Image: EA
EA’s “most polished” Madden in years continues to stroll a tough highway. Madden 23 obtained its large October title replace on Thursday, and with it quite a lot of welcome tweaks to underlying gameplay. But regardless of a bevy of bug fixes, many followers nonetheless really feel like EA isn’t been sincere concerning the present underwhelming state of the sport and what they see because the prioritization of microtransaction playing over ensuring common modes are glitch-free.
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“Today may have saved Madden 23,” Madden YouTuber Zirktober tweeted yesterday shortly after the October patch notes have been revealed on-line. By the tip of the day, gamers had found a serious bug. Upgrading any of the sport’s “Most Feared Monsters” gamers would routinely lock gamers out of Madden Ultimate Team, the sport’s extremely monetized aggressive on-line mode.
“Do not upgrade any Most Feared Monster Maker players as it can lock your account out of Ultimate Team,” EA introduced that night. “We are currently working on fixing this issue and unlocking any players impacted.” Just a few hours later the bug was mounted and gamers may use the upgrades once more with out concern of being locked out, although EA nonetheless appeared unclear on the exact supply of the difficulty. “We have disabled chemistry options on Monster Makers for the time being as we are investigating an issue,” it tweeted.
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While the interruption in the end ended up being simply momentary, it was nonetheless an ideal encapsulation of the rollercoaster trip followers have been on since Madden 23 launched again in August. Initial critiques have been largely constructive, adopted by a harsher evaluation by some gamers, together with a couple of NFL professionals. Content creators rallied round a short “pack strike” to protest the excessive value and piss-poor odds of getting nice gamers out of Madden Ultimate Team’s card packs. By the start of October, some puzzled if Madden 23 may nonetheless be saved, or if it would find yourself being remembered as one of many worst iterations of the annualized cash maker in a number of years.
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First, the excellent news. Madden 23’s October Title replace does tackle some core complaints in latest weeks. A recalibrated slider appears to be addressing the maddening variety of super-human interceptions gamers have been beforehand witnessing. A disconnect challenge resulting in plenty of misplaced progress in Franchise mode was additionally seemingly mounted. CPU groups ought to now not randomly finish negotiations with gamers. Some gamers received new face scans. And there have been loads of teaks to blocking, catching, and different core gameplay mechanics.
“While not every issue has been resolved today, more fixes are coming with future updates as we continue to actively work to bring you the best possible experience. We value and appreciate your feedback,” EA wrote. “Our team is consistently taking it into consideration and working on delivering updates all season long.”
This Is Popular Stranger
But the story with Madden isn’t so simple as one among whole catastrophe or full redemption. The title replace additionally claimed so as to add the Jets’ new alternate black helmets, however a number of gamers have been getting glitched white variations as an alternative. Franchise mode can also be nonetheless a blended bag. While some gamers report lastly with the ability to progress of their seasons after beforehand hitting a wall of crashes and disconnects, others are nonetheless encountering the dreaded draft loop bug that sends them again to the start of a season each time they end a recreation.
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Another explicit sore spot stays Madden 23’s area passes, a battle move system much like the one free-to-play recreation Apex Legends added simply this yr. Its three tiers—Season, Competitive, and Fear—have given gamers points ever since launch. Even now, they don’t all the time observe gamers’ stats appropriately, which means gamers don’t get rewarded for finishing an goal when they need to. As YouTuber This Is Popular Stranger factors out, simply getting a move open is usually a chore, with some gamers nonetheless getting flooded with error messages once they attempt to entry it. And then there are the lacking rewards.
Some gamers weren’t getting rewards for House Rules matches, whereas others weren’t getting Trophy Packs for successful season-length Super Bowls. Coins, used to purchase packs with out spending actual cash, additionally went lacking. EA acknowledged the problems on the finish of final month, however gamers are nonetheless ready to listen to how it is going to be addressed. Meanwhile, Solo Battles, a fundamental goal for amassing different rewards, have been damaged for per week, leaving many gamers to overlook out. It’s a giant downside for a recreation by which the one different is to shell out cash on randomized card packs.
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“I wonder if EA just doesn’t realize what a HUGE issue broken rewards is,” Madden streamer Kmac tweeted earlier this week. “It’s been THREE WEEKS now and they’re just dropping new promos like nothing is wrong. There’s no incentive to play Madden. No one can afford the new cards dropping.”
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It’s the stinginess of the cardboard packs—the spine of Madden’s hottest on-line mode—paired with the dearth of acknowledgement of ongoing bugs and misplaced rewards that’s persevering with to foment discontent inside the group.
“A lot of people were like, ‘Is the Pack Strike over?’ ‘The content’s really good, it felt like things were better this morning’—it’s absolutely not [over],” Popular Stranger stated throughout his latest title replace video. “The bundles do look better but we ain’t buying them. I hope you guys aren’t as well.”
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A participant who goes by iowaopoly on Twitter has been monitoring pack and stat reroll odds since launch, and continues to consider they’re a number of the worst in years. That’s regardless of the cardboard packs themselves traditionally making billions for EA. It was one of many few publishers to proceed posting nice income this yr whereas rivals like Ubisoft and Activision struggled, totally on the again of microtransactions in collection like Madden.
“The main theme of Madden 23 is stuff just continues to come out broken and super expensive and it takes days or even weeks to get stuff fixed in some way so players can get rewards to get the items or even play the game so it counts for something on progress,” Twitch content material creator Rob Lopez informed Kotaku. In the meantime, Madden 23 simply went on sale. It’s $20 off lower than two months after launch.
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