VSA Champion +15 Full of Random Glitches

There is no dumbing down of teams when they hit a certain level, the game engine is simply not smart enough to do that, and even if it was, it would impact both teams and not just your team every time.

Like all skill based games, in FC Mobile people tend to hit a threshold where they are at their skill limit … at this limit it becomes very hard to win, and more often than not they lose, drop down a few levels and win their way back.

if you can take some video of your VSA gameplay at both the level you think gameplay is not as good, and at a slightly lower level where it is better, please send it through and I will forward to the team to take a look at.

There is no AI conspiracy though, the VSA game engine doesn’t pick winners, it just sets up chances based on a random selection of good, great and basic chances.

I didn’t say it wasn’t happening to both teams—maybe it is and my opponent is better at overcoming it than I am (after all, how can I know what my opponent is experiencing?). All I can speak to is my experience, and, as I said, from where I sit (having played these VSA scenarios literally hundreds of times) the game has gotten randomly glitchy.

What you’d expect as you climb the ranks in VSA is to face higher OVR rated teams with players that accelerate faster and/or take the ball off you more aggressively and more consistently, but that’s not what I’m seeing, Instead, MY players are quite noticeably (if randomly) worse in a variety of respects. As I stated, the starkest difference (as I’ve been stuck at or around +16 now for over a week) is the rate of poor touches (irrespective of where the closest defender is). I mean, let’s be honest, VSA is extremely repetitive and any user worth their salt gets to know the half dozen or so scenarios pretty darn well and can execute the required moves to score a goal practically in their sleep. I routinely score 30-35 goals in a league tournament play against opponents with my same 114 OVR, so I’m very well acquainted with how my players usually perform and it’s VERY evident to me when they suddenly behave like they’ve got a case of “the yips.”

So, even if I am now playing an OVR 115 or 116 team (because I’ve reached a higher level in Division Rivals) then I might expect opposing players to come and take the ball off me with greater frequency. But that’s not what’s happening. Instead, my players are just plain giving the ball away with increased rates of poor touches and botched moves (like roulettes that spin the opposite of what you’d expect given the angle of attack). It’s not like this has to be hard coded into the game. All it takes is for the game to be designed such that the mere presence of a higher-rated opponent negatively affects the probability of my player performing routine actions properly/successfully.  As I said, I’ve played these scenarios so many times that it becomes really easy to sense when something is “off” and I’ve now been stuck at or around this +16 level so long that I’ve played dozens and dozens of “attacks” and have a sufficient sample size to sense a pattern emerging. My skill level hasn’t changed (if anything it’s just gotten sharper over time), nor do I discern a difference in the general speed, quickness, or aggressiveness of my opponents as I drop and promote between, say, Champions level +12 and +16. The one discernible difference, however, is this random glitchiness I describe and I’d be happy to supply video if you don’t mind telling me how.

Ok, so I literally just played a +16 Champions VSA match in which I managed just 5 goals (after bagging 10 and 12 in my two prior matches—a W and a D, respectively). In this 5-goal loss the entire match felt “jittery” (as in the frame rate felt weirdly off and my players seemed to take uncommonly poor touches) and I saw multiple events all occur in one match that seldom occur collectively across any normal run of a dozen matches. For example, one possession started and in a split second of the screen loading my forward takes a heavy first touch and the ball goes immediately to the defender—possession over in all of 1s. That almost never happens in VSA (and never SHOULD happen as it has nothing to do with user error/skill). Another similarly bizarre possession ended with my best shooter blowing a 1 v 1 with the keeper by hitting the post only for the ball to roll all the way across the mouth of goal to the other post without going in (and without any of my players making any attempt to tap it in). Let’s be real—a shot hitting the post is pretty rare in VSA (an overwhelming number of shots hit the back of the net and the rest are almost all saves by the keeper), but this was the rare post AND the exceedingly rare roll across the entire mouth of goal. And I’m telling you this was just par for the course, the whole match had a similarly surreal feel like I was playing with loaded dice and just kept rolling snake eyes.

Every gamer knows what I’m describing here. We’ve all played games where it becomes not so transparent that the fix is in, and this was that in spades. I go from scoring 12 goals in a +15 Champions match, to 10 goals in a +16 match (that resulted in a draw) and then in my next +16 match my scoring output drops from an average of 11 to… 5 goals??? I mean 8 maybe. Seven if I just completely crap the bed. But 5??? I’m sorry, there is something funky going on with that result. Whether or not there’s anything intentional behind it, I utterly refuse to believe the code isn’t somehow stacking the deck to produce that result.

Your idea is right.
Though my rank isn’t as high as yours (about +5), I’ve experienced many of the same problems you mentioned, and even more. Let’s put aside the issues that could be blamed on “player skill,” because EA will just say it’s about our controls. But honestly, I feel the same as you: sometimes players behave in really strange ways, almost like they’re match-fixing. And since it only happens sometimes, it’s hard to believe it’s just poor game design.

About players giving the ball away right at the start of an attack, I’ve had that too, and sometimes even worse. For example, at the start of an attack, I can’t always control the player closest to the ball. Let’s say the ball is on the right wing and my RW should be chasing it, but instead, I can only control someone in the middle. All I can do is watch the RW run after the ball on his own, with no time to switch. And even if I do have time, pressing the switch button often makes the RW auto-pass the ball randomly the moment he receives it. One time, the ball didn’t even start at anyone’s feet, it just spawned at a random spot, and the opponent’s defender was the closest one to it.

I also run into a lot of time-wasting. The clearest example is the transition animations: sometimes it just goes black for 1–3 seconds, which can cost me an entire attack. Another situation is when the ball goes high into the air, the game won’t move on to the next possession until it lands. Either the opponent clears it, or just when I’m about to get the ball, the play suddenly cuts to the next attack.

And my AI teammates behave in very unhelpful ways. If it’s not a great chance, my teammates will often run straight into crowded areas, leaving me with no passing options, or forcing me into high-risk passes that almost never work.

In short, the whole game needs serious improvement. I just hope EA stops focusing only on releasing new events, and instead actually works on fixing the gameplay—so FC Mobile can feel like a real and fair football game.

I hear ya, and I’ve experienced many of those same frustrations.

You hit the nail on the head with that last—EA needs to stop investing so much time in mostly gimmicky new content and put some time and energy into improving the basic mechanics and playability of the app. I’ve ranted elsewhere about how H2H matchmaking produces consistently atrocious lag and a generally lame gaming experience. I’ve also commiserated with fellow users about how MM is mostly a pointless waste of time (since the “manager” controls don’t appear to have any discernible effect on the match). So, you’ve got the three main game modes all with pretty major flaws and lots of people complaining and EA just keeps churning out cheesy events and even cheesier “skill” games. Doesn’t anyone at EA have enough shame to put an end to “bunny pinball” once and for all? It’s an absolute joke that the developers are wasting their time on crap like that instead of making long-overdue improvements that would actually make REAL matchplay FUN.

At the end of the day it’s a basic question:  Does EA respect the game of football and the hundreds of millions of fans who love it? Or has it strayed so far from its “if it’s in the game, it’s in the game” roots that it’s willing to keep doubling down on a second-rate card-trading app. It sure seems like the latter, but I’d love nothing better than to be proven wrong.