EAFC 25 TIPS (Learning from FC24)

Hi guys,

This is majorly for the game developers and EA as a community and also to just throw my ideas out into the open for everyone to read. I'd also love to read what an EA team member has to say about my thoughts below but for everyone else, maybe you guys can tell me about your experience.

EA FC24 has been by far the most excruciatingly painful experience for a football game. I have played EA football titles since '08 and I have not once seen a game devolve to the standards FC24 holds itself at. For now, I will be focusing on ultimate team as the primary gaming experience to describe FC24 since that seems to be the most popular. 

FC24 is the first game I have seen in a while that actively punishes players for playing a defensive position. Every tackle leads to a deflection to usually opposing players rather than your player retaining the ball for good defending - something you can avoid with players with a specific playstyle plus (which is often behind paywalls for meta cards!).

Goal keepers are downright garbage or the keeper of the years - no in-between. If the ball ever gets to my goal, rather than being confident my keeper can save an easy shot, the ball gets tapped in. But for shots that should outright be in the top corners of the net, the goal keeper is able to save this. This is the first FIFA I've seen where I have to worry about controlling my goal keeper just to stay in the game. On top of that, balls deflecting from goalkeepers directly back to the opposing player for a rebound shot into a goal makes you want to delete the game. Why should I even have a goal keeper if the shots are going to deflect back to the opposing team 60% of the time.

Now lets talk again about defending. Rather than controlling your defensive line and players, this is the first time I've heard people recommend to just control a single player on defense and let your fullbacks AI be my line of defense. Wow - more depending on AI because if I control my fullback line, its an eventual gap that will be exploited immediately into a goal. But that's not all the pain that comes from controlling a player in your fullback line!

This leads me to talking about defending the box. This is by far, the most atrocious place to defend because EA has designed nothing for you to feasibly defend in the box. Second man press comes close because one again leaves it to AI. Any type of tackle is an immediate penalty to the opponent. This leaves you with jocky and speed jocky - the jammiest mechanics in the box. A lot of the time, jocky is effective! However, a lot of the time its NOT. Now jocky has lead to major 3 faults in its mechanics, especially while defending in the box. The first being the ball going through your defender's legs. The number of times that an opponent has shot the ball and even though my player is in front jockying, the ball goes straight through his legs into net! Thank you for rewarding me for defending EA! The second being the ball deflects off my players leg back to the opponent who gets another shot off straight into the net! CLASSIC. Love it. Third one being my player jockeys around my opponent's player with the ball but will never push into them and get the ball, if I push into the player with a jockey, its a chance I get the ball or a large chance I just end up circling around the opponent player. All of this has made me genuinely afraid to play defense, especially in the box which should never be the case in any football game. Leaving it up to AI should be the last thing a player should do but clearly you guys think otherwise.

Now, AI has been left to shine a little to bright in this game. Interceptions are almost 90% of the time made by AI. Why is any AI actively looking to intercept the ball and perfectly positioning themselves to do so? Should that not be the job of the player to manually control and put his players into place? A bit of AI assistance is fine but in this game, the assistance is far from little. Not to mention the AI runs. It's funny because this runs the opposite to the defense. I do like the idea that we manually have to set up the runs but if I am running down my wing and my striker still hasn't started making their way to the opponent net from midfield then something is wrong. I shouldn't have to player mark that or use L1 to send them on a run. These scenarios are on opposite sides of the spectrum and need to be balanced more towards the middle. 

Finally, AI dropback. When you're not on a counter attack, you can almost always expect your opponents team to be sitting in their box making it impossible for you to get your way in and find a gap without waiting 1 or 2 real life minutes - especially when there are 6'4 behemoths in the middle who will end up pushing your player off the ball immediately. Once again, the AI should not be doing majority of the defensive work - the player should. 

Now this is just a bit of my criticism but please EA - please start rewarding your players for trying to player during the match. Stop punishing players are actively trying to play and make defensive players or offensive players. Please make it so its feasible for me to defend manually and get rewarded for it rather than me see constant deflections back to the opponent.

Let me know what you guys think.