X-Factors & Superstar Abilities Requirements in MUT

Hey Madden Community!

KRAELO (aka Agent K) here! Welcome back to another installment of Madden 20's Gridiron Notes. For those that are new to Gridiron Notes, Gridiron Notes is where we keep you up-to-date with the latest Madden 20 news. Our goal with this series is to provide you with deeper insight into our game and update you when we have new and relevant information to share about Madden 20.

Today, our goal is to provide you some more details around the requirements for X-Factors and Superstar Abilities in Madden Ultimate Team (MUT). We also want to provide you some early information about how X-Factors and Superstar Abilities play a role in the Salary Cap mode. 

So without further ado, let’s get into it and have Jake Stein, Producer on the Madden Ultimate Team, kick things off!

FROM THE DEVELOPERS

Hello Madden Fans,

Jake Stein here from the Madden Team! I wanted to take a few minutes as we lead into Madden NFL 20 to talk about the design philosophy we used to implement X-Factors and Superstar Abilities in Madden Ultimate Team (MUT). Those Abilities provide such a compelling and authentic way to play Madden and we were challenged with finding the best way to incorporate that gameplay story inside of MUT. What we ultimately (no pun intended) decided on was to add “archetypes” to Ultimate Team and then broke down the Superstar Abilities into “tiers”. Let’s dive a little deeper…

Archetypes

First step is the addition of archetypes. Doing this provided Ultimate Team the power to separate all of the Superstar Abilities into the archetypes that only made sense for each ability. So, for example QBs have four archetypes – Field General, Improvisor, Scrambler, and Strong Arm. Now let’s take a look at “Red Zone Deadeye” which gives any player with this ability perfect pass accuracy in the red zone. This ability is available for every QB archetype except for Scrambler.

Tiers

The next thing after placing Superstar Abilities into archetypes was to make a pass at breaking them up into 3 Tiers with Tier 3 being what we considered to be the most powerful ability that archetype should get. Let’s go back to the Red Zone Deadeye example. I mentioned that 3 of the 4 QB archetypes can equip this ability but they don’t all unlock it at the same time. For Improvisor, Red Zone Deadeye is a Tier 3 ability meaning it will take a higher OVR to gain access to it. Strong Arm unlocks it at Tier 2 and Field General gets it right away at Tier 1. There’s a little bit of nuance but in general you can expect Power Up players to gain access to Tier 1 Abilities at 80 OVR, Tier 2 at 85 OVR, and Tier 3 at 90 OVR.

Now those of you who played Ultimate Team in Madden NFL 19 are familiar with the upgrade system (i.e. Power Ups) and the mechanic of getting to choose what chemistry, ability, etc. you wanted to equip for that player. The same concept is back when it comes to choosing these Superstar Abilities. You will unlock the “Tier 1 Slot” and then open it up to see what your available choices are. What’s also back is the concept of needing to meet certain OVR and/or attribute rating requirements in order to gain access to the ability. A good example of this would be Gunslinger. For Improvisors and Field Generals, you must be 95 OVR and have 95 Throw Power in order to have the option to choose Gunslinger in your Tier 3 bucket.

Hopefully you have a good sense of how the system design is working so far. There are still two more aspects to cover. So, in this world, players do not get more than 3 Superstar Abilities and we feel like at launch only having (at most) a single Tier 1, 2, and 3 ability is a balanced approach.

However, we know Ultimate Team is a journey, so we have plans in place for players to gain access to additional choices as the year goes on. What that means is that when you reach certain OVR thresholds, your Tier 1 or Tier 2 buckets will receive abilities from the higher Tiers.

Breakdown:

• At 93 OVR, the Tier 1 bucket will also have Tier 2 choices
• At 96 OVR, the Tier 2 bucket will also have Tier 3 choices
• At 99 OVR, the Tier 1 bucket will also have Tier 3 choices

So, if you’re having a real tough time choosing between Cross and Post Specialist in the Tier 2 Route Running bucket, you’ll be able to use your Tier 1 bucket to select one of these once that player hits 93 OVR.

Lineup

The last aspect to cover is how you’ll have to “elect” which 3 players on offense and which 3 players on defense you want to have these abilities activated when you go into game. In the lineup screen, there’s a spot where you can choose which players you want to use and only those 6 total players will have X-Factors and Superstar Abilities activated when you play a game. You’ll always have the option to go in and tweak that loadout as many times as you want but it will need to be done from the lineup screen. 

Superstar Abilities were the tough ones to figure out! The X-Factor abilities are much more straight forward. We are allowing any archetype to choose any X-Factor that makes sense for that position. The requirements to enter and exit the zone are tuned the same way that the rest of Madden has it tuned. Power Ups gain access to the X-Factor slot after melting in the Core item in the upgrade tier.

We understand there’s a lot to unpack here. We have plans to have this information integrated into your play experience in the near future to help with any questions or confusion.

- Jake Stein (Follow Jake Stein on Twitter @Jstein2469)

X-FACTORS AND SUPERSTAR ABILITIES REQUIREMENTS

Huge S/O to Jake Stein for the detailed breakdown on how X-Factors and Superstar Abilities will work in Madden Ultimate Team. We all know how much our players love data and information, so Jake Stein and RG put together the following spreadsheet below that looks at each Archetype and what Abilities are available for each one. The best way to use this spreadsheet is to find your Archetype (e.g. Field General - QB) and then click on the filter and deselect N/A so that you can see at what Tier the ability will be available and any additional requirements needed as well (e.g. Tier 3: 95 OVR/95 THP).

Some position information may not be available at the time of the publishing of this article; however, our teams will update the spreadsheet as more position information becomes available (i.e. FB, K and OL)

X-Factor & Superstar Requirements (MUT).xlsx

Now let’s hear from RG, one of the Game Designers on the Madden Team who has been working on how X-Factors and Superstar Abilities will work in the Salary Cap mode in Madden Ultimate Team. 

X-FACTORS AND SUPERSTAR ABILITIES IN SALARY CAP MODE

Hey Madden Fans! RG here!

If we are talking about abilities in MUT we also need to talk about their impact in MUT Salary Cap (Don’t worry MCS guys, we got you!).

Shown below are some key notes around abilities in Salary Cap that we want players to have going into this upcoming M20 season.

Cap Costs

• Much like ability chemistries or “red chems” as our community came to call  them last year, X-Factor & Superstar abilities will have a salary cost associated with them when used in Salary Cap mode.  A breakdown of the cap cost for each ability is shown at the bottom of this article for reference.  

Updated Cap Formulas

• We have updated the salary formula for every position going into M20.  These changes help ensure we are valuing each rating for each position the best we can as we go into M20.  Some examples of these changes are:
• Increased the weight speed has for a QB's value
• Lowered the Max Salary for Dline and LB's
• Lowered the Max Salary of Oline
• And any more!

Equipping Abilities

• It is important to note that Salary Cap will be using the same roster limits for abilities as the rest of MUT.  What this means is that players can equip a max of 3 players on each side of the ball (i.e. Offense/Defense) who will have access to abilities (6 players total).  This system will not only help game balance but will also help salary cap players avoid situations where they find themselves having to constantly equip or unequip abilities from their players as they bounce between modes.  Now in M20 if you don’t want a player’s abilities to count toward your cap cost simply do not equip that player in one of your 6 ability slots at the roster screen.  

Updates

• A big goal for the team this year is to keep Salary Cap fresh and updated.  This means users should expect a variety of updates throughout the year that will be directed to adjusting the different cap cost within Salary Cap mode.  Anything from the total cap, player salaries, ability salaries, or even a positions specific salary formula are all things that could be impacted by these updates.  The team will be using a variety of data throughout the season to ensure these cap updates help maintain game balance, creativity, and more importantly fun.  

More Salary Cap Info Coming Soon

• Keep an eye out for future Gridiron Notes where we will be posting future updates coming to the Salary Cap mode.

- RG (Follow RG on Twitter @RG_Madden)

X-FACTOR ABILITY CAPS

SUPERSTAR ABILITY CAPS

WHAT'S NEXT?

So what is next? RATINGS, RATINGS, RATINGS! Head over to Muthead.com to see the full Madden Ultimate Team (MUT) Ratings database at launch. 

You can find MUT Ratings here: www.muthead.com/20/players

Also stay tuned for some special editions of Gridiron Notes this week. Here is a quick breakdown of articles you can expect to see later this week. 

• July 23: Details on Madden 20 Achievements per platform (i.e. Xbox, PS4, and PC) for Achievement Hunters.
• July 24: Details on the Rewards Structure for the following modes in Madden Ultimate Team (MUT): Solo Battles, Head to Head Seasons, and MUT Drafts

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Madden NFL 20 is out worldwide on August 2. Pre-order the Superstar Edition and play 3 days early. Stay in the conversation by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and EA Forums. Sign up for the Newsletter today to receive updates on Madden, and other EA news, products, and events, all season long.