Truly Done
Congratulations EA. I've been playing Madden for at least 30 years. I've bought every new game despite the glitches. I kept saying it wasn't that bad. That the game was still enjoyable. That it would get better. I have hit a point where I can no longer support this franchise, and that really, really sucks. Still, I'll elaborate in case the devs decide to stop investing all their resources in MUT (a pipe dream, I know) and instead return to focusing on the (expletive) game that we fell in love with instead of the money-grabbing scam of a mode that has detracted from the primary game modes for years.
1) After 15 years, Madden 08 is still the best Madden for Franchise mode. This is extremely sad. Chemistry (MUT only now), player tags (a shell of what they once were), ridiculously stupid player releases (X-Factor 90+ OVR 20-something-year-old Jalen Hurts and X-Factor 90+ OVR Miles Sanders sitting in Free Agency because apparently the Eagles are too stupid to keep them), No Expansion Teams, Unable to reorganize Division, and so on. This is just pathetic and shows that EA abandoned the Franchise players and now tries to do the bare minimum to keep Franchise players buying the game.
2) Bugs. Holy (expletive) hell. Just today I had: play clock counting down but game clock only moves for the last 10 seconds, depth charts STILL constantly reorder themselves, X-Factors not triggering (X-Factor RB with Freight Train must get 10+ yards, yet he would, on first down, run and get the next first down (minimum 10 yards, right?) but would not progress his X-Factor meter until I had at least 12 yards, no X-Factors on field (they were suddenly inactive for some reason. The players were on the field, but were suddenly superstars only. I went into the lineup to activate them but I can't. It says 0/3, I have 4 offensive and 1 defensive X-Factor players but only the defensive one is active. I cannot activate the offensive ones at all now), X-Factors randomly deactivating (Occasionally on a change of possession, my QB and/or RB would suddenly have lost the X-Factor they had active on the previous drive. No, they did not lose them normally), and 30 FPS. This was ALL within 4-5 hours of play time!
3) Server Connection Errors. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've been disconnected, including while writing this post.
4) BS Responses. Bug reports often get the "We're aware of the issue and working on it." No, you're probably not unless it's game-breaking or affects MUT. So many of the bugs have been around for years, but the devs simply don't care. You can find bugs from 3+ years (and thus, games) ago, and they're still there, despite the BS platitude responses that they are supposedly being fixed. If it's not significantly affecting their revenue, they simply don't care enough to fix things. Why bother when you can just tweak the game for the next iteration. We put up with the bugs with a few complaints, so we'll keep putting up with them, right?
TL/DR: I'm done with new Maddens. If I return to the game, I'll just mod 08. So thank you, EA. You've finally driven away one of your most loyal Madden players. I have stupidly bought every version of the game since at least 92, sometimes multiple copies for multiple platforms (PS4/PS5/PC all this year for some stupid reason. Started on the 4, upgraded to 5, then got a new high-end PC). No more. No "We promise. We hear you and next years Franchise mode will be better." followed by "We couldn't do it this year, so you'll get it next year." and followed still by "Yeah, we know it's been 2 years now, but we promise, next year will be better." I'm not falling for it anymore.
Goodbye.
