My suggestions for improving career mode

[Seeker7]

Okay first understand where I'm coming from. I am a "role player" gamer. In that I mean for me it's all about the simulation, the story, the players, and recreating an "experience". I want to create an alternate reality where the team is real, I'm really the manager, and the players are real people.

So what do I want to make this happen? What will allow me to fully enjoy career mode with that mind set?

First understand that for me, since it's about the "story" I am going to start off with a League 2 English team. My goal of course is to realistically take them to the Premier League. By realistic that means no cheating, no saves and reloading, and no exploits.

So given that set up what do I want to see changed/improved?

1) First, give me some freedom to change what my youth academy players are named and look like. Look I'm not playing online so who gives a f**k if I have the ability to edit the name and look of my randomly generated youth academy players? It's my personal private experience so relax AE. It's not like you have put any real effort into it.

2) Put some limits in place to keep me from hiring high rated scouts. Yes I can put self imposed limits but it bothers me that I have to do so. High rated scouts should refuse to work for low level teams. I want to experience "earning" the ability to hire that 5/5 scout, not be able to do so in League 2 second season because I exploited the system.

3) Please give me the ability to change a youth players listed main position. Granted I get that I can play any player in any position but it just bugs me to have my 5'5" DMF listed on my screen as a CB, and my no defense RM listed on the screen as a RB. Again it's my experience so give me some freedom here.

4) Can you please fix the height bug on PS3/4 systems for youth academy players. Well over half (honestly no exaggeration) of the players my youth scouts find are 4'11" to 5'4".

5) A big one, let me "assign" a training regimine for each player. Let me assign whether to improve physical, technical, or mental. I am the manager right?

6) How about we cut out this "defensive minded" and "technically gifted" BS. Can't I just tell my youth scouts what position to scout for and they will come back with a variety of players that fit that position but have different styles, strengths, and weaknesses?

That's all I have for now. Thanks for letting me rant on.

[hossafan91]

saw your post, here are my opinions on the matter

for 1 and 3, I believe there is a player edit thing you can get when you are a high enough level so you can edit your players in manager mode. also, EA does put some effort into YA names, since each country you scout will give you different names. that is why you will find a Karl Soderbörg from Sweden and a Juan Escobar in Columbia. It isn't perfect, and I have found too many people named Pablo Escobar, but there is some realism involved.

as for 2, you shouldn't be able to hire a 5/5 scout as a FL2 team. those teams have less than $1 million to spend, with some teams more like $300,000. a 5/5 scout is usually around $10 Million. there is no way a 5/5 scout could come to a FL2 team, since there is no way a FL2 team would have that money.

#4. the players actually grow each year in your YA. I got a guy who was 4'6" at 15, and when I promoted him, he had grown to 5'7" at 18. these kids are 14-17 years old, they shouldn't have their full size yet.

I really like your idea for #5. I think they should allow you to individually choose how to train them. not sure how this would be implemented, but I like it.

#6 seems like a problem where EA is trying to make the game more realistic, and you want a video game thing. real scouts would look for a type of player, rather than a position. that type might generally be in a certain position (defensive minded will normally be defenders and CDMs) but if you want a player who is "technically gifted" or "physically strong" then the position shouldn't matter, the player should.

I would improve CM by having more teams, more leagues, more international teams, and more scouting locations. It seems dumb that you can scout Canada and Slovakia, but they have no national team for your youth guys to aspire to be on. Or that India and Hungary have no way of improving their teams since you can't scout there. Or that Japan, Honduras, and many other teams that were in the world cup are not in it. Or that top leagues like the Israeli, Ukrainian, and Czech leagues are not in the game. Expanding the game give the players to have a more realistic career mode, and more reason for people to buy the game if their countries are in it.

[Seeker7]

Awesome thanks for the reply!

Are you 100% certain that you can change the face/hair and main position for a youth player if you buy the edit player perk, and not just whether his shirt is tucked or not?

Also, do short YA players always grow or just sometimes?

[Entiae]

Quote: Originally Posted by Seeker7

Are you 100% certain that you can change the face/hair and main position for a youth player if you buy the edit player perk, and not just whether his shirt is tucked or not?

No, you cannot. It's just the accessories.

[BradyBunch88]

If you're really into simulation games you should try Football Manager. I haven't played it for years because it's highly addictive! FIFA, you can drift in and out, but Football Manager, it's like all the time you want to play it.

As far as football simulation and managing a real team, that's as close as it gets!

The only problem with that is, you don't play the games, you can watch the games played out, but you can't play each game.

But over the next few years I think FIFA will get a lot better. If you look at the gameplay and graphics of FIFA 2008 compared to FIFA 14 or 15 on the PS3 for example, there's a huge jump!
And if FIFA 15 is the first FIFA game on the PS4 (ok FIFA 14 was but it was released before the PS4 came out so it had to work around that, updating it etc.) but FIFA 15 is the first proper FIFA game that EA could focus on especially for PS4, they new what they were working with.

My point is, give it 2 or 3 years and I think FIFA will be amazing!

[milrod22]

*****This is a long post*******

FIFA 16 CM wishlisht:

Let me preface all of this by saying that I am a CM only player. I usually play 2 Career Modes each FIFA and carry those out to completion (all 15 seasons). The first Career Mode I play, I usually choose a team from the 2. Bundesliga and build them into a world power by any means necessary (no restiricitons on players I sign or where I scout). The second Career Mode I play, I always pick a team from a small league or from League 2 in England and build them up solely through scouting and signing regens from their home country/region (I always start this CM after the big Jan. update). For example, in FIFA 14 I did my 2nd CM with Molde FK (Norway) and built them into European Champs by only scouting Scandinavian countries and 1 other country I chose at random (turned out to be the U.S.). I could sign regens but they had to be from Scandinavia or the US. I find this second type of CM to be really fun and extremely rewarding.

So, now you know a little background and have an understanding on where my thoughts and suggestion are coming from.

1. Return of Manager Star Rating/Prestige (1*-5* w/special 6*). You would gain or lose prestige by achieving/failing to achieve your yearly goals as well as gain minor boosts from small things (like a substitute scoring). This would be a 5* system very similar to what was already in FIFA CM years ago (I think FIFA 10 had it last). This addition is the basis for multiple improvements/additions that will make for a more immersive and satisfying CM in FIFA 16. Here's how I would implement it and what it will allow you to do:

A) Allow for interaction with your players. Let's say you want to sit your star ST for a cup game. He wants to play. You say, "Hey I know you want to play, but I need you rested for the league game this week." If you are a 2* manager there is a chance he will agree but a greater chance he will say, "Boss I really need to start this game." However, if you are a 5* manager then that star ST is more likely to go along with your suggestion and say. "Ok boss, I trust your judgment." This would be nice and give you more options with player interaction. Right now, the player tells you something and you can't respond. I find this very silly. Also, when that inevitable message comes that a player wants to leave, then you may actually be able to talk him out of it.

B) Make the star system critical in job offers both for clubs and national teams. You should not even be considered for certain club and national jobs until you reach certain star levels. Heck, you shouldn't be considered for any national team jobs until you are at least a 2* manager. Also, there should be a 6th star that is only unlock able if you win a major international tournament (European Championships, World Cup). This special 6th star would be a nice incentive to actually take those international jobs.

C) Make star system useful in luring high-level players to your club. This would be used in conjunction with Club Prestige (*see point 2) to determine how easy or hard it is to bring in top talent to your club. For example, Low Prestige manager at High prestige club can attract very good but maybe not GREAT players. High Prestige manager at Low prestige club can bring in players that otherwise would never think twice about coming there.

2. Club Prestige (1*-5* w/special 6*):
As with your manager, there should be a club prestige rating that is visible and upgradable (I believe this may have also been in previous FIFAs). This would upgrade as you win domestic leagues and cups and continential cups. There could be one club prestige or 2 seperate ones (domestic and international). This would be most important in helping fix the transfer system. They had something like this in a previous fifa where players in bigger leagues would turn down a move because your league or club wasn't prestigious enough. This would prevent things like being able to buy some young superstar for 2 million when you are at Burton Albion. Superstars or super prospects would only leave for equally or more prestigious clubs or leagues. For those of you worried that even after winning everything with PSV that you may still not be able to attract top talent, in this system, once you became a 5* club, your club prestige would overrule league prestige. Therefore you could attract a player like Aguero if you had accomplished enough even though the Eredivisie isn't as prestigious and the BPL or La Liga. Finally, you can earn a special 6* that would only be available for completing multiple objectives over multiple seasons (like your club winning multiple Champions League titles, a treble, etc.).

3. Youth Academy Improvement:

A) Make players work rates, weak foot, and skill moves of youth academy players visible before you sign them to the senior team. They can be masked in the initial report from your scout but once you sign them to your youth academy those stats should be visible. It makes no sense that you have players in your actual youth academy but don't know how hard they work, how skillful they are or how good their opposite foot is? However, I can go to a random team from the Chilean league, click on one of their players and know all that information, but not from my OWN youth academy. Come on EA! (I know there is a work around by going and manually searching your Youth Players name and then scouting them but we shouldn't have to do that.)

B) Youth players in pace positions should actually have some pace at young ages. I know that some of the wingers and STs/CFs you scout eventually develop reasonable speed but as of right now the only youth players that have decent speed right out of the academy are the glitched LB/RBs. This needs to be fixed. You should be able to find players with pace with better regularity than you can now. EA have this messed up. It is simple to find players with insane mental attributes but almost impossible to find players with good physicals. This should be the reverse. Theo Walcott has always been fast, yet young pacey players (besides the glitched outside backs) are almost impossible to find.

C) U21 team. This is where your youth academy players will be initially promoted and then from the U21 team they can be promoted to the senior squad. Furthermore, the U21 team will be fluid, you can promote and demote players multiple times (however, doing this too often will have a deleterious effect on the players morale). Furthermore, you will be able to have 3 over-age players on the U21 team.* In my scenario you would be able to play with this team but I would be ok if it was a sim-only team. So overall the youth player promotion will go:
scout --> youth academy --> U21 Team --> Senior Squad.
*[this will be important for another improvement].

4. Player Growth/Training:

A) You should be able to direct your player's growth. This could be done very simply or complexly. Basically, all players will be set to default growth which would improve the player based on their position. However, you should be able to improve players faster in specific areas like athleticism, mental, technical but at the cost of slower growth in all other areas. This is a much needed area of improvement that on its own would add some much needed depth and customization to CM. Also, this is one place you could also really help differentiate between players with different potentials. A superb young talent should still continue to grow in slower but good rate in all other areas whilst vastly improving in the directed area. However, an average potential player would improve in the directed area but have much slower growth in the other areas.

B) Allow the user to switch/train player's primary position. It would work like this:
I) If you want to change a player's primary position and it is already in the player's list of alternate positions then it is as simple as going into a menu and switching the player's position.
II) If you want to change a player's position to a position not listed in their alternate positions then you must "train" that player in that position. This would be accomplished by using the U21 team for the purpose of my suggestions but could be implemented in another fashion. In my set-up, the player's position can be changed by "training" them for a set amount of time in the U21 squad. Therefore, if you have an older player, you would have to send them down to the U21 squad to train and play games for certain length of time before they would acquire that new position. While they train, the player is unavailable to play for your senior squad and promoting them back to the senior squad before their training is complete would result in the player losing all progress toward that position. This makes changing a player's position have a cost and limits how many senior player's can have their positions changed at 1 time.

C) Youth player's should continue to grow in height and weight even after they are promoted. Right now every player from your youth academy stops growing once you promote them.

D) Fix the growth algorithm for the physical stats of youth players. As I discussed earlier, for young players they usually improve physically first and mentally and technically later. This has been reversed by EA in the FIFA series, in regard to youth players, for a long time. They need to fix this.

E) Players should have potentials for different aspects of their game, not just broad ones based on position. For example: Player A could have High physical potential, Medium technical potential, and Low mental potential. Player B could have Medium potential all around. Player C coud have High potential all around. Player A would be a pure pace player, Player B would turn out ot be a good back-up occasional starter, and Player C would be an eventual super-star.

5. Transfers:

A) Allow us to set a price for a player that other clubs can meet. Let's say I have a young stud that is in good form but I am willing to part with him but only for a high price. Let me set his price at say..$35,000,000 and therefore, I don't have to deal with 20 teams offering $5,000,000.

B) Have the AI actually offer their player and $ for your player. The player can do this, the AI should do the same thing.

Aesthetics/side stuff/quick suggestions:
I. Bring back manual editing of work rates and bring back the player morale bar at the team management screen. These were 2 things that were really useful and really had no need to be removed (well, except for the fact that now EA will be able to bring them back as a "new" feature next year).

II. Allow the player to select the jersey, shorts and socks seperately for each game. Allowing the player to do this would add so much variety to the presentation and it should be pretty simple to do (I know you could do it in other sports games from EA back in the PS2 days).

III. Please, please figure out how to allow for seperate offensive and defensive difficulty settings. For example: AI defense = World Class, AI offense = Legendary.

IV. Upgradable stadiums. There should be 10 or so generic stadiums in the game that are upgradable during CM. This would make progression actually realistic. Right now you have 2 choices if you bring up a team from the lower leagues: 1) Be realistic and have the 10,000 seat ivy lane stadium but then look like a fool when you are hosting UCL matches 11 years in that tiny, wretched stadium. 2) Knowing you will progress, start out with a 45,000 seat mega-stadium that looks rediculous when you using S****horpe united in league 1. Fix this. They should be upgradable and the capacity increase should be visible in-game.

V. Keep track of player stats throughout career mode (goals, assists, appearances, clean sheets, etc). This would be extra nice for people who use the youth academy. I would love to be able and look at the total stats for my YA center mid that I brought up in year 2 and have had for 10 seasons. Have club records for each club (goals, assists, clean sheets, appearances). I know they can do it, just lazy.

VI. Trophy case. I would like to see all the trophies I have won as a manager over the years. Would be great.

VII. Player personality. Right now there is no disadvantage to having a player like Ballotelli on your team in CM. However, he has been locker room poison in most places he has gone. I really wish EA could figure out some way to incorporate the effect that player's personalities have on the locker room chemistry. I didn't include this above because it isn't high priority and EA would almost definitely screw it up big time. Just an interesting idea.

Sorry for the long read but I had a lot to get down.

[NightRaven3]

Like all the points but come on its EA they will never put this much time into cm like they do for their money making modes like FUT. If they cant even fix the YA glitch or even fix the handball issue why would they redo cm mode? They're lazy and only care about money. The glory days of offline career modes are long and gone

[BradyBunch88]

Quote: Originally Posted by NightRaven3

Like all the points but come on its EA they will never put this much time into cm like they do for their money making modes like FUT. If they cant even fix the YA glitch or even fix the handball issue why would they redo cm mode? They're lazy and only care about money. The glory days of offline career modes are long and gone

I agree to a certain extent. EA are lazy and if they can get away with doing the least amount of effort and calling it a video game, then, they will!

I also agree that offline modes have no future or money to be made. I have no interest on playing online. A lot of my friends aren't gamers! And I get a lot of joy out of playing against the CPU.

But in order to sell a complete football game, they can't just have FUT mode. Their sales would drop because not everybody likes FUT (I don't like it!).
So I think that eventually they will revamp the Career Mode, could be next year or the year after. But it's easy to speculate we'll just have to wait and see.