What’s wrong with FIFA in recent years? Well, a lot of things actually. First they added the impact engine which was broken beyond measure, proving to me personally that they never play tested it. Which is deeply saddening. However, fans are starting to grumble. They have been taking to social media, mainly Reddit, in order to express their opinions on the game. I’m going to be looking into my top 10 must have changes in FIFA 18. These aren’t in any order.
Attacking AI
Okay, so EA have announced that each team that you face will have a different style of play, but what does that actually mean?
I have become sick and tired of finishing every season in Career Mode with a goal difference of 50. 58 goals scored, 8 conceded. All the AI ever does is sit back and defend. There have even been times where an AI player will be through on goal, 1 on 1 with my goalkeeper, only to turn and pass it backwards. It’s odd, breaks the immersion, and also makes the game insanely easy. Even with sliders on, the AI will never attack.
Therefore, they need to make the AI more attacking, and better at defending. But for me, both teams need to be clumsier. The problem with the gameplay in FIFA is that it is too perfect. Nearly every pass is perfect along the floor. Nearly every touch is perfect too. If you watch one Premier League game, a defender will mess up, a striker will mess up, a midfielder would mess up etc. This never happens in FIFA, it would be an interesting concept that they could add.
But in the end, they need more attacking AI. Because I’m sick of never conceding.
Change Youth Player Potential
How many players are rated 90+ in real life? (8, I googled it) And how many of my Youth Players have the potential to be 90-94 rated? 7. That would mean I would have a team of the best players in the world. How often does that ever happen?
This needs to be fixed. AI teams should invest in youth players just like we do. This would make it interesting to see a random player, (Not a regen) become the best player in the world. But at the moment, I won’t sign a youth player unless they have a potential of at least 86. Which would make him as good as Cavani.
The reason I mentioned that AI teams should sign youth players as well is because it would mean there were more of them around. Look at any club in the world, and see how many youth players they have. Tammy Abraham, Timothy Fosu-Mensah, Marcus Rashford, (Yes they’re all from the Premier League, it was off the top of my head.) It would mean that more youth players would be floating around in teams, instead of all of the AI teams coming after MY best youth players.
Stop The Stat Balancing/Scripting
This is a controversial one. EA has said that stat balancing does not exist, but it clearly does.
When I play against Juventus (I am Nacional) I will almost always win. However, when I play against F.C. Paços de Ferreira, they will pass the ball around like Barcelona. This should never happen. Their highest rated player is a 74 rated centre back with 59 pace. They shouldn’t be able to get near my 85 rated Sandro with 95 pace. But he does.
On the flip side, Dybala will never dribble at me. Never shoot from range. Never play a quick one-two then bury it in the bottom corner. He’ll just get the ball, and pass backwards. It makes no sense. Better players with pace, skills, shooting etc. should be intelligent enough to use their stats. This would stop the stat balancing. It would stop teams like Newport County playing like Real Madrid.
Fix The Inform Cards in Ultimate Team
This has been a problem for years. Ultimate Team cards are… Weird. Some of them will work wonders. I bought a Gourcuff card in 2013 and it was one of the best cards I have ever played with. But I decided to sell him and try a different player. It didn’t work, so I bought Gourcuff back. But this different card felt off. He didn’t dribble as well, or shoot as well, or anything. Which brings me to Inform Cards. Why is it, that an Inform Card is sometimes, (More often than not in my case) worse than the regular card. I had Dybala’s regular card in FIFA 17, then tried his Inform card. The regular card demolished players, dancing passed them like a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing. But his Inform card felt sluggish. He was slow off the blocks and felt less like a professional dancer and more like an old celebrity they bring out just for a laugh.
Which is why the cards need to be fixed. If I’m spending hundreds of thousands of my hard earned coins on a card, it should play like it too.
The AI in Player Careers is horrendous.
Considering the amount of hype that was put into The Journey, the AI in it was still as abysmal as it always was. They will never pass to you correctly, sometimes they’ll chip the ball up to you from 5 foot away. When I play Player Career mode, I constantly have to run around the pitch pressing “A” in order to ever get the ball. It forces me to do all the work myself. Yes I could take control of the entire team, but then it essentially becomes Manager Mode.
Allow Us To Carry On After The Journey Has Finished
First of, I got bored of “Rashford Career mode simulator 2017”, I mean The Journey. It wasn’t very good, it was really weird and shouldn’t ever exist. But it does exist and they insist on pushing it more and more down our throats until we throw our money at them to make them go away. So, The Journey is here to stay. But at the end of The Journey, when you’ve just finished the first season and started your career as the next best thing, it gives you an Ultimate Team card and a pat on the back. Is that it? You may think. Surely I can carry on, right? Nope. It just ends. What ever became of Alex Hunter? No one knows.
If you want to add a bit of role play into it you could imagine that Alex Hunter was never heard of again because he went to China for the money and broke his leg, ending his career as a Footballer. He then went into Managing where he got Newport County promoted into League One. I don’t know, just trying to make The Journey a little more interesting than it was.
All in all, let us carry on after it finishes please. Otherwise it was a complete waste of time.
Fix The Youth Player’s Faces
Honestly, they are all ugly as sin. Their pictures make them all look like either generic white man, generic Asian man, or generic black man. Not exactly the most immersive thing in the world when 6 of the starting 11 players look the same. To make it even worse, in game, they’ll look nothing like they do in their pictures. I have a player in my current career mode who is bald in his picture then has long flowing dreadlocks in game. I honestly don’t know why they don’t look the same in the picture as they do in game, I would assume it wouldn’t be too difficult to fix. But that’s EA for you.
Fix Stadium Shadows
This is the most bizarre problem ever. But the shadows make it almost impossible to see. When the ball enters that shadow, it blends in. The ball could be glowing green and I still wouldn’t be able to see it. When I play against a team that has a stadium full of shadows, I might as well forfeit.
Please fix this EA, I don’t know how, but please.
Make Skills Great Again
Maybe not too good, but hear me out. A “Ronaldo Chop” in real life, done by a world-class player, could make a defender fall over. In FIFA, however, the defender will just tackle you straight away. Skills in FIFA 17 were completely ruined, there’s almost no reason to use them anymore. 5 star skilled player? What’s the point? Obviously you need at least 3 star skills but still, the skills will barely ever come off. Now I must point out that I am talking about AI defenders. People in Ultimate Team still can’t defend skill to save their life.
But skills need to be fixed, it’s not that I’m called for them to be overpowered like they were in FIFA 12, they’re just useless in FIFA 17.
Add New Commentary
I’m sick, and tired of hearing the same boring commentary sometimes interrupted by the commentator shouting my player’s name. Or the comical start of the game commentary: “This is how the home team will be lining up. Sessegnon in defense, with one man up top as the lone striker.” Like, seriously? It makes it sound like I’m only playing two men. Either add in all possible player names into the commentary so they can say them, or remove that.
Also, they need more commentary. The commentary in FIFA 17 is horrendous. It’s kind of embarrassing how bad it is at times. It hasn’t changed for the past 5 years. Even if they added in a few lines of extra dialogue I’d be happy. Not that I even listen to the commentary anymore, it gives me a headache.
That’s it for my list of must have changes to FIFA 18. Will EA actually do anything about this? Probably not. But we can all dream.
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