Rich

FIFA 17 career mode didn’t really bring much to the table that wasn’t already present in FIFA 16 career mode. They introduced ‘Total Club Management’, but that’s basically just a new menu system that shows all your season objectives in one place; nothing groundbreaking and definitely not something to get too excited about!

It’s therefore time to start looking forward to FIFA 18 career mode and consider new additions to the game that could potentially help improve the game mode and make it a more enjoyable and generally more immersive experience.

Here are my thoughts on 10 things that could be added to career mode to improve things for FIFA 18…

ONLINE CAREER MODE

The career mode gameplay can get quite stale sometimes due to its rather repetitive nature, but how good would it be if EA could introduce some form of online career mode?!

You could go up against your mates online, doing business with them and making cheeky bids for some of their up and coming talents, and it could also make the YouTube career mode community quite interesting, watching some of your favourite YouTubers go head to head in online action. Imagine how good it would be to witness an online career mode series featuring the likes of CaniSports, ChesnoidGaming, My Player master BfordLancer… And Rich Leigh, maybe? You’ve maybe not heard of him, but I hear he makes some fantastic career mode content over on YouTube…

LEAGUE EXPANSION & TOURNAMENT EXPANSION

The Chinese Super League is one league that many people would love to see added for FIFA 18, and with the arrival of new leagues in the game, it’d also be pretty awesome to see new tournaments added to the game as well. I want to be able to compete in the AFC Champions League or the CONCACAF Champions League for example. I’ve always thought that it could be quite fun to manage an MLS side in the game, but without any continental tournament to compete in, I’ve never bothered doing so as playing the same teams over and over again every season would soon become incredibly tiresome.

I’d love to see the Chinese Super League included in FIFA 18 career mode, and I’d also massively appreciate the inclusion of more continental tournaments.

YOUTH LEAGUES

At the moment, the youth system in FIFA career mode is really quite basic. At the start of every month you get an update on how the youth players are all developing and their overall stats and potential can alter, but there’s no real way to track a young player’s development in-game unless you take a screenshot at the start of every month and track a player’s progress this way.

The addition of youth leagues in FIFA 18 career mode would be absolutely brilliant in my opinion and would provide a much better way of tracking youth player progress in the game. Your youth team could go up against the youth teams of other sides in the same division and the game could offer player stats like those provided for players in the first team so that you could keep an eye on important information such as how many goals everyone is scoring, what average ratings players are getting, and how many clean sheets different defenders and goalkeepers are maintaining.

Keeping track of youth player progress in this manner would also come together rather nicely with the point I’m about to talk about next, and that’s…

THE REMOVAL OF PREDEFINED PLAYER POTENTIAL

At the moment, when a youth player comes through the system, the game initially offers you a rather vague estimation of how good this player can become in the future, and the more months they’re in the academy for, the more precise this figure becomes until ultimately you know pretty much exactly how good this player will become. Also, if you want to find out a real life player’s potential, you head on over to SoFIFA.com where the latest database information is right there waiting for you. I’d like to see the player potential system in FIFA career mode completely reworked in such a way that better reflects how players truly develop in reality.

In FIFA 15 for example, Harry Kane went from having 74 potential at the start of the game, to 84 potential by the end of it on the basis that he enjoyed an absolutely sensational season in reality. In FIFA 18 career mode, you should be able to take a relatively unknown player and turn them into a superstar by consistently performing well with them on the football field. There shouldn’t just be a static, predefined potential for that player; other factors should come into play such as a players performances and whether or not they suffer any major injuries or time on the sidelines throughout their development. You should have to nurture young talents to help them reach their full potential, not just leave them sitting there in the squad, knowing that regardless of what you do, their rating will continue to develop and they will ultimately shine.

There should certainly be some sort of base stat for potential that offers a guideline as to how good a player may become in the future, but this should be a flexible figure that can alter as a result of in-game occurrences.

As it stands, when you send a player out on loan or they transfer to another club, their potential can alter in the process, and this is something that I very much like and appreciate. A loan move can make or break a player in reality, and it can also impact upon their future in career mode as well. If you just leave a player in your squad though, their potential won’t alter, regardless of what you do, and this is something that I’d like to see changed. Consistent good performances should be rewarded with an increase to that players overall stats and potential, whilst poor performances and periods of stagnation should result in a player’s progress being hampered.

THE ABILITY FOR PLAYERS TO LEARN NEW POSITIONS

This is something that I’ve spoken about before in a video that I did with a bunch of other career mode YouTubers last year, and that’s the ability for players to learn new positions within the game. EA updates the career mode database several times per week now and players will have certain positions added and removed from their abilities throughout the year, but what I’d very much like to see is the ability for players to learn new positions throughout the course of a career mode. You can train a player in different areas and therefore make them more useful in different positions, but the game will never update a players positioning to show where they’re most useful.

Bale is one such example of a player that could benefit from this new addition to the game; in the past he has at times been listed as able to play as a striker, but right now the game only recognises him as a right winger. He also started out his career as a left back, and I have at times had some pretty solid success with Bale, once again having him operating as a full back. You can of course play people anywhere and it doesn’t really massively matter whether or not the game suggests that they should be playing there, but it’d certainly satisfy my OCD if players could learn new positions. It’d also be quite nice if when you moved a player into a different position on the pitch, their rating altered to show you how effective they are in that position. Right now, players just have a rating set for how good they are in their primary position, and wherever you put them, they’ll still show the same rating.

CONTRACT CLAUSES

At the moment, contract negotiations are very simplistic, and I would love to see much more depth added to the game in this area. When you sell a player to another club, there should at least be the option to insert a buy back clause, or maybe even a sell-on clause as well. It’s minor details like this that would really help to make career mode more realistic, immersive, and just generally more enjoyable to play.

In addition to this, I’d also like to see clauses in loan contracts as well as right now, when you send a player out on loan; that player can end up playing against you if you ever have to play that team. That never really happens in reality as there’s usually a clause that prohibits them from playing against their parent club. Add this to FIFA career mode please, EA.

STADIUM EXPANSION

For teams that don’t have their official stadium in the game, I feel that stadium expansion should be an option, especially if you’re managing a side in a Road to Glory style series. It’s all very well playing in a tiny little stadium when you’re battling it out in League Two, but once you’ve taken your team to the Champions League and are challenging for the Premier League title every season, you don’t really want to be doing so at Town Park or some other such small generic stadium featured in the game.

As you get further into the game, there should be the option to expand upon the stadium that you already have, or upgrade to a larger generic stadium that’s featured in career mode. I’m not asking for the ability to set the price of hot dogs in the stadium or anything silly like that, it’d just be nice if the game would recognise your progress in career mode and update your stadium to better suit the prestige level that your team has reached within the game.

THE ABILTIY TO MAKE CHANGES IN SIMULATED MATCHES

Simulated matches in FIFA career mode currently consist of setting your team, pressing sim match, and hitting advance. Once you’ve done that, the players start warming up and the simulated match begins. There’s no ability to provide any input whatsoever and it’s all very limited. As it stands, I don’t tend to simulate matches as the whole process is just a bit rubbish. If there was the ability to make tactical changes or substitutions during simulated matches then this I feel would provide a fantastic step forward for career mode. For FIFA 17, all EA really did with career mode was change up the way that the board expectations are presented. It wasn’t enough and we want more from the career mode experience. There’s so much that they could do to improve career mode, and in my opinion, offering increased involvement in simulated matches would be an absolutely fantastic addition to the game for FIFA 18.

PLAYER STATS FOR OTHER LEAGUES

You can find out player stats for other teams in your own league and for all of the major tournaments taking place that season, but you can’t for example, be managing a team in England and scope out other leagues like the Bundesliga or Belgian Pro League to see what players are performing best in other leagues around the world. When I play Football Manager, especially once I’m a few seasons into the game, I’m constantly sniffing around in other divisions and looking for top talents abroad. I like to find out what players have the most goals in other divisions, what players have the most assists, and also what players have the highest average ratings. I can’t do that in FIFA career mode though… ‘Scouting’ in FIFA career mode currently basically just involves looking on SoFIFA and using the filters to look for pacey, strong, or high potential players.

As I stated earlier though, I’d like to see the removal of predefined potential in career mode. I want player potential to be more based around a players performance and whether or not they get knocked back by injuries or long spells in the reserves or on the sidelines. This kind of change to the structure of the game would make player stats for other leagues extremely useful. We could find out how players are getting on in other leagues around the world, scout them further if interested, and make decisions from there as to whether or not we wish to sign them. I love looking at players’ stats in reality, enjoy this method of seeking out players in Football Manager, and would also love for this to become a part of the process in FIFA 18 career mode as well.

TEAMS WITH AN INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY

When you play FIFA 17 career mode, teams don’t really have any sort of identity or game plan that separates them from the pack. Sometimes smaller teams will park the bus, but that’s about all the variety you really get from the career mode experience right now. Every team plays in the exact same style, just to varying degrees of success. If teams like Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern were brilliant and lower level teams were poor, this would be one thing, but that’s not even usually the case. You can be playing Barcelona in the Champions League one week, Bolton Wanderers in the EFL Cup the next, yet it’ll be Bolton that provide you with the sternest test. Bolton will be passing it around with precision, turning their backs on you, successfully shielding the ball at every opportunity, whilst Barcelona will play in the same style, but worse.

It’s not always the way that the big teams are poor and the smaller ones are excellent, but it’s often the case nonetheless. I think I’ve probably been beaten by Sunderland more times in career mode than I have Manchester City… And why is it that Jonjo Shelvey always seems to score against me as well? Stop it. Just stop it.

Anyway though, back on track… I want to see teams given more of an individual identity in career mode. Different teams should have different game plans and play in their own distinctive style. Not only would this make things more interesting, but it’d also make the game more difficult as well as right now, once you figure out how to play against the computer and find a style that works; that style will basically work against every team in the game. You don’t really ever have to vary the way that you play the game and unlock the opposition, as right now, CPU controlled teams never really operate any differently. When you go up against someone online, there’s always that battle of reading the way that they play the game and working out how best to stop them, a constant contest of skill and brain work as you look to stop the other person’s attacks, block off their passing lanes, and vary your own game as well so as not to make it too easy for them to work out what you’re going to be doing next.

Right now CPU controlled teams have no real unique identity and this brings me full circle in crying out for some form of online career mode. If EA aren’t going to improve the artificial intelligence, please let us put ourselves to the test in career mode against other real-life humans. I don’t ask for much in life, but I definitely want to battle my mates and all the good friends that I’ve made in the FIFA community, negotiating transfer deals with them and just generally having a bit more fun with career mode. Make it happen, EA. Just make it happen.

So these are some of the things that I’d like to see changed for FIFA 18 career mode… What additions and new features would you like to see present in the next game? Leave me your thoughts in the comments section down below and I very much look forward to hearing from you!

The FIFA 17 gameplay is much better than the gameplay of FIFA 16 in my opinion, but nothing has really changed in terms of career mode.

For FIFA 16, EA added player training and pre-season tournaments, but for FIFA 17 career mode there are no such killer new features and career mode has therefore massively stagnated.

Here are 10 things I hate about FIFA 17 career mode:

Faceless Players

When a player has no photo, I’m probably not going to want to sign them; no matter how good they are or how much potential they have, their creepy faceless form just isn’t wanted in my club.

Obviously I do understand that for whatever reason it’s not going to be easy to have everyone’s photo in the game, but when youth players come through the academy with that weird silhouetted alien face? That just doesn’t make any sense.

Youth Players That Look Nothing Like Their Photo

Now, real life players can obviously be known to change their appearance quite frequently and it’s therefore to be expected that their in game photo and appearance may not reflect their current look in reality. When you get a youth player that looks nothing like their photo though? Now that’s just baffling. How can the game that created them not have any idea what they’re supposed to look like?!

Messi will join Real Madrid, yet CR7 refuses to sign for Barca

Messi is supposed to be a ‘One Club Player’, yet if you offer him enough money he will happily sign for Real Madrid, whilst Cristiano Ronaldo refuses to switch allegiances and join you at Barcelona no matter how much money you try and offer him.

Now, I’ve taken full advantage of this fact… Twice. But I still don’t really think it’s right that the supposed ‘one club player’ is shown to be supremely greedy, whilst Ronaldo is painted to possess the pinnacle of morality. Either make it so that they’ll both refuse their rivals, or just have it so that they can both be persuaded by piles and piles of cold, hard cash.

Player Deterioration

When players hit the age of 29 or 30 in career mode this year, their physical stats suddenly fall away massively. There’s not much point in signing older players anymore as they don’t hold their value at all well, they very quickly get worse and once they hit their mid 30s, a number of them will have some physical stats in the single figures.

At the other end of the spectrum… Player Growth is also an issue this year.

Goalkeepers very quickly develop 99 kicking, defenders frequently end up with 99 strength, and attacking players can quite often end up with 99 pace and dribbling ability.

With so many younger players developing 99 rated physical stats; once you get a few seasons into career mode, playing the game becomes a very different beast. Defenders are suddenly supremely fast to react and track you down, slamming your players to the ground with their overpowered physicality, whilst attacking players zoom around like Usain Bolt and there’s often absolutely nothing that you can do about it.

It certainly adds a greater degree of difficulty to the gameplay, but it’s also something that needs tweaking by EA in the future as loads of younger players shouldn’t be developing 99 rated physical stats so easily, just as older players shouldn’t be losing every bit of mobility that they previously possessed.

Legendary Difficulty is way too Easy

Legendary difficulty was pretty straightforward in FIFA 16, but in FIFA 17 it’s generally even more simple. Teams do actually attack you, something that was quite the rarity in FIFA 16, but there seems to be very little defensive intelligence written into the game, to the point where CPU controlled defenders frequently seem to run in the opposition direction when they see you coming.

I’m top of the table after 12 games playing as Crystal Palace, 4 points clear of second and already 10 points ahead of the team in fifth. It shouldn’t be this easy to dominate on legendary difficulty, especially not with a team that’s actually struggling in reality.

The top difficulty is far too easy and this has therefore led to numerous people utilising sliders in order to make the game less straightforward. Definitely check out Cutzy’s video on his ‘Extreme Difficulty’ setting for the game if you’re finding things too easy and would like more of a challenge in FIFA 17 Career Mode.

Every Team Plays in the Exact Same Play Style

This really goes hand in hand with the last point about the game being too easy, but every team plays in the exact same style and that can therefore be incredibly frustrating. In PES, teams are programmed to have more of an identity and throughout games you’ll notice that they actually change the way that they’re operating in order to deal with the way that you’re playing.

In FIFA 17 career mode, however, every team has the exact same style and there’s therefore no real need for tactical adjustment; you find a play style that works and you stick with it as if it works against one team, it’s pretty much going to work against anyone. There needs to be more work put in to providing teams with individual identities as right now every team utilises the exact same methods and once you’ve learned how to play against the CPU, the game just becomes supremely straightforward.

Transfers

In FIFA 16, David Alaba was pretty much guaranteed to be signed by Juventus, a scripted transfer that I’ve again noticed multiple times whilst playing FIFA 17 career mode for myself and from watching videos about the game from others.

It’s not just scripted transfers that are frustrating in FIFA 17 though; it’s teams going about their business in a completely ridiculous manner. Why would any team ever buy three top strikers in the same transfer window, spending close to £200 million in the process? The transfer system in FIFA 17 definitely needs some work as right now teams make some very curious decisions.

Homesickness

In FIFA 16 I had to deal with Oxford born Callum O’Dowda informing me of his homesickness several times over. Apparently Oxford United just isn’t close enough to home for his liking and so he ended up moving away to restore his happiness… To the distant land of Birmingham.

In FIFA 17 homesickness seems to be even more prevalent and players frequently seem to become unhappy, leading to the board putting them up for sale and accepting any transfer offer that’s received. Whilst simulating forward in the game, testing out various factors such as player growth and decline, I’ve noticed that at least one player usually becomes unhappy each season and asks to be sold.

Unlike in previous games where you could offer a player more money and they’d suddenly change their mind and realise that they’re actually perfectly happy, that is no longer something that can be done in FIFA 17; you can of course put them up for loan and no matter where they go, as soon as they’re loaned out their homesickness will magically disappear, but it definitely happens a bit too frequently in this game and if you’re not paying attention to your inbox then you can easily lose one of your star players.

One Final Point… And this is a pretty big one! Nothing Has Really Changed.

With FIFA 16 career mode we had some pretty decent additions to the game in the form of pre-season tournaments and player training. This year though, all they’ve really done is changed the way that board expectations are presented. The board expectations now have their own menu and there is also now a manager rating that appears in the top left hand corner of the screen based around these expectations and informing you of how you’re doing as a manager.

It’s a nice touch, I guess, it doesn’t really massively add anything to the career mode experience though and sometimes when you load your save back up; the number in the top left hand corner just completely changes from what it was at when you last played the game. So whilst this one and only (and frankly very minimal) change to the game may be welcomed by some, it doesn’t even actually work very well. Awesome, right?

What annoys you about FIFA 17 career mode? Leave me a comment down below and let me know your thoughts!

A look at the best young players and wonderkids to sign up in FIFA 17 career mode. These are the top 10 highest potential young players in the game, with all of the players featured here possessing 88 potential or above.

English midfield maestro Dele Alli is one of four players aged 21 and under in the game to receive 90 potential for FIFA 17. The other three U21 players with 90 potential are Bayern Munich’s Renato Sanches, Manchester United’s Anthony Martial and Borussia Dortmund’s Ousmane Dembélé.

Also featured in this top 10 are Kingsley Coman (Bayern Munich), Julian Brandt (Bayer Leverkusen), Kurt Zouma (Chelsea), Youri Tielemans (Anderlecht), Alen Halilović (Hamburger SV), and Marco Asensio (Real Madrid).

FIFA 17 will be officially released in Europe on September 27th 2016, although Xbox One users will be able to play the game at an earlier date through EA Access.