FIFA 12 Career Mode: 3 Features, All Desperately Needed - NaturalSelected's Blog

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FIFA 12 Career Mode: 3 Features, All Desperately Needed Stuck

Posted on June 22, 2011 at 10:26 AM.

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I've really been enjoying the improvement of FIFA 10 and FIFA 11 in terms of on-the-field gameplay, and the features that have been blogged about ad nauseam for FIFA 12 will hopefully improve the experience even further.

But as a long-time Madden franchise mode fan, FIFA Career Mode is in dire straits. We heard repeatedly during the development of FIFA 11 that revamping the mode was a three-year process. Fair enough, year 1 of 3 had a lot of issues, including:

Launch version had incorrect emails in CM flying all over the place

Real lack of any significant player progression season to season (regardless of stats)

By ditching the original scouting system, young players came in to the game at an anemic pace and seemingly at random (based off of older player retirements at the same position)

I have other complaints but this isn't where I want to spend time. The point? Upgrades are needed to the mode. Let's go through three that I think could make playing for 5+ seasons (which is about the limit I can endure right now without getting bored) a great experience. None of these ideas are unique or original to me, but I've thought about them all at length.

Feature #1: Youth Team/2nd Team Full Roster

Currently in FIFA 11, players that don't make the starters or bench sit on a vast "SUBS" area of the roster. Since you're allowed 40+ players on your squad, this means that a large percentage of the players do nothing for the entire season if they aren't quite good enough for the first team. This is very unfortunate because without game time, these players don't progress in the game, and thus don't get better. Plus, as a manager of your club, you'd like to see these players in a couple youth matches first before giving them a first team birth.

The solution is to have two rosters, the main roster and the 2nd team. The 2nd team roster size can vary more than the regular roster, and they have a single match each week scheduled. Maybe there is a coach assigned to this squad. In Career mode, if you wish, you can play the youth team games to see these players perform against other 2nd teams. They gain experience (simming or playing), and overtime, this allows some development to happen away from your first team.

The other reason this is needed is it makes possible the ability to sign a starlet at 17 or 18 years old and get them match time immediately. If you're a top club in FIFA 11, any 17 year old won't see the pitch for at least 3 or 4 years.

Feature #2: Rework Player Progression with Assignments, Dynamic Player 'Potential'

This is admittedly a tough nut to crack, and few sports games get a player progression model that actually works. FIFA 11 fails in this department over time, partly over the handling of player retirements/scouting, and partly because it's mostly based on match ratings + potential rating This is at best a shabby way to change the distribution of ratings in the game. At worst, human players are punished for playing the games while CPU talent gets much better over the same time period. Unacceptable.

The solution has a couple of parts. Progression needs to be based more on stats and performance and less on match rating OR the match rating formula needs to be adjusted to better reflect success on the pitch. Either way, those ratings should have a lesser impact on a players' development (and should be visible historically and after every game if they are going to contribute to success). Even better, on the progression screen, players should be given areas of their game to improve (we'll call them 'assignments') such as 'Fitness training', 'Distance shooting', or 'Man marking'. Players, even when just practicing (or playing in the youth team a la feature #1), see these parts of their games develop at a faster pace. These assignments will also have milestones attached (similar to the Virtual Pro feature), and if the players hit those milestones, they get another XP boost. Also, a players happiness/commitment should be reflected in the XP gained on a weekly basis. If a young player is getting a chance to shine on the first team and playing well, they should get a boost to experience, while an experienced striker sent to the bench should start losing commitment, ratings, and so on.

Finally, the potential rating as it's currently constructed (albeit hidden from the user) has to go. Right now, players have a potential rating that they trend towards as they grow in age. So for example, Aguero has a potential of 90 with the latest squad update, so he tends to slowly grow from 85 to 90, and that's his peak rating. Absurd, since players we haven't even heard of today could be the next great star in 2 or 3 years time. Instead, the happiness/commitment value I talked about above should act as the catalyst for development instead of a flat rating. So if the no-name player at age 18 continues to deliver for a top club week after week, he should be growing by leaps and bounds. This is why many people play, to make players that are otherwise one thing become another by controlling the team. Reward human players in this regard instead of locking in players to a potential rating that becomes the be-all and end-all of player progression.

By the same token, older players need to get old, and faster. It happens in real life, we see it all the time. More on this in feature #3.

Feature #3: More Random Events, Board Intelligence

Game designers, for whatever reason, love the "email system" when doing dynasty/career modes (especially at EA), so I don't think that's going away anytime soon. One can hope I guess.

But there are only a few types of emails that actually come in. Player gains/loses a point, injuries, schedule changes, board is reviewing your job/your safe/your fired, and a few more. Instead, I want to blow this part of the game wide open - there should be many, many more "events" that can happen in a career.

Club ownership changes should be one. An influx of cash from investors, or the piling up of debt and suddenly funds are disappearing. There should be an ownership page that details what kind of owners are currently in place and what they value most (signing of young players, results for the first team and that's it, making money each year, etc.) But let's not stop there...how about bigger changes to players besides injuries? "The assistant coach has noticed that for whatever reason, John Terry seems to have lost a step..." and you see his fitness ratings have dropped precipitously. How about transfer gossip? "We were thinking if someone wanted to buy out Neymar for 40 million pounds, we might just do that..." Would certainly get you thinking if it hit the inbox.

And back to the ownership bit for a second. The board just needs to be smarter. If I'm a League One side with terrible players and I've just come in (because your last coach was terrible), you can't expect me to win the league. You can't fire me because I don't. The transfer budgets need to vary more widely and change ("Suddenly, that money we gave you to spend...we're withdrawing it. Sorry." or "Here's more cash...we need wins!") And most importantly, club goals need to be more than linear (this ties in with the features above.) 2nd team expansion/development should be a priority for some owners, minimizing wages important for another. Maybe certain owners want stars from particular leagues to be signed, or even particular players that are available. Some owners say very little, etc. This part of the game needs expansion because otherwise, playing as any team becomes the same career over and over. Win, win, trophy, cup, win...or lose and you're fired.

Maybe ultimately, I don't want "Career" mode at all. Maybe I want Dynasty mode, where we drop the simplistic approach to being the "manager" of a club, and we make this about players, managers, owners, other coaches, other teams, multiple rosters, shuffling a schedule, and adjusting to random events that can drastically change the club's future.

Comments

# 1 Qb @ Jun 22

Good stuff, man.

# 2 7frankribery7 @ Jun 22

I wish you could fake fouls.

# 3 AaronInUtero @ Jun 22

I seriously wish the developers at EA would read this, absolutely spot-on post. I've been crying out for the career mode to be re-vamped for years. Its so dull and predictable right now, takes hours of shelf life out the game. A real career for a manager is full of constant twists and turns, with new events unfolding constantly, if they could actually make the game like this it'd be amazing.

# 4 FreeMayk @ Jun 23

Same year, same game. EA Sports play smart. Whey put so little upgrades every year...
Career mode is so poor. We can`t play for NT teams?
Shame is `cos fifa it is best soccer(football) game today...

# 5 RamzaLugria @ Jun 23

Agreed. You could add "Training" to this list if you ask me. There just isn't enough to do in between games and training could tie in nicely with a new progression model.

# 6 PlayoffSystemNow @ Jul 29

Can they also please fix (if they haven't already) the corrupted creation centre teams that freeze my PS3, and, ANDDD, fix the league glitch that allows the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th , and 10th place teams to advance!!! How about lettig the 4th and 7th place teams get in!! lol, for reals tho.