Madden NFL 12 Video: Madden Ultimate Team Features, Screenshots Included

[XtremeDunkz]

They need an option to search for games against people who have not spent any real money on packs or I will never play it. It is no fun bringing my team led by Troy Smith and Brandon Jackson against a team of Mike Vick, Chris Johnson and Ray Lewis. EA will never do that though because they want people to spent money to be competitive.

[bxgoods]

Quote: Originally Posted by xtremedunkz

They need an option to search for games against people who have not spent any real money on packs or I will never play it. It is no fun bringing my team led by Troy Smith and Brandon Jackson against a team of Mike Vick, Chris Johnson and Ray Lewis. EA will never do that though because they want people to spent money to be competitive.

Thats the thing that killed MUT 11, nobody spent money. People got a lot of coins from coin farming, which was basically completing the Rookie collections on different accounts and getting 1,000,000 coins.

You can get a lot of coins in MUT by completing collections, if your depending on money to get a lot of coins in MUT, you're doing it wrong.

[ChaseB]

Quote: Originally Posted by bxgoods

Thats the thing that killed MUT 11, nobody spent money. People got a lot of coins from coin farming, which was basically completing the Rookie collections on different accounts and getting 1,000,000 coins. You can get a lot of coins in MUT by completing collections, if your depending on money to get a lot of coins in MUT, you're doing it wrong.

Yeah. This year you can play friends, and you also get lots of coins just for even completing games -- hopefully to minimize the quitting.

That was my point about FIFA/NHL Ultimate Team though in terms of fielding lower-rated teams. If you have a lower-rated team, then you match up against other lower-rated teams. I didn't play a ton of MUT so not sure of the matchmaking there.

[Icarus2k9]

Quote: Originally Posted by ChaseB

I knew plenty of people who did after MUT actually started to work correctly -- was a mess at launch. I just think the general issue with MUT is that it's at a disadvantage when compared to FIFA and NHL because of the nature of a football roster. It's not as conducive to Ultimate Team as some of the other sports games.

I usually dislike the use of This, but This. It's a tough sell, but the success of Fifa's mode means they will keep trying. They would be crazy not to.

If you don't know the FIFA Ultimate team version, it works to a fantastic degree because it's set up to continually give you small rewards as you build towards long-term solvency. If you're not looking to save up, you can buy a bronze pack after every game no problem. That will usually include three players and three contracts. So at the very worst, after every fourth game you've bought a team of basic players who can play for 12 games - none of MUT's problem whereby you're trying to keep a team afloat while 30+ players spend a contract every game.
With the game designed to make contracts matter only if you buy different packs to the team you're building e.g. constantly aiming for gold packs with your silver team will leave you running on empty, then you're off to the stockpiling races, and it becomes all about building squads with all sorts of requirements for the various tourneys - I currently have a "best imports of MLS" squad I'm working on for the one-league tourneys, before I'll try to get a Celts squad and Arsenal Exiles.

That's the other HUGE advantage Fifa has over Madden in this regard - the sheer variety of players and teams. No need to worry about designing your own kit, pretty much every kit in the game (thousands) are available in packs. The players of the week / year, the hundreds of world stars and the need to have great bronze and silver players - not just gold - makes every team unique. In three years of playing it, I've gained soft spots for random players in the same way I used to cherish generated Madden rookies. This year it's all about Spanish silver goalie Casilla (the cut price Casillas), and my afro-festooned bronze centre back Charles (automatically means plenty of Charles in Charge references).

Oh yeah, and the length of games helps big time too. I'd have to sink three times as much playing time into Madden to get the same amount of cards. Less reward for endeavour = harder to keep your interest.

But why after all that negativity should they still be pushing it? This year's Fifa 12 collector's edition is the Ultimate Edition, which will bag you so many gold packs per month. Two million people played UT this time round, and I know people who work in the game shops who are expecting the price war to revolve around which shop gets you the most packs.

THAT'S why Madden will keep investing in MUT until it becomes one of the if not the premier mode. If you think their loyalties should solely lie in building up offline franchise - a mode I would argue encourages people to skip iterations of Madden because they're enjoying their franchise too much - then that's a very blinkered view.

[Icarus2k9]

Quote: Originally Posted by xtremedunkz

They need an option to search for games against people who have not spent any real money on packs or I will never play it. It is no fun bringing my team led by Troy Smith and Brandon Jackson against a team of Mike Vick, Chris Johnson and Ray Lewis. EA will never do that though because they want people to spent money to be competitive.

I've been hoping for this for such a long time in the FIFA version, but there's not even the slightest hint that it's going to happen.

You've got to understand the mindset of some people to realise why they don't. The day that game comes out, there are people sitting there with an extra $100+ ready to spend on the best packs, because they want only the top 11 players in the world or want to build an exact replica of a team they can play in Play Now mode anyway.

The market immediately gets flooded with players, and lower-tier bronze, silver and gold players become worthless while the top 11 go for the sort of prices that would take you 25 hours to save up for.

The only saving grace Fifa has is the different types of tourney. There are better Bronze / Silver players that are worth springing for, but for very little investment you can compete online in at least three of the cups unmolested.