@GoonerB I totally agree. I remember drop in be a pro on fifa 11. It was just random unranked friendlies and you used real teams. I distinctly remember being Darren Fletcher and scoring both goals from CM in a 2-1 win over Man City, it was about 7 or 8 a side. I also remember a hat trick as Gerrard to beat Napoli 3-2.
Anecdotal, yes but that's two random matches played well over a decade ago I Still remember fondly. Just to show that unranked gameplay can still be fun and memorable - IF implemented properly.
This has been implemented dreadfully badly (perhaps deliberately? To shuffle you away to the hellscape that is FUT?)
The meaningless Groundhog Day games are the worst. I feel each game has no jeopardy, or if it does, its hard to verbalise.
Also: win 5 of 5 matches? At what competition anywhere in the world in football is this a thing? The ONLY team to win the Champions League winning every game en route is Bayern Munich 2012/13. (Since 1992 rebrand at least).
Even in a straight knock out competition, hardly any team wins every game. 2 legged ties are often a draw in the away leg (or even a loss) only to be turned around in the home leg. With away goals, 0-0 at home and 1-1 away puts you through. Even without away goals, 0-0 followed by 0-0 and a win on penalties is a win.
The concept of winning 5 matches out of 5 is basicslly alien to football.
Even one legged KO tournaments like the FA Cup the games go to replays after a draw quite often, or are won on penalties.
The concept of winning 5 out of 5 games isn't a thing in football. In football a draw against good opponents is basically usually a good result.
The whole concept of this new 24 Clubs league system is taken from American sports. No relegation, play offs, and no draws or draws not counting towards your play off results. This is a U.S. System foisted on to a European sport and it DOES NOT WORK.
Of course this is a by product of the game being made , inexplicably, in North America (Canada) and ultimately being based on a ice Hockey game engine. That's why FIFA for its first 2 decades played like a tank simulator. With fifa 09 they tried to emulate the more fluid PES system and had it right for a while then with fifa 12 and the introduced tactical defneding it all went down hill.
Fifa Post fifa 12 has gone increasingly more into being a theatre of street circus tricks and not actual team football. I went off fifa after 14 for a while and got back with 22 and suddenly every player is Maradona on steroids and suddenly defending is like controlling a tranquillised sloth.
There are some good new mechanics - the power shot is great and shoulve been introduced years ago, that said they nerfed it in 24 and I've only scored 4 or 5 (long range) powers this year after scoring a belter more or less every night on 23.
I'm getting off topic a bit here but meh.
To your point of people making new clubs constantly ; in my experience everyone I play with still does this. I think I know 1 or 2 teams of players who stay on one clubs since the game came out and probably have 86 or 88 bots by now (but then i don't know - 50 million is a LOT of fans)
About 95% of players i know just make a new club basically every time they're on, get up to div 4 or 3, take a loss or get bored then switch off. They just deal witb the 80 rated bots and most of the time In lower divs you're up against 80 too so it's even.
Of course the seasons re set so elite div teams come back down to 5 after each play off seasons (this is a dumb idea, btw) so you can come across sweats in low divs but - honestly ? - hardly ANYBODY even has 88 rated bots, its so hard to get. You'd have to have literally been grinding pro clubs since October to have 88 bots by now and in that case who has that patience when the gameplay is so poor? And the playerbase so toxic? And the game so full of bugs? Half the time a couple of your team mates don't even get loaded in to the match!! And half the matches don't load up period and everyone has to reset!
Btw, its a real mission getting 5+ people in a party (some of whom you've probably just met) to synchronise and all reset their console, or reset a glitched lobby that's failing to search.
Imagine taking a loss in your 5th of 5 Playoff matches because you were in a large party and 1 guy didn't listen, hear or understand he had to reset his Xbox as two guys didn't get in? Imagine he kicked off and you took the L and had to win 5 of 5 again, for that.??
On top of all THAT, for a few weeks recently Pro Clubs was glitched and wasn't registering ANY results at all! Imagine you'd struggled to get your best players online, then did and went on a good run for a change, only for it all not to count?
During that time the game was glitching for everyone I was in a party saying "guys. The game didn't count" and nobody believed me so played another game. (This was the first night of the glitching so we didn't know everyone had it) after the 2nd game didn't count either I said "guys, this is bugged, rheyre not counting" and they all still didn't believe me (were they not even bothered to check? Did they just want to argue the toss? Or would it not even have ultimately made a difference anyway because no games matter on 24 pro clubs to begin with??)
They wanted to play again so I just said "You know what - I'm done. I'm hopping on 23 where each game has something to play for and ill actually have fun".
I've been going back to 23 a lot recently as 24 is just garbage, and each time we hop on 23 we -
Play meaningful games
Score great goals
Get at least one goal memorable enough to screen record a clip of it each session
If we start from 10 progress up and feel our bots progress with us as the Skill slope increases in what feels like an organic manner
Have the option of going for a Cup run
Its just so much better in every way (and 23 was full of the usual fifa problems anyway)
Then there's the menu glitch shilling Pop Art or Retro 90s Durags or some other volta thing i literally couldn't care less about popping up every time I navigate navigate and out the clubs menu. INFURIATING!! Pop Art popping up!
Then there's the game play. As always dribbling is over powered as we know the team sport of football is actually a circus exhibition of one player dribbling round an entire team. Passing is disgusting this year - disgusting. Full power X lobs are going to the guy next to you. Fr some reason, as wlasys in fifa, simple A passes in the opponents box go slower and are easier to intercept with a higher fail rate. Sweaty square passes across goal for tap ins are for some reason wildly hard to get right. There's a dozen different angles where sometimesyou need an A pass, sometimes a double tap A, sometimes a Y, sometimes a LB+Y, sometimes an x, sometimes a double X.... the list goes on. And the only way to know which is the right input in the situation is to play hundreds of games . EA: Sort it out. Squaring a ball across the box for a tap in is something 99% of pro footballers get right every time.
Crossing is yet again over powered and often impossible to defend against.
Who'd even want to stick around long enoguh to get their bots uo to 88?
I bet at 88 they're still shocking anyway - last CB keeping the enemy onside, GK flapping at shots straight at him, defenders not engaging- RB press has been nerfed - just standing watching people run in straight lines past them, right backs cutting on to their weaker left foot to cross (??????) And also, taking the throw ins weirdly, sometimes faking throwing it at you, which draws enemies to you, only to throw it at you (defeating the point of the fake throw) , throwing it quickly when yoi don't want it, taking ages when you want it quickly, throwing backwards when you're free in an attacking area.....
The list goes on.