How are casuals supposed to enjoy this game?

Part of the problem is the places where FC 24 implements its skill gap and how the well your AI plays in all situations on both sides of the ball. Currently, AI is unbalanced high and mid field relative to the box defensively. Offensive AI is generally bad across the board. With that being said, defending in some situations is particularly easy while in the most important situations very challenging. It’s no longer a game that makes sense which made past games a lot easier to play. You could pick up an old FIFA game and know what circle, x, and triangle do (PS) and get by with good timing and understanding angles and passing lanes. This game has really robbed players of that by deciding to create a high skill gap in not only passing but the first touch after the pass while having an extremely low skill gap in defending the pass and first touch. What you end up with is a super sweaty, frustrating experience where the skill lies not in the actual strategy and decision-making on the pitch, but how fast you are at manually switching to the right defende and getting close enough to the defender where you can spam tackle or affect the first (or subsequent) touches to get a tackle later or force a bad touch/pass. What exacerbates this is high pressure tactics that could easily be beaten with great passing, knowing how to control your first touch to create a passing lane, etc. but the new mechanics mean your defender has the advantage in these situations unless you run a specific formation/tactics for stopping this. Hence why strikers with 27 standing tackle can swarm and take the ball easily off a defender with 81 ball control. The game is currently unbalanced. Once you play someone who’s really mastered manual player switching, the game can get REALLY miserable. That’s the difference between FC 24 and past FIFA games. It’s where the opportunities of skill gaps lie. Most games I’ve played it used to be dribbling/skill offensively and holding your shape while marking the ball and cutting off passing lanes defensively. Those games were far more enjoyable because it’s easier to accept that you made a bad pass or conceded a goal on a nice move. This game aggravating because your offensive AI responds to situations MUCH slower than the defensive AI and player ability if you don’t manually tell the AI what to do in the moment. When you combine this with what I said earlier about controlling the ball..it can feel smothering and unbalanced. The balance of the game needs work and typically these games start to player better around January or February (lol). So I would just try again or check back after every update.

It's about the psychology behind the balancing of attacking & defending.

Too hard to attack only lead your dissapointment or boringness, but too easy to be defeat lead your frustration and anxiety.

FC24 or say all FIFA series always encourage attacking than defending, so it lead more and more people fall in frustration because of bad defending.

If it's otherway round, bad attacking vs good defending, the only complain is just not funny enough, it's actually the beginning of FIFA23, which i think the best time of FIFA.

This game massively changed from if your good you get wins if ur just simply better to now if u have a endless bank account you can win every game midfield do nothing so u have to rely on strikers which do nothing unless u have very few top of the range options such as mbappe or Messi and Defence run a cdm and never change to defenders they'll always do a better job since this game completely sucked in the mid and defence. Also always run up wing and pass your way into the box everyone is doing it and if ur not then you'll just lose every game. Unsure if any of this helped but that's my take on this game a lot needs fixed or me and my mates will be going to the first available option if any other football games get released.

@JoeHarden92 I'm in the same boat mate. I play frequently but don't consider myself a good player. I don't mind being beaten by a better opponent. I prefer to get beaten when it's a close game though rather than getting totally hammered, which I am finding all too often in this game.

I hate the toxicity of some of the opponents I've faced. You know, the ones that are good and know they are good, so they will do things to annoy you, like using their goalkeeper to take penalties or bringing their goalkeeper right up the pitch, knowing there's no chance you can get the ball off them. I played against one guy yesterday and he beat me 4-3, it was a close game but I had to work really hard. Next game I faced him again so asked for a mutual quit at the start and he said yes, matched with him in the next game and I quit the game, then the following game I matched with him again, and before I had a chance to press pause, he kicked off so I punted the ball out of play and asked for a mutual quit and he said no. It made me more determined to beat him and I managed to scrape a 1-1 draw out of it.

That stupid overpowered unrealistic dribbling skill doesn't help matters either