4-3-3 is broken in defensive shape
Even by EA standards this is a doozy. Currently in 4-3-3 the wingers stay on the half line and don't defend if they are set to attack. It's a 3 striker formation rather than a 1 striker and 2 winger formation. While the 4-3-3 can be susceptible to getting overrun on the wings; it's basically non stop overruns. It's even worse because the fullbacks come forward to defend the midfielders or opposing fullbacks and then the opposing winger is free with no marking. This just isn't how this works in the real world. Nobody is sitting there with 3 offensive players hanging out on the half line.
How do you not have real offensive and defensive shapes? You don't even have a real low block with this formation. And you can't fix this stuff in player career. You are just stuck with EA insanity. You should change that.
If you want to fix any of the other broken things here is a list:
1. Shielding is still overpowered.
2. Pressing teams are overpowered and beating the press with passing doesn't lead to offensive opportunities because you have nerfed pace. You guys have to think about how things work together.
3. Game still feels significantly predetermined.
4. Stamina in player career starts out stupid low. It genuinely takes the fun out of the game. You can't do anything because you are a "professional athlete" with COPD. You need to put this on a slider or something or let it be a toggle separate from the authenticity toggle. Or better yet just start people out with higher stamina, like they are a professional athlete.
5. The "second half doldrums" make the game miserable. So many times if you are having a good first half you just get dis-involved from the game in the second half. Offensive play completely bypasses you and when you are defending the ball moves away from you like lightening. Your player grade just constantly drops. Great user experience.
6. The player grade has improved, but it still drops too relentlessly if you get to a high grade in a game. The game is too poorly designed to have it work like this. You have to reward players for good play. You don't have a good enough game where the player can reliably get their grade back up if you take away points at the rate you do. When you combine this with the weird second half doldrums phenomena it really sucks.
7. "Pro" in player career still starts way too low. I don't want to start at 71. I want to skip that. You have nerfed the quick progression in player career, fine, but you also took away the meaningful "Pro" option at the same time. Why? Was anyone paying attention at all? It was a nice feature. Bring it back where you can start at 81 or something. Once you have done the long slog to build up your player once you are fine not doing the whole thing again.
8. The ratio of offsides calls to free kicks on goal is completely out of whack for anything that is fun. There is no point in developing free kick accuracy or curve; you never have free kicks on goal, but you do have A LOT of nearly pointless offsides.
9. The free kicks that are not on goal are NUTS. I had one today where the CPU crossed the ball with massive curve. It went from one side of the field to the other, missed all the players, curved so much it went backward, bounced once before going out, and gave the other team a throw in near the goal box; truly an achievement.
