Most of the people I have talked to have agreed that the game play leaves a lot to be desired. Now the neglect or unwillingness to fix "things" is trickling down to the menus, sets, item binders and other aspects of the game. EA is a multi-BILLION dollar organization, so maybe when I think of it that way I am automatically putting myself in a state for let down? So a few items here that probably will not make a difference for most people playing the game.
I realize nobody from EA will likely ever see this and even if they do they will not address any of it, but who knows. Most of the changes I am recommending are changes that I think add functionality for users, would not be difficult to implement, but would require EA to invest some additional resources into.
1. Why are the menus so slow? I have no longer used L1 to search the auction house for prices of cards in my binder because it takes too long. I come to MUT.gg, search a player and find the price before the AH interface to list a card is available to me. I have while waiting to return to the item binder from listing a card, I can look up the next player's price and be ready to sell that card. I should really time out how long it would take to list 20 items on the AH right now.
2. Why are we still only allowed to list 20 items at a time? FIFA gets 100 items at a time and even has a "relist all" feature for cards that do not sell. An increase in the items allowed to be listed at a given time would be welcomed by many, IMO. It does not have to be 100, but why not 50 items?
3. Time to lift the item binder limit to 2,000. Minor change, but 1,700 just seems arbitrary to me and I often find myself second guessing if it's 1,700 or 1,600 items for some reason. When Team Affinity sets come out and require 20x-25x cards per set, that additional item binder space to continue to open packs or buy cards to complete those sets comes in handy. Not like we can really invest heavily in power ups anymore (see #5).
4. Why can I not sort my item binder by over ranges? This used to be in the game. Players should be able to sort their item binder by 62-65, 66-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80-81, etc. Was in the game two or three years ago and has been missing ever since.
5. Let us put power ups in sets. EA did such a great job of making sure everyone gets millions or power ups that most are worthless. Either make obtaining power ups somewhat difficult to increase their value or let us put them in sets. It pisses me off when I pull a power up going for 350 coins. In Pro Fantasy openings, I only select power ups that I know sell for a decent amount at the moment.
6. Add a section where alternate currency is typically shown at the top right of the user interface a section that shows how many items have been listed on the AH.
"18/20"
"Listed"
Small change, but helpful and it's not like there isn't space there for it.
7. Archive some of the old sets already. The Campaign should not be the first group of sets I see when I go to "Sets". Campaign, Harvest, GG, MF, UK, CH-1, SS, MCS, and RP should all be archived, IMO.
8. Add a "My Favorites" tab/panel to the store where users can select their favorite packs to open. Hover over a pack, hit the L2 button to add it to "Your Favorites". When you go into the store there is now a "Your Favorites" tab/panel with the packs you are interested in opening. The other packs can still be listed as they currently are, but this "Your Favorites" tab/panel now eliminates the need to hit the right arrow 58 times to find the pack you want. Controller batteries everywhere rejoice!
9. Fix random bugs in the menus as soon as they are noted. Example, there is still a bug with the "81 OVR MOST FEARED ELITE" set. You have to complete the set backwards in order for it to actually work properly the first time. We are talking mid October here. How difficult could it be to fix? Laziness from a multi-billion dollar organization.
10. Eliminating modes like SSKO, The Yard, and FOTF would allow EA to transfer some resources to Ultimate Team and Franchise mode. Seems like a pretty simple change that would be effective. Even if they made the change for a year or two and then brought those modes back later (we have seen this before), at least maybe the most popular modes in the game will get the attention they need for a short amount of time.
11. Remove abilities and focus on basic game play for a year or two. Listen to your community on this. Get the basic fundamentals of the game down and then you can explore bring that stuff back. Seems like there are just a lot of issues caused by these abilities and shifting focus away from them will allow the devs to get the basics right first. They HAVE to listen to the community feedback on this stuff though.
12. Time to revamp the promo's and the timing of the promos. These programs have become very predictable over the past few years. Most of the big promos are associated with holidays and that does make sense, but there are other ways of rolling out content over the course of a year. I was talking with a friend and I had an entire list of new programs that could be introduced to the game. Wish I kept the list.
13. Remember the old face scanning technology? Why not bring it back, it has to be improved from the last time it was in Madden (remember the coaches without eyes?). Let players scan themselves in and coach their own teams in Franchise and MUT. Custom uniforms would be sweet too, but we cannot get Color Rush uniforms! Forget mentioning modernized versions of uniforms from original NFL teams like the Columbus Panhandles and others.
Maybe I am off in my own little world, but it seems to me that EA has settled for mediocrity. Nothing about John Madden was mediocre and I think the team really needs to step up and create a better game that more closely resembles the legacy of John Madden instead of one that always feels like there is so much room to be better.
I know I have a few screws loose, but am I out of line for thinking this way?
