I’ve logged this here, because it’s going to be a longish read, discord would blow their mind. I make no apology for this.
Let’s preface this in the usual standard, in logging the user experience and credentials for daring to post such a review…
I’ve been a finger football player since early MM18 when I stumbled across the game during the summer holidays with my kids. I played all year every year during the declining years through to early MM22 where I hung up my virtual cleats. I’ve always been a F2P grinder.
Much like any addict, I came back to MM23, giving it a chance to woo me back… and in all honesty, it’s better than MM23 (let’s face it.. it wasn’t hard). I initially reviewed it 3 stars, but I’m going to downgrade it to 2 stars.
I’ll also prefix this, with my views may not be shared by those who spend MC, but the themes seem to be shared amongst my peers who I speak to outside of official platforms. I'm not going to mention gameplay/bugs/glitches. It's purely on content.
Positives
Let’s start with what I like.
Auto Feature – Spare 5 minutes? This is great, I used to hate the grind for example of pass for 100 yards to get tokens for a specific TOTY card.
Promotion/Relegation – Especially in LvL, it’s a great addition to ensure a balance of match ups. Spend a lot of MC, of course you should be in HoF match ups.
Getting rid of the “ranking” of players – This was by far and away one of the worst ideas Madden had, I’m glad they’ve got rid of it
However
Beyond here, I struggle to really see any positives… The initial buzz of levelling up, has ground to a halt, and now I’m at a place where the rich get richer… and the poor get left behind. For me, the poor should be someone who picks up the game maybe a few times a week. The F2P grinders like myself are left in no mans land.
Not able to complete a random mid-iconic on Campus Heroes without spending MC. I can understand spending MC on a specific CH or a Foil CH for those who have higher OVRs, but a random midrange iconic CH should be achievable for F2P, and unfortunately it’s not. Hence the rich get richer.
The cookie cutter promo between Headliners and CH is really disappointing. The cynics will argue “it’s a shorter promo”, but it’s just boring if truth be told. 30 events then auto.
And regular stamina refresh rate – super slow, and refresh of events 3 x per day, are the devs dreaming here? It needs looked it.
I'll only touch upon the rebalance of OVR as it didn't really impact me, but that wasn't great either.
Improvements / Suggestions – Marked for Dev Attention
In the words lifted directly from Field of Dreams / Hebrews 12:1 (whichever you are familiar with), If you build it, he will come. This is the lesson that the Madden Dev’s seem to be missing, or don’t have the budget to fix.
Auction House – Yes those two dirty little words to some, as F2P it was a necessary evil. Got a card you no longer want/need… pulled a lucky card.. want a specific player for your Theme team – this was a great leveller.
Whilst I’m glad I no longer have to set a timer to either pull the car to a safe stop for 5 minutes of bidding, or wake up during the witching hours much to the annoyance of my wife for an impromptu bidding war. Like most of what’s left of the community, this was one of the main removers that killed the game.
Weekend Tournaments – Now this should be easy to implement and one feature that should be brought back from MM18 to bridge that gap between Spenders and Grinders.
Replace the bonus points on daily area, to 1 x ticket per achievement for 3 tickets per day.
No limits on match making on H2H (I’d love a return to themes such as all Long Passing Plays from 50, all Run plays from 30, but that’s running before you can walk).
Win you keep your ticket, Lose you lose your ticket
Tier 1 – Lowest rung – similar rewards to that from the league store
All the way to Tier 5 – for instance for CH could be something like 3 x 102 players, 1 x Base Iconic Player, 500k coins.
Want to keep grinding beyond T5 rewards, I loved the concept of MM18 where you could get a special tournament player. Again this is easily implemented – 1-10 Foil Iconic Top of the range card, 11-50 a couple of OVR lower of the same card. 51-100 a couple of OVR lower again. No rewards below 100.
Pack Luck - Another feature which should be implemented immediately. Right now, the math suggests it’s virtually impossible to close the gaps. One of the best features from earlier mobile maddens was random card draws. A very small percentage of the top of the range card included in the event pack. This should be brought back, it’s super boring seeing X tokens and X Trophies. With no chance of luck. The gambler in all of us likes seeing additional player pulls. It adjusts the math. Makes the unachievable… achievable…
Rebalance of Promo currency - Lets be honest for a second – trophies are not a leveller. All these are currently used for are luck madden packs (see above). You shouldn’t get more promo tokens for higher OVR in my opinion. It makes the game unbalanced.
Conclusion
I’d rate this game 2 stars in it’s current guise, I’ll wait to see what Kick Off brings, however if it’s the same as Campus Heroes… In the words of Dragons Den/Shark Tank – I’m out until MM24...
Introduction
I’ve logged this here, because it’s going to be a longish read, discord would blow their mind. I make no apology for this.
Let’s preface this in the usual standard, in logging the user experience and credentials for daring to post such a review…
I’ve been a finger football player since early MM18 when I stumbled across the game during the summer holidays with my kids. I played all year every year during the declining years through to early MM22 where I hung up my virtual cleats. I’ve always been a F2P grinder.
Much like any addict, I came back to MM23, giving it a chance to woo me back… and in all honesty, it’s better than MM23 (let’s face it.. it wasn’t hard). I initially reviewed it 3 stars, but I’m going to downgrade it to 2 stars.
I’ll also prefix this, with my views may not be shared by those who spend MC, but the themes seem to be shared amongst my peers who I speak to outside of official platforms. I'm not going to mention gameplay/bugs/glitches. It's purely on content.
Positives
Let’s start with what I like.
Auto Feature – Spare 5 minutes? This is great, I used to hate the grind for example of pass for 100 yards to get tokens for a specific TOTY card.
Promotion/Relegation – Especially in LvL, it’s a great addition to ensure a balance of match ups. Spend a lot of MC, of course you should be in HoF match ups.
Getting rid of the “ranking” of players – This was by far and away one of the worst ideas Madden had, I’m glad they’ve got rid of it
However
Beyond here, I struggle to really see any positives… The initial buzz of levelling up, has ground to a halt, and now I’m at a place where the rich get richer… and the poor get left behind. For me, the poor should be someone who picks up the game maybe a few times a week. The F2P grinders like myself are left in no mans land.
Not able to complete a random mid-iconic on Campus Heroes without spending MC. I can understand spending MC on a specific CH or a Foil CH for those who have higher OVRs, but a random midrange iconic CH should be achievable for F2P, and unfortunately it’s not. Hence the rich get richer.
The cookie cutter promo between Headliners and CH is really disappointing. The cynics will argue “it’s a shorter promo”, but it’s just boring if truth be told. 30 events then auto. And regular stamina refresh rate – super slow, and refresh of events 3 x per day, are the devs dreaming here? It needs looked it.
I'll only touch upon the rebalance of OVR as it didn't really impact me, but that wasn't great either.
Improvements / Suggestions – Marked for Dev Attention
In the words lifted directly from Field of Dreams / Hebrews 12:1 (whichever you are familiar with), If you build it, he will come. This is the lesson that the Madden Dev’s seem to be missing, or don’t have the budget to fix.
Auction House – Yes those two dirty little words to some, as F2P it was a necessary evil. Got a card you no longer want/need… pulled a lucky card.. want a specific player for your Theme team – this was a great leveller.
Whilst I’m glad I no longer have to set a timer to either pull the car to a safe stop for 5 minutes of bidding, or wake up during the witching hours much to the annoyance of my wife for an impromptu bidding war. Like most of what’s left of the community, this was one of the main removers that killed the game.
Weekend Tournaments – Now this should be easy to implement and one feature that should be brought back from MM18 to bridge that gap between Spenders and Grinders. Replace the bonus points on daily area, to 1 x ticket per achievement for 3 tickets per day.
No limits on match making on H2H (I’d love a return to themes such as all Long Passing Plays from 50, all Run plays from 30, but that’s running before you can walk). Win you keep your ticket, Lose you lose your ticket
Tier 1 – Lowest rung – similar rewards to that from the league store All the way to Tier 5 – for instance for CH could be something like 3 x 102 players, 1 x Base Iconic Player, 500k coins.
Want to keep grinding beyond T5 rewards, I loved the concept of MM18 where you could get a special tournament player. Again this is easily implemented – 1-10 Foil Iconic Top of the range card, 11-50 a couple of OVR lower of the same card. 51-100 a couple of OVR lower again. No rewards below 100.
Pack Luck - Another feature which should be implemented immediately. Right now, the math suggests it’s virtually impossible to close the gaps. One of the best features from earlier mobile maddens was random card draws. A very small percentage of the top of the range card included in the event pack. This should be brought back, it’s super boring seeing X tokens and X Trophies. With no chance of luck. The gambler in all of us likes seeing additional player pulls. It adjusts the math. Makes the unachievable… achievable…
Rebalance of Promo currency - Lets be honest for a second – trophies are not a leveller. All these are currently used for are luck madden packs (see above). You shouldn’t get more promo tokens for higher OVR in my opinion. It makes the game unbalanced.
Conclusion I’d rate this game 2 stars in it’s current guise, I’ll wait to see what Kick Off brings, however if it’s the same as Campus Heroes… In the words of Dragons Den/Shark Tank – I’m out until MM24...