[Discussion] your personal assessment of Madden 22

I've just deinstalled the game. It was a very difficult decision for me and I struggled with it for a long time. The much I love this game, the much I hate it either.

I've played almost every Solo Battle and Solo Challenge in MUT since the game was released for PC again (Madden 19). I really enjoyed the feature of building up my lineup, tinkering with my lineup and learning the game in depth. But the more I played, the more I became aware that I only need 2 plays on offense (1 run and 1 pass play) and 1 on defense to beat the AI every single time (and I’m not talking of obvious glitch plays like calling a field goal block on every defensive play just to audible to a punt block to easily intercept the AI every single time). On the other hand, I realized that a lot of plays do not work as they should. In other words, they are useless. When I started to optimize my strategy for Solo Battles, I even became aware that the only thing you need to rank top 100 is this “field goal block-punt-block-INT” glitch, while almost all the top competitive players use the same (or very similar) formations and plays/routes in the Madden tournaments.

In other words, Madden is very unbalanced in terms of usability of plays and formations as well as players. While speed matters most and there are some abilities and x-factors which almost have to be used if you want to successfully play H2H, other player attributes or abilities are almost worthless. The same holds for plays and formations. Unfortunately, while football itself is very diverse in terms of potential strategies, Madden tends to be very monotonous. In MUT Solos, I do always the same because the available modes incentivize doing that. As soon as you completed your objectives, it is just about chewing the clock. In Solo Battles, you have to do always the same if you want to maximise your score (no matter whether you make use of glitch plays or not).

I do not want to go into detail regarding H2H games in MUT. They are just frustrating because I cannot do anything against the latency issues I face (there are just too many nodes between my modem and EA’s servers in California). The bad latency results in my non-usered players reacting completely grotesquely not picking, my usered inputs do not work either as they should. Compared to previous versions of the game, it is the worst in Madden 22.

I guess what I wrote in the previous paragraph might be interpreted as the words of a frustrated, badly skilled player who does not know how to play this game. I’m definitely not the best player (not at all), but I’m not the worst either anymore (I even managed to rank top 10 in Weekend League on PC in Madden 20) and I guess I learnt a lot about football (probably not Madden) strategies. Feeling like being the worst player just because the timing is always wrong in the passing play, ballcarrier moves never work and my non-usered players do not even correctly identify the distance to their opponents (if they are moving) prohibiting tackling or successful catching animations, etc. Whenever I see a celebration run of my opponent after one of the enormous number of the weird animations I steadily face, it feels like mockery of the worst kind. I should not blame my opponents (they can’t know how the game is performing on my end) but in total, the gaming experience while playing MUT H2H is the worst gaming experience I’ve ever had in my life.

And there are no alternatives to play. playing MUT Solos are just so easy and incentivize doing always the same, the Franchise mode is so underdeveloped off the field (compared to what could be possible), the story of Face of the Franchise is thin…. I know I’m exaggerating but to enjoy playing this game in the long run (on a daily basis), the game unfortunately lacks too much.

I put off the decision to put the game down for a very, very long time because I basically love the strategic side of football. I also love the feature of MUT building up and tinkering with my lineup while I do not like the strong focus on competition and this lottery regarding packs. In principle, I guess I’d be more a Franchise player, but funnily given the limited features off the field in Franchise, MUT provides even more opportunities to tinker with your lineup. But I have and never will pay for any MUT packs. I want to improve my team by playing, not by paying.

Over the years, I’ve observed one clear line in business decisions regarding MUT (although I do not see why players from other modes think that the only mode that is improved is MUT. That is just not the case either): every change primarily focuses on increasing the amount of sold packs: for instance, rewards for Solo modes have been reduced every single year (e.g. Solo Battle games had been worth 1000 coins in previous years but are only 50 coins since Madden 21, quicksell for coins options have been abandoned for rewarded packs, etc.), but now even rewarded items from promos are not only not auctionable nor tradable but are not even usable for sets anymore (NCAT), etc.). These decisions are completely in contrast to what I loved in the MUT mode: i.e. I was able to tinker with my lineup just by playing. These decisions will never raise my willingness to spend money for packs. They even decrease my willingness (although I’d be willing to spend a lot of money for additional features which would allow me to play this game more diversly).

I’m not sure how I will proceed here in the AHQ Madden forum. I’ve spent so much time over the last months and years trying to report bugs, making suggestions and help out other players to contribute making this game better (I guess reporting bugs will be difficult for me (since I will not play the game anymore) but probably I will continue trying to help others here in the forum). So far, I did not see improvements which would increase the fun of playing this game for me. Rather the opposite: the game crashes and is completely instable, H2H is unplayable, MUT Solo Battles are worthless (just chewing the clock hoping not to face a crash and therefore a DNF), tinkering with my lineup is just frustrating seeing that completing interesting sets is almost impossible just by playing (it is much more efficient wait some weeks to buy players from the auction house than doing anything else).

I’d love to install and play the game again if 1) the game does not crash every 3^rd/4^th attempt playing a game, 2) at least one challenging and repeatable (as often as I want without any restrictions) MUT Solo mode is available that allows me to play with and enjoy my lineup (and not having to face this huge frustration due to my latency issues when trying to play H2H), 3) the AI logic (in play calling and making adjustments) is heavily improved. Otherwise, I do not see how I could spend my time playing this game without getting frustrated, and 4) MUT is not just about throwing money out the window. The content of the packs I see is just not worth even considering buying them.