There has been a lot of good discussion this week about Kevin Scott’s two-part Madden NFL 20 Pet Peeves series here on OS (part one, part two), and so I thought it would be good to continue that with some more critiques from around the web. One video I watched that I thought was a good summation of some of the gameplay gripes came from content creator Gut Foxx.
Now, Gut Foxx mostly plays head-to-head games within MUT so his views are skewed more towards the competitive side of gameplay, but it’s good to get that perspective as well.
Here are some of the things he calls out and why he does not like them. I recommend you watch the whole video, but I’ll hit on some of the big points in some bullet points:
- Stretch runs being overpowered. This is something that cascades through the community.
- The running back abilities are too strong in that they lead to too many auto-broken tackles.
- Force defender needs to actually contain the outside rather than getting suctioned in so to speak.
- LB play recognition needs to be better on counter runs as they are too easily faked out.
- Gap integrity and block shedding needs more consistency. Gap assignments and how defenders shed blockers is too erratic as of now.
- Juking or spinning into a hit stick should lead to more fumbles.
- Binary pass rush does not leave much room for nuance.
- It’s a coin flip when engaging the offensive tackle, you either hard win or hard lose most of the time.
- Need more randomness and nuance to these showdowns.
- Should just simplify the abilities offensive linemen get, no need to complicate them.
- Play-action should be more useful.
- Stacking the box needs to have consequences because heavy blitzing very meta right now. In part, this is because of the run meta, but if defenders held gaps and contained the edge more it would not be as necessary.
- Need to be able to take the top off the defense with the fastest guys after beating press coverage. CBs can still recover too often and make a play.
- Wants an “under” coverage option to stop corner routes.
- This can allow checkdown passes but just need to actually stop corner routes.
- Offense for many is scramble and then go corner route.
- Contains on non-blitzes are not effective at keeping QB in pocket, which is ironic since contain blitzes remain the meta blitz type for past couple years.
- Pocket QBs are too weak, too impacted by pressure.
- Need more abilities than scramblers or something else to make anyone want to use them more online.
One highlight I watched from a recent Madden Competitive game on Twitch encompasses a lot of the issues mentioned in this video, and you can see it here:
- An overpowered QB ability allows Luck to break contain right after the snap. Luck’s brought back into the pocket when the defender starts pursuing him. Luck then throws across his body on his back foot as the user on defense tries to cover up the overpowered corner route with user control. Luck’s QB abilities allow him to throw an insane deep ball for a touchdown.
