Last month I got the chance to play FIFA 16 for the very first time, and was very impressed with the subtle yet fundamental tweaks to core gameplay. The improvements to goalkeepers, overhauling of player control, new player models and (finally) the introduction of women's teams meant the football on the pitch looked and played better than it has ever done, and made me very optimistic for the improvements EA might be making in the other aspects of the game. Last week I went to play FIFA once again, this time taking a look at the changes coming to its modes. I'm disappointed to say that, while gameplay has seen drastic changes that have had a big impact, the modes continue to stagnate.
Let's start with the good stuff: career mode finally has stuff to do between matches and transfer windows with training. Up to five players per week (or have one player do multiple drills) can now be put through their paces to improve their stats. The drills take the form of Skill Games, giving them a purpose outside of loading screens, and a tangible benefit on your squad during career.
The more I thought about training, the more depth the inclusion seemed to bring. Do I choose to focus on my starting 11 to make them the best they can be? Should I dedicate training to the youth prospects discovered via the scouting network to future-proof my squad? What about the fringe players? Surely they could use a workout. I began to get excited about the idea of development, fully aware that it wouldn’t be long before I began simming the vast majority of sessions, but knowing that I can eek that little bit more out of the team and craft how I see fit was enticing.
I asked producer Nick Channon about some of career mode’s legacy issues, starting with the repetitious player/manager targets, and lack of feedback from coaches, hoping they would see similar changes.
“I don't think we're doing any sort of tuning and tweaking, but not major overhauls into that area, no, not this year.”
Not exactly the news that fans like myself prefer FIFA’s offline offerings, wanted to hear. I asked Nick to expand upon other improvements coming to the mode:
“We talked about [it] I think when I was talking about the pre-season friendlies, we've got erm, being able to sub more than three players, we've done quite a lot of work around authenticity of transfers and making sure that the values are a little bit more reflective.
“We got a lot of feedback that last year they weren't really reflective of [reality], the transfer budget of Man United wasn't quite as authentic as it should be, player values. You can now carry over budget as well from year to year, there's a bit more variety in loans, in loan players as well, and then there's a list of things I can't remember right now, we've got a list that we can provide.”
Pre-season tournaments see teams from around the world face-off in prep for the campaign, with the winnings going straight into your transfer kitty. The more prestigious the tournament, the more challenging the opponents, and the greater the rewards. While this is looks a nice addition, it doesn’t address longstanding problems. Being able to make more than three subs in a friendly match doesn’t negate the fact that opponents tend to make the same substitutions at the same points in every match, quickly becoming noticeable and tedious.
The final question I asked discussed the long-standing issue within the career mode’s transfer market, which any player of FIFA’s career mode will tell you has a punishing deadline day. The transfer window advances by the hour, with deals made frantically at every bell chime. Any moves set to be confirmed at 11pm will be null and void as they must be advanced another whole hour before completing a deal, shutting the window.
“I'm not sure about the details in the last hour. I mean if there's any major bugs we'll be looking to fix them but certainly I'm not sure of the details on that to be honest.”
FIFA Ultimate Team is also getting a new mode in the form of FUT Draft. Players can spend coins or FUT Points and enter a tournament of up to four matches, online or against AI: the higher your win streak, the greater the rewards. Getting a brief glimpse at Ultimate Team's high-end offerings makes Draft seem catered toward those perhaps lacking the time (or most likely, money to spend on microtransactions) to accumulate the cards themselves. The minimum reward will be the entry fee, returned in the form of either players, packs or coins. Again, another exciting mode, one that will likely have a modest barrier of entry (the fee currently sits at 15,000 coins/300 FUT Points), but it certainly seems worth it thanks to the high reward potential.
After discussing FUT Draft, I asked Ultimate Team creative director Adam Shaikh about FUT’s servers, which tend to always ground to a halt on Wednesdays with the arrival of new Team of the Week packs, and if stability in matches will also be improved this year.
“Well, again this is an area we have a lot of people working on all the time so we actually have regular updates. If we do find there are problems with sort of, any stability or load or anything like that, there is a team that sort of focuses on doing updates and we actually have a number of releases of several improvements throughout the year and we continue to do that.
“In the end our goal is to make it so that everybody is having a great experience all the time and that's what that team is focused on so we did have, you know, in certain scenarios, small problems with some of those things in the past, but we fixed those things, and then we carry on moving forwards. I think we're always striving to do better and better, and if any things like that come up again, then we will be trying to sort of improve it again.”
A long answer which seems to suggest that, while the team at EA continues to monitor issues within the game, and roll updates out frequently, FIFA 16 is receiving no special treatment to make the online experience drastically different to as things stand.
Once again, based on my early experiences with the game, FIFA 16 has the potential to be the best game of football EA has ever produced. The fluidity of player movement, improved defending and aggressive AI actively trying to win back possession mean this could be an incredibly competitive and enjoyable experience. It's just such a shame that, with such evolution on the pitch, there seems to be a distinct lack of growth off it. The introduction of new modes and features are more than welcome, and certainly add intrigue, but considering EA has taken the approach of going back to working on the fundamentals for gameplay, it's disappointing that the same ethos wasn't adopted elsewhere.
