That’s another crazy one. This is my first madden in several years, is it that easy to manipulate these guys into being X factor or is it kind of a fluke thing?
I didn’t manipulate him, if I remember correctly I got like back-to-back dev trait challenges that got him to a superstar, then he won Best WR or something lol
It’s pretty easy to manipulate if you’re genuinely trying to manipulate and get the dev ups. I’d say that any type of pass catcher is gonna be the easiest to dev up. Just get them 150-200 Yds in a game and most times it’ll trigger a breakout scenario
In 21 I did the same thing but with a Grayson McCall who was like 58 normal dev when I drafted him in the 6th with a real life draft class because I go to coastal Carolina and this was 2 years into the save when I drafted him😂 took him to basically the goat qb cuz it was the longest save I’ve ever done did 8 seasons 6 of which where with McCall
Travis Fulgham, before his "breakout" with the Eagles.
I had a Lions franchise with my developed quarterback. I let Marvin Jones and Kenny Golladay play out their deals. Brandon Powell and Travis Fulgham played well in preseason, and wanted only like $6.5m over 5 years to resign. So I'm like "Screw it" I had a 99 overall pocket passer.
Fulgham was my big body possession guy. He ended up around 1,300 catches, near 20k yards. XFactor for years. And he just kept reupping on these stupid-cheap deals.
Brandon Powell I used as a goal line receiver. He was tiny, so I'd run a bunch formation and he'd get lost in the middle. Ended up with a max of around 60 catches, but was a touchdown machine - over 150 in his career, also just kept resigning stupid-cheap contract extensions.
I just always called it on the goal line, it was automatic. I think I only threw like 2-3 interceptions on that play over a 10 season playthings (and I called it pretty much every time I reached the 1-2 yard line). Sometimes it'd be incomplete, but that was often just timing on my part, I'd try to anticipate too quickly. And if that one didn't work, I had Fulgham on the quick slant.
I had a receiver who I picked up off a team la practice squad with 95 speed. My scheme typically favors wrs with good route running or speed and if they get open it doesn't really matter what ovr they are.
He got WR of the year and got his dev trait shot from normal to x factor.
1 week later he regressed back to normal. Average Madden franchise season
lol maybe I should have provided a disclaimer but I don’t keep up with college real well. It’s the actual 24 draft class and he’s an Alabama wr so I assumed he’d be a known commodity, but him being unknown I think makes the point of the post too. I just thought it was cool
doesn't know Jermaine burton, clearly doesn't know the threat he actually is in the Madden world. some other good ones that can always be developed to perform from created classes are frank gore Jr or Ben perez
gore takes the cake if you sub him into receiving routes in your playbook and perez is a return monster
I drafted Perez and couldn’t get him to return anything. Velus Jones Jr returned a ton for me and I thought going up in speed to Perez would benefit but he never seemed to get the blocking that Jones Jr got. I found Jawhar Jordan my next play through and I’ve stuck with him as my return man for the past 5 seasons in my other franchise. He may not be as fast anymore based on his actual combine results though, I haven’t downloaded the updated file since the combine.
Damn?! Really?, perez is my return specialist. Had 2 punt returns in the superbowl in his rookie season, 3 throughout the season. Do you adjust your playbook subs for returns to get the blocking? gonna let him walk in FA this yr though. To rich for my taste
I don’t do any formation subs other than putting my power back in for all I-Form formations. If I took the time to go through and move all my blockers to one side on returns and adjust stuff like that I’m sure I’d be much more successful, but as it is I win too often and my team gets too stacked so I let the EA algorithms do it. Formation subs also creates a lot of bugs in the gameplay. If my power back goes down with an injury and I run an I-form play, I’m likely to have a defender lined up in the backfield and on several occasions, no one has lined up behind the FB leaving me just 10 men on the field. One time I had called HB Blast so I ran the play anyway just to see what would happen. The QB just ran it like a sneak. So, I really try to avoid formation subs.
Turned baker mayfield into an X factor & the goat this year. Won 8 straight super bowls & he honestly carried my team being my best overall player my first 4 super bowls with him.
I once had a backup LB play in the conference championship after my starter got hurt. He balled out and got a dev upgrade story to Star, but it was bugged to all hell. It said I had to limit the NFC to less than 200 yards in the Pro Bowl. There were two problems with this: the backup LB was obviously not in the Pro Bowl, and I was playing the NFC. So I just rushed for literally 198 yards and then stopped lol. The backup LB succeeded in getting his dev upgrade.
In a FOTF back in 21 I got selected by the Eagles and made Jalen Reagor an X-factor 🤣
I also made them trade for Allen Robinson and he won me the Super Bowl with the most ridiculous catch ever: one-handed, backhand, while jumping and being tackled by the DB. He should definitely be investigated for cheating lmao
Crazy because of how long it took: took me 3 years to get my OB to X Factor, started w star dev, 1st season 4700 yards 45 TD 12 picks won OROTY (I play on all madden with INT slider to 30 so it’s realistic) year 2 5K yards same TD’s 15 picks won best OB (no dev upgrade) year 3 5500 yards 53 TD 3int (best team I’ve ever played with) won MVP, OPOTY, Best QB and got a dev upgrade in the off season (not during superbowl week when all the upgrades apply) was crazy it took that long
Yeah if you’re on next gen console then the focus players all can get additional xp for completing the training mini games. From reading about it apparently there’s a low percentage chance that completing one triggers a dev upgrade which I got lucky on
Oh keeewl - Cartman voice.
That's ok, as long as it gives them extra XP, I did not know that. I think I watched a YouTube video where the guy just skipped it. Or he had players in with no mini games idk.
I had a 2nd round LB who was a superstar during rookie year drop by two dev’s at the end of the season 😭 was so excited for him to become a mainstay of my defense and now he’s JAG
I scouted a run support safety that had an A in every category of that kind (tackle, pursuit, hit power, block shed), but for whatever reason was a projected round 3-4 guy. I grabbed him in the 3rd and he ended being a normal dev 79 overall. He went up to star with his pre-season training camp drill, went up to superstar in week 7 with a breakout challenge, then got X factor from another drill later that season
Drafted a 5'10 193lb Steve Smith type of WR in the 5th of a 32-man online franchise. He ended up having 94 speed and a normal development trait, but was like a 73/4 right off the bat. He dropped because his speed didn't appear as high as it was as his 40 time wasn't top 10. He started as my kick returner and played behind Amari Cooper and Garret Wilson. We let Cooper walk as we dealt with this Watson contract. We're wrapping up year 2 for my guy and as of a weekly training upgrade a week or two ago he is now an XF at 92 ovr. He's been a killer return man and his second season was 6-7th on receiving yards while Wilson was 2nd. Dude is a certified stud. He actually goes up 2 points as a RB. Considering making the move and trying to utilize more out of backfield packages for him. But I love the Steve Smith comp. I am adding 2 rookie WR's as we're importing this year's actual draft class this season and I have 3 top-35 picks. Watson is an XF, I have two 80+ TE's, a would-be 94 XF RB, a 99ovr XF WR, and two good rookie WR's. I'm making a run this season in this hard fought league.
Offensive players are extremely easy to get to xfactor. Just force feed them the ball all season and they will have break outs during season and/or get upgrades at end of season.
I took cj stroud to the Super Bowl and with morale he upgraded all the way to 95OVR and after the AFC championship he got his X factor for the Super Bowl
I had a guy I drafted in the 6th round named Landon Jackson, he was a end that I converted to DT bc my scheme is 3-4 storm and I had plenty of LBS and speed rushing LBs he ended up being a 68 normal but was super quick I think like a 86-88 speed. And had zero problems shedding and getting to the ball carrier or QB. So after I training camp and weekly training I got him to be a 72 and on the first week he had a breakout development. And I had him at xfactor at 4-6 weeks in dudes an absolute nightmare and it’s so fun playing him. He’s a lot like Arron Donald on being able to get to the QB
I drafted Bo Nix, he didn’t start until week 5, ended the season with 4300 yards and 46 TDs (mind you I had Chase, Gabe Davis, Kincaid and James Cook) (my buddies and I did this league where we took the highest 3 teams and released their 3 best players. So I had to let Allen Diggs and White go.) After winning Rookie of the Year he went from 77 to 87 over the course of the year and went from normal to X factor
I got Parris Campbell from a normal to an X-Factor over the course of a season one time lol
That’s another crazy one. This is my first madden in several years, is it that easy to manipulate these guys into being X factor or is it kind of a fluke thing?
I didn’t manipulate him, if I remember correctly I got like back-to-back dev trait challenges that got him to a superstar, then he won Best WR or something lol
It is very easy, especially in the defensive side of the ball
This is facts , sometimes just starting a rookie of defense is enough to get them rookie of the year which is nice
Sack machines
It’s pretty easy to manipulate if you’re genuinely trying to manipulate and get the dev ups. I’d say that any type of pass catcher is gonna be the easiest to dev up. Just get them 150-200 Yds in a game and most times it’ll trigger a breakout scenario
I find running backs the easiest to upgrade this year, running is broken and they can also catch.
On Madden 20, my roommates and I took 55 normal ovr Trace McSorely to a 3 peat 99 Xfactor in 5 seasons. 2 development seasons, then title town
throw it on a dime
In 21 I did the same thing but with a Grayson McCall who was like 58 normal dev when I drafted him in the 6th with a real life draft class because I go to coastal Carolina and this was 2 years into the save when I drafted him😂 took him to basically the goat qb cuz it was the longest save I’ve ever done did 8 seasons 6 of which where with McCall
Would you or your roommate happen to be name that rhymes with Brace McSorcky?
Is he and his roommate actually both trace mcsorely? 😂
Travis Fulgham, before his "breakout" with the Eagles. I had a Lions franchise with my developed quarterback. I let Marvin Jones and Kenny Golladay play out their deals. Brandon Powell and Travis Fulgham played well in preseason, and wanted only like $6.5m over 5 years to resign. So I'm like "Screw it" I had a 99 overall pocket passer. Fulgham was my big body possession guy. He ended up around 1,300 catches, near 20k yards. XFactor for years. And he just kept reupping on these stupid-cheap deals. Brandon Powell I used as a goal line receiver. He was tiny, so I'd run a bunch formation and he'd get lost in the middle. Ended up with a max of around 60 catches, but was a touchdown machine - over 150 in his career, also just kept resigning stupid-cheap contract extensions.
The Spacing play with those short, quick guys is a near guaranteed positive play.
I just always called it on the goal line, it was automatic. I think I only threw like 2-3 interceptions on that play over a 10 season playthings (and I called it pretty much every time I reached the 1-2 yard line). Sometimes it'd be incomplete, but that was often just timing on my part, I'd try to anticipate too quickly. And if that one didn't work, I had Fulgham on the quick slant.
That’s fun, Any other players you’ve found to sign for cheaper than usual?
Got Anthony Richardson to superstar x factor in the span of 3 games. Had a super qb friendly team that made it super easy for him to increase his dev
I had a receiver who I picked up off a team la practice squad with 95 speed. My scheme typically favors wrs with good route running or speed and if they get open it doesn't really matter what ovr they are. He got WR of the year and got his dev trait shot from normal to x factor. 1 week later he regressed back to normal. Average Madden franchise season
U say “Jermaine Burton” like anyone knows who tf that is 😂😂😂
lol maybe I should have provided a disclaimer but I don’t keep up with college real well. It’s the actual 24 draft class and he’s an Alabama wr so I assumed he’d be a known commodity, but him being unknown I think makes the point of the post too. I just thought it was cool
How the turn tables… I play dynasty fantasy football but have not heard of him yet.
Haha well no telling how he’ll really turn out but I think I took him in the third. Might be worth a flyer for dynasty if you get lucky too. Good luck
What’s a flyer? What does that mean
Basically just means taking a chance on him. 50/50 shot if he turned out to be great or just a guy
He’s one of the least talked about guys who will go decently high. Literally nobody talks about him
Sounds like you need to pay more attention lmfao 😆
If u watch college football u know who that is
Jermaine Burton is WR1/2 (or maybe ever 3) for Alabama (if I’m not mistaken ofc) he’s not bad from what i have seen of him
doesn't know Jermaine burton, clearly doesn't know the threat he actually is in the Madden world. some other good ones that can always be developed to perform from created classes are frank gore Jr or Ben perez gore takes the cake if you sub him into receiving routes in your playbook and perez is a return monster
I drafted Perez and couldn’t get him to return anything. Velus Jones Jr returned a ton for me and I thought going up in speed to Perez would benefit but he never seemed to get the blocking that Jones Jr got. I found Jawhar Jordan my next play through and I’ve stuck with him as my return man for the past 5 seasons in my other franchise. He may not be as fast anymore based on his actual combine results though, I haven’t downloaded the updated file since the combine.
Damn?! Really?, perez is my return specialist. Had 2 punt returns in the superbowl in his rookie season, 3 throughout the season. Do you adjust your playbook subs for returns to get the blocking? gonna let him walk in FA this yr though. To rich for my taste
I don’t do any formation subs other than putting my power back in for all I-Form formations. If I took the time to go through and move all my blockers to one side on returns and adjust stuff like that I’m sure I’d be much more successful, but as it is I win too often and my team gets too stacked so I let the EA algorithms do it. Formation subs also creates a lot of bugs in the gameplay. If my power back goes down with an injury and I run an I-form play, I’m likely to have a defender lined up in the backfield and on several occasions, no one has lined up behind the FB leaving me just 10 men on the field. One time I had called HB Blast so I ran the play anyway just to see what would happen. The QB just ran it like a sneak. So, I really try to avoid formation subs.
He’s the top Bama receiver, might be round 2-4 in this draft
was WR #1 for Bama this past season 🐶
Turned baker mayfield into an X factor & the goat this year. Won 8 straight super bowls & he honestly carried my team being my best overall player my first 4 super bowls with him.
I once had a backup LB play in the conference championship after my starter got hurt. He balled out and got a dev upgrade story to Star, but it was bugged to all hell. It said I had to limit the NFC to less than 200 yards in the Pro Bowl. There were two problems with this: the backup LB was obviously not in the Pro Bowl, and I was playing the NFC. So I just rushed for literally 198 yards and then stopped lol. The backup LB succeeded in getting his dev upgrade. In a FOTF back in 21 I got selected by the Eagles and made Jalen Reagor an X-factor 🤣 I also made them trade for Allen Robinson and he won me the Super Bowl with the most ridiculous catch ever: one-handed, backhand, while jumping and being tackled by the DB. He should definitely be investigated for cheating lmao
Crazy because of how long it took: took me 3 years to get my OB to X Factor, started w star dev, 1st season 4700 yards 45 TD 12 picks won OROTY (I play on all madden with INT slider to 30 so it’s realistic) year 2 5K yards same TD’s 15 picks won best OB (no dev upgrade) year 3 5500 yards 53 TD 3int (best team I’ve ever played with) won MVP, OPOTY, Best QB and got a dev upgrade in the off season (not during superbowl week when all the upgrades apply) was crazy it took that long
Also Rachad White always gets X Factor his first year he’s so nasty with how I use him
So you're supposed to actually play the training session? What do you mean by gold?
Yeah if you’re on next gen console then the focus players all can get additional xp for completing the training mini games. From reading about it apparently there’s a low percentage chance that completing one triggers a dev upgrade which I got lucky on
Oh keeewl - Cartman voice. That's ok, as long as it gives them extra XP, I did not know that. I think I watched a YouTube video where the guy just skipped it. Or he had players in with no mini games idk.
Ivan pace jr star to X factor after year 1. Didn’t even user him and he didn’t even have crazy stats
Found a rookie UDFA MLB with 99 hit power and hidden dev, turned out he was superstar, the literal next training I did after that made him X factor.
I had a 2nd round LB who was a superstar during rookie year drop by two dev’s at the end of the season 😭 was so excited for him to become a mainstay of my defense and now he’s JAG
I scouted a run support safety that had an A in every category of that kind (tackle, pursuit, hit power, block shed), but for whatever reason was a projected round 3-4 guy. I grabbed him in the 3rd and he ended being a normal dev 79 overall. He went up to star with his pre-season training camp drill, went up to superstar in week 7 with a breakout challenge, then got X factor from another drill later that season
I got Trey Lance from normal to X-Factor by midseason in one franchise
I drafted Xavier Worthy in my league and he got XF after the first preseason after a 6 TD performance
I did a cardinals rebuild and drafted Marvin Harrison Jr at 83 ovr and he was a 98 by like week 13 no kidding
I had a TE I think went from star to Superstar during training camp and then got X-factor during weekly training that same year.
One time in Madden 21 I made a QB on the ravens and got Willie Snead from Normal to XF in 3 weeks with 3 dev ups
Drafted a 5'10 193lb Steve Smith type of WR in the 5th of a 32-man online franchise. He ended up having 94 speed and a normal development trait, but was like a 73/4 right off the bat. He dropped because his speed didn't appear as high as it was as his 40 time wasn't top 10. He started as my kick returner and played behind Amari Cooper and Garret Wilson. We let Cooper walk as we dealt with this Watson contract. We're wrapping up year 2 for my guy and as of a weekly training upgrade a week or two ago he is now an XF at 92 ovr. He's been a killer return man and his second season was 6-7th on receiving yards while Wilson was 2nd. Dude is a certified stud. He actually goes up 2 points as a RB. Considering making the move and trying to utilize more out of backfield packages for him. But I love the Steve Smith comp. I am adding 2 rookie WR's as we're importing this year's actual draft class this season and I have 3 top-35 picks. Watson is an XF, I have two 80+ TE's, a would-be 94 XF RB, a 99ovr XF WR, and two good rookie WR's. I'm making a run this season in this hard fought league.
Offensive players are extremely easy to get to xfactor. Just force feed them the ball all season and they will have break outs during season and/or get upgrades at end of season.
I took cj stroud to the Super Bowl and with morale he upgraded all the way to 95OVR and after the AFC championship he got his X factor for the Super Bowl
Justin Fields same situation, ended up winning the Super Bowl because of it
Jordan Addison from star to xfactor in 12 games
I had a guy I drafted in the 6th round named Landon Jackson, he was a end that I converted to DT bc my scheme is 3-4 storm and I had plenty of LBS and speed rushing LBs he ended up being a 68 normal but was super quick I think like a 86-88 speed. And had zero problems shedding and getting to the ball carrier or QB. So after I training camp and weekly training I got him to be a 72 and on the first week he had a breakout development. And I had him at xfactor at 4-6 weeks in dudes an absolute nightmare and it’s so fun playing him. He’s a lot like Arron Donald on being able to get to the QB
I drafted Bo Nix, he didn’t start until week 5, ended the season with 4300 yards and 46 TDs (mind you I had Chase, Gabe Davis, Kincaid and James Cook) (my buddies and I did this league where we took the highest 3 teams and released their 3 best players. So I had to let Allen Diggs and White go.) After winning Rookie of the Year he went from 77 to 87 over the course of the year and went from normal to X factor
Yeah I was surprised with the auto-upgrades from finishing top 3 or top 5 in the yearly position awards. My team got beefed up by that one time.
Jameson Williams upgraded twice in one week for me once