While fans ofMadden NFL 23complain annually about the small and incremental changes toMaddengameplay and modes like Franchise, the MaddenUltimate Team community tends to remain pretty committed, with the mode generating millions of dollars in revenue for EA every year. Once known as completely pay-to-win, MaddenUltimate Team has introduced more player-friendly aspects to the mode that allow players an easier path to earn items without spending money, but Ultimate Team can still learn a lot fromMLB The Show’s Diamond Dynasty, which excels at keeping players engaged with great content that can be earned by simply playing the game.
MaddenUltimate Team and Diamond Dynasty are card collecting modes that give players the opportunity to build dream teams comprised of players from today and legends from the sport’s history, along with some future stars as well. There are a lot of similarities betweenMadden NFL 23Ultimate Team andMLB The Show 22’s Diamond Dynasty, but some small differences make Diamond Dynasty a much better experience for most players.
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How Money Works In Ultimate Team and Diamond Dynasty
In-game currency is how packs, upgrades, and player items are bought in the marketplace, and Madden Ultimate Team has a lot of currency, with three different types of virtual currency used insideMadden 23. MUT Coins are earned through playing games, while training points are earned by trading in cards or completing challenges, and Madden Points can be bought in the online store. That might seem a bit overwhelming to some fans thinking about getting into Ultimate Team for the first time, and the reality is that there is a better way to handle currency, whichMLB The Show 22has captured.
Simplicity sometimes goes a long way in gaming, and Diamond Dynasty captures this perfectly with its in-game currency, called Stubs. Stubs are used for everything a player could want to buy within Diamond Dynasty, including packs, individual players, cosmetic items, equipment for a Create-a-Player pro, and more.Stubs can be bought in theMLB The Show 22online store, but they are also earned relatively easily in most modes of the game, and can be earned very quickly if the player focuses on Featured Programs inside of Diamond Dynasty.
On the other hand,Madden Ultimate Team gets downright confusingwith currency. Players use coins to buy specific players in the auction house, but quick selling the same player will earn them Training Points. Some packs can be bought with MUT Points and others with Training Points, and only some can be purchased with Coins. One type of currency would go a long way toward making the mode more inviting to more players, increasing player engagement in Ultimate Team and helping more fans build better teams.
Not only does Madden Ultimate Team encourage spending real-world money more than Diamond Dynasty does, but once the player spends the money, it’s much more of a gamble that they will get anything good for it. InMadden 23, players can buy Madden Points used to buy packs, which offers a chance topull a good Ultimate Team card or item, but no guarantee that the player will get something useful. In Diamond Dynasty, players can use Stubs to buy packs for the same kind of chance, but they can also spend those Stubs directly in the marketplace on a specific player they want.Madden 23would benefit from unifying currency and making it easier for players to know what they’ll be getting when they spend their money.
Bring More Customization to Madden Ultimate Team
MLB The Show 22’s Diamond Dynasty does a good job of giving gamers the feel of ownership and identity, and both stats and customization go a long way toward accomplishing that. In modes like Ultimate Team or Diamond Dynasty, everyone’s team is at least slightly different from the others, so the more the developer can shine a light on those differences, the more of a connection the player will feel to their own team.Diamond Dynasty allows players to fully design and customize their team’s uniformsand even the ballpark they play in, giving fans a feeling of identity. InMadden 23, Ultimate Team players only have the option of uniforms that exist in the NFL already or specially designed uniforms that EA Tiburon releases. More customization in MUT would go a long way.
Statistics matter in sports, and dedicatedDiamond Dynasty or Ultimate Team players develop a connection to their players, so a better statistics tracking system would make MUT a lot better too. InMLB The Show 22, Diamond Dynasty players can see the statistics for any player that they have ever had as part of their lineup, even if they only had one at-bat as part of the squad. It’s a fun way for gamers to look at the performance of certain players, see which players have been a part of the active roster the longest, and help establish more of an affinity to the players on their roster.Madden 23could use that in Ultimate Team.
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Adopt the Featured Program Model
Madden Ultimate Team took a step in the right direction inMadden 23with the addition of the Field Pass, but the new Battle Pass-like reward path still comes up short ofMLB The Show 22’s Featured Programs. Field Passes give fans items, players, or currency for completing tasks in Ultimate Team like earning challenge stars, scoring a certain amount of touchdowns, or opening packs. At any given time, there are three or more activeField Passes running in Madden Ultimate Team: one for the current season, one for competitive online play, and one or more Field Passes designed around current themes of cards, such as superhero-themed elite cards or Halloween-themed cards.
MLB The Show 22has mastered this model and made it as simple as possible for fans of Diamond Dynasty, as there is only one Featured Program running at any time. What’s more, any mode in the game, Diamond Dynasty or not, earns the player XP for the program.Diamond Dynasty Featured Programs often feature some of the best itemsin the mode, and most players use it to build their teams with guaranteed diamond-level items.Madden 23would do well to learn that the idea behind these types of passes is to keep players playing the game. The rewards should be based on the player engaging with the product in whatever way they want to, as that will keep them loyal for longer.
Madden NFL 23is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
