One of the biggest complaints from Madden fans since the game was released is the poor implementation of preventing quitting. In years prior players who quit received a loss and players who were quit on could either count the game or continue versus the CPU. However, EA’s online architecture was revamped to a one-to-one connection between players. While this offloaded bandwidth on EA servers, it caused a huge problem for the Madden online community: quitting with no repercussions.
However, EA has listened to the community and implemented a fix. Whether or not it meets your expectations though is questionable.
Given that there are two online modes that have drastically different impacts when it comes to quitting, EA has provided a fix for Madden Ultimate Team and head-to-head matchups. For Madden Ultimate Team, those that quit at any point in a game will lose contracts from their players and not earn any coins. For those that are quit on, you will be given coins based on the quarter the quit occurred. If quit on before halftime, you lose no contracts, but if quit on after halftime you will lose contracts.
While I understand why they implemented it this way, I truly do not agree that those that are quit on should lose a contract after halftime. The fact that you lose out on roughly half your coins during a quit in the third quarter and you lose a contract is extremely disheartening. While I sincerely hope the repercussions for quitting sets in for those playing, this really isn’t the ideal fix. However, it is certainly better than nothing.
For head-to-head matchups if you quit or disconnect you receive a loss, no questions asked. If you are quit on you receive a win. This is a terrifying implementation. If I were winning and my ISP failed on me and I received a loss, I would be livid. I seriously think there is some further detail that needs to be taken into account before simply giving a loss to the player that quit or disconnected.
Knowing EA and their attentiveness to the community, I have no doubt that they will be monitoring statistics and feedback on this fix. While that is certainly reassuring, there is still some work left here that I hope to see get followed through on. Time will only tell though.
