MADDEN 26-27 IMPROVEMENT IDEAS
This is a thread I wanted to start so everyone on here can have their ideas seen and heard by EA_Shepard and other EA Staff while also having a single, organized place to share them. This in turn makes it easier to read and organize these thoughts in order to pass on to dev teams. Please be respectful and feel free to put down anything you would want to see in a coming update or in newer games to come. I'll start by adding these ideas: Downloadable Rosters & Draft Classes from past years for nostalgic Franchises. Customizable Divisions and Schedules like what is found in CFB (Great for Fantasy). Reincluding the option of Coaching Legends for Coach Mode (Also Great for Fantasy). Possibly reinclude custom facial uploads for custom coaches in Coach Mode. Revamped and reincluded Player/Owner Modes. - Ultimately to summarize this: For Owner Mode, I'd like to see Team Builder tied more exclusively to a new version of this where customization of everything from the ground up is key for the most customizable experience ever. For Player Mode, I'd like what little works well within Superstar to be tied to a new, revamped Player Mode, where the storylines and cutscenes are more included here, and less in other modes. This would include being able to choose an existing player within a franchise, and focus exclusively on their career; OR, create a new player and start as you would within Superstar. I'd like to see Team Builder weaved into relocation for all online modes and somehow introduced into offline. Inclusion of holding the L2/LT to Switch Stick to minimize switching by accident, especially while trying to pass rush. Include more cities and teams for Relocation. Cities where franchises already exist like Miami, LA, or Detroit, as well as new ones like Boston, Phoenix, or Birmingham. More Stadium options for Relocation. Reinclude Build a Stadium within Team Builder. I'm talking from scratch...not just editing the field. Reinclude the ability to edit and create more custom uniform combinations. Within the Edit Rosters section of the Creation Center, more flexibility to edit a player's contract, abilities, etc, would be nice. Better Training Camp - Introduce some ability to gain physical STR, SPD, AGI, COD, by introducing some of the game found in Superstar like the 3Cone, Weightlifting, 40YD, etc. - This is where mini-games shine. Make games open for more players to train and have them more focused on gaining skill points and less on XP and Rookie Reps. This is a great way to help maintain the physical ability of Vets, or take your high-level Superstars to the next level. Revamp Weekly Training - Make this less focused on mini-games and tie it more to Practice Mode and gaining XP/Rookie Reps. The way the have Wear & Tear worked into this is nice; Now just optimize it. Optimize Coach Central and Coaching Abilities. - It's a bit to type but my thoughts on this can be found in my "M26 Franchise Feedback thread" thread. I feel that's a pretty good start for now. Hopefully this is helpful for anyone that reads and I look forward to seeing more thoughts and ideas shared here!
MUT DECLINE
Do you guys remembered when you can upgrade players via training (Training Card) & bypass outrages auction pricing? Or even when sets had their own sections & you were able to trade in 5 UT Legends to get the full Legend? Even sets had artwork… interesting challenges (especially Christmas with a literal Santa sized player - to small strong elves); but now we have battle passes, no true dedicated set sections with boring solos… Even grinding to unlock in game challenges to unlock Sean Taylor by getting x amount of stats was a hunt.The soul of the game just dropped from what it was in 2017-19, and that wasn’t even prime time MUT. This game has no love. I kinda feel bad for newer players. It lets EA get away with this slop since they have no standards.
Don't Buy
This game is genuinely a terrible game, have been dealing with so many glitches. This game has the most latency ever even with a wired controller and no applications open, ran on administrator with the lowest graphics. This game is horrible to every single part. The menu is terrible; when I choose team practice for training camp it takes me to skills trainer and I have to back out just to go to team practice. The gameplay is terrible, I get stuck on offensive play calls EVERY PLAY and can only select a play when the menu is opened and closed or after just accepting the penalty. In addition, after I CAN'T select a play numerous times in a row and have to take a penalty I then get REMOVED FOR INACTIVITY! What even more ridiculous about this bug is it has been going on for years! When googling it I can still see the exact same issue with no solution on forums from at least 5 years ago! Wonderful EA, wonderful use of company resources to make a horribly optimized and trash game after decades and decades. Don't but this game, honestly there is just no point. You will genuinely have a worse time playing this game then watching people play this game on YouTube because then at least you can laugh at someone's torture or watch a rare instance of the game being played as it was advertised by EA. For reference my system is: 3060ti 32 GB ram 1TB NVME SSD Ryzen 7 3800xMADDEN 26 FEEDBACK
Haven't gotten into franchise or anything yet, but have spent yesterday and today just toying with settings, sliders, and testing overall gameplay. I'll break it down into positives, negatives, and bugs/glitches I've run into so far. For the record, my User ID is BrandOG-182; Platform is PS5. POSITIVES: OVERALL GAMEPLAY: To my surprise feels pretty good actually considering the horrible experience CFB turned out to be. Movement is fluid and feels good; able to make good cuts on offense while running the ball, and good angle adjustments on defense while pursuing. Have only needed to make minimal adjustments to sliders, even being on All-Madden. Seems to be in a pretty solid place overall on both sides of the ball. Really plays like a pretty good game of football right now. Hopefully this remains fairly balanced at launch and after updates. SETTINGS: The amount of customization within the settings is excellent! From wear & tear, to weather; sliders & penalties, the ability to adjust everything to suit your style of gameplay has never been better. Haven't touched Franchise yet, but even last year, the XP sliders ability to adjust to age and position are great! This remains a strong positive and continues to improve. ANIMATIONS: New tackle and throw animations are really really nice additions, adding to the realism and overall emersion of the game. RUN BLOCKING: Even just blocking in general feels much better this year so far than previous years, and certainly a far cry from the dumpster fire experience it was within CFB. Running feels much much better compared to last year to the point the Run Blocking slider might even have to come down a bit. Will have to go through a season of franchise and see how the numbers look though. Pass blocking doesn't feel too overpowered for CPU, nor underpowered for the Player on 50 each, so that's pretty huge I feel. PLEASE, DO NOT screw this up with a future update! STUNTS: Were a great addition to CFB and are a great addition to Madden as well. RESTART GAME OPTION: A pretty nice touch as a Play Now option instead of just having the normal Quit option. Hopefully will see this in Franchise too. NEGATIVES: RATINGS: These are a matter of debate and discourse every year, but going through each team again this year, they still just feel out of touch with reality and leave me asking why a lot. I would really like to see more guys in the low to mid 70's, and far less in the 60's than I'm seeing. Some guys just really need some more respect on their name. Like, why is Matthew Stafford, a Super Bowl winner, still not at least a Superstar and yet Baker Mayfield (who I love as a QB so no hate toward him), is? Jared Goff with numbers he's put up is another. So many people either over or underrated. Make it make sense! These ratings affect how schemes work and play within game too, and too often I see them adjusted to make a guy fit a scheme while not emphasizing their individual skills within that position. This is especially relevant with linebackers, in which some can both rush the passer and play coverage really well at times. Good example of how it affects gameplay and scheme; Travis Hunter. Good at DB and WR. I'm afraid to even see the schemes in Franchise they were so jacked up last year. Idk who evaluates these each year, but DO BETTER PLEASE!!! KNOCKOUTS & 50/50 BALLS: My real problem with this is not just consistency, but how it pertains to overalls. This problem is exclusive to All-Madden to my knowledge because that's all I've played. Curious about other difficulties though. Whether it's knockouts or catches, they just seem to favor CPU way too consistently. I shouldn't need Superstar abilities to favor a catch or knockout when my CTH, CIT, SPC, or CVG calculates higher than the opponents player. I've had to turn CPU catching slider way down as they just do not drop the ball that often. Way too often have there been players with lower overalls coming down with, or knocking out balls against much higher overall players. This was a problem last year, and it was problem in CFB at launch with way too many 50/50 balls favoring the catch. This needs tuning. Overalls and ratings need to matter, even on All-Madden/Heisman. THAT BEHIND THE BACK KNOCKOUT ANIMATION: If you know, you know. It's in CFB as well...GET RID OF IT!!! Just terrible... QB RUNS/RUN OPTIONS: Seem very slow to launch; almost laggy. Not sure if this is just play design or buggy, but they feel as if they need a little tune up. CUSTOM UNIFORMS: The options are not great here. I liked it a few years ago when you could create multiple combinations from the whole selection of available uniforms, including the older 80s, 90s, etc versions. I hope at least the selection gets better after true launch, but we'll see. Also, the overall layout is a bit disorganized. DOWNLOADS: Specifically pertaining to older rosters/draft classes for nostalgic franchises. Been asking for this for some time now. Still no All-Time Teams either. Extremely disappointing for Franchise Mode, but I remain hopeful for possible future updates. BUGS/GLITCHES/MISLABELS SETTINGS --> GAME CONTROLS --> DEFENSE ENGAGED --> SPEED RUSH: On PS5, R2 is mislabeled here as R1 here. KICKOFF: Glitchy animation on kickoff where there appears to be a weird stutter and the kicker looks like he sort of glides across the turf instead of a fluid motion as with extra points and punts. ID MIKE: The ID Mike icon glitches out and disappears every so often. Hopefully this won't be an issue with routes as it was last year as well. So far haven't had the problem with routes in Play Now, but will have to see in Franchise. EXTRA POINT KICKS: I have the Kicking set to Multi-Meter; Tap and Tap. Every so often the extra tap doesn't register on the power gage, and the ball goes wide, even with the accuracy being good and aligned toward the middle for good accuracy on the first tap. So far this is all I've been able to discern and come up with after the first 24 hours. Going to dive into Franchise soon and leave a post in the Franchise section with what I find there. Hopefully this was helpful to those who read through it.
Accessibility Filters Not Applying Online + Limited HUD Color Customization
Platform: PC Modes affected: Ranked, Franchise (online) Issue type: Accessibility / Visual Settings Not Applying There are two separate technical problems with the current accessibility implementation. 1) Accessibility filters do not consistently apply in online modes. Colorblind filters function in offline play, but in online modes (Ranked and Franchise), the filters either: - Do not apply at all, or - Apply inconsistently between sessions If an accessibility setting exists in the global menu, it should apply at the engine level across all modes. There should not be a separate rendering path that bypasses accessibility filters during online play. This appears to be a mode-specific rendering override rather than a user configuration issue. 2) The current accessibility implementation lacks targeted control. The existing presets apply a global color shift to the entire rendered frame. This does not address the specific UI and gameplay elements that create visibility conflicts. There is currently no way to independently adjust: - Passing reticle color - Route colors - User indicator color - Catch indicator color - HUD highlight colors - Contrast levels for gameplay-critical UI The visibility problems are element-specific, not global color issues. Examples: - Yellow landing reticle blending into green turf - Red uniforms blending into stadium lighting - Blue-on-blue matchups lacking separation - White UI text becoming unreadable depending on background These are contrast mapping problems that require UI-layer color control, not full-frame hue adjustments. Suggested technical improvements: - Move accessibility filters to apply at a universal rendering stage so they function in all modes. - Add per-element HUD color customization similar to Battlefield’s system (reticle, indicators, UI highlights). - Implement adjustable high-contrast mode for UI elements only. - Allow local uniform overrides for visibility (display-side only, not gameplay-affecting). Other EA titles already support more advanced accessibility systems. Madden should not rely solely on global preset filters. Accessibility settings should function consistently across all modes and provide element-level control rather than full-screen color shifts.PC Performance, Frame Gen, DLSS/FSR & Engine Modernization Are Long Overdue
The current state of Madden on PC is unacceptable for a full-price AAA release. Frame timing is inconsistent. Stutter is common. Performance scaling is poor. This affects both AMD and NVIDIA systems. We paid the same price as console players, yet the PC version feels like a secondary port instead of a properly developed platform. **Frame Timing and Engine Issues** Even when locked at 60 FPS, the game does not feel smooth due to inconsistent frame pacing. This is not a hardware issue — it is an engine-level optimization problem. Madden is still running on a heavily modified Frostbite foundation that dates back to 2017-era architecture. PC hardware in 2026 is dramatically different. The engine needs modern PC optimization, not minimal adjustments. Framerate cap and refresh rate (Hz) should be separate settings. Players should be able to: - Set custom FPS limits - Run unlocked framerates - Use proper VRR - Match refresh rate independently These are standard PC features. **DLSS, FSR and Frame Generation Are Missing** Modern PC titles integrate: - NVIDIA DLSS upscaling - AMD FSR upscaling - Frame Generation (DLSS 3 / FSR 3) These technologies significantly improve smoothness and performance on modern GPUs. Madden has none of these natively implemented. Frame Generation in particular would dramatically improve smoothness for supported GPUs. There is no reason a modern sports title should lack these core PC technologies. **Driver Compatibility and Anti-Cheat Conflicts** AMD Adrenalin and NVIDIA Control Panel are official GPU tools used by millions of players. They are not cheats. They should not conflict with anti-cheat systems. Players should not feel like enabling normal driver features might cause instability or interference with EA Anti-Cheat. Driver tools and the engine should coexist properly. **Graphics Settings Are Too Limited** The graphics menu lacks proper granularity. PC players use ultrawide monitors, high refresh displays, and modern GPUs. There should be deeper control over: - Shadows - Post-processing - Lighting - Texture quality - V-Sync behavior - Frame limit behavior Telling players to disable visual feedback to reduce stutter is not a solution. That forces players to reduce gameplay clarity just to stabilize performance. **PC Is Not a Bonus Platform** There are tens of thousands of active Madden players on PC. The platform is growing. PC players are not asking for special treatment — we are asking for parity and proper optimization. This should be a fully supported PC release with: - Stable frame pacing - Engine-level optimization - DLSS and FSR upscaling - Frame Generation support - Modern graphics scalability - Proper framerate and refresh separation Right now, it feels like a port that receives minimal attention instead of a platform that is taken seriously. PC players deserve a modern, optimized experience — not an afterthought.Accessibility Settings Do Not Work Online and Need Major Improvements
The current accessibility implementation in Madden does not function properly in online modes and is extremely limited even when it does work. Issue #1 – Accessibility settings do not consistently apply in Franchise, Ranked, or other online modes. Colorblind filters may work in offline play, but in online environments they either do not apply at all or apply inconsistently. Accessibility settings should never disappear depending on game mode. If the setting exists in the main menu, it should apply universally across all modes. Competitive integrity should not override accessibility. Accessibility is not an advantage — it is a requirement for equal participation. When filters fail to apply in Ranked or Franchise, players are forced to compete at a visual disadvantage. That is not acceptable in a competitive environment. Issue #2 – The current colorblind filters are overly simplistic and ineffective. Even when the filters apply, they are global color shifts. They adjust the entire screen instead of targeting specific gameplay elements that actually create visibility problems. There is no ability to control: - Reticle color - Passing route colors - User indicator colors - Catch indicators - UI highlight colors - Contrast levels for important gameplay elements Instead, players are given three preset options. Colorblindness is not one-size-fits-all. Two people with the same diagnosis may still require different contrast levels or color layouts. Common in-game problems include: - Yellow landing reticles blending directly into green turf - Red uniforms blending into darker stadium lighting - Blue on blue matchups lacking separation - White text becoming difficult to read depending on background - Certain team color combinations blending into the field entirely These are clarity and contrast problems. A simple global hue shift does not solve them. Battlefield provides a better model for accessibility. It allows players to manually select reticle colors, hit marker colors, and HUD element colors. That level of customization ensures players can choose what works for their specific vision rather than being forced into a preset that may not help. Madden should allow players to manually choose: - Reticle color - Route color - User indicator color - Catch indicator color High-contrast HUD mode SLIDERS FOR BRIGHTNESS CONTRAST AND THE DEFICIENCIES FOR EACH COLORBLIND TYPE…SOME PEOPLE HAVE COMBINATIONS……FULL ACCESSIBLITY IS NOT A PRIVILEGE IT IS A DEMAND This would not impact competitive balance because it only affects the local display. It simply ensures the player can clearly see what is already there. FC 24 also allows users to control which uniforms they see in order to prevent blending. Madden should allow local uniform overrides for visibility. Let players choose a high-contrast matchup locally so turf and jerseys do not visually merge. This would not change gameplay logic — only visual clarity. Accessibility should be consistent across EA titles. Some EA games provide advanced customization while others rely on minimal presets. Players with color deficiencies deserve the same level of attention across all franchises. Accessibility is about equal access to gameplay clarity. Right now, Madden’s system does not provide that — especially when it fails to function in online modes.User Pass Defense Not Working As Intended
I feel like the title is self explanatory. It's so broken it's almost not worth playing. DB's do not react as they should, and do not attack the ball the way they should. They are nearly oblivious to QB scrambles, and their reaction to them is unacceptably bad even after clicking the stick in to attack the runner as there seems to be delay. They abandon their coverage assignments randomly to rush the passer....literally if it weren't for run defense, the defense itself would be useless. This needs patching like now please.