They behave like fullbacks for some reason and because I don’t want to change to WF’s and take a -1 I’m pretty much stuck with them there. At least give us the option to pay points to make them natural at a position they are familiar with. Massive oversight by the devs here.
While the game didn’t feel perfect a few weeks ago, it definitely had its fun moments and I really enjoyed the initial grind of getting my players the XP they needed and would happily play a few more games to make it happen. It was a satisfying gameplay loop.
Fast forward to now and I have to force myself to play a couple games at a time before I feel the need to go play/do something else. Simply just playing a game is not a fun experience anymore.
The problems aren’t just one thing or the other either, it’s the game as a whole now. If you want to spend your time babysitting someone giving their left stick an exercise for 5 minutes of your life, or worse, you’re one of those bottom-feeders who does it, then I genuinely think you are a psychopath. The game since its release has always catered a little more to the one-player-army playstyle than the rest, but it’s legitimately comical at this point. Let’s not even get started on the passing mechanics (or lack thereof), which started out as being pretty much the only completely jank aspect about the game to begin with.
With where we’re at now, there is little to no creativity in build-ups whatsoever, an AI that doesn’t even know what game they’re playing 90% of the time on both sides of the ball, and a skill gap so low that even someone who has never watched a football match or played a day in their lives (irl or virtually) could pick up the game one day and be in the top 500 the next week.
You guys turned this into a Frankenstein football game just so little Timmy could stay close in/win a few extra games and maybe spend what, an extra few dollars or a few weeks on the game? It’s honestly just sad.
The funniest part is that you guys have painted yourselves into a corner now. You could have waited and released 5v5 with the 1v1 modes all at once and you would have retained a larger player base in doing so.
I find it unbelievable that the devs are worried about releasing this mode now, which will undoubtably thin out the matchmaking for an already TINY community of players. Do the people making this game truly understand what happens when a title ends up having increasingly long queue times? I’ll give you a hint.
It dies.
I know it sounds bad since EA’s equivalent is sloppy dogshit, but hear me out.
A set of weekly challenges that put you in the middle of a game and you have to complete a certain objective or multiple objectives. What would make it actually fun is if they genuinely make them challenging enough and not just a gimme like with solo cups.
Maybe something like “You’re down 4-0 at halftime - make the comeback and win in regulation time.”. Or even just full match challenges like “Tiki Taka - make 75 passes in your opponents half and win the game by x goals” or “Play in the air - win 50 air duels and win the game by x goals” are engaging enough without having to put in full effort.
Even the rewards wouldn’t have to be that grandiose, maybe like 10k XP per challenge and when you complete them all you get an extra little something-or-other.
I think it would just be nice to have another way to pay the game where the pressure is off but you still feel like you’re progressing your club. Considering there’s no real menu grind (and that’s definitely a good thing!), I find myself wanting more than just re-running a cup when I don’t feel like locking in to play against someone else.
For me it’s gotta be the fact that there is nothing to incentivize you to pass it around and create nice plays. If anything you are deterred from doing so because even simple passes can lose possession and get you countered.
You accomplish much more as a one-player-army because your player will never get tired and you can legitimately sit on the the edge of the box and do nothing until the red line forces you into making something happen. The amount of times I’ve seen the red line creep up to the edge of my box while defending is truly astounding. I appreciate that the function is in the game, but it doesn’t really do anything to change the boring META.
Perhaps you add a steep stamina penalty when someone is on the ball for too long? Or I mean, stamina playing a role in general would be nice.. considering most of these players are sprinting around for 90 in-game minutes.
Truly unfortunate that without any player inertia or ball physics, this will be the META until the end of time. At least you guys tried, a lot better than most can say.
Only a handful of my 50 or so games have I seen my opponent actually try to make a nice passing combination, simply because you are rewarded and incentivized to do less.
The defending would be fine if attackers couldn’t just spam their left stick and then their right stick once and be able to laser any shot they want regardless of the angle. The keepers honestly aren’t programmed that badly, but because so many chances are virtually one on ones, they feel worse than they are.
The snappy interceptions need to be fixed as well. A player can be open to receive it and all of the sudden somebody idle that’s 5 feet away is magically attracted to the ball in an instant with little to no hindrance to their movement from that point forward. No bobble of the ball or really any ball physics at all, and no need to control it. It just stops dead at their feet. They can just sprint and make a couple counterintuitive touches and be completely through.
All in all, it’s not a bad effort at making a football game from scratch and they’ve found an engaging way to get around not having any of the licensing. I feel the game itself is a bit confused about what it wants to be. It wants to be about skill, manual inputs, and a competitive atmosphere, but yet it delivers gameplay that feels one dimensional and arcade-y. If they can iron things out and make the gameplay experience feel smoother in its animations then it would do a world of good.