All of the New Madden NFL 21 X-Factors and Superstar Abilities Revealed (Gridiron Notes)

[CM Hooe]

The latest Gridiron Notes is available, as the team goes over the Madden NFL 21 X-Factors...

Written By: Steve Noah

Click here to view the article.

[canes21]

Meh, seems like they are going to rely on abilities more and more to bring about dynamic gameplay between players instead of fixing certain aspects of the game. We don't need fatigue and stamina oriented abilities, we need stamina and fatigue to just work properly and then the ratings can do their thing.

I wasn't a big fan of the abilities when they were introduced. I'm disliking them the more they add. They are obviously very H2H oriented which is to be expected as that is the direction Madden seems to be moving. I'm fine with the idea of abilities/badges if they are implemented differently and less.... gamey I guess is the word I am looking for. I don't like abilities that give silly boosts or things like 100% fumble chance if a player in the zone makes a tackle. I'd rather abilities just represent what a player can do. I'd like to see McCaffrey have his route running ability simply represented by more precise route running animations that get him more separation organically. I'd rather Lamar Jackson simply have more animations that allow him to do more elusive actions, I'd rather his vision while running be much more superior than other QB's.

The abilities just seem to be another band-aid fix for a game that severely needs many areas reworked. Since EA cannot fix ball carrier logic, to make Lamar Jackson a threat running the ball they just give him abilities to artificially raise his attributes so that he breaks more tackles or jukes better than other players. He will still zig zag run like all other CPU ball carriers, he will still run full speed and never set up blocks, he will never cut back, etc. He'll simply be a mindless ball carrier that runs just like every other CPU ball carrier except he'll have boosts to his tackle breaking/avoiding.

[jfsolo]

It's clear that SS/XF abilities are the focal point of gameplay design going forward, so it's all going to be about balance/tuning of course.

[ripcandlestickpark]

These systems are definitely things I have mixed feelings on. In general, I appreciate what Superstar Abilities do for player differentiation and while most X-Factor abilities are fine, they are certainly a handful that appear too gamey or otherwise problematic (ex. Avalanche, Bazooka).

As I've said before, this really wouldn't be such a problem if we could edit individual abilities (which, based on this blog, doesn't seem to be the case for the second year in a row). There's really no good reason why we shouldn't be able to edit abilities in the same manner we edit ratings or traits. Maybe the fact that they're tied to title updates, rather than roster ones, has something to do with that. If that's the case, perhaps there'd be a way to edit them only within Franchise or something (as opposed to main menu roster management). Yes, I know the process of switching characters and "re-rerolling" exists within Franchise, but that's a less-than-ideal system to put it mildly.

Or, instead of having to turn all abilities off to avoid the not-so-great ones, perhaps they can introduce an option to keep Star abilities but turn off X-Factors or something like that.

[ewto16]

All these abilities seem like just a bunch of fuss to cover up for poor attributes that are already in the game. Like someone else said....just rework the game so that the attributes actually mean something and make a difference in players. Stop having 85% of the roster be between a 70 - 85 score. Use the actual ratings.

Also, it said that MUT was the next blog. I thought we were getting an update on whatever they were going to do for Franchise next?

[roadman]

Quote: Originally Posted by ewto16

All these abilities seem like just a bunch of fuss to cover up for poor attributes that are already in the game. Like someone else said....just rework the game so that the attributes actually mean something and make a difference in players. Stop having 85% of the roster be between a 70 - 85 score. Use the actual ratings. Also, it said that MUT was the next blog. I thought we were getting an update on whatever they were going to do for Franchise next?

Franchise news August 15th or before based on the twitch from Kraelo and Clint this week.

I'm ok with the abilities if they keep them balanced and not over powered.

[XtremeDunkz]

Abilities need to be

1. Fully editable
2. Untied from dev trait
3. Tierable
4. More nuanced

Long way to go for me to consider them a positive.


Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[illwill10]

Quote: Originally Posted by roadman

Franchise news August 15th or before based on the twitch from Kraelo and Clint this week. I'm ok with the abilities if they keep them balanced and not over powered.

It's seems Like Franchise and MUT will be last official develop updates prior to launch. Maybe they could do a Misc. Gridiron on August 21, but most likely MUT might be last official news since early access is 8/25. August 15th is a Saturday. So I could see that Franchise update being between August 11th-August 17th. I expect they will start dropping gameplay and FoTF videos around the next 2 weeks.

It looks like The Yard might be another post-launch mode. I feel that is something they should try to promote prior to launch. It looks like we won't get any Next Gen news until after launch. I expect them to go over next gen news around October.