Hey @EA_Blueberry
I don't know who to address this to and hoping you can forward this to someone at @EA who cares to Make Madden Mobile Playable again. I understand this is a game and profits have to be made. But they must also understand Profits are earned by high quality play and a product worth spending on. That is why I didn’t mind spending some hard earned money to improve my team during Madden 21. I believe tons of F2P players forget that that NFL and player naming rights are not free. It is sustained by people paying at least some money.
Having said that, EA has ruined this game. My son and I started playing last year around December. The game was live, fun, and entertaining. Lots of people complained about the lack of reality of the game, but as a youth football coach, there was so much reality I was able to use it to help my son learn tackle football from playing this game. I would open Madden Mobile and show players on my team plays from the video game to teach them football. My son is a typical kid of this generation, a 2 hr. NFL game is too long, but a short Fortnite style match ups was the perfect gateway to catch his brief attention span. In the process, it showed him how a FB blocking the correct guy could make or break a run. When the OL misses a block and you had to dodge guys early in the run, and at that point it was hard, but not impossible to make a successful run. The QB could roll out and buy time, all of which was realistic enough for him to learn the players, formations, and positions. Person to person interactions made this game. Having a 1 on 1 battle in Arena or Overdrive was great, especially since Overdrive didn't require program or regular stamina. My son got home from school and the first thing he wanted to see was the Auction house, not play anything, but look through the Auction even when we couldn't afford anything of interest. Then he got into the competition and the chance to compete and win a match.
Madden 22 dropped its biggest draw, competition. AI can't account for human play, yet. A low skilled player could build a great team, and still get beat by a lower-level player of higher skill. Whether it was understanding which plays or defenses were the most effective, which players stats were most beneficial, or just highly trained eye and thumbs, etc. As we started mid-season, we were way behind most. But we were still able to battle and compete and eventually win as we learned the game. My son got better as he learned football which was exciting for me to see. I could bribe him to read books, get good grades, or even do additional educational tasks just to play or pitch in some money into this game. I did so happily because he was so engaged, and I was getting sports and regular education gains from my money.
He was very excited to play Madden 22. We even invested money to start out and get our team off the block. Very quickly, we realized virtually all our stamina had to go towards Training Center unless you could afford to pour tons of money in the game to buy upgrades. Training center is a boring uneventful waste of stamina just for minor incremental team improvements. The Journey started out a bit like Master series. I never really enjoyed Master Series, but my son enjoyed the various challenges. The constant stops in Journey until your team hit certain levels caused that to drag on and become a chore. Then there was the Madden Today replacement, the Tour. The scaling on those events is completely absurd. Most of the challenges are even more absurd. 30 second quarters are nice for a quick game, but to score 4 TDs or get 300 yards passing, that is only achievable if you let the computer score as quickly as possible each time, how dumb. Add to that an AI that is programed to burn the clock at all cost whether they are behind or ahead. Even after the clock is stopped by a time out or whatever, running the clock down on each snap is incredibly annoying. The skill scaling is Awful. Playing the Team match events there is an unmitigated disaster. They are so OP and unrealistic it isn't even fun. When Daniel Jones or Andy Dalton can shed a tackle from a high-level DT like he is a weak child, then breaking through my defense like he is superman running 90 yards past a slew of supposedly OP defenders that are themselves actually fast in real life as if they are running with crutches. It couldn't possibly be more unrealistic. I do it because I am trying to get next Epic player available there which Ironically will take days of leveling up just to be rosterable.
Arena without competition is Awful. Yet for some reason we still pretend the matches are live and wait them out. The ticket system for regular Arena is terrible. I know power and boosters are gone but playing an AI team that is more than 300 above or below you is a waste of effort. AI isn't fallible like a human. It doesn't make human mistakes or account for the fact that a human can spend money and build a good team, but not understand football or be less coordinated with the controls and therefore not be as effective as a team of that stature should be. Or that a player who either through gaming skill or football IQ can be more effective with less team. That is realistic. A team's success is not solely made up by the sum of their skills, it is how those players integrate those skills for the production of the team. Presence is Dev attempt to account for that, but realistically Presence comes from the Gamer not the players in this game. These Arena games are determined before they start based on your ranks because AI isn't human.
The lack of the Draft Tournaments is a HUGE loss. That was the one time a low-level player or F2P player had a chance to beat even the highest spending Whale. You got to experience different players that you could never afford or missed in prior Promos. I missed Sugar Rush Moss, then had him in a Draft Tournament and made it a priority to pick him up on the Auction. My son would probably set an alarm to be notified when he could do another Draft and play with that team. Sometimes they drafts were fortuitous and other times it wasn’t. But the play was so much fun regardless.
Perhaps things will change when the first promo arrives, but I can't even see how it is possible to reach even 1 master player in season pass even after paying for the season pass. I see how early I got stuck on this thing, I can't imagine playing this game free to play. Masters were achievable in most Promos and high-quality players were achievable F2P during season passes just by committing to the grind. Now it appears the only conceivable way to reach masters is to pour hundreds of dollars into the game. I see some are willing but give the rest of us a shot too.
You need the F2P players to keep the user base large and get them hooked until you find the right promo to encourage them to spend. Not everyone is going to pay tons of money for this game. They need a set up that allows them to be successful based on their skill and grind, not just their money paid.
Please bring back the competition and a sensible design. I only spent money on this game as a learning tool for my son and something we enjoyed together. You have designed an unplayable game designed only to be playable for the super high spenders. Which to the average F2P players, I would probably count as a mega spender, and I can't even compete in this game. My son has no interest in this game anymore because even he realizes his efforts don't matter, only the dollars paid. I will not spend another dime on this game in its current format. I plan to stick it out at least see what the first real promo looks like, but after that I don't know this thing is worth my time either.
