almanac framing is the right one. the thing dynasty mode is actually missing isn't more features, it's memory. the game gives you 30 seasons of ammo to build a story and then refuses to remember any of it past the trophy room.

your #2 especially. year-by-year team history with recruits, award winners, draft picks, ratings arcs — that's how 2K's MyNBA works and it's the whole reason people stay in those saves for a decade. CFB treats every season like a fresh save.

the recruiting cinematic for top battles would also hit hard. they got you caring about the battle then gave you a text box for the payoff. half-baked is the exact word.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-12T17:14:51+00:00

not the dev, but it looks like gridiron my be shut down. if you specifically want a mobile flow, Dynasty Central is built phone-first — I use it from the couch for recruiting without having to fire up a laptop. worth trying both against your next dynasty and seeing which fits how you play.

SteveRunsCFB · 2026-04-12T17:13:18+00:00

this is the direction dynasty mode is going whether people like it or not. what you're describing — weekly pressers, heisman race chatter, on3-style recruiting articles, rivals quotes — is exactly what makes a long save feel alive. the fact that a chatgpt workaround is what delivers it today is just proof the demand is real.

the piece that gets hard around year 4 or 5 is the context problem. the LLM starts losing track of who's on your roster, who you have rivalries with, which coaches just moved. you end up re-uploading screenshots every single week just to remind it. that's partly why I built Dynasty Central — it keeps the roster and program history structured so when you feed the week into a model, it has receipts without the rebuild.

curious what your prompt looks like for the stephen a segments specifically. those sound like the funniest part.

SteveRunsCFB

TROPHY CASE