Hope everyone is enjoying Season Mode so far, in this update I've made some long needed changes to how difficulty is handled in game. For starters, I've replaced the terms 'custom skill' and 'skill level' with 'difficulty' throughout the UI. I've also removed 'Normal' as a difficulty option and replaced it with 'User', so the default difficulty in the game will be connected to user sliders. Speaking of, gameplay sliders have received a face lift, with new slider options and more detailed comparative ratings:
How the sliders affect gameplay has been completely rebalanced and better utilizes the entire 0-100 range to give you more granularity in tweaking your performance. I've also added the ability to independently adjust run blocking, pass blocking, pass rush, run defense, and pass defense. If you haven't tried them out yet, now's a good time to give them a run!
Additionally, I've updated the 'Easy' and 'Expert' preset difficulties in the game to be more challenging and less punishing, respectively. To round things out, I've also a new 'Pro' preset difficulty in case Expert is too much. As a reminder, these difficulty settings do not use your User slider values in game...
Lastly, I've made some small improvements to Season Mode, including reworking conference-style playoff seeding to respect divisional standings and the addition of a 'Playoff Picture' screen in the Standings section.
Check out the full patch notes below for all the details. Thanks for playing!
Difficulty
- 'Custom skill' has been renamed to 'difficulty' throughout the game
- Broke out blocking slider into 'run blocking' and 'pass blocking'
- Broke out attack slider into 'pass rush' and 'run defense'
- Re-balanced all sliders to better utilize the entire 0-100 range
- Added 0-100 numerical value to difficulty
- Removed AI-specific sliders
- Force-reset sliders and save files
- Replaced 'normal' difficulty with 'user'
- Added 'pro' difficulty
- Renamed 'beginner' difficulty to 'easy'
- Rebalanced 'easy' and 'expert' difficulties to be more challenging/less punishing
Season Mode
- Added 'playoff picture' to the standings screen, showing tentative playoff matchups starting in week 4
- Conference-based playoff seedings now factor in division placement over league ranking
- Adjusted seeding for 16 team 'ranked' playoff brackets
Rosters
- Improved the overall defense for multiple teams, particularly CHI, BAL, and SEA
- Adjusted how OVR's are weighted for running backs (more speed, less skill)
- Adjusted how OVR's are weighted for defensive backs (more awareness, less speed)
- Decreased ENG rating for most DB's in the game
Bugs
- Fixed a bug where the incorrect round number for ranked playoffs was shown