Madden 24 Feedback

Madden 24 Season 1 Competitive Feedback:

Madden 24 is by far the best Madden ever developed. However, there are still significant issues with fundamental football that must be addressed.

The attention to authenticity in the newest version of the game is obvious. The offensive line blocks better, and many (yet not all) of the M23 contain blitzing issues are fixed. The new animations (for which I assume support the physics modeling and are not just esthetic) help bridge the gaps between visual feedback and function.

Truly, this is the first year that many of the plays and formations are at least semi-viable.

Yet at its heart, M24 is still the “same game” that it’s been for years. A game where play-calling matters less than game knowledge in almost every instance. The Chess Match is improved, but the META still dominates.

You can do better.

To help in that effort, I’ve created a list of items with the greatest level of need. Please review and work towards fixing as many of these issues as possible.

Good luck!

All feedback is based on competitive play in MUT.

@Spade and Clint

1. I don’t see the weight advantage of large offensive lineman versus smaller players. This was super hyped up in advertising for M24 but does not appear to be active in the game. I use 6 offensive lineman and have virtually no pancakes running the game continuously against defenses with 5 – 7 defensive backs on the field.

To be blunt, I think this was bait and switch. I think you guys oversold that to get people like me to buy the game, and then dialed it way down so that little Timmy could run dollar in MUT.

The fix is simple. Dial up the dominant wins for Dawand Jones type players going against Sauce Gardner type players. Currently Sauce is block shedding Dawand more than he’s getting pancaked. Which is stupid and makes me want to smash my computer with a sledgehammer.

I want people to have to put linebackers on the field to defense my 3 TE sets. When that happens, the work is done.

1. There are still blocking issues caused by dumb unsound defenses that have a major impact on run blocking. One example is dime or dollar having DB’s spread out all over the field, versus multiple tight end sets like Ace or Tight Wing. Routinely, the guards and tackles will go to block DB’s far outside the running lane and leave greater threats free to drop the RB for a loss.

It kills the use of running formations like this and creates a situation where the offense has to have special motion and knowledge just to get the blocking to work correctly on the simplest of plays.

1. The quick hiking is beyond horrible. But I have a solution I think you will appreciate.

Quick hiking is OP, and when you combine it with the hurry up offensive it’s absolutely brain dead ignorant.

              The act of quick hiking has no cost it. And that’s what needs to change.

I think you should tie quick hiking to the tempo of the offense. If they’re not set to up tempo, then you should have to wait for at least 3 full seconds before you snap the ball. This means you make an hot route adjustment, wait 3 seconds. You change formations, wait two seconds. You come out for a new play, wait 3 seconds. But if you’re up tempo, now you can snap the ball super quick and just quick hike the heck out of everyone. Because now you’re also wearing out your own team.

This is a band aid fix for right now. Ideally, maybe in M25, we would have an actual snap count, and if the offense didn’t execute it correctly it would result in false starts and poorer blocking, etc. That would be great! But for right now, can we please just stop the endless quick hiking where my brain can’t even think for a second about what’s going on?

1. You guys should redo contain logic. It should be able setting the edge. Take the 46 defense. Do you guys realize how easy it is to run outside on the 46 defense? It’s because even with contains no one ever sets the edge. That DE gets blocked and it’s off to the races.

Contains are “better” in some ways this year, but they still need a lot of work. I feel like they took a major step forward this year because I can often times run inside of the contains, which was never possible in previous years. But they still mess up blocking and they don’t work the way they should in the passing game. It’s like they’re semi-functional but they don’t work as intended. I would go into more detail but I don’t think you need that. I think you already know, I just wanted to call it out for the sake of giving the general feedback.

1. The kicking game needs love. I think the new physics are great. Thank you for taking out the scum kick! But I hate, hate, triple hate that every one has to have Justin Tucker and can easily kick 60 yard field goals. Could you please make kicking a skill that involves much more than just getting Justin Tucker?

I mean, fine, Justin Tucker has a big leg, but the mental part should be simulated with a skill based kicking system. It needs to be REALLY FREAKIN HARD to kick long field goals in this game. And honestly, extra points shouldn’t even be “easy” they should just be “less hard” than kicking longer field goals.

You need to make field goal kicking a player skill that takes mental fortitude to master.

1. The new play clock is annoying. I never know how many seconds are left because it’s so small and hidden at the top of the screen. I know you guys kept getting feedback about changing the score board, but like, this is not good. I can’t get used to watching the play clock on the field either. It’s resulting in lots of delay of game penalties for me.

@ At whoever owns the MUT product.

MUT was great the first week. Then the game got new content, and my players were not good enough to block and tackle anymore. This is a huge problem that should be fixed. Because I have every want to play this game, and I’ll spend money. But I won’t spend 1000’s just to have players I don’t want or like.

What you need to do is find a way to let everyone stay competitive with the players they like. My suggestion? Just let me power up my theme team for money. There, done. I can play the game with the players I like, and you get money. Doesn’t that sound fair?

Instead, every time there’s new content, I only see that my team is less viable, and eventually I just can’t play at all anymore. Look at my account for the last 5 years. I get to September or maybe early October, and that’s it. The game is completely unplayable for me.

Guess who makes ZERO money off a person that uninstalls the game. You do. You don’t even have the opportunity to make money off me after the first few months.

Ya know what would also help? A Salary Cap for competitive play.

@ANTHONYWhite

Thank you for the new plays! Many of them are very cool and I’d like to say double thank you for the Browns playbook updates. Clearly you do your homework and have given each team some real-world flavor.

Regarding the Browns playbook, though. Please review and consider the fact that if the Browns are backed up to their own goal line, there are almost no good options to run the ball. There’s nothing other than the goal-line formation, and a close formation with a full back (which in MUT the Browns don’t have). I’ve gotten multiple safeties in head-to-head matchups because of this.

EDIT: I should just use H TIGHT. My bad. This is a good formation for short yardage. I didn't see all the substitution packages.

There’s also very few draws and screen plays, which is odd for the style of offense they play. I would say Kevin Stefanski is probably one of the most draw and screen play heavy coaches in the NFL. There’s just no variety in draw plays (I think there’s only three) and although the FL and TE screens are nice, the HB screens only come out of the gun. It would sure be nice to have some screens from under center.

 I appreciate your work, but the playbooks just don’t work for the way M24 functions in practice.

Here are a few examples:

1. If you have a playbook that has a Corner Stop route. Why would you not have a similar play in the same formation that has a corner route? This kind of thing happens a lot in virtually all the playbooks. I want to run a play action pass to the strong side of the field. Oh great, there’s no actual running play to that side of the field. It’s stuff like this that makes want just to stop playing sometimes. Because I’m trying so hard to use the off meta plays but it’s like there’s just no help there.
2. Auto-motion is worthless in competitive plays. Why is it in there? Why can’t we just make our own playbooks for competitive play?

Anthony, I get that you’re not in charge of all that, and you probably want it as much as players do. But my god, can we please have competitive playbooks where there’s no auto motion? It just gets in the way and makes certain playbooks and formations worthless because you really can’t make a scheme out of any of it.

1. Why can’t you guys just make a route tree where all the routes are the same. There shouldn’t be a “special” corner route in one playbook and then my Browns playbook stinks because my corner routes are always covered. Why are you guys doing that? Just make sure all the routes are the same. A corner should be a corner in all the playbooks. The same thing for all the routes in the route tree. Wouldn’t this be much easier to test for balance? Wouldn’t this be easier to develop the game logic around?

I have no idea why there are so many weirdo routes in the playbooks. The end result is the game is less balanced, play books are less viable, and the game is less fun for people that don’t have all day to search and find the special secrete route buried in one of the 32 team playbooks.

1. In competitive play, the main issue with M24 is that the user can still effectively control too much ground. It’s much better than in the past, and I think it’s close to balanced as of today. However, the playbooks still haven’t accounted for this at all.

Most plays don’t flood or even try to flood the middle of the field. And this is a huge problem because it allows the defensive player to just drop zones on both sidelines and force throws into the middle of the field where they can pick it off.

This is often done using 4 players in man defense as well. With the user being responsible for the RB. But because of the gross amount of speed the user has, plays out to the flats will often result in negative yards. And it really leaves offenses with very few passing or running options. Throw the ball to crossing routes or corners. Run the ball on tosses or inside zone plays.

There are just not enough plays in any playbooks to make the user guard different parts of the field. I try very hard to do this, but the playbooks don’t support this consistently.

I think a good example of a play that makes the user cover more of the field than they’re able to is Dragon Spacing in the Browns playbook. The reason it’s good is that there are a lot of routes up and around both seams. And most defensive players online don’t have zones covering those areas because they’re so worried about crossing routes and corners.

But how many times can I run that play out of an empty set? And since I don’t really have that kind of flexibility in the Browns playbook with other formations. There’s no way for me to influence the types of coverages I get when I’m not in empty. I need your help. I need more stick and spacing concepts that flood the hook zones and the middle read section of the field so the user has to make choices that he doesn’t want to make. This is the only way my quick passing game will ever work. Please, if at all possible, add a few into the Browns playbook during a patch this year. Just take them from other playbooks. Simple!

That’s all I have for now. There were lots of improvements that I didn’t list here. Mainly because I don’t have the time or energy to do it at the moment and I’m being lazy. My apologies. I tried to write thoughtful feedback, but I’ve been doing this for years and have rarely received any acknowledgement from it, so it often feels like I’m shouting into the void.

But just in case I’m now, thank you for reading and good luck!