FIFA 15

[alldaws1]

That's a really weird formation when you look at it on a mobile phone.

[The Lusophone]

It's a weird formation anyways, both wide players are actually CMs/CAMs.

[alldaws1]

I'd love to know why Brad Friedel is referred to as Paddy Kenny in this game.

[Stevie B]

One thing to remember for next year is to BUY players during the TOTY window. I was fortunate enough to get a David Luiz TOTY in a pack. Flogged him on for 610K. Brought myself a solid BPL team. Now the TOTY has ended, the value of players has soared right back up, so decided to sell all the players I brought. Made a good 20K profit each on Kompany and Courtois. 15K profit on Costa, and a few grand on Van Persie, Fabregas & Mata, along with a 15k profit of Thiago Silva i brought a month ago. So to maximise profit, it's best to raise some coins well in advance, and start buying during TOTS frenzy, whilst everyone is selling. Kicking myself now I didn't just buy a whole load of Courtois and Kompany's and made some coins.

I do now have a cool 710,000 coins in the bank. After messing around with a few hybrid's, I will probably just stick to my Serie A team for now and wait for the market to crash again on the next event (Team of The Season maybe? unless a good Team of The Week occurs) before buying back some of these top of the range players.

[Thrilla]

People actually play that Ultimate Team thing? That seems like the worst of the game modes to me.

[EddieG]

People actually play that Ultimate Team thing? That seems like the worst of the game modes to me.

All these years I thought I was alone.

[Thrilla]

On the online seasons thing, does the difficulty for the CPU players increase as you go up the divisions? I just got promoted to Division 6 and nothing works properly anymore (passing going nowhere near where they should, players just losing control of the ball) and I'm being closed down constantly all over the pitch. Just wondering if I'm imagining it or if it is a thing.

[King Ellis]

People actually play against other people online? That is the worst of the game modes to me.

[TCO]

I've always found Ultimate Team pretty shit. I don't understand the appeal of Economics: The Game. I don't even know why people would want to put together random teams and play against other random teams.

[Jimmy]

I'd like it a lot more if contracts weren't a thing. Completely boring and a kill joy.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

I like Ultimate Team. The team customisation aspect appeals to me and the chemistry links throw up the need to use players I otherwise wouldn't have tried outside of the mode.

Sure, you can argue that it's basically dominated by whoever spends the most money, but career mode is the exact same principal, just using in-game currency. If you're good enough at the game, you can beat the computer easily enough, win the league half a dozen times, buy any player you want, and get the best regens, so the entire mode becomes challenge-less because you have the best players. Whenever I play the mode the AI are terrible negotiators too, which makes it far too easy to get money.

Then you get stuff like Be A Pro - another aspect of the game that I barely understand. Yeah, it's great you can put your guy in the game, but who only wants to play with one of the players on the pitch? I never enjoy using the mode except the few times I've played online with people here.

Kick Off and Seasons are great for using real-life teams, both off and online. Best used for playing with friends, so I use those quite frequently too.

Just a brief counter argument. Not every mode appeals to everyone.

[TCO]

Ultimate Team is just an EA money grab at heart though and half the time people spend on it is legitimately a simulation of real life market economics.

That's just something I couldn't see as fun personally.

[Cymbols]

It's all about Tournament mode. Pick a league, pick all the teams, play all the games. It's quality

[The Lusophone]

Ultimate Team is just an EA money grab at heart though and half the time people spend on it is legitimately a simulation of real life market economics.

That's just something I couldn't see as fun personally.

Which is why you buy coins from coin traders.

[TCO]

The fact that coin traders are a thing reaffirms even more that I don't want anything to do with it.

I'll have plenty of experience in real life with economics, I just want a football sim!

[Stevie B]

I'd like it a lot more if contracts weren't a thing. Completely boring and a kill joy.

The key is to buy managers. You can grab a whole bunch of managers for 150 coins each. Look at the Contracts %. Once you hit 50% contracts with all your combined managers, your contract cards you use on players are doubled.

If you have the Pre-Order Ultimate Team edition, you usually get 5 - 6 contract cards a week in your free packs, which should be enough to get through a busy week of FIFA playing.

I can see Ultimate Team being a very hit or miss for people. It took me a few years of FIFA editions to understand the market, in order to not waste your coins.

I'm probably quite opposite to some players on here. What I can't stand is playing offline modes. I find my game playing far more entertaining going up against real players, where every game is unpredictable and offers a different challenge each time to alter and adapt your playing style based on your opponent. rather than playing against the computer where the only variable is how strong of a team they are using and the difficulty level you choose to play on.

[Baddar]

Ultimate Team is just an EA money grab at heart though and half the time people spend on it is legitimately a simulation of real life market economics.

That's just something I couldn't see as fun personally.

To be fair, the entire game has been a money grab for years now.

They'll never fix stuff like kick off goals, balancing after a goal goes in, shocking AI around the 45th and 90th minute because apparently, high scoring games mean automatic excitement.

It's funny because I've got friends on fb who regularly upload goals where they've kicked off, walked forward and shot from 45 yards and it's sailed in. It's more to do with the fact that the keeper lets it in than the quality of the shot. At other times during matches, they're almost faultless.

Stuff like that doesn't get fixed because it's part of the code, and if people question it, they're, allegedly, automatically banned from the official forums.

It's frustrating because when bullshit doesn't set in, FIFA can be very enjoyable.

[Whisper]

On a sidenote, for anyone who has played it, how is PES this year? I usually buy both but wasn't at all tempted this year. However, the last few days I've been reading some decent things about PES.

[RoyWill Rumble]

PES, is, to me, much better than FIFA this year. Once you get the controls down, you have an incredible amount of control with the ball. The passing is god-damned incredible, too. You just feel so in control of how you're able to distribute the ball and there's an awesome emphasis on build-up and passing. It's awesome. PES also does a great job of differentiating clubs (as long as you make sure fluid formations are on) and clubs do a great job of adjusting to the circumstances surrounding a game. I also love that players are differentiated, too. They feel unique—say, deep-lying mids who may not have amazing pace anymore but just play awesome passes, play as they ought to play. Massive brutes of defenders play like massive brutes. Speeder wingers play like speedy wingers. Dudes like Messi and Ronaldo and so on and so forth are all terrifying. Guys like Thomas Muller, whose skills are incredible, but doesn't exactly fit one "mould" is, I feel, a lot more useful in PES than FIFA because there's more freedom in formations and build-up to use his skillset effectively. I barely ever felt that dudes played like they ought to in FIFA.

FIFA got boring and same-y and the 90th minute/45th minute comeback stuff just got to me—same with the over-reliance on pace, as always. It is shitty that file editing can't happen on PS4/Xbone, though. The lack of licensing wouldn't be such a big deal if it had file editing, and it definitely sours me a bit, but it's a better game to play and there's a buttload of leagues to still play with. I've had great fun in Ligue 1 in my career mode and even more fun in Brazil in my Manager mode.

[Baddar]

Yeah, lack of file editing is an automatic deal breaker this year for people, and I don't blame them.

However, there's a LOT of non English licenses in the game, and the gameplay definitely deserves to be given a chance.