The future of MUT (my take)

While I agree that all of us should have empathy and prayers for those impacted by the hurricane… I think I speak on behalf of the entire player base when I say the people in charge of the MUT team is the largest group of incompetent Devs to ever work on the game… its bug after bug after bug after bug. I have NEVER seen a game with glitches that last weeks at a time. Ranked H2H, MUT champs, solo battles, and that's just scratching the surface. Even H2H is unbearable at the moment with the amount of lag that has started to impact games over the last two days. The lack of transparency,  communication, and accountability from their team is at an all-time low with an all-time high number of bugs impacting the player base. 

Wrong time to be writing this given the hurricane and widespread devastation it has caused throughout Florida but we are sick and tired of the bullshit excuses from their team. EA brass needs to sit down and look in the mirror and make some tough decisions in the following days on the direction this mode/game is headed or they will inevitably lose their cash cows and the franchise altogether. We love Madden/MUT but this isn't the same game/mode we have played over the years. It's disappointing to even feel compelled to write this but I think the entire MUT player base is fu**ed given the amount of effort poured into CUT over MUT.  Once again, I apologize for the timing of the post but we need to see changes from their team as a community as the new season approaches. 

*My thoughts and prayers are with all of you impacted by the hurricane and hope everyone comes out of it unharmed*

hawkchopper said:

While I agree that all of us should have empathy and prayers for those impacted by the hurricane… I think I speak on behalf of the entire player base when I say the people in charge of the MUT team is the largest group of incompetent Devs to ever work on the game… its bug after bug after bug after bug. I have NEVER seen a game with glitches that last weeks at a time. Ranked H2H, MUT champs, solo battles, and that's just scratching the surface. Even H2H is unbearable at the moment with the amount of lag that has started to impact games over the last two days. The lack of transparency,  communication, and accountability from their team is at an all-time low with an all-time high number of bugs impacting the player base. 

Wrong time to be writing this given the hurricane and widespread devastation it has caused throughout Florida but we are sick and tired of the bullshit excuses from their team. EA brass needs to sit down and look in the mirror and make some tough decisions in the following days on the direction this mode/game is headed or they will inevitably lose their cash cows and the franchise altogether. We love Madden/MUT but this isn't the same game/mode we have played over the years. It's disappointing to even feel compelled to write this but I think the entire MUT player base is fu**ed given the amount of effort poured into CUT over MUT.  Once again, I apologize for the timing of the post but we need to see changes from their team as a community as the new season approaches. 

*My thoughts and prayers are with all of you impacted by the hurricane and hope everyone comes out of it unharmed*

You're not wrong, about basically anything you said.  Does this look liek a competent Production Director of the Madden franchise?  Of course not.  I'm not here suggesting that he has brain damage, but i also cannot rule that out.  His claim to fame is that he was briefly a practice squad O-lineman, so he was going to bring his "wealth" of knowledge of blocking schemes to this simulation fatball game.  To say he is incompetent would be doing a disservice to the English language, as it doesn't come anywhere close to properly describing the situation.

Quite frankly, EA doesn't care -- they're here to serve their shareholders, which means catering to the 1% of players who spend 80+% of the money on the game.  Pack sales are the ONLY thing that matters.  Even if they could fix the immense amount of bugs and glitches (they cannot), these Devs are not given sufficient time, nor resources to do a good job.  Now the Dev team has literally been split in half and forced to produce two titles in a single calendar year, when they weren't even set up for success with a single yearly release cycle.

Not a damn thing can, nor will change unless/until the league decides to open up their exclusive licensing agreement with EA Orlando / Tiburon... i believe negotiations are well underway, as the final year might be opt-in.  I believe the current contract is finally set to expire in May 2026.  Take Two Interactive (2K Games) is definitely interested in producing a football title, but only if they can get access to NFL & NFLPA.

This kinda reminds me of Rory McIlroy's PGA Tour.  EA had all of these promises for the game including updates they were going to make.  Their claim was this was no longer going to be a yearly release and they would update over a 2 year period.  Of course since the game was only 25% finished, the player base never grew.  EA saw the player base was dead, and pretty much abandoned the game after about a month.  

Now I' haven't played MUT for about 3 years so I don't know what last year was like, but man this game is already a ghost town compared to the last time I played it.

peatrick said:

You're not wrong, about basically anything you said.  Does this look liek a competent Production Director of the Madden franchise?  Of course not.  I'm not here suggesting that he has brain damage, but i also cannot rule that out.  His claim to fame is that he was briefly a practice squad O-lineman, so he was going to bring his "wealth" of knowledge of blocking schemes to this simulation fatball game.  To say he is incompetent would be doing a disservice to the English language, as it doesn't come anywhere close to properly describing the situation.

Quite frankly, EA doesn't care -- they're here to serve their shareholders, which means catering to the 1% of players who spend 80+% of the money on the game.  Pack sales are the ONLY thing that matters.  Even if they could fix the immense amount of bugs and glitches (they cannot), these Devs are not given sufficient time, nor resources to do a good job.  Now the Dev team has literally been split in half and forced to produce two titles in a single calendar year, when they weren't even set up for success with a single yearly release cycle.

Not a damn thing can, nor will change unless/until the league decides to open up their exclusive licensing agreement with EA Orlando / Tiburon... i believe negotiations are well underway, as the final year might be opt-in.  I believe the current contract is finally set to expire in May 2026.  Take Two Interactive (2K Games) is definitely interested in producing a football title, but only if they can get access to NFL & NFLPA.

Agreed. I hate that this will be a historic fiscal year for EA and it only hurts the MUT player base even more. There will be no changes moving forward and the only thing that would force their hand is a complete strike from over 50% of the player base on all microtransactions... which will never happen. We saw minor positive changes last year when zirskee and other big content creators held a roundtable to address issues in the game. We would need something on that scale to move the needle forward.

If you compare it to EAs other sports games it's obvious all their resources go towards FUT which is actually decently maintained through out its entire year cycle.  On the other hand you have HUT which is what looks to be the future of MUT.  Its a yearly copy paste that has such low overhead theres like a couple of guys working to make sure the packs stay up to buy and that's about it.  Really that's basically where MUT is now and I can't see any reason they change it.

If it sounds like I’m in love with the game the way it is I’m not.

Years ago I spent most of my time playing online. Yep sometimes I complained about it but ultimately I’d end up loving it. The rewards were good. The gameplay was never perfect but it was fun. I would talk to everyone I played. I learned how to work the market that way. I’d spend a bit of time working the market but I didn’t have to spend a fortune of time or money.

In recent years I find myself playing h2h less and less. To an all time low at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. Even I don’t want to play the market like I do. I’m trying to find a way to keep enjoying this game because that satisfaction does not and has not come from the gameplay in some time.

I’m not opposed to some pay to play. I understand in the real world It’s unreasonable today to expect $70 to cover everything this community wants but the demand on the average user’s ability to maintain a competitive and fun team I believe costs too much time and money. Only to discover I can’t or ultimately don’t want to play h2h.

The majority of that blame I place on the NFL and by extension their partners.

EA and all the signatories on that deal are right at the top of that list. Multiple game developers have implemented far better ways of integrating tiered spending without negatively impacting user satisfaction to this degree. From what is supposed to be among the best at what they do I expect better.

I must admit/acknowledge that sometimes it’s us the community. Our negativity and toxicity is a factor and even when it’s not my fault if I want better I better do better.

hawkchopper said:

While I agree that all of us should have empathy and prayers for those impacted by the hurricane… I think I speak on behalf of the entire player base when I say the people in charge of the MUT team is the largest group of incompetent Devs to ever work on the game… its bug after bug after bug after bug. I have NEVER seen a game with glitches that last weeks at a time. Ranked H2H, MUT champs, solo battles, and that's just scratching the surface. Even H2H is unbearable at the moment with the amount of lag that has started to impact games over the last two days. The lack of transparency,  communication, and accountability from their team is at an all-time low with an all-time high number of bugs impacting the player base. 

Wrong time to be writing this given the hurricane and widespread devastation it has caused throughout Florida but we are sick and tired of the bullshit excuses from their team. EA brass needs to sit down and look in the mirror and make some tough decisions in the following days on the direction this mode/game is headed or they will inevitably lose their cash cows and the franchise altogether. We love Madden/MUT but this isn't the same game/mode we have played over the years. It's disappointing to even feel compelled to write this but I think the entire MUT player base is fu**ed given the amount of effort poured into CUT over MUT.  Once again, I apologize for the timing of the post but we need to see changes from their team as a community as the new season approaches. 

*My thoughts and prayers are with all of you impacted by the hurricane and hope everyone comes out of it unharmed*

I dont disagree with anything at all, except I'm curious about this statement:   "player base is fu**ed given the amount of effort poured into CUT over MUT."

Because, I've only been playing CUT this year, just turned off of madden this year, the gameplay feels better in college, to me. Along with the dumb ass camera angle change.

But I'm curious what you mean by the amount of effort into cfb? Because we get next to nothing in the game. Rewards are ass. Promos are ass, the only way to get players is to spend real money essentially. Limited rewards from objectives/dailies. It's just sad how much of a grind it is and CLEARLY p2p

You had two Hurricanes that destroyed parts of Florida and surrounding regions. This might be a bad time to post anything like this. This is just a game, people's lives and their family' livelihoods are in shambles right now.

jerryMinefeld said:

I dont disagree with anything at all, except I'm curious about this statement:   "player base is fu**ed given the amount of effort poured into CUT over MUT."

Because, I've only been playing CUT this year, just turned off of madden this year, the gameplay feels better in college, to me. Along with the dumb ass camera angle change.

But I'm curious what you mean by the amount of effort into cfb? Because we get next to nothing in the game. Rewards are ass. Promos are ass, the only way to get players is to spend real money essentially. Limited rewards from objectives/dailies. It's just sad how much of a grind it is and CLEARLY p2p

Purely in regards to gameplay and functioning game modes. MUT h2h, ranked h2h, and MUT champs are all bugged and have been bugged for weeks. we don't even have a game mode to grind for cards/coins. It's shit

hulksmashr2 said:

You had two Hurricanes that destroyed parts of Florida and surrounding regions. This might be a bad time to post anything like this. This is just a game, people's lives and their family' livelihoods are in shambles right now.

read through it again. I clearly stated and even reiterated I apologise for the timing of the post and offered prayers to the victims of the hurricane. These issues have been going on for weeks mate

hawkchopper said:

read through it again. I clearly stated and even reiterated I apologise for the timing of the post and offered prayers to the victims of the hurricane. These issues have been going on for weeks mate

I read it, you could have added another page of apologizes. Again this post is not the right time and place. This is a video game. over 200 people died in Hurricane Helene and hundreds more are missing. Right now 10 people have been confirmed dead and more are missing with Hurricane Milton. Maybe delete the post please have some heart.

When you sell many millions of each iteration of a title for decades, there should not be a problem funding customer satisfaction (fixing past mistakes), maintenance (continued support and content), and development (innovation). Microtransactions shouldn’t be needed to maintain the game, rather, they should reward the development and support teams for their hard work well done. I don’t find any argument apologizing for the Madden team’s limited resources even remotely plausible.

If there were a game developer that had a low-budget project for the nuts-and-bolts component of an unbranded football product, it would take only proof of concept and adequate investment funding for a competing company to make a competitive bid for the NFLPA license.

But for all of the legitimate complaints about Madden and EA, the poor quality of the present product is a logical consequence of the NFL’s determination to grant only an exclusive license to produce an NFL-branded football game. The NFL doesn’t care how much we like the product we play; they get paid either way. But if there were an alternative, EA would be forced to support, enhance, and innovate.

hulksmashr2 said:

I read it, you could have added another page of apologizes. Again this post is not the right time and place. This is a video game. over 200 people died in Hurricane Helene and hundreds more are missing. Right now 10 people have been confirmed dead and more are missing with Hurricane Milton. Maybe delete the post please have some heart.

I don’t see where an apology is due. Madden 25 was a disaster for more than a month before Helene and Milton. It’s not like EA was on the cusp of transforming Madden, but for a couple of hurricanes.

phatalerror said:

I don’t see where an apology is due. Madden 25 was a disaster for more than a month before Helene and Milton. It’s not like EA was on the cusp of transforming Madden, but for a couple of hurricanes.

Again, bad timing of your post. You could have posted this thread a month ago. With all the things going on in that region. It is not a good look. Madden is a video game. Life is real.