EA Sports has announced the Open Directory Drops for Madden 26 Ultimate Team to take place over an entire weekend while allowing people to earn free packs watching their favorite creators on Twitch. From the 5th through the 7th, just by watching some streams, gamers will receive Twitch Drop Packs and Starter Fantasy Packs. That’s a great deal. Unfortunately, though, the community has never really embraced it as their touchdown celebration.
So, this is the breakdown of what’s being placed in front of players: 5th September will have 4x Twitch Drop Packs. On the 6th, it will all be about 1x Starter Fantasy Pack and 3x Twitch Drop Packs. Then the 7th repeats the same deal. According to xxJELLY84xx, the Starter Fantasy Pack allows you to choose either a full offensive or defensive lineup of 11 player items from 78-80 OVR, but they are BND (meaning you cannot auction them). So free stuff, cool, right? But the story is totally different in the backlash of replies to EA’s tweet.
The comment section for this announcement is complete chaos. One player, GodzillaCoach, could not contain his feelings, “FUCKING. TRASH. GAMES. This one and CFB26. DONE WITH YOU, EA.” It seems the sentiment is echoed by at least dozens of other disgruntled gamers, some dealing with server issues and others with bans, lost content, amongst other things.
Server issues are a huge pain point. Situating a nightmare scenario, GatorFan420 says, “How dare you dsync me on the last play of the superbowl in Madden. This game mode has been going on for 13 years and you still can’t get your servers in check. Give me the loss but my duo gets the win. Absolutely despicable behavior and game.” Imagine grinding through a whole season just to get disconnected at the championship moment. That’s enough to make anyone rage-quit forever.
Then comes the economy situation. ServThaGoat773 complained about being banned from the auction house and losing 2.7 million coins despite “grinding playing solos and buying packs.” Meanwhile, RealJasonGuzman reported a similar incident: “I just got all my coins wiped. I had over 6 million coins. I bought the crystal cards so I didn’t think Surtain was worth 3 million coins. The next day I am coinless.” That’s… that’s just brutal. Imagine waking up to find your digital bank account emptied for no apparent reason.
And let’s take a moment to talk about those free packs that everyone is supposed to get excited for. The general consensus is that these are just filled with low-tier players nobody wants. Johnny_Factz sarcastically responded, “OMG THANK YOU!!!! We are ALL dying for free 72 overalls!!! YESSS” while jontescott79 added, “Yes let’s waste my day for 11 training if we’re lucky.” Multiple users reported that they pulled nothing but 70-73 overall players from these drops, which in Ultimate Team terms is like getting socks for Christmas when you asked for a new gaming console.
But the problems are not just in Ultimate Team. Players are reporting issues across other game modes as well. Dinkleburg0763 asked about Superstar Mode, “CAN YOU MAKE SEASON STATS VIEWABLE IN SUPERSTAR MODE INSTEAD OF ONLY CAREER STATS YET⁉️‼️,” whereas NOLIMITHAWK demanded “fix superstar showdown.” OdunzeBetta wants updates to injured reserve in Franchise mode, and BSG1966Tomy begged for a change in practice squad rules “because 12 Is not enough.”
Now, that’s borderline conspiracy-theorist stuff. User NotKrassenstein launched a monumental rant claiming, “this is NOT A VIDEO GAME! It is always only ever just the AI playing against itself to create a close game. It is hard coded into the game. It doesn’t matter what play that you chose, or how you move the controller. Your plays will succeed or fail based on the AI trying as much as possible to keep the game close.” Whether that’s true or not, it definitely reflects the frustration players feel when the game doesn’t seem to respond to their inputs properly.
A few other players requested some quality-of-life improvements as well. Dreezy200 proposed applying AI technology to add real faces to more athletes, pointing out that “too many players doesn’t have real faces.” And Rainenixx has a great point about streamer promotion: “I wish yall would help promote small.streamers too” rather than only the big-name ones themselves.
Despite all this backlash, a few players are still trying to make the best out of the situation. MikeR2321 said, “my 10 percent people actually watch the streams the other 90 percent turn on streams and let it run in the background for the free packs” and also mentioned pulling an 87 Treadwell from a Twitch pack. So I guess sometimes luck comes through with these drops.
This entire situation vaguely feels like an equivalent to that scene in every sports movie where the team is getting dragged through the mud; the coach rallies them with an inspirational oratory about digging deep and finding a way to win. Except here, EA is supposed to be that coach, while the players await said oratory to be delivered as glitches and server issues keep sacking them.
At the end of the day, free packs are just cool but if the core gameplay experience frustrates the players this much, the development team should spend less time planning promotional events and more on getting the real issues fixed. Madden owners have stood behind for decades; this level of outrage suggests their patience is wearing thin. Hopefully, EA makes an effort in addressing these concerns before the players start turning to other football games… or whenever those actually become legitimate contenders.
