Where is the Career Mode respect?

I have been playing FIFA on & off for 20 years, various other EA sports games as well, I am in my mid-30s, I have other responsibilities, etc. I may not be your biggest "money-maker" because like many in my age range I do not play FUT, ever. However, we Career Mode players are the reason this game is still a thing all these years on. We are the community 15-20 years ago that bought the copies that allowed this game to grow into it's current behemoth. The disrespect to which you have abandoned this community is concerning & borderline offensive. If changes are not made, I don't see how or why any of us would continue to purchase this game in the next few years. 
I have purchased on & off historically & every year for the last 6, growing more and more frustrated with this product. Every year brings about fresh hope, some nominal improvements, the scuttle about dream fulfilling improvements, the promise of "one day" EA will do this... but it is almost always met with disappointment. Career mode is why EA has this game in the position it currently is in. You talk a big game about placating the "fans" when in reality you are placating the casuals. The same people who played on occasion in their friend's parents basement or friend's dorm room 10-15 years ago, are now who this game is made for. The true football fans, the true sports gamers, the true people who care about what kind of product is put forth & who put their time & money into a product are the "career mode" players & always have been. This mode has been ignored and seemingly abandoned for years now (post-Marco Reus cover there's been a steady decline). Sure, some cool features have been added, some new leagues, etc. but even with that comes major frustration, and generally regression. I will get the positive out of the way before turning this negative.

The game looks beautiful & plays for the most part very well. It does feel more like football. Yes there are glitches (keepers freezing 1v1, numerous AI issues, what certainly feels like "scripting" at times, many others honestly) but this is a video game, we can understand and accept that, it will not be a perfect play every single time. Heck even real football, part of the beauty, is that you get "glitches" in most matches; a player does something nonsensical, a manager makes an odd decision, a fan throws something & the match screeches to a halt... as a community our criticism should be less about the gameplay, because honestly it's pretty darn good (I'm trying not to curse so this doesn't get removed). Have y'all in these & other comment boards actually played "the other game"?? They can't even get it to market, it's full of glitches, it's not as enjoyable, nor as realistic... This is one point, and maybe the only, where I will side with EA and say you put out a great product as far as gameplay every year. Could it improve? Sure. Could some things be more realistic, could some be more fun, yada yada. Yes of course, but this is a giant video game with a trillion options & outcomes to manage and realistically, it's pretty good at that & we can tell real care and thought is put into those decisions. 

Now... you all should be ashamed of yourselves for what you have done to career mode.

 - Realism: are you really going to think that weak BS is going to fly about intros? Cool, you have 50+ stadiums now or something... what's the point? Anfield feels no different than Celtic Park than San Siro, on & on... You get minor glimpses throughout gameplay, the immersion comes from the pregame, the presentation packages, the camera angles on celebrations, etc. Depending on camera angle you'd have no idea what ground you're in during normal gameplay. That pregame cutscene with the same two groundscrew members poking at the field, with crowds entering from streets usually looking nothing like their actual location, leading into highlights from a match that either hasn't been played yet, or if we're attempting to give credit - a match from weeks or years past (which automatically doesn't make sense in early career mode) is total garbage. You wanted to remove something people were skipping - it's that. That decision is so out of touch, such a clear violation of why people play sports games, it's why we all wonder if you all actually play the game or watch football? What is the point of scanning and meticulously getting details of these stadiums if we can't even see them or tell the difference (could be in Argentina and they act the same as USA or China or Europe. No flare, literal or otherwise, no authentic "feel")
Why did we have to wait for a patch for broadcast presentations??? Isn't that always a major selling point? What is the point of investing money and time into producing them, getting licenses, etc if you're not even going to use them or not going to have a proper pregame into to showcase them. It's a baffling decision and one that deserves a better explanation than "people skipped them". Ya I did too, because again I'm an adult with a job & limited time. You know when they're fun - when you've skipped and simmed and worked for weeks plugging away the hours you can carve out to get to a big match, you want to soak that in, feel the fun, feel the weight, otherwise it's like why am I just playing another meaningless match against the computer? (AND HINT HINT - we WILL stop at some point, many already have, many more will if this is all we can get)
 - Editing: why do you make it as difficult as possible to edit players??? Offline you have to input about 10 different commands in between exiting one player and getting to the next, forget about scrolling through leagues/teams. WE ALL KNOW you used to just hit exit and it would dump you back to the roster you were working on... How/why is that a thing that went away?? IN WHAT WORLD DOES IT MAKE SENSE YOU CANNOT EDIT PLAYERS FULLY (abilities/stats included) IN AN OFFLINE CAREER MODE????? This is arguably my biggest gripe of them all. Can you just cheat the system, edit a player one way or another to your liking, make a team full of 95 stamina & boosted skills...sure, but what the F does that matter??? It's OUR career mode, it affects literally no one else. Play it how you want to. Most CM players would just like the chance to fix your broken ratings system, maybe boost stamina or something to fit their playstyle. Most of us that play career mode are not looking to cheat the system, but again, what would it matter if we were - it's our mode. 2K does this, you could do it in NBA Live, up until a certain point I believe you could do it in FIFA, it makes zero sense why this would be blocked off. Make it less cumbersome to edit offline, and/or allow us to edit within career mode, simple. 
 - Appearance: Where did the tattoos go? Why historically do some scans get removed, or not implemented? Why can't just a tiny bit more effort be put into certain player builds if they are not scanned? I understand the massive amount of players spread across the globe makes it hard to get everything right, and there's some relatively obscure players I'm even like wow, great work... but more! We can accept scans are not coming for most players, but the hairstyles haven't changed for the most part in 3 years, the boots are a mess, the accessories are a joke. Again, take a page from 2K - they don't get every individual NBA player right, but they have all the details in the game so you can go in & do it yourself with items that look realistic & actually reflect what is worn in the league. 
The same catalogue of options for managers and players for at least 4 years now is depressing. Oh wait sorry we got a hoodie this year!
 - Create a Club: Great idea, fantastic gift to career mode players... except again, in the most half-*butt-ed way possible. This option was better and more realistic 15 years ago. The jerseys are fine, could there be more of them, sure, but it's fine. Why can't there be like 1-2 sets of branded keeper jerseys from each major apparel company??? Teams taking their license elsewhere, that's a shame, we get it... why can you not have an option to "replace roster"?? If I want to "create" Roma, Lazio, etc why do you have to make 50 roster adjustments beforehand to ensure you can get all their players (& even with that effort it's no guarantee). No sponsorship options. Tifos appear blank, the pre-recorded team names are a literal joke for about half of them. The crests are... not great. Again, this mode is your bread & butter for realism, why does the whole game have to placate to 17 year old tik tokers who want the lolz of hearing a funny team name used. Put in some large city names, you can say Rome in the game, the files & data is there, just allow that to be used for create a club. Again, the point of the first bit of praise is because we know what this game & company are capable of doing when they put their mind to it, it cannot be that hard from a coding standpoint to implement a few audio bits that are realistic. ESPECIALLY when they are already recorded within the current audio (IE no extra voiceover work). 
 - Leagues/Cups - the level of excitement I had for Liberatores being implemented was... large. Was really just getting into South American league football the year or two before that, and couldn't believe this was happening. At that time we had Brazil (broken but at least there), Argentina, Chile, either a full or most of Colombia in that edition, and a whole host of teams involved in the two tournaments. You could have a lot of fun playing in any of those leagues. Now the only functional league is Argentina (THANK YOU for finally bringing back La Bombonera), but like what the actual f... Brazil rights, I understand it's a very complicated & unusual situation. But that country, it's various tournaments, the historic teams and players - that's EXACTLY what EA should be investing in. Just bringing in Brasil fully, with one of their various local/league cups, and full integration of the first division and maybe even select second division teams would open up a whole new world for players (including your beloved FUT people - you don't think those kids would love MORE players and the likes of Hulk, Flamengo's loaded roster, Payet, Marcelo, various national team players, the whole slew of young talent, etc???). An immersion similar to England seems pretty easily attainable. What's the point of having Liberatores if it has no teeth, besides a small presentation package feels no different than any other locale, and above all else only has one league you can actually play in. We should be able to feel the difference between leagues, feel the culture in the stands to an extent. FIFA/EAFC is literally a steward for the beautiful game, and a gateway that many people not in "hotbeds" have to get introduced & seduced by the sport. You have a responsibility to "teach" players about that if you are going to talk all this talk about "the worlds game" & the community of football as much as you do. 
Now that LigaMX is gone it's a bit of a moot point, but for the investment in MLS rights it would have made sense to include some version of a CONCACAF tournament, even a fake one. MLS is a fun, good looking product in EAFC, but there's nothing there to a career mode. Any of us who enjoy MLS would settle for a broken Liberatores style regional tournament for Concacaf Cup/concacaf champions cup with either fake Mexican teams or just the ones that qualify from other countries... There's very little to complain about (besides what I already have) about the accuracy & implementation of the European football system, sure there's a few mistakes, but for the most part it's done really well & with care to be at least semi-authentic. The world of football is bigger than that. Same thing goes for Asia & Africa. I have not done a Saudi career yet, but it was unplayable in the past. 
Also, specifically to the South American league(s) - Why can't we take one of the Sudamerica or Liberatores teams & drop them into Argentina or MLS or anywhere... like we can with all other leagues. Can't play with the other leagues anymore, so it would be fun to use Colo Colo or one of the many interesting teams in these tournaments in career mode. Also can't easily transfer these players before starting a career mode. 
 - Serie A is a disgrace. Having the sole rights to the league but not having the rights to 4 of the largest clubs within the league is... less than ideal. I am sure there's legality to carefully traverse, but again to the point above, just make create a club better and this issue would be slightly less glaring. 
 - Of the "bones" thrown career mode's way in the last few years (training, coaching, cutscenes, finances, etc) each one ranges from a meh to flat out offensive. Training was not even a bad idea, but the fact you had to replay those stupid drills every time you started a new career was infuriating. It's affects were also overpowered. Revamped it this year & it's more simple, the "training focus" is a nice middle ground of having some control without slowing down the mode too much. The coaching/scouting thing seems to have little actual gameplay results. Either your team is just awesome and you can afford the best & your stats are juiced because you have the best coaches. Or you're a small team with lower ranked staff... & it's still about the same because you can just overpower the poor coaches with the weird pre-match training, player development. Scouting generates the same type of player no matter who your scout is, it just makes them be able to scout more players quicker. If you know who you're looking for it doesnt matter, so these changes don't matter. Not really a fix to this, but don't sell it as an immersive improvement when it's just a thing that's a necessary part of the process for a mode like this. A new cutscene here or there would be great, but again, that's not going to be a wow omg all my prayers have been answered moment for CM players. Bring back the financial options of like 20 years ago when you could impact shirt sales, concessions & sponsors & training grounds & stadium revamps with your choices. Budgets that matter & have a direct correlation to your club's worth and success & your impact on that as a manager. Realistic, impactful board requirements that can't be either completely ignored with no repercussions, or outlandish expectations that if not met will mean being sacked at the top of the table in Champions League knockout round. That's what we're looking for, not a canned choose one-of-three option pregame chat with a static camera on your created manager you're almost always disappointed with how they look. Have a "here we go" transfer break-in, have news items that actually make sense (targeting a player to transfer, hey maybe he just renewed his contract, maybe he's disgruntled, etc.), stop having the player complain about playing time after he just played 4 of 5 matches, on & on.
 - AI both in gameplay (which you know & at least attempt to fix) & within CM should be improved. Why in the first transfer window are major stalwarts of a squad gone? Why do teams sign 7 strikers and no good backline players? Why do AI teams consistently play players out of position or bench mid-80s for low 70s players? Why are some of the negotiations so broken & nonsensical when others are way too easy? Why does every player over age 32 take a nose dive in the same statistical areas no matter who they are or what their style is? Why is there any professional footballer with stamina under 55? Why does it seem like every time you want to just sim an early round Carabao Cup fixture against a League Two outfit they win 3-1? Why do some games against an opponent like Manchester City as a fellow powerhouse feel easier than games against a lower quality team?

Serious suggestion - take the billion +/- of profit, hire a few of us disgruntled career mode players &/or advisors from the actual world of football to form a new "team", get them up to speed with developers of what is "realistic" & then let them develop even just 2-5 fixes each edition for career mode. The dirty little secret on the inverse side of that "investment" a lot of us don't want to admit & you all haven't tried yet... Career mode payers would readily pay more for a product that's worth it. You want the ability to edit players & have a tattoo pack & every boot pack or something in your career mode? That's 5$. You want full access to Brazil, south american leagues, Russia, etc... that's an extra $20 or something for "Ultimate Career Mode" edition. We'd complain about that sure, you'd probably even lose some people, but if it was actually a return on investment for CM players and got us what we were asking for - look at these comment sections & the passion, people would do it. Look at the PC Mod community and what they're doing and just take even half of that and implement it. These 17 year olds charging mom's credit card to unlock 50 different packs, why not welcome them into career mode? There's online career mode now, figure out a way to get them into that too, multiple revenue streams. Why not allow those of us for whom the $60 on a game isn't going to break the bank put a few more dollars of disposable income into our fun to get something out of it? If it's a profitability issue, there's your solution. 

I still have some hope & faith. But this latest edition was scary. Gameplay aside (which again, I admit is kind of THE MAJOR component to the game) this edition is a massive disappointment. Visual issues all over the place (player builds, lighting, visibility issues with certain times of day/colors), the same old CM issues, the FUT community doesn't seem thrilled from what I gather, loads & loads of glitches, the same basic game from years past with all the same issues just with new wrapping... This was supposed to mark a change, a foray into the bold new direction of the franchise, free of the fees paid out to FIFA to focus on the beautiful game and all that comes with it. Maybe one year is a quick turnaround for that, so again, I have hope, but this needs to be addressed or you are about to lose a whole generation of players who are fed up & don't have the time or patience anymore to devote to something that doesn't respect them back. I sincerely hope this can be fixed, because when this thing is right, there's few things more enjoyable for us than playing some video game football and leading your chosen team to glory after a long & challenging mode.