Madden NFL 19
Madden 19: Ultimate Team Deep Dive
EA Sports recently posted a new blog post complete with details on this year’s Madden Ultimate Team Mode:
Let’s start from the beginning and discuss what made upgrading players difficult in Madden NFL 18. First of all, it took a lot of exploring through Sets and knowing exactly what you needed to do. This may not apply to everyone who is dedicated enough to read this blog, but Power Ups were too complicated.
There’s good news/bad news. Upgrading players does take them out of the auction block, but you can get some refund on those investments later:
Also chemistry has been reworked:
And then there’s the new Solo Battles feature:
Solo Battle games are full game challenges vs. the CPU. The quarter length is set to three minutes and you will have only one chance to record the best possible results. There is no restarting or replaying a Solo Battles game like you can in a traditional Solo Challenge.
The battles will go throughout a week, so there will be a cadence to each week:
Let’s wrap up talking about Solo Battles by outlining what our current thought process is for our content release cadence. There’s a chance this could change, but it’s what we’re currently planning. As mentioned earlier, there are 13 games that include a “Featured Opponent,” which is up for the entire week. The Feature Opponent game will also have an increased amount of Battle Points that you can earn so it’ll be really important to play this each week. As for the schedule:
Monday – New Solo Battles week begins; Featured Opponent + First 4 games available
Wednesday – Next 4 games become available
Friday – Last 4 games become available
Analysis
All in all, it looks like Madden Ultimate Team in Madden NFL 19 is going to feature something for everyone. While not all of the biggest complaints were actively fixed, it seems like there’s an attempt at honesty in the sense that some things are the way they are for reasons that may annoy some, but work to the betterment of the mode’s experience overall. The chemistry changes and solo battles in particular sound like really solid additions to the overall experience. As always we’ll have to see it in action, but there’s some really good potential here.
What do you think about this year’s Madden NFL Ultimate Team mode?
Not for me, either, but hope it received some nice additions for the people that enjoy it.
I’ll save the deep dive for a future blog, but at a high level, these positions were created so that gameplay could tag formations with these new specialist positions. So for instance, instead of having to manually sub a defensive end down to defensive tackle out of Nickel, just assign that player to your Rush Defensive Tackle slot and he’ll already be there every time you call a Nickel defense.
This. This is good stuff worth highlighting for all Madden players.
Yea but its nothing groundbreaking, its a more efficient way to do something weve already been able to with formation subs and packages
I also picked up this and hope it transfers over to CFM as well:
MUT Squads returns in Madden 19 and, new this year, we have added the ability to play games against the CPU. You and two of your friends can team up to take on challenges that will be a mix of various difficulties, playstyles, and even weather.
The even weather part would be nice.
Eh, SS, I'll disagree with you. I will take efficiency any day over PITA setups.
Thanks for pointing this out. I skimmed thru it and totally missed this. Definitely, nice to see.
There will undoubtedly be stuff in the MUT development that benefits all gamers, and this seems like a really solid development that also benefits sim offline guys such as myself. I'm all for more specialist depth chart positions and look forward to more of this as they continue to develop the game and find ways to allow us to use the whole roster as creatively as real NFL coaches do.
Does it need to be groundbreaking? It's a feature literally every sim-minded Madden player on this forum will absolutely use.
Having the game automatically recognize these specialist roles is far more convenient than having to manually set up formation subs, especially when formation subs may break if a given player is removed from the team. In addition, these roles will exist on CPU depth charts as well, so CPU game day roster management is automatically better by default.
I'm not going to downplay the importance of this addition.
Good stuff. While there are open questions about any number of things, this looks to be a release with major polish across several modes and gameplay. Give attention to the things that are important to us and present them well, and I stay tuned in and playing. It's the little things too.
I.e. addition of slot WR ,nickel DB ,power RB ( presumably akin to goal line) and rush DL
Here's hoping....
I also picked up this and hope it transfers over to CFM as well:
MUT Squads returns in Madden 19 and, new this year, we have added the ability to play games against the CPU. You and two of your friends can team up to take on challenges that will be a mix of various difficulties, playstyles, and even weather.
The even weather part would be nice.
Eh, SS, I'll disagree with you. I will take efficiency any day over PITA setups.
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Are these the Player Positional Archetypes?
is that new menu layout including main menu, roster menu, franchise mode menu beside this ?
Immediately identifying and fixing the key issues with upgrading players and chemistry made this reveal great from the start.
ps even if we dont populate these depth chart positions, the cpu wont leave them blank and will do it for us hence every cfm wont be able to play without them being used even if we dont want them
It is interesting that weather is included as part of the key details shown on the 5th screenshot, which is about squads. First game shows: Rookie level; 2 min quarters; Day: Warm. Would be nice if temperature affected player performance. Warm day would be good, but a hot day would see fatigue affected negatively..Cold weather makes catching and throwing more difficult, etc.
Granted it is in MUT, but games against the CPU would be fine with weather affects. The weather would not be welcome in competitive matches.
I also picked up this and hope it transfers over to CFM as well:
MUT Squads returns in Madden 19 and, new this year, we have added the ability to play games against the CPU. You and two of your friends can team up to take on challenges that will be a mix of various difficulties, playstyles, and even weather.
The even weather part would be nice.
Eh, SS, I'll disagree with you. I will take efficiency any day over PITA setups.
Oh for sure just saying it shouldnt be touted as a new feature but a Quality of life improvement is always welcome
ps even if we dont populate these depth chart positions, the cpu wont leave them blank and will do it for us hence every cfm wont be able to play without them being used even if we dont want them
What do you mean by special team positions? There are only a couple true special teams positions, long snapper and gunner are the only two that comr to mind immediately
I can't recall from past Maddens, but has Madden ever had all these positions highlighted in previous Maddens?
Absolutely not, these are just new depth chart positions so you can assign what players you want playing in what situations
I would like the ability to completely fill out kick/punt teams and cover formations as well as fg/xp
which screenshot you said about new depth chart position ?
Never, only specialty position we had was 3rd down back, but back in the day properly functioning formation subs was a reason why this would have been redundant
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i hope so.. fingers crossed
Oh gotcha. That would be a pretty cool addition to the game special-teams is 1/3 of football.
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See, for me, if it's been never, they have a right to tout it as new, even if you could do it a backdoor way that took awhile.
Would new and improved be better? lol
I can't wait for the upcoming hot takes with all the deep dives arriving and gameplay during the next month or so.
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Idk what the plan, but MUT has had team chemistry for a while, i always wondered why something like that hasnt been in CfM for a long time
Would new and improved be better? lol
I can't wait for the upcoming hot takes with all the deep dives arriving and gameplay during the next month or so.
The speculation with everyone here and the back and forth up to release is my favorite part of the madden release cycle now a days lol
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I just remembered I need to add a few more from my list in another thread.
You maybe surprised and join the dark side on release day.
I definitely like seeing the solo options listed and MUT Squads vs CPU. I do not want to play against people that drop real money on packs.
This!!!!! I'm not a huge 32 team control guy but hopefully, this and archetypes help the CPU (especially 3-4 teams) so we don't have to go through and edit every team's nickel and dime packages.
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This was one of the main reasons I control every team in my franchise, cant stand seeing that happen and then Gurley will already have his hands on his knees gasping for air first play of the drive smh.
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Been this way for years though eventually they have to see things for themselves too, could be something they just don't care to fix, easier to just say go by rating over position and skillset. Hopefully its fixed this year though.
Having the game automatically recognize these specialist roles is far more convenient than having to manually set up formation subs, especially when formation subs may break if a given player is removed from the team. In addition, these roles will exist on CPU depth charts as well, so CPU game day roster management is automatically better by default.
I'm not going to downplay the importance of this addition.
I'm curious as to how it will work exactly. Honestly, I think formation subs are a terrible way to get the sim results folks are looking for, because that's not how it works. I prefer players based on situation, which allows me to use my third down back in any formation.
With NFL teams, let along Madden teams, using 3 or more wideouts on a regular basis, we need to be able to use nickel defenses as run defenses or pass defenses. So that may affect who I want in as my LBs and DLs.
Overall, I'm still not a big fan of the upgrade path on players. It needs more risk/reward, and now it seems like they are eliminating all risk. Being able to make any player any chemistry just feels cheap.
I really like that in The Show players get better based on real life performances. This makes it really fun to grab your favorite team's young guys and hope they develop.
I'm a Chiefs fan, so I'm banking this entire year on Pat Mahomes. Obviously, with no NFK games under his belt, he is not going to be rated very high. But if he goes off like Chiefs fans are hoping, it would be cool if his card got better. It also makes looking for platters more interesting, as you can find real diamonds in the rough, if you know that certain players are close to taking over the top spot on a depth chart.
Football may not lend itself to this as well, but I think it could work.
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is that new menu layout including main menu, roster menu, franchise mode menu beside this ?
most likely
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The most important part of the game to me is on the field, and there definitely seems to be a greater focus on that area this year. I really want to be able to see the fruits of my labor and choices though.
Right now there are still too many areas where I'd rather have a 66 OVR 84spd OLB in my 4-3 over a 86 OVR 78 Spd guy because the higher rated player simply brings nothing to the table, and the 66 OVR makes more plays on speed alone.
I need to see that won't happen any longer before I really start to get interested in buying what the Madden team is selling.
The most important part of the game to me is on the field, and there definitely seems to be a greater focus on that area this year. I really want to be able to see the fruits of my labor and choices though.
Right now there are still too many areas where I'd rather have a 66 OVR 84spd OLB in my 4-3 over a 86 OVR 78 Spd guy because the higher rated player simply brings nothing to the table, and the 66 OVR makes more plays on speed alone.
I need to see that won't happen any longer before I really start to get interested in buying what the Madden team is selling.
You'll never completely remove the need for athleticism, but at least it's been toned down considerably. Speed was once so paramount it was the only thing you would look for in a player; now it's probably about fourth or fifth on the list regardless of position.
That being said 78 SPD is *AWFUL* for a LB, and I'd expect that player to be trash regardless of his ratings.
Hopefully EA isn't basing specialists on formations alone, because that's simply wrong.
Hopefully EA isn't basing specialists on formations alone, because that's simply wrong.
Agreed. But this is why I said that formation subs were so awful in the first place.
My hope is that they will work like the third down back, which is inserted situationally. Would be better if there was a simple selection in the play calling screen, like maybe a dialogue box letting you know who is being inserted, with an option to turn it down.