Giant Madden 23 patch tries to address fan backlash but fails

“most polished” EA Madden years continues to go on a thorny path. Madden 23 got his massive October title update on Thursday, and with it a lot of nice changes to the core gameplay. But despite many bug fixes, many fans still feel like EA wasn’t being honest about the current unsatisfactory state of the game and what they consider to be prioritizing gambling with microtransactions over ensuring that regular modes don’t crash.

“Today may have saved Madden 23” Madden Youtuber Circtober tweeted yesterday shortly after the October patch notes were posted online. By the end of the day, players discovered a serious bug. Upgrading any of the “Worst Monsters” in the game automatically bans players from Madden Ultimate Team, a highly monetized competitive online game mode.

“Do not level up players in Most Feared Monster Maker as this may ban your account from Ultimate Team.” EA announced this evening. “We are currently working on fixing this issue and unlocking all affected players.” A few hours later, the bug was fixed and players could use the updates again without fear of being banned, although EA was still unable to determine the exact source of the problem. “For now, we have disabled chemistry options in Monster Makers as we investigate the issue.” he tweeted.

While the interruption ended up being only momentary, it was still the perfect encapsulation of the rollercoaster fans that have been on it ever since. Madden 23 launched back in August. Initial reviews were mostly positive, followed by harsher reviews from some players. including several NFL pros. Content creators rallied around a brief “package strike” to protest the high price tag and slim chance of getting great players from Madden Ultimate Team card sets. By early October, some were wondering Madden 23 could still be salvaged, or if it could end up being remembered as one of the worst iterations of an annual money maker in a few years.

First, good news. Madden 23X October name update has indeed dealt with some major complaints in recent weeks. The recalibrated slider appears to eliminate the maddening amount of superhuman interceptions that players have previously witnessed. A disconnect issue that caused a lot of lost progress in Franchise Mode has also apparently been fixed. CPU commands should no longer accidentally end negotiations with players. Some players have new face scans. And there were a lot of ticks on blocking, catching and other core game mechanics.

“While not all issues have been resolved today, there will be more fixes in future updates as we continue to work hard to bring you the best possible experience. We value and value your feedback,” EA wrote. “Our team is constantly taking this into account and working to release updates throughout the season.”

But the history of Madden is never as simple as complete catastrophe or complete redemption. The title update also claimed to add new alternate black Jets helmets, but several players received buggy white versions instead of. The franchise mode is also still ambiguous. While some players are reporting that they have finally been able to progress in their seasons after previously dealing with a wall of crashes and outages, others are still facing the dreaded problem. draft cycle error which brings them back to the start of the season whenever they finish a game.

Another special sore spot left Madden 23X field passesbattle pass system similar to one free game Apex Legends added just this year. Its three tiers – Season, Competitive, and Fear – have been causing problems for players since launch. Even now they does not always track player stats correctly, which means players are not rewarded for completing a goal when they should. As YouTuber is a popular stranger indicates that simply opening the passage can be a chore, as some players still receive error messages when they try to access it. And then there are the missing rewards.

Some players did not receive rewards for matches under the rules of the house, while others did not receive season-long Super Bowl trophy packages. Also missing are the coins that were used to buy packs without spending real money. EA acknowledged the issues late last month, but players are still waiting to see how they are resolved. Meanwhile, single combat, the main target for other rewards, were broken within a week, leaving many players lost. This is a big problem for a game where the only alternative is to shell out for randomized decks of cards.

“I wonder if EA just doesn’t realize how HUGE a problem broken rewards are?” Madden tweeted streamer Kmac. earlier this week. “It’s been THREE WEEKS and they’re just releasing new promos like everything’s fine. no incentive to play Madden. No one can afford to drop new cards.”

This is the stinginess of card decks – the backbone Maddenthe most popular online mode, coupled with the lack of confirmation of current bugs and lost rewards, which continue to cause dissatisfaction in the community.

“A lot of people have been asking, ‘Is the pack strike over?’ “The content is really good, everything seems to be getting better this morning” is absolutely not true. [over]”said a popular stranger during his recent title update video. “Bundles look better, but we don’t buy them. I hope you guys aren’t like that.”

player passing by iowapolis on Twitter has been tracking the chances of updates to packages and features since launch and still considers them to be among the most the worst in recent years. This is despite the fact that the map sets themselves have historically brought in billions for EA. It was one of the few publishers that continued to post big profits this year, while competitors like Ubisoft and Activision struggled, mostly due to microtransactions in series like Madden.

“Main topic Madden 23 things just keep coming out broken and very expensive and it takes days or even weeks to fix things in some way so players can get rewards for getting items or even play the game so it means something in progress” Content Creator on Twitch Rob Lopez said Kotaku. At that time, Madden 23 just went on sale. $20 discount less than two months after release.