Career Mode: Excessive Injuries and Locked Stamina Settings
I've restarted my Manager Career Mode twice because of the stamina and recovery settings, and I think there's a serious design problem here.
1) High-intensity football feels excessively punished
When I play aggressively, press opponents, and sprint frequently, I get better results, but sometimes end up with three or four injured players in a single match.
When I play more conservatively, injuries are less frequent, but my team's performance suffers.
I understand that high-intensity football should have consequences. Fatigue, squad rotation, and tactical adjustments are all reasonable trade-offs. But multiple injuries in a single match shouldn't feel like the inevitable price of playing competitive football.
2) Recovery settings shouldn't be permanent decisions
At the beginning of Career Mode, we're forced to choose how stamina and recovery work.
I initially selected Fixed Rate because it seemed more realistic than having players at full stamina all the time.
But after experiencing the injury and fatigue balance, I wanted to reconsider that decision. Unfortunately, there's no way to change it without starting an entirely new career.
Why should a gameplay preference be permanently locked into a save file?
Players can invest dozens or hundreds of hours into a Career Mode save. Forcing them to restart just to change a recovery setting is unnecessarily restrictive.
3) Realism shouldn't come at the expense of enjoyable gameplay
I don't want unlimited stamina, and I don't want injuries completely removed.
I want a balanced system where high-intensity tactics create realistic fatigue and recovery challenges, injuries happen at reasonable frequencies rather than several times per match, players can adjust stamina and recovery settings during an existing career, and gameplay settings give players meaningful control over their preferred level of realism.
My suggestion to EA:
Please review the relationship between stamina, sprinting, match intensity, and injury frequency. Also, allow players to change their stamina/recovery settings after starting Career Mode.
A feature intended to make Career Mode more realistic shouldn't make players feel punished for playing football or force them to restart their entire save because they chose the wrong setting.
I'd also appreciate clarification on whether the current injury frequency is intentional or something the team is investigating.
I'm curious whether other Career Mode players have experienced the same problems.
