You shouldn’t be able to run 3-4 every play and..

Get insta pressure every play… literally the only opponent I lose against.. I have the best line you can buy, I’m decent at making adjustments, and it’s insta pressure.. game is dumb.

I have the opposite problem…

got colossus in the middle, hendricks and barno on the outside and get 0 pressure

EA has no common sense.   Only good  at stealing money

EA is already busy working on next year's MUT

If you think they are spending any time on fixing gameplay, you must not have been playing the game this season.

They spend a ton of time adding unrealistic abilities that ruin the game.

We're sitting here comparing Ability stacks instead of looking at who has the best overall numbers.

I believe that EA came up with these abilities to mask all the flaws in the game and we assume the garbage on the field is due to some Ability being broken, instead of the game being broken.

There are no abilities in Simulation sports; just raw numbers.

Get rid of that trash EA.

Mythomaniac said:

EA is already busy working on next year's MUT

If you think they are spending any time on fixing gameplay, you must not have been playing the game this season.

They spend a ton of time adding unrealistic abilities that ruin the game.

We're sitting here comparing Ability stacks instead of looking at who has the best overall numbers.

I believe that EA came up with these abilities to mask all the flaws in the game and we assume the garbage on the field is due to some Ability being broken, instead of the game being broken.

There are no abilities in Simulation sports; just raw numbers.

Get rid of that trash EA.

While you won't get any argument from me in favor of EA's football logic, I will say that some players are who they are because of technique and not merely the measurables you can assess like bench presses or 40-times. I can remember in the Colts-Saints Super Bowl one of the announcers going on about Dwight Freeney's spin move off the snap. There's agility, and then there's developed capacities you just can't assess from combine results or Next-Gen Stats, but they clearly show up on the film.

Done right, abilities could be awesome. It's just that too many are overpowered and unrealistic, while others never show up positively in Madden.

Also, their algorithms for processing player-vs.-player interactions are clearly biased by a highly-randomized mystery factor that often causes the improble.

phatalerror said:

While you won't get any argument from me in favor of EA's football logic, I will say that some players are who they are because of technique and not merely the measurables you can assess like bench presses or 40-times. I can remember in the Colts-Saints Super Bowl one of the announcers going on about Dwight Freeney's spin move off the snap. There's agility, and then there's developed capacities you just can't assess from combine results or Next-Gen Stats, but they clearly show up on the film.

Done right, abilities could be awesome. It's just that too many are overpowered and unrealistic, while others never show up positively in Madden.

Also, their algorithms for processing player-vs.-player interactions are clearly biased by a highly-randomized mystery factor that often causes the improble.

I agree with you on technique being the game-changer for elite players like Dwight Freeney. 

Guys like him have skills that go beyond the usual stats, and that’s something numbers just can’t fully capture. Watching film often shows you things that you won’t find in the stats, like those subtle nuances in technique.

That said, it’s important to remember that while real-life football is shaped by things like motivation, personality, intelligence, and grit, it’s super tough (maybe even impossible) to translate those into a video game. 

You can't really code a player’s mindset or personality into the game. Video games are all about rules, stats, and code. There's no way to replicate that mental edge or the "extra gear" that certain players seem to find in key moments.

MUT and other sports games will always have to deal with this limitation, and no matter how advanced the tech gets, there’s always going to be a gap between how real football plays out and how it's represented in the game. That’s where abilities are supposed to come in, but like you said, they’re often either too overpowered or just don’t show up right.

There’s a fine line between making the game fun and realistic without going overboard and making it feel too unrealistic.

Now, when it comes to computing, numbers are the only thing that matters. 

Everything — whether it’s data processing, algorithms, or gameplay, is driven by numbers. Motivation, grit, and personality might shape how a player performs in real life, but in a game, those things have to be translated into numbers somehow, either directly or through some kind of model. Anything that's not a number has to be turned into something measurable, whether it’s through algorithms or probabilities, because a computer doesn’t get “emotion” or “instinct” the way we do. It just processes numbers to get a result.

Mythomaniac said:

I agree with you on technique being the game-changer for elite players like Dwight Freeney. 

Guys like him have skills that go beyond the usual stats, and that’s something numbers just can’t fully capture. Watching film often shows you things that you won’t find in the stats, like those subtle nuances in technique.

That said, it’s important to remember that while real-life football is shaped by things like motivation, personality, intelligence, and grit, it’s super tough (maybe even impossible) to translate those into a video game. 

You can't really code a player’s mindset or personality into the game. Video games are all about rules, stats, and code. There's no way to replicate that mental edge or the "extra gear" that certain players seem to find in key moments.

MUT and other sports games will always have to deal with this limitation, and no matter how advanced the tech gets, there’s always going to be a gap between how real football plays out and how it's represented in the game. That’s where abilities are supposed to come in, but like you said, they’re often either too overpowered or just don’t show up right.

There’s a fine line between making the game fun and realistic without going overboard and making it feel too unrealistic.

Now, when it comes to computing, numbers are the only thing that matters. 

Everything — whether it’s data processing, algorithms, or gameplay, is driven by numbers. Motivation, grit, and personality might shape how a player performs in real life, but in a game, those things have to be translated into numbers somehow, either directly or through some kind of model. Anything that's not a number has to be turned into something measurable, whether it’s through algorithms or probabilities, because a computer doesn’t get “emotion” or “instinct” the way we do. It just processes numbers to get a result.

I agree that it's complex, but it's one thing to approximate, and another to fail to try. Make it an opt-in if needed.

If a runningback had three thousand carries and had a single-digit number of fumbles over a long career, it seems reasonable to conclude that that player should very rarely fumble. Such a player should have some 'immunity' to abilities like Avalanche and Extra Pop, but that doesn't happen in MUT without investing in some ability that the player already demonstrated they had. Fine, MUT is more fantasy than simulation; I can be OK with that. But when guys that were money on maintaining possession get popped for a pair of fumbles in one game in April because Avalanche is everywhere, the game loses me.

As for the emotion and momentum, I liked what MUT 23 and 24 tried to do, except that the implementation grossly favored the team getting the first possession in a matchup of two opponents of equal skill and equal rosters. And we both agree that some players anchored their teams through highly emotional moments. I don't think Madden has ever even tried to simulate that, and yet it's a rather simple small factor to add.

The "recipe" for the perfect football simulation remains elusive because the game has to replicate Any Given Sunday, which we have seen, as well as what we expect from players because of what we have seen. You and I seem to agree that EA is way off the mark with this.

I totally agree with your take — especially the distinction between approximating reality and not even trying. 

Madden has the data and capability to reward players who have historically demonstrated elite ball security, but it feels like they intentionally ignore that for the sake of artificial "balance."

Look at Phillip Lindsay: 637 carries, zero fumbles — across 59 games. Or Kenneth Walker III: 600 carries, just 2 fumbles. These aren’t cherry-picked anomalies; these are consistent, real-world examples of players who should have extremely low fumble probabilities baked into their ratings and behavior.

And yet, when Avalanche or Extra Pop activates in MUT, those probabilities don’t get nuanced — they get thrown out the window. 

Suddenly, your 99 CAR RB is coughing the ball up twice in one half because someone hit-stuck you while glowing orange. It doesn’t matter that the player's on-field resume screams “secure,” the system reduces it to a dice roll skewed heavily in favor of the defense. It's not simulation at that point — it’s gimmickry. 

Avalanche doesn’t enhance realism, it breaks it.

Let competitive players choose whether to play with “true-to-life” probability sliders or pure chaos. But make it an option.

Right now, EA isn’t just off the mark — they’re ignoring the data in favor of spectacle.

n1eee said:

I have the opposite problem…

got colossus in the middle, hendricks and barno on the outside and get 0 pressure

Run 4 3 barno and hendricks are beast

xXcGilmer18Xx said:

Get insta pressure every play… literally the only opponent I lose against.. I have the best line you can buy, I’m decent at making adjustments, and it’s insta pressure.. game is dumb.

Haha bro...you have a daily "i am angry" post 

This game is going go give u high blood pressure...

Mythomaniac said:

EA is already busy working on next year's MUT

If you think they are spending any time on fixing gameplay, you must not have been playing the game this season.

They spend a ton of time adding unrealistic abilities that ruin the game.

We're sitting here comparing Ability stacks instead of looking at who has the best overall numbers.

I believe that EA came up with these abilities to mask all the flaws in the game and we assume the garbage on the field is due to some Ability being broken, instead of the game being broken.

There are no abilities in Simulation sports; just raw numbers.

Get rid of that trash EA.

Even Ant model is called Watson in game...they dnt even have time to fix that