I find it very strange that the mode of the game that you told us would be optional, OD, is the only free part of the game, gives the richest rewards, and is everywhere but Arena peters out once you get the main rewards, gives minimal rewards for continued play, costs stamina once/if you lose, and gives no XP, coin or anything else for a match or it's drives.
To be clear, for me, gameplay/animations have the same problems (some worse, like blocking which was supposed to improve) that existed last season that caused me (and I am sure others) to stop playing at some point last season. There are SO MANY good things you have added this season: Madden Series, some of the promos, League store/features/help, Sets, Legends program, return (kind of) of H2H, more judicious use of boosts (so far), great responsiveness on many (not all) issues, great interaction with the communities, etc.
Having said that, the core gameplay/animations' issues are magnified by the real-time nature of OD, which is not an enjoyable part of the game (for me) to start, only making it worse, whether I win or lose (I've been in the top 500 each season this year - motivated by the rewards to make my team better). That's not even considering the slow motion replays you keep in a real-time part of the game, the QB-No-Throw that has existed for 2 years, the random non-network waits (5-10 seconds) that occur for unexplained reasons where you can't select your next play, and the great fixes TeddyTwo wrote a thread about that are needed.
I find it very strange that the mode of the game that you told us would be optional, OD, is the only free part of the game, gives the richest rewards, and is everywhere but Arena peters out once you get the main rewards, gives minimal rewards for continued play, costs stamina once/if you lose, and gives no XP, coin or anything else for a match or it's drives.
To be clear, for me, gameplay/animations have the same problems (some worse, like blocking which was supposed to improve) that existed last season that caused me (and I am sure others) to stop playing at some point last season. There are SO MANY good things you have added this season: Madden Series, some of the promos, League store/features/help, Sets, Legends program, return (kind of) of H2H, more judicious use of boosts (so far), great responsiveness on many (not all) issues, great interaction with the communities, etc.
Having said that, the core gameplay/animations' issues are magnified by the real-time nature of OD, which is not an enjoyable part of the game (for me) to start, only making it worse, whether I win or lose (I've been in the top 500 each season this year - motivated by the rewards to make my team better). That's not even considering the slow motion replays you keep in a real-time part of the game, the QB-No-Throw that has existed for 2 years, the random non-network waits (5-10 seconds) that occur for unexplained reasons where you can't select your next play, and the great fixes TeddyTwo wrote a thread about that are needed.