The Perverse Incentives in MUT Champs... And How to Fix It

The Competitive Pass, Weekly MUT Champs Objectives, and lack of any rewards for reaching win thresholds (other than, for some weeks, winning 15 games) have combined to make what should be the best competitive mode in Madden Ultimate Team anything but.

By setting weekly statistical objectives, and by further separating those objectives into "stats count only during wins" and "stats count no matter what" categories, EA has destroyed the simple incentive to play a full game of Madden and attempt to win.  People who queue into MUT Champs are quitting as soon as they see 87+ cards in the Top 3, or when their opponent scores a single touchdown, and certainly as soon as they are down by multiple scores.  This is just dumb.  I've already had games of Madden 24 where I've been down 21 and 17 points and I came back to win.  Unless you're getting absolutely run off the field, people should not quit.  But EA is incentivizing them to do so by setting statistical objectives that can only be accrued during wins.

Last week, I didn't look over all of my objectives before jumping in and, because people kept quitting, I missed getting my 15 Rushing Touchdowns objective (worth 12 Comp Pass points).  This week, I looked at them carefully, and I completed all of them.

How?  Well, I ended up using Run Commit to keep some players in the game longer so I could complete my Points in the Fourth Quarter and Third-Down Conversion objectives.  Again, this is dumb.

I managed to do all of this while going 14-2 in MUT Champs (actually 14-1, as I suffered a DC loss), but maybe 5 of those were actual, competitive games of John Madden football.  And now I have no reason at all to play my final 9 games.

Now the mode is full of people just grinding the Comp Pass, not trying to win each game.  Again, this EA's fault, NOT the fault of players.

OK, your pal JCSteel has identified the problem.  What's the solution?  Glad you asked...

If true "Weekend League" isn't coming back (that's what I really want), then here's the next best thing.  First, you remove all statistical objectives that count only when players win.  That leads to early quits and stat-chasing for strong players in lieu of playing the right way.  Second, you replace those statistical objectives with some statistical objectives that count in all games whether you win or lose, but the value of these objectives is much lower (i.e., 2, 3, 5 Comp Pass points for reaching a full statistical objective such as 15 Rushing Touchdowns).  Third, you add in Comp Pass points and coin rewards based on the number of games you win as follows:

• 5 Wins -- 10 Comp Pass Points, 10K coins
• 10 Wins -- 15 Comp Pass Points, 15K coins
• 15 Wins -- 20 Comp Pass Points, 25K coins
• 18 Wins -- 30 Comp Pass Points, 75K coins
• 20 Wins -- 100K coins
• 22 Wins -- 250K coins
• 25 Wins -- 650K coins
• Top 100 -- 87+ Legends Pack (pick 1 of 3)

This would get people back to playing MUT Champs to win games are reach win thresholds.  Bad players can still make some progress through the statistical objectives, while competitive players can move up the Comp Pass faster and accrue significant coin rewards.  Best of all worlds.

Thoughts?  Anyone else pissed with the current system?

Totally agree, as I think everyone does that the objectives only counting in wins is totally ridiculous.  I also think that the CP rewards for seasons should be increased.  You basically get only 1 or 2 cp for anything, which basically is the same as nothing.  I’m not good enough to keep people in games just to chase stats, so I fall into the “early quit“ group in champions, especially since I don’t have an extra $1000 to spend on every new 87 that comes out or the time to work the AH for days to amass coins.  I’m struggling with my 83 OVR getting matched against all 87/88s with chems against my very small money spent squad of mostly free cards.  No way I’m staying in a game when I get down by 14 - I don’t have that time for absolutely no reward.  Anyone else notice that whenever EA claims to improve something, it actually gets worse, but makes us either spend more money, or waste a lot more time?

Charmingjmor said:

Totally agree, as I think everyone does that the objectives only counting in wins is totally ridiculous.  I also think that the CP rewards for seasons should be increased.  You basically get only 1 or 2 cp for anything, which basically is the same as nothing.  I’m not good enough to keep people in games just to chase stats, so I fall into the “early quit“ group in champions, especially since I don’t have an extra $1000 to spend on every new 87 that comes out or the time to work the AH for days to amass coins.  I’m struggling with my 83 OVR getting matched against all 87/88s with chems against my very small money spent squad of mostly free cards.  No way I’m staying in a game when I get down by 14 - I don’t have that time for absolutely no reward.  Anyone else notice that whenever EA claims to improve something, it actually gets worse, but makes us either spend more money, or waste a lot more time?

Oh yeah, you're 100% right on EA's claims.  It's almost always geared towards making EA more money.

And, to be clear, I don't blame you (or any player) for quitting out of MUT Champs games.  That's not your fault.  It's EA's fault for making that the incentive.

Totally agree. I would definitely stay in more games where I'm being dominated if I could get something for the stats I do put up. It just feels like I'm wasting time in the current system if I'm not winning.

MUT champ just isn’t a competitive mode anymore now that they use battlefly and play a friend to qualify for tournaments,  and with change of matchmaking and rewards they just want more casual players to play .  There‘s nothing EA wants to fix here it’s all as intended

Breakluna said:

Totally agree. I would definitely stay in more games where I'm being dominated if I could get something for the stats I do put up. It just feels like I'm wasting time in the current system if I'm not winning.

Exactly.  It's not the players' fault for quitting, it's EA's fault for creating that weird statistical incentive.

this is too much effort for them!

Honestly this whole battle pass system is garbage - at least the way they have it setup.  I’m at a standstill right now.  I’ve maxed my solo battles, I’ve finished MUT champs for the week and missed 3-4 objectives because I went 10-15 for the second straight week by being matched against god squads and most of my stats not counting, and it’s really not worth playing seasons because the rewards aren’t great unless you win a SB(see above) and you get basically no cp.  I’ve maxed what I can on the season pass.  I’m 10 cp away from The 86 cb on the comp pass, with no way to earn them until tomorrows dailies and I’m 2 xp away from Hopkins on the season pass with no way to earn them(unless I sit in a solo throwing 81 TDs).  They really screwed this up - when your game has been out for only 2-3 weeks and people have nothing to do - that’s just not good.    Very poor planning and execution by EA, but  I guess at this point, that’s what we should expect……

Charmingjmor said:

Honestly this whole battle pass system is garbage - at least the way they have it setup.  I’m at a standstill right now.  I’ve maxed my solo battles, I’ve finished MUT champs for the week and missed 3-4 objectives because I went 10-15 for the second straight week by being matched against god squads and most of my stats not counting, and it’s really not worth playing seasons because the rewards aren’t great unless you win a SB(see above) and you get basically no cp.  I’ve maxed what I can on the season pass.  I’m 10 cp away from The 86 cb on the comp pass, with no way to earn them until tomorrows dailies and I’m 2 xp away from Hopkins on the season pass with no way to earn them(unless I sit in a solo throwing 81 TDs).  They really screwed this up - when your game has been out for only 2-3 weeks and people have nothing to do - that’s just not good.    Very poor planning and execution by EA, but  I guess at this point, that’s what we should expect……

2K xp away from Hopkins

Sadly if you want to make alot of coins h2h is the best  bet. No more are the days of winning 15-20 games a week and being rewarded handsomely for it. IMO I like the all madden difficulty in mut champs because I feel like the game plays better on competitive mode at that difficulty level. The one thing they need to change the most is stats not counting unless you win. They need to fix that ASAP!

I agree with everything you’ve said but I’d also add on there’s another seemingly major issue and that is the overall lack of points.  Last year if I did a bunch of solo battles and about 10-15 champ games I could max out the competitive pass.  In the last two weeks I have done every single solo battle, daily, and champs objective and even with that hectic pace I’m no where near on pace to maxing out the comp pass in 40 days.  I actually have work and a family so I won’t be able to keep this pace so as it stands I’ll be WAY behind and that’s even with being highly successful and engaging in content daily.

Last year I was able to the finish CP every 2 weeks but this year is just to much, I do not have enough time to play madden 8 hours a day. I loved last years CP they did not force you to play modes you did not want to play.  If this is how it is going to be all year then I will bow out.

Played a game last night where the final score was 110-90. Guy messaged me saying looking for a few specific objectives he needed to complete.. I didn’t mind helping him out, he helped me as well. you are spot on though. the handful of games that I’ve won, last literally 5-7 plays before someone bounces. Hopefully with objectives resetting tomorrow, EA will realize what they’ve done and remove the “must win” objectives.

Charmingjmor said:

2K xp away from Hopkins

struggle is real ...