Looking for reviews of this years Ultimate Team

Hey guys. 

I was a long time Madden Ultimate Team player. Played from Mut 12 all the way through about madden 22. Fizzled out pretty hard after Madden 18 as the mode just continued to fizzle out and get worse in my opinion. Still played 19/20/21/22 until the Christmas promo but pretty well quit after that. 
Hated how gimmicky the mode became. Brutally unrealistic out of position players in every promo and really just a general unrealistic statistic ratings for players. 

Really miss playing a football ultimate team game as it used to be a ton of fun. Is college football ultimate team any better?

Note - I know it’s likely very similar in terms of micro transactions. This is pretty unavoidable in todays games unfortunately, and I’m not to worried about this aspect as every game has it.

For reference I have 675 hours in game (Probably over 550 in CUT), however I haven't played in the last month other than grinding for Dickerson

Game was different than MUT would be the way I put it. 

Pros - 

Gameplay. Was faster and had more one-play touchdowns due to low pursuit and unbalanced abilities. (however I didn't enjoy it, but I know plenty of people did)

Playbooks much more unique (however still meta playbooks and formations that most people ran online (TCU Normal Y off Close, Michigan Bunch Str, etc))

Players in game. Lot of college star specific players. Tavon austin, D'anthony Thomas, etc

Not many if any players out of position. Had some stupid stuff like streamers and others. But no players were out of position like mut that I can remember.

Cons -

WEAR AND TEAR. Single worst thing added to a mode where the players you use cost either time or money. Plus it felt completely random. The one I always think of is Throne's Joe Burrow gameplay where he got sacked the first play of the game and Burrow had -19 like everything.

Literally like 0 ways to make coins no money spent if you weren't constantly winning gauntlet

Market was always bottomed out because of no way to make coins

Money spenders got hella scammed. Big bundles never seemed worth it. Only thing "worth it" were booster packs. However those were $5-$10 for a pack full of BND cards. You would get good pulls a lot but they had 0 value.

Theme teams were so unforgiving. Cost 15k coins to put the tt chem on them and you got no refund whenever you removed it to sell them.

Sets were useless pretty much all year. 

Gamebreaking glitch day one that gave people millions of coins. I myself had 5.8 mil day one

Abilities need I say more lol. Takeoff, shifty speed boosts, extender, aftershock. All were horrible for the game

Players on the field didn't look at all like themselves. This is probably just a me thing, but I like in madden how the players look like themselves. You had players with no gear relative to what they actually wear. Different skin colors. TJ Watt and Mark Andrews were black at the beginning of this year.

Neutrals - 

Game had objectively way less skill gap. This is great for the worse players but sucks for the people who are good. Some games that should be rage quits would go down to the very end because of random 1 play touchdowns, fumbles, and the inability to catch picks when people would blindly throw at you. This was changed once you could get House call on your dbs. 

*Rush Promos (Sorta like Blitz from madden) gave plenty of opportunities to make coins if you would spend money. However unlike madden they were normally not discounted. No real reliable options for no money spent in these either, but that isn't surprising as it is a money spender's promo. I don't count ripping the training pack as reliable.

That's about everything I can think of. If I can think of anything else, I'll add it with an asterisk. Remember anyone who responds to this, keep it civil. All I did was point out facts.

Xmansteels said:

For reference I have 675 hours in game (Probably over 550 in CUT), however I haven't played in the last month other than grinding for Dickerson

Game was different than MUT would be the way I put it. 

Pros - 

Gameplay. Was faster and had more one-play touchdowns due to low pursuit and unbalanced abilities. (however I didn't enjoy it, but I know plenty of people did)

Playbooks much more unique (however still meta playbooks and formations that most people ran online (TCU Normal Y off Close, Michigan Bunch Str, etc))

Players in game. Lot of college star specific players. Tavon austin, D'anthony Thomas, etc

Not many if any players out of position. Had some stupid stuff like streamers and others. But no players were out of position like mut that I can remember.

Cons -

WEAR AND TEAR. Single worst thing added to a mode where the players you use cost either time or money. Plus it felt completely random. The one I always think of is Throne's Joe Burrow gameplay where he got sacked the first play of the game and Burrow had -19 like everything.

Literally like 0 ways to make coins no money spent if you weren't constantly winning gauntlet

Market was always bottomed out because of no way to make coins

Money spenders got hella scammed. Big bundles never seemed worth it. Only thing "worth it" were booster packs. However those were $5-$10 for a pack full of BND cards. You would get good pulls a lot but they had 0 value.

Theme teams were so unforgiving. Cost 15k coins to put the tt chem on them and you got no refund whenever you removed it to sell them.

Sets were useless pretty much all year. 

Gamebreaking glitch day one that gave people millions of coins. I myself had 5.8 mil day one

Abilities need I say more lol. Takeoff, shifty speed boosts, extender, aftershock. All were horrible for the game

Players on the field didn't look at all like themselves. This is probably just a me thing, but I like in madden how the players look like themselves. You had players with no gear relative to what they actually wear. Different skin colors. TJ Watt and Mark Andrews were black at the beginning of this year.

Neutrals - 

Game had objectively way less skill gap. This is great for the worse players but sucks for the people who are good. Some games that should be rage quits would go down to the very end because of random 1 play touchdowns, fumbles, and the inability to catch picks when people would blindly throw at you. This was changed once you could get House call on your dbs. 

*Rush Promos (Sorta like Blitz from madden) gave plenty of opportunities to make coins if you would spend money. However unlike madden they were normally not discounted. No real reliable options for no money spent in these either, but that isn't surprising as it is a money spender's promo. I don't count ripping the training pack as reliable.

That's about everything I can think of. If I can think of anything else, I'll add it with an asterisk. Remember anyone who responds to this, keep it civil. All I did was point out facts.

I don’t mind the fast paced stuff. I started with Mut 12 and basically from there through Mut 25 (actually was Madden 14 but it was the 25th anniversary) was full of crazy long runs/passes. I like the “Sim” aspects to a certain extent but ripping off long runs with guys like Barry Sanders always felt cool because it was like recreating a real highlight to an extent. Same with big passes to a guy like Randy Moss. If you take away this aspect it stops feeling like your playing with “Legends” to a certain extent.

Pretty big negative on the inability to make coins without spending cash. I don’t have a big problem per say with a bundle once or twice a month if you have to but if that’s not enough to keep up then that’s fairly disappointing.   

The west and tear mechanic sounds stupid as hell haha. I’m all for some realism aspects but I’d like to actually use the players I created my team with to their full ability. I’d rather them just bring back injuries like they used to have in the old Muts.

 
I appreciate the info you provided.

Pretty good review. I disagree on some "facts" though.

I was NMS, started Dec 26th, and had a competitive team within 2 weeks. I do wish coins were easier to come by, as I had to often chose the bargin players over my preferred player, but money spenders should get some benefit to spending. I am sure improvements can be made for both, but I am not spending my time to offer up suggestions.

I hate abilities. Left MUT because of it. This is currently far from MUT in that regard, but I fear it is a slope that leads to eventual arcade like feel. I am certainly buying 26' though, as I don't think it is there yet.

Skill gap...hmmmmm. My win% is about the same here as it was with Madden. Good streamers often win +8 games in gauntlet. Scrubs lose almost every game. You may be right, but I am not sold.

The market is currently dead and has been mostly dead for a few months. I found it to be very alive from my start in Dec through Feb-ish. Coin making opportunities were ever present in the market during that time. It seems reasonable to me that the market would slow after 7 or so months. 

CUT has room for improvement (I also ABHOR wear and tear and 100% believe devs lie when saying community loved it), but overall, it was an excellent first attempt and I think 26' has many positive changes in store. Now we just gotta keep them from also adding in/expanding things that suck. Lol.

Original post moderated

Not sure where that came from, no need to be a dick.

Original post moderated

Uncalled for, both reviews provided I think have good and valid points.  Grow up bro

I like both reviews and points made on both.

I enjoyed CUT overall and will probably buy CUT 26 however much of what I am seeing  has me concerned.

Slowing the game speed down some from what I am seeing and hearing, more focus on even more abilities, and I am leery of this new token system.

My gut tells me EA is going to EA and push greed further.  Hoping they don’t of course

Ignore the troll. I apparently hurt his/her feelings once, so they create a new profile nearly daily and try to get reactions.

I haven't heard about slowing down gameplay. That would be unfortunate. I don't think abilities are likely to be a problem for at least 4 months...but I do have concerns. But 25' was easily good enough for me to give 26' a shot. If they go too far, I will leave EA behind once again.

Any other input?

Maybe I’ll wait till after the drop to decide.

newsfeeds4444 said:

Any other input?

Maybe I’ll wait till after the drop to decide.

The content was god awful in this game with most promos either being repeat every week or no challenges involved with the promo. They said they will improve, but i think that just means adding more cards to get to your wallet. Abilities were fine until we started getting gold abilities which completely broke the game and not to mention plat abilities made it even worse. We are getting a heisman tier next year which would make endgame cut even worse. The market was alive at the beginning of the game and good cards were cheap because of pack glitches, but now theres only about 5 players up from prior promos. And once one program goes away the price of those cards skyrocket because there is no other way to obtain them. BND players aren't as bad as ppl say, but there is way to many of them which makes getting coins hard if your not a market manipulator or a sweat. NMS isn't hard at all if youre good, but if youre not good, good luck on getting coins.