Who cares where the feedback goes, whether it's in official EA channels, Operation Sports, Twitter posts or Youtube videos - EA could watch Youtube videos, I'm sure they're well aware of his videos. Just because he doesn't write 5,000 words explaining them it doesn't mean he's not being constructive. He uploads clear examples of broken gameplay explaining what's wrong. It's up to EA to find the solutions. I'm yet to watch one of his videos where the comments made seem unjustified.
The game looks like it deserves a "tirade of bashing" in the state it's in and I struggle to see why offline players would be satisfied with that gameplay. Zero innovation with the lack of physics and amount of canned animation, the glitches and scripted situations it causes (when Backbreaker showed a glimpse of what was possible in fucking 2009!). If that's the gameplay standards most franchise Madden players have, then good for them I suppose, at least they enjoy it. Clearly enough don't for channels like Moody's and SoftDrink's to have such a following, and neither are solely complaining about franchise features, it's mostly about the gameplay. Even if the gameplay was fine, they still have legitimate reasons to complain this much when franchise mode was so much deeper on the PS2 generation in Madden 05 and NFL 2K5.
This isn't mindless lazy bashing, look at these examples, there's like 10 years between these games and Madden is still so technically inferior and less ambitious despite the astronomical budget they have in comparison. Most of what he points out isn't even stuff you could fix with sliders or EA making incremental changes in patches or yearly releases, it's fundamental design choices and lack of innovation, same as the problems in FIFA. Chasing developers down in forums and giving feedback on tiny little details seems pointless when the game is so fundamentally unrealistic and unambitious.
I don't want this to get off-topic, but I'll give you my thoughts on where I think you're going.
Yes, you're right, he doesn't have to be an active part of the community. Unfortunately, if he wants his voice heard - and his observations felt - there was a time and a place to do so. Guess what? He did it. He was big driver of the community 5 years ago. I know because I subscribed to him for quite a while. The Ryan Moody then is different than how he is now. However, that team of when Moody was in his prime consisted of a Madden team that was ambitious and open in communication. The problem is he still bashes Madden even though devs that openly spoke with him, like Clint, are still there. Every single one of his videos are clickbait titles now. Look at how they were 6-7 years ago.
He stopped being constructive, man. You want to defend how he was, versus how he is, that's a problem. He was banned from OS because he changed - and he voiced it. Like I said, I was subscribed and actually loved how he explained things too. He did use 5000+ words to get his message across as well. He was a big part of the community - and then he bailed. He turned around and bashed everything related to Madden in sight.
Sorry, but it's a sore subject because I was a big believe of his approach and defended him a lot. Much like how you are now.
The irony of the videos you posted is that those issues were fixed with sliders. I'm sorry, but that's what happened differently when Moody went the route he did. We had to figure things out and find solutions to the problems he addressed. The first video you posted? That's in M21, it was in M20 even though the video says it isn't. It was a simple adjustment of lowering tackle value. Now it's variations of animations in M21 where the ball carrier reaches for the first down and the goal-line.
I understand there are base issues with both Madden and FIFA, but there are so many levels that we as consumers have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. We just sit here and assume - coming up with simple solutions because it's easy to not be accountable to the reality of what actually exists. Moody used to understand that, and he was diplomatic about how he went about it, well connected and was even invited to Tiburon. He chose to go the other route, and if you want to support that type of mentality - then that's up to you. What he realized is that by going that route is he left us further behind and in the dust - compared to where we could at least have had open communications for the last 3 years.
I just went through this with the closed FIFA beta. This mentality that it's US vs EA. The guys who thought like this were in legit discussion among community members and held accountable to what they said. The biggest issue with FIFA and Madden is the community's feedback that goes after bashing and namecalling, followed by viral memes that skew and leave out context. The context is that both games are built for 3 sets of users, a Casual user, an Online MUT/FUT user and a Sim user.
I'm a Sim user. From day one, of any sports game, I have had to accept the game isn't built for me. Why in the world should I be surprised that it still isn't? I'm not. I've accepted what it is, and each year I'll make due with what's given. There is a very happy crowd of sim users like me that are part of Madden community. We know what it was like back in the Madden 11's and 13's and 18's. Things got better in 19, not great, but 20 took the right steps, and 21 honestly is one of the best. You don't have to take my word for it, but you do need to understand the context of what I'm speaking towards as my perspective is from a sim user. There are still some obvious issues, bugs, which have been noted to be addressed in the upcoming patches. For that, we'll wait and continue to dig in.
For FIFA, I know I'm cautiously optimistic, despite playing a beta that I think is by far one of the best in terms of gameplay variety - but that's me playing sim in 10 minute halves, and turning off all those arcade like features. My biggest scare is the community though. I'm terrified that more players are going to think that an out of context clip is going to make the decision for them and then they go and support out of context memes to bash the game.
So I'll stay in my little lane, focused on problem solving and enjoy the version that I have. If there's 100% nothing I can do to improve it, then I'll become active and start pushing. I'll share my findings and if they help, so be it - if they don't, that's fine too. It's been my mentality since day one, and guys like Ryan Moody used to be of that same thought process which is why a large group of us gravitated towards him.
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