Madden 27

To stick with the metaphor...  Water never taught anyone how to swim, nor has water ever rescued anyone that leapt into the deep end without knowing how to swim, and lastly we must stay in our lane when we swim.    

That said, I believe there is a very tiny portion of "90%" of the football fan base that wants to put in the effort to learn the differences between real life football and video game football so they can be successful at the Madden game.  

• Good thing:  There are lifeguards and coaches to show you how to swim.
• Bad thing:  The rest of the 90%, would rather you drown with them.   

In the meantime...  Some players will continue play Madden successfully using legitimate football concepts that the non-swimmers say cannot be done. I'll relate several personal experiences over my Madden playing career...

In Madden 2003, non-swimmers started the rumor that A-Gap blitzes were glitches and only shotgun formations gave players a chance.  I stopped running shotgun.  23 years into the experiment, and I'm pleased to announce that I've kept an above average win percentage ( >.500) every year for the past 22 against all the the A-Gap pressures you can expect to see in Online H2H Regs (that's where I live).  I've learned to enjoy making A-Gap blitz heavy opponents quit because their gimmick backfires, mostly because non-swimmers still tell me what I'm doing is impossible from under center.  

In Madden 2004, non-swimmers called a perfectly NFL legal tactic combining motion, compression, a pass route, and snap timing the "motion glitch" because that combination of concepts used that particular way had never been used in a real NFL game before .  More importantly, the tactic was designed to beat players with a vanilla defensive repertoire.  In 2011 a real NFL team added a play fake to the "motion glitch" concept and not only was it successful, but played out IDENTICALLY to how the 'motion glitch' worked in Madden 2004 seven years earlier (2011 Season - Week 4.  Lions vs Cowboys ~ 12:30 in 3rd Qtr).  They almost scored.  It was close enough to throw a challenge flag.  Weeks later, the Lions "PA Motion Glitch" against the Panthers for a messily 3 yards.  No one would run the combination of concepts that make up the 'motion glitch' in real life again until the Chiefs in Week 1 of the 2022 season, then twice in the Super Bowl that same season for the same reason it worked on Madden 2004 almost 20 years later.  Non-swimmers sayers still like to use the term 'motion glitch', though...  

When Madden 10 was out, there was a rumor started by "non-swimmers" that it was impossible to throw a pass to a WR before he made his cut.  Non-Swimmers, believed that the pass could only be thrown in the direction a receiver was running when the ball was released.  After I made several videos demonstrating throwing a pass before a receiver cut to the spot he would be after he made his break, these same non-swimmers tried to reason that what I was REALLY doing was using the left stick to lead the pass.  So I made another video where I held the controller with only my right thumb on the Square button and delivered a pass to a receiver running a 12-yard out before he made his cut and delivered the ball to a spot along his route AFTER the cut.  Even though, my video series addressed every concern non-swimmers had and proved their hypothesis false, some chose to ignore it, others successfully sought to have me banned from their community.

I could do this all day...  I used to be horrible at Madden.  But as you can probably tell, I'm also relentless. 

Last point, anyone looking for ways to solve football problems using football solutions on the football video game called Madden can do just that, but you can't learn it from a non-swimmer.  

Later

You sound an awful lot like a vested stakeholder in Madden trying hard to justify it using cherry picked "logic". I'll address your argument with holistic and unbiased logic from a hardcore fan of football who would love to see Madden as a successful and beloved game.

 The extreme majority of online games are won by the higher overall team regardless of IQ or skill. I could stop here. This is already your #1 issue and reason why people hate your game. But I'll dig deeper and provide more constructive feedback and several solutions.

 Playing against the CPU gets very boring very quickly. This is because the CPU still fails to react logically to counter your scheme. So either you decimate the CPU on lower difficulties, or you struggle on the highest difficulty not because of logic, but because the CPU players are destroying every one of your players 1 on 1 and now you have to exploit game mechanics to win instead of depending on strategy and team building. Not much you can do about this except hope AI gets better so that your CPU can play smarter. And then higher difficulties can adjust how smart and strategic the CPU is instead of just making every player substantially better.

This leaves you with two options to enjoy the game long-term. Play Now mode with your friends, or play online competitive matchmaking. Play Now with your friends is consistently enjoyable to me, but these days most people aren't playing couch co-op too often. So not a viable long-term entertainment solution.

 This leaves online matchmaking as the only answer to possibly entertain people long-term. There are many gameplay mechanics to take issue with, but really there are two main problems that are the primary reason people get pissed and throw their controller through a wall when they play these modes. 1. Everyone online calls 1-3 plays on repeat the entire game, and usually it's some broken play they got from YouTube that hasn't been patched yet. 2. The higher OVR team wins a massive majority of the games. 

 So let's say I'm a football lover at heart. And I want to run a power gap scheme with a mix of QB options and a vertical pass game in MUT. I build my team to fit this scheme and hop into a game. I'm facing a team 2-3 OVR better than me. What does this mean? Every single defensive lineman on his team is higher OVR than my entire O-line. He also has his safeties 7 yards off the line of scrimmage so the box is loaded every snap and I'm averaging 2.1 YPC. I try to punish the extremely low safeties with some PA Portland concepts. Only the safeties are psychic and instantly sprint backwards and because they're higher OVR than my players they are faster too so they actually lock up the exact concept that should punish them. On the other side of the ball my opponent rotates through 1-3 money plays they found on YouTube which glitch out the coverage for huge plays or even one play TDs.

 Now in my line of work we have a saying: "Don't bring me a problem if you don't have a solution". So here's my solution. Bring back the old MUT 25 (from like 2012 not 2025) setting where can filter matchmaking to teams within 1 OVR of you. You can then have some kind of "open bracket" mode with juiced up rewards that has no OVR filter to still give incentive to buy packs. Now I already know what you're gonna say. "Well in MUT 25 everyone would have 68 OVR players as their starters and then substitute in 90 OVR players after the game starts". So just calculate team overall by averaging the highest 11 OVR players on offense with the highest 11 OVR players on defense instead of by depth chart. Maybe you can give a tiny bit of weight to the highest OVR kicker and punter too. 

This solves the team overall issue. So what about teams spamming YouTube money plays every snap of the game? Well I personally am completely against the idea of limiting play call amounts. The solution I can think of requires pretty robust gameplay mechanic changes, a change to how player OVR is calculated, and a very robust tutorial/trainer system to teach people football IQ.

 First is the run game. Right now it's entirely possible (and common) to have an entire team that's fantastic in both run and pass game on both sides. This shouldn't be a thing. Teams should have strengths and weaknesses. Being well rounded should significantly increase a player's OVR so that people actually have to strategize team building into strengths and weaknesses. Want an elite pass rush? You'll either have to sacrifice run defense, or sacrifice other defenders, or sacrifice offensive players, otherwise your team OVR will go way up and you'll face better teams. And if you're well rounded, but they're built to run the ball, then they'll have an advantage at running the ball to attack. This change would make it where each matchup has a strength and weakness each team can exploit, rather than the higher OVR team just being slightly better in every single way. This would also finally put emphasis on having good rotational players. Maybe add package substitutions back to the game like you had years ago and add it to MUT so you can build specific packages out of different formations from the MUT home lineup, and then quickly access it during games to utilize different players skill sets.

 For the pass game, I already made a long post about how to fix that. But essentially it should be based on real life coverage rules, and include a variety of calls and coverage adjustments to counter an opponent exploiting specific route combos repeatedly. This would require an extensive tutorial library to teach players different coverage rules so that they can properly user, but this is supposed to be a simulation game. Players should have to learn how these advanced coverage rules work if they want to be competitive. They should have to properly attack a coverages weakness to complete a throw, not call one play that always gets someone open no matter what.

 Being a good online player on Madden at this point is all about having a better team, knowing the current money plays, and getting really good at using them to torch any coverage. Then using some glitch on defense to exploit game mechanics or building an absurd Frankenstein coverage from YouTube. This isn't fun for anyone. It just pisses everyone off and then they leave angry reviews because Madden has caused them to break three controllers. It's time to stop calling the consumers entitled ignorant idiots, and actually acknowledge that most of them are truly not having fun playing your game. As a producer that should actually care about whether their consumer enjoys their product, it is 100% your responsibility to find a way to make the game enjoyable for most players. Most players are football fans, not hyper-competitive borderline autistic glitch exploitation freaks, and not rich enough to buy teams better than everyone elses.

Just an FYI, the water breathers probably make up 90% of the total fanbase of your silly game.   Maybe you,  EA, and Madden need to remember that going forward.  

I agree with you man, the CPU gets the benefit of the equation most of the time it seems.  I just made a post about how a 99 overall D revis. with inside and outside shade boosts got beat for 6 catches 140 yards in man to man coverage with a 91 ovr WR in single man to man coverage.  The receiver only had 89 release and 91 speed.   It just doesn't make any sense at all. 

so, I'm the only one that has a multitude of online losses due to the server kicking me off, even when I have the lead! I would think that would be mentioned by Someone! I paid money every year to be great, just for Madden to screw me occasionally, but too many times to ignore, I'm nice! I know angles, and my defense gets the job done,  a MAJORITY of my losses came from the game actually disallowing my sure fire situations! they better get they act together in 27, or, I'm going to record the games and $ue! Rant over,

King LP

With all due respect to you as a gamer, I always have reservations about people who are critical of Madden after they say just a roster update.  These reservations harden when that same individual is advising people not to buy Madden based on that reasoning.  

I love Call of Duty, Gran Turismo, and GTA - but not enough to shell out enough loot for a gaming system.  Only Madden can do that.  I bought a PS1, my first gaming system purchase with my own money, in the mid 90's to play Madden 97, PS2 for Madden 2002, PS3 for Madden 2007, PS4 for Madden 15, PS5 for Madden 23.  Nothing will change on my next console purchase. 

To make sure I wasn't jumping to conclusions - I reviewed your posts about Madden and here's what I think I've learned about you, specifically.  

• you got College Football 26 at or close to release
• you got Madden sometime in October
• you have expectations about how Madden is supposed to play
• Madden does not live up to your expectations
• you are capable of offering constructive criticism
• you often choose not to be constructive

That said, I can't change your opinion of Madden, but I might be able to help you modify some of your expectations in a way that will be meaningful for you, specifically, and others that may share those expectations.  

7 months ago you posted a this topic.  I think it can be constructive, so I'm responding to it (probably 7 months too late)..

Honeymoon is over, the game is pretty bad

I thought the game was going in a good direction by making it viable for NMS to have a team, but the gameplay doesn't make sense. 83 speed lineman matching 87 speed receivers, Khalil Mack catching Jalen Hurts from behind with an overall diff. DBs are making plays with their back to the ball. Also, the o-line and fronts in general need a complete rework. No one is stopping the run with a 4-man box, nor would only three down linemen. Plus, you should be severely punished if you rush three, considering most teams struggle to get pressured by five-person rushes and stunts in real life. A quality patch will push out many brain-dead players, but please remove most of the RNG for the greater good.

So there's a lot here - I'll try to tackle it all because much of your concerns have already been addressed...  

First, we'll discuss this part:  

gameplay doesn't make sense. 83 speed lineman matching 87 speed receivers

Years ago, I wondered the same thing; because I didn't know what 87 speed is.  Most people don't, because we don't measure speed that way. We measure in distance/time.  So I ran fact finding races on video.  

99 vs 89
99 vs 79
89 vs 79

I set a bunch of ground rules for how the test would be conducted.  3 players with 10 point difference in speed (99, 89, 79), identical in all other ratings (99 for everything).  They ran streak routes for 40 yards from a TE Trips formation that places two WR off the line and their toe starting on the 10.  I used the number of animation frames (60 fps) to count the time each player ran 40 yards. 

The first attempt was with two 99 SPD players.  Their 40 times were 3.96.  I marked that as the FASTEST POSSIBLE TIME.  If you want the nitty gritty go here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xo3aiaOdTA&t=455s), I'll just share what I learned -

• After 40 yards, a 99 SPD player only has 3.5 yards of separation over a player with 89 SPD
• Same was true of an 89 SPD player and a 79 SPD player

I was able to conclude that an 89 SPD defender in the seam or near the sidelines can easily defend a bullet pass thrown 40 yards when the defender is between the QB and the intended target. 

Khalil Mack catching Jalen Hurts from behind with an overall diff

I've often said OVR is the most useless rating on Madden because so many factors are crammed into the calculation...  In the instance you use, Jalen Hurts and Khalil Mack may indeed have different OVR valuations - but they aren't calculated the same.  

EDGE rushers need one skill set, QB's need another.  Mack likely has higher EDGE specific ratings than does Hurts, who likely has higher QB specific ratings than does Mack.  Whenever we use the OVR to compare players, e have to limit it to like positions.  OLB and DE are virtually interchangable with regard to skills - the difference is usually size versus quickness.  Compare than same OLB to a safety and their skill sets are far enough apart that the OVR means nothing - you'd be forced to peek at the underlying ratings to make a strategic decision on who plays where.  QB and DE do not compare well as there aren't enough shared ratings used in their OVR calculation.  

DBs are making plays with their back to the ball.

If I'm a DB and my mans hands reach for the ball, I'm not going to turn around to look for the ball.  I'm going to punch thru the middle of the receiver's hands - ideally as the ball I can't see arrives.  That's how you break up passes without ever seeing the ball.  

In Madden, the user can break up a pass - because we see the hole field and can switch into any defender.  The CPU may revert to the individual MCV ratings (or a combination of others) to determine how well a defender reacts to the receiver's hands to make plays without seeing the ball.  

No one is stopping the run with a 4-man box, nor would only three down linemen. Plus, you should be severely punished if you rush three, considering most teams struggle to get pressured by five-person rushes and stunts in real life. A quality patch will push out many brain-dead players, but please remove most of the RNG for the greater good.

A lot here to unpack... But this is cured with a slight change of strategy and technique using tools that have been in Madden for almost 20 years.

Suppose you have two players.  Player A knows how to run against the light defenses you mention above as being too successful at stopping the run, Player B does not.  

When Player A meets an opponent that attempts to stop the run with a week box...  He has has success on the ground.  When Player B meets that same opponent, he does not have success.  The truth is, if you know how AND your opponent aloows you to get away with it, you can clog 6 gaps with 3 defenders  (defender's body in one gap, the o-linenan's body in the other) - but only with certain types of run plays.  

If Player A sees the technique that attempts to cancel 6 gaps with 3 defender, he will immediately switch to plays that block the defensive front differently.  Player B will keep trying the same run plays into a line with no holes.  

Since this is a concern for you, I'm going to assume you run the ball using Inside Zone plays that attempt to double two of the three men in the 3-man defensive front OR Iso/Dive plays that try to block 1v1.  On top of that, you're sprinting before you reach the line of scrimmage.  

You'll have better success with Power, Trap plays if you can't break the habit of hitting the Sprint button too early (causes engaged defenders to push to disengage).  

As a Madden player, it's up to you to learn how Maddne and football are different - and modify how you operate in that environment.  

Like the difference between swimming and walking.  Lots of water breathers playing Madden and wonder why it feels like they are drowning.  Hint: Don't breathe the water.

Later