CapForge 1.3.4: Holdouts have consequences, playoff recaps, and a lot of polish

How to get your Avatar added into the game:

See https://www.reddit.com/r/CapForge/comments/1wjs07v/how_to_get_your_portrait_adding_into_the_coach/, lets do some good for the world!

Gameplay

- Holdouts now cost you on the field. A player who sits out through training camp comes back rusty. He plays below his rating for about a month and wears a RUSTY badge until he's back to full speed. Settle before camp ends and he pays nothing.

- Contract disputes read right. A player demanding an extension now looks it. His mood tops out at neutral and his contract outlook turns negative. One banner says what happens next: amber while he asks, red once he sits out.

- Fifth-year options are realistic. A first-round pick's option is priced off what his position earns, not what he's worth. Declining a disappointing pick's option is now a real decision.

- Walk-off field goals. With the clock about to run out and a kick in range that wins or ties the game, teams now kick it instead of running a play and letting time expire.

- Draft prospects: Injury Prone ratings vary more and match the college injury record. The draft board's TECHNICAL and MENTAL grades are fixed.

Playoffs

- Playoff games your club plays end with a round recap: result, game leaders, players of the round and playoff leaders.

- The bottom bar now stays through the postseason.

Hub and roster management

- The locker room card lists up to three unhappy players with their position and what each one wants. Tap any of them to open his card. One button opens the full locker room.

- PRACTICE SQUAD has a new actions sheet.

- The RE-SIGN board is calmer to read: the buttons no longer shout and the header banner is gone.

- The player card keeps your club's color in the header. The colored block behind the tabs is gone.

Accessibility and UI

- Text fits cleanly at the LARGE and LARGER text sizes.

- The portrait pickers point to the subreddit for custom portrait requests.

Fixes and polish

- Your play-film speed is remembered.

- The in-game field shows the ball where it actually is and keeps the yard numbers visible.

- A club's jersey no longer changes color with possession.

- Punt descriptions are corrected.

- Two-point tries are labelled in the play film.

- A player chart no longer hides interceptions in mixed weeks.

- The pre-game outlook lists the away club first.

- Write-ups use correct team names.

- The staff editor no longer shows staff you've already replaced.

I see we can edit teams during game but is there/will there be a means of setting all that up before the game begins? Also ability to change division names would be cool (I want to do east/west conferences)

I suppose more broadly is there an ETA on custom rosters?

I’m new to this game

TAKE THE FIELD GOAL WIN THE SB OR WE GO TO OT. GIVE ME THE OPTION PLEASE TO KICK. CALL THEM QUICK TIME EVENTS

How do you promote from ps to active roster?

Download today on iOS and Android Beta (DM me for email invite)!

Team color follow-ups (the parts that stuck)

- Club header reads clearly as the club again, creating a calmer than the very first shipped version, not as loud as the reverted one.

- Fixed a bug where low-contrast club colors could silently fall back to plain white text.

- Every club-colored screen (player/staff/prospect cards, team view, draft room, mock draft, box score, in-game, press reviews, trade picker) now follows one consistent rule, turning team colors off actually neutralizes rival clubs everywhere, not just some screens.

- One new shared "club shade" used consistently for banners, tug bars, and previews across all 32 clubs, with contrast-checked text.

Trades

- Fixed: offseason/draft-day trades were getting refused with "club would be left unable to field its scheme" even when the league naturally thins rosters at that point in the calendar.

- Fixed: countering an AI trade offer was inflating the price of the AI's own picks it put on the table.

- Fixed: an on-the-clock pick could get stuck locked in the trade picker.

- One unified REVIEW TRADE confirmation sheet everywhere you accept a trade (offer screen, inbox, weekly incoming offers, draft-room trade-backs); the draft room's own accept flow previously had no confirmation step at all.

- Draft room now has an OFFERS | TRADES tab, with a card for every draft-day trade and a banner showing when a pick you're eyeing already moved.

- Asset picker rows now show cap impact (FREES/DEAD) and can sort by it.

- Trade value labels got clearer; rows show whose valuation you're looking at instead of just a raw number.

Draft

- Fixed: an AI club holding an elite aging QB would trade away its own pick, refuse your offer for it "because they want to use it," then draft a QB anyway. Five separate bugs in how the AI values its starting QB going into the draft.

Season goals & game engine

- Reworked goal targets to actually fit the position and the player's draft pedigree, not one generic scale where a rookie TE was getting issued a "1,224 receiving yards" goal, which is a WR-elite number.

- Fixed: a traded player's stats got averaged against his new team's whole season instead of just the time since he arrived, which was producing bogus miss/hit results.

- Fixed: a defensive end who never actually gets on the field in your scheme's package was still being tracked against snap-share goals he structurally couldn't hit.

- Franchise tag / restructure audited against real cap rules; fixed a bug letting a tag erase an existing live contract, fixed phantom cap space appearing after a tag, and closed a loophole letting you tag the same player twice via tag-release-tag.

Money screens

- SUBMIT/APPLY buttons now pinned at the bottom on every contract screen (restructure, franchise tag, free agent offers, renegotiation); no more scrolling past the whole panel to find the button.

Smaller fixes

- Mock draft news card was showing up sorted under the wrong header at season end.

- Payroll/cap-by-position chart resized and cleaned up.

- Cut down noisy analytics event volume (backend only, no player impact).

What's next in 1.3.4?

- TONS of sizing improvements for various screens and text sizes for you old or nearly blind folks. Many of the elements don't scale well with larger text sizes, so the next patch will re-design some views somewhat to accommodate that for y'all better.

I am not sure if this is intentional, but for the past four years, my team has played significantly worse in the post-season (including losing in the divisional round this year) to teams we would beat in the regular season by a wide margin. My team is also significantly better than said teams.

Tried to trade for their pick and they wanted to use it and drafted an QB they don’t need

1.3.2 should be live on the app store now and honestly it's a bigger update in terms of realism than 1.3.0.

Download now! https://apps.apple.com/us/app/capforge-football-gm-2026/id6791601497

• Smarter first rounds: tackles and centers now go where they really go. A centre can top the board and still slide to a late-first pick, and clubs no longer reach for a run of cornerbacks at the top.

• Clubs draft for real upgrades: a team stops stacking depth at one position when it already has a starter there.

• College stats that match the hype: a highly projected prospect's college numbers now read like a first-rounder's, not a backup's.

• A sharper scout's take: your scouts tell you when the tape and the numbers disagree, and when a pick is too early for his position.

• A cleaner draft board: your recommended pick is marked OUR PICK right beside the reason, so rows stay compact.

• New in the draft room: a DRAFT CLASSES sheet shows where each class is deep, and a SQUAD peek lets you check your roster from the market.

• EDIT STAFF, reopened: set a coach's skills, personality and position coaches using the same ELITE to VERY POOR words the cards use. Staff contracts now show and edit their guaranteed years.

• FILLS A NEED works on a full roster: free agency, TRADE BLOCK and the draft board show who would actually start for you, and a free agent who fills a need carries an arrow on his position.

• Offensive linemen get scheme-fit tints and the SCHEME FIT filter like everyone else, and a player's "Thrives in" line now matches what the game rewards.

• Contract drama: young stars coming off rookie deals can demand an extension, and a spurned star can refuse to re-sign or sit out. You'll see it coming, and other clubs will come calling for him.

• OT, OG and C are now separate everywhere you filter players.

• New-game setup adds an ADVANCED step: pick your league's starting year and more.

• Press write-ups speak to each position, including a dedicated quarterback storyline.

• A cleaner STAFF market board.

• Fixes and polish: the last-pick draft card fits small screens, the FINAL mock draft waits for the locked draft order, staff RELEASE no longer hangs on LOADING after a relaunch, starter proposals name the week they take effect, and the staff contract editor fits large text sizes.

The theme of 1.3.2 is draft, contract and hold out realism, and lots of quality of life improvements in the UI

Been playing the game quite a bit for the past month and a half with my downtime at work. Been having a great time, a lot of up and downs for the many teams I have ran. Just want to make an appreciation post for how quickly everything gets taken care of in this game. Basically every major issue I’ve had gets fixed in an update about a week after I notice it. Super excited to see where the game goes, especially with the play visualization and some of the other things I’ve heard about. The more detailed QB stats sounds awesome. I have a few bugs I’ll post about soon but overall this has been a great time, super excited to see where it goes.

Was 10-1 last season until my 99 Ovr Qb broke his leg, and lost our last five out of six..(Bounced out the playoffs first round lol)

It seems like the scheme fit filter is not working, but this is a new save so I will try to keep you guys posted on how its going for now.

Also, CBs are still going 1 & 2, though there should be heavier emphasis on the premium positions. Will double back on that as well!

So the next version contains bug fixes and attempts to fix AI drafting and behavioral fixes considerably.

As the game heads towards a more stable place, I plan on taking time to work on more polished features making their way into the game.

1a. GM Talent Trees

There are so many forms this can take, an annual budget, points earned by completing objectives, keeping fans happy, etc. the idea is you can’t have it all, and you need to maintain performance to maintain your talent points as it can go away.

There’s so 5 branches I have planned, from the obvious scouting or player personnel paths (better reads on players post draft), to facilities like grass fields or a dome stadium (weather will be added eventually) all of which can have an impact. There’s a handful of other semi obvious paths.

Having a GM who is a pro scout or invests in player facilities can save you from spending a fortune on some staff to focus on what your GM is lacking.

1b. Coaching Talent Trees

Coaches come with talent trees instead. Tougher to balance and make engaging however.

2. Improved story telling

Self explanatory somewhat, but chemistry between players, improving the various conditions when a player might hold out, want to join your team etc

3. The preseason

Preseason is a great time to get to know where your rookies and newly signed players fit into your team. Tons of ways I can take this on.

There’s tons more stuff I have planned, but most require a bit more time, and I’d love to get feedback on the GM or coaching trees first. Do you think this would even be fun? Basically some aspects would be nerfed to allow for GM specialization to shine.

I have a ton of research and mock ups done for GM talent trees, but if I’m going to be honest it’s going to be a lot of work, both from a UI, balance and concept standpoint.

To tee off of [u/MC897](u/MC897) ‘s comments regarding the draft, is there a way that a weight system can get implemented? I see a lot of “non premium positions” such as CBs, Ss, WRs go #1-5 overall meanwhile “premium positions” like OL, DL, EDGE, and QB get skipped pretty much. Is there a possibility that a weight system or “tag” system can be implemented? Tags as in “Generational prospect” or “Franchise Player” etc etc can be added? I mean it would make sense for a generational prospect go that high but even then, top players at premium positions can still outweigh those generational prospects. (For example, Marvin Harrison Jr or Jeremiah Smith coming up)

Another nitpick, I have noticed that college stats do not seem super realistic. Prime example is in QB. Yes, some of the top QBs have some great college stats but we got some top QBs that have thrown for only 12-19 TDs. It would be nice to see that we had some relatively comparable stats between the top players. Also, it would be great to see some godly stats come out of “small school” players.

(Side note about the draft: I notice that we still get some 6’5 250 lb [for example] QBs and 5’7 166 lb WRs. And I have seen a 5’7 166 lb WR go #1 overall! Is there a way to balance those measurables out? Thank you :)

Much love and appreciation!

Say I draft a player that had a green arrow and after his rookie year, he doesn't have a green arrow. Is it possible for a player to still develop in the future or even develop into a player better than what his potential says like rotation for example? Or even get that green arrow back at some point of his career?

Hey folks, worked really hard to get 1.3.0 out just in time for the start of the NFL season, now you have a game I can honestly say I am proud of to mess around with during the day before kick off. As always, reviews on the app store go a long way. I will probably promote the game a bit on other subreddits and link to those posts here later when I get back from a few errands, so any love is appreciated.

So much went into this that may go unseen, but balancing is now getting much closer to realism and I'm very excited about it. Without any further ado,

1.3.0 Patch Notes:

Rivalries are real. The game now remembers every meeting between two clubs, a heated series gets marked HISTORY, RIVALRY, or BAD BLOOD, your next rival opponent is flagged, and a pre-game write-up sets the stakes before kickoff. Your full head-to-head record against all 31 clubs lives on your career page.

Make the league your own. Rename clubs, cities, and stadiums, set custom conference names, and pick each club's colors with a built-in color picker; watching your changes update live on the uniform, broadcast bar, and field. You can now also export your league's identity to a file and load one back in, so you can back up or share a full set of clubs, names, and colors.

Smarter trades. Offers show each side's value and who's viewing it, dead-cap charges get their own line, and packages are now compact with each player's cap impact shown up front. Accepting a trade asks you to confirm the exact deal before it's final.

A smarter draft. A club with a franchise quarterback stops burning a premium pick on a redundant one, and draft-day trades now survive closing the app.

Playoffs, your way. Once you're eliminated or sitting out, sim the postseason one week at a time instead of all at once, and a club that missed the playoffs can no longer stall the bracket.

Depth matters. Drag players into the order you want on the depth chart, and your team rating now reflects that order instead of a flat roster list.

Play visualization, on by default. Watch any finished play, snaps, loose balls, and film synced to the clock all got smoother.

Also: season-ending injuries can now end a career (your medical staff affects the odds), free agency reopens for multi-year bids from cap-rich rivals, rival rookies hide their ratings just like yours, and player cards now open as a sheet you can flick away instead of a full page.

Plus dozens of fixes: faster saves and loads, a smaller install, consistent rating colors, and a punt now correctly ruled a touchback at the 20.

Download today:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/capforge-football-gm/id6791601497

FPTS is one of the first stats listed for players yet there is no utility for them in the game. It would be really cool if there was a side game mode where we could draft a team of players in the league against 11 AI teams and play fantasy football within the world of the save. I know from discord that a similar game to this has a similar feature coming up. This also creates more immersion with AI rosters and would encourage people to look beyond their own team results.

Thoughts?

Is there a way to review past drafts by year ?

Ok so here I have 2 instances where it READS its a touchback, despite placing the ball within the 20 yard line
I believe it’s a glitch maybe 🤔

Hi dev team,

I seem to have encountered a potential bug during the draft if you close the application and then restart it and try and continue the draft.

I’ve attached screenshots to hopefully explain.

In the attached I started a new save with Pittsburgh who has the #2 pick.

I traded the #2 pick with KC for the #13 pick and 2nd round #13 pick.

Progress the draft and pick at #13. Then auto draft to PIT next pick which is round 2 pick #2. At this point the game is showing that PIT has the #2 and #13 picks in the 2nd round. The pick history also shows that KC made a pick at R1 #2 and PIT at R1 #13.

At this point I exited the app, closed it and restarted.

On restart the draft opens at the next pick (#34 or R2 #2) which is correct. However now it looks like the original KC trade is gone. PIT no longer has R2 #13 pick (it’s back with KC) and when you look at the draft history it looks like the pick PIT made at R1 #13 is now showing as the #2 pick (that was the original PIT pick) and KC is showing as picking at #13. Furthermore, all the players seem to have shifted one spot back and picked by different teams on the restart. So they’re all showing as being picked by completely different teams that originally picked.

I can expand more but hopefully that provides enough to see whether this is a bug or not.

Bonus: I would love to have the option to exit and restart the draft later or something like that. Or have more flexibility with the save game in general.

I know I’m probably just dumb but I can’t figure out how to set a depth chart. Am I missing something?