FIFA 18

[V. Amoleo]

Considering what you guys have been saying about the lack of friend play online, this is not going to end well.

[Glen-i]

2 minutes ago, V. Amoleo said:

Considering what you guys have been saying about the lack of friend play online, this is not going to end well.

There we go, perfect.

[nekunando]

I've managed to get a few games in online this morning and things have been starting to click a little, even if I'm discovering a few issues!

My first 5 games of Seasons went flawlessly, winning each one and playing some great stuff the more I progressed but I've just been brought crashing back down again with my first defeat.. a 4-1 loss to PSG

My opponent may have just edged it but the scoreline was extremely harsh and there were a couple of moments in defence where things didn't seem to work as they should have and they just tapped in after bizarre occurences. The most strange thing so far, though, is when I played earlier..

For whatever reason, the game was displaying 'Roberto Firmino' above Mignolet's head in the warm up before the match and then exclusively above Clyne throughout two successive games. It fixed itself after I completely exited the game but there seemed to be absolutely no reason for it. I don't even have it set to display names anywhere else other than the bottom of the screen

Another problem has been in organising the formation of my team. From the main menu, it is easy to go and customise your formation, player positions and whatever else eithout issue. However, once you go online in 'Seasons' there seems to be no way to select the formation you created. This wouldn't be a problem but there seems to be absolutely no way of altering it in this mode. You can obviously change to any of the standard formations but you can't choose to move any selected player around on the formation screen like you can offline and it limits me from being able to set the team up exactly how I want It was especially problematic when I was 3-0 down to PSG in that final game and just wasn't able to tweak things to give me a better chance of getting back into the game. All I could do was flick it to 'All Out Attack' and leave myself vulnerable.

Criticisms aside, FIFA 18 seems pretty solid and a game I should become more comfortable with over the next few weeks. Hopefully some of the issues are addressed in that time (unlikely ) but what's there will be enjoyable throughout the course of this season. One major bonus that I haven't seen mentioned, though, is that we currently don't have to spend any money on any form of online subscription to play online like the other consoles. That's a huge advantage for me as I have no intention of ever buying PS+ and the main reason I bought the Switch version. I'll no doubt pay for Nintendo Online when it comes to fruition as there are many games I wish to play online on Switch, unlike my PS4

[Hero-of-Time]

I managed to get my Ultimate team promoted for a 3rd time, this evening. This is how it looks at the moment.

After taking the pic I picked up Jonjo Shevley and Marc Albrighton.

I also unlocked the Switch kit. The keepers setup is glorious.

I think i'll have a break from the game. I think i've been on it for pretty much 8 hours straight.  

[nekunando]

That's a really cool touch with the goalkeeper kit, @Hero-of-Time

For the first time ever, I may have to check out Ultimate Team.. but I kinda want to get as far as I can up the divisions in Seasons first.

I really wish I had more time to play games 

[Hero-of-Time]

I've just added Ashley Young, Danny Drinkwater and Phil Jones to my lineup, all for under 2000 coins. It really pays to just be patient and do a bit of sleuthing around in order to get players at a good price.

I'm gonna aim to try and sign either Sturridge or Walcott, tomorrow. It could take a while as I'm starting to run a bit low on cash and a few contracts will need renewed soon.

[khilafah]

Guys what's it like playing the CPU? Anyone started career mode? Any viarety in the teams or does the CPU just feel the same but in different shirts?

Any individuality in the players?

Does anyone play with manual controls or do you use the assists?

Edited September 30, 2017 by khilafah

[Hero-of-Time]

I picked up Walcott for my team, this morning.

I not sure how much more progress I will be able to make in UT. My team is fine but my FIFA skills aren't. The game is starting to ramp up difficulty level to World Class and it's a little too much for me. The highest level I play on is Professional and even that's a rare thing. I generally just stick to semi-pro.

I may try and get promotion into League 5 and then move on to something else.

[nekunando]

28 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I picked up Walcott for my team, this morning.

I not sure how much more progress I will be able to make in UT. My team is fine but my FIFA skills aren't. The game is starting to ramp up difficulty level to World Class and it's a little too much for me. The highest level I play on is Professional and even that's a rare thing. I generally just stick to semi-pro.

I may try and get promotion into League 5 and then move on to something else.

I jumped onto Seasons for a quick match after work last night and saw you were still playing after all of that progress yesterday. You really are a machine

As for my game, I did things in typical Liverpool fashion. I was comfortably 3-1 and wasted several chances to go further ahead (it felt like the game didn't want me to score) and then I conceded a sloppy goal (a carbon copy of his first) then somehow gave away a penalty when my player made a challenge that I honestly didn't contribute to as I never pressed anything. I felt kinda cheated

 

[Hero-of-Time]

Just had a hell of a match on UT.

It was the last game of the season and I had to win it to secure the title. It was 1-1 with 2 mins to go. I had one last attack and Carroll got fouled in the box. Pen! I've had several pens already but each time I've had one I've either skied it or it went completely wide. I took a chance and just fired it down the middle....GOAL!! I was going nuts.

Ive now made it to the 5th division with my team but I'm not sure how much further I can go. The AI starts to get really cheap on the higher difficulties. I'm playing teams like Oxford and yet they all have blistering pace and can easily catch up to my wingers when I'm on a break. It's very frustrating. 

[Space]

That Switch goalkeeper kit is fab. 👍 I will have to play more Ultimate Team to earn it.

Last year on XB1 I was able to get to Div 2 once in UT, super hard, Div 3 was my level really. Incredibly competitive, I'll be playing a lot less intensively this year.

[Nicktendo]

So what is ultimate team? Is it like the classic master league on PES? Get together a team and climb the leagues kind of deal? I'd maybe be interested if that's the case. 

[flameboy]

Lack of playing with friends totally kills this, if I could have played Ultimate Team Friendly seasons (like every other version) with you guys like I would have thought more about getting this.

[Sheikah]

Oh my fucking god... Why?! Nothing to do with Nintendo, you could play against friends on wii u. You can play against friends on Indies like Playgrounds and FAST. This is 100% EA being cunts like always.

Why do this?! What is wrong with them?

100% due to Nintendo, developers shouldn't be responsible for coding in an online friend matchmaking solution every time. It should be implemented at the system level as on other consoles.

 

Any time online features are missing blame Nintendo and their silly choices when making the system.

[markderoos]

Still find the blame game very uninteresting. Both Nintendo and EA make a product for their customers. You'd say they both want that product to deliver an experience that makes their customers as happy about it as possible. In this case Nintendo and EA both failed to do so.

in the end it's all about choosing how much effort and research you put in your product. And it wasn't enough from both sides.

 

 

Edited October 2, 2017 by markderoos

[Clownferret]

Only just played my first few games in UT offline, currently trying to patch together a 100 chemistry team to enter the tournament. I have packed a OTW card, nor sure whether to sell and use the coins to buy a few players or keep for a while and gamble that he gets better and his value will go even higher. I forgot just how much fun the early stages of UT are when you're trying to build a squad. I find myself browsing the transfer market and not even playing matches.

When will the first sales figure hit?

[liger05]

46 minutes ago, Clownferret said:

Only just played my first few games in UT offline, currently trying to patch together a 100 chemistry team to enter the tournament. I have packed a OTW card, nor sure whether to sell and use the coins to buy a few players or keep for a while and gamble that he gets better and his value will go even higher. I forgot just how much fun the early stages of UT are when you're trying to build a squad. I find myself browsing the transfer market and not even playing matches.

When will the first sales figure hit?

This morning, 9am I think. 

I see on the UK eShop it's climbed to 3rd. When I checked on Friday it was 6th. 

Sits behind Golf Story and SD2 which are significantly cheaper. 

Edited October 2, 2017 by liger05

[Hero-of-Time]

40 minutes ago, Clownferret said:

Only just played my first few games in UT offline, currently trying to patch together a 100 chemistry team to enter the tournament. I have packed a OTW card, nor sure whether to sell and use the coins to buy a few players or keep for a while and gamble that he gets better and his value will go even higher. I forgot just how much fun the early stages of UT are when you're trying to build a squad. I find myself browsing the transfer market and not even playing matches.

When will the first sales figure hit?

Yup. I was doing that loads over the weekend. I felt like a proper bargain hunter. It makes it even better that you can do it in off tv mode. I just sat there with the footy on while going through the transfer market.

Chart position will be out earlier today.

12 hours ago, Nicktendo said:

So what is ultimate team? Is it like the classic master league on PES? Get together a team and climb the leagues kind of deal? I'd maybe be interested if that's the case. 

It's been that long since I played PES that I can't remember what the master league is.

UT is you building a squad from real players and starting from the 10th division and trying to get to the top, something which I will never achieve.  There are also weekly cups you can take part in and online tournaments that can be played.

The game mode starts with you receiving a few players and a card pack. These packs contain random players, contracts and other goodies such as kits and stadiums. You assign these players into your squad, where you can mess about with your formations and look at how players match up.

In this picture of my squad you can see that the teams chemistry is 100. That's because they are all english. Ideally you want to get all of the lines green. You can see that a few of mine are orange in the picture. That's becuase while they are English players, they don't play in the same league. You can increase you chemistry in other ways, such as playing players in the right positions and having players who play in the same football club in your team.

To build your squad you will need coins. You can get these buy winning games and trophies. Most games dish out at least 400 coins per match. You can also go the pay to win method where you spend real money of FIFA points and this allows you to buy card packs and you can then sell your players on the transfer market and earn coins that way. personally I wouldn't do this as it just encourages microtransactions in games and it feels like it's cheating, instead of putting the time and effort in yourself.

Once you get enough coins you can buy card packs. These come in gold, silver and bronze variations. You get around 10-12 random cards in these and they can be either sold or used in your team.

I personally like to use the transfer market rather than buying packs. You can search for players that others are selling and you can get some good bargains on there. You can either enter a bidding war with other gamers or use the buy it now option. It's essentially ebay but for FIFA.  

[liger05]

He also tweeted physical sales down 25% year on year. 

Edited October 2, 2017 by liger05

[Nicktendo]

That sounds not a million miles away from the Master League. I generally like these long career type modes which offer some customisation, so I may jump in, but definitely not at the price its going for at the moment. Does the game require you to put in a lot of busy work if you ignore the microtransations, or is it pretty fair? That's something I'm really not a fan of... Obviously. 

Hopefully there will be a patch to have matches against friends as an N-E league would also make me more inclined to bite the bullet. Probably need to give it a go first, if the gameplay isn't at PES's level then I definitely wouldn't be too keen, FIFA's physics have always felt a bit off in comparison to PES.

[Hero-of-Time]

1 hour ago, Nicktendo said:

 Does the game require you to put in a lot of busy work if you ignore the microtransations, or is it pretty fair? That's something I'm really not a fan of... Obviously.

Nah. The progression is quite natural. Buying packs with real money is only if you're desperate to get a good team straight away without putting in the leg work. I think i've made around 17,000 coins just playing league and cup matches and that has netted me 4 star squad. 

1% of all of FIFA sales is a bit rough. I suppose the sales aren't as bad as people are making them out to be, I mean it did reached number 7 in the individual charts.

It will be interesting to see just what EA's expectations were for the game.

[liger05]

4 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Nah. The progression is quite natural. Buying packs with real money is only if you're desperate to get a good team straight away without putting in the leg work. I think i've made around 17,000 coins just playing league and cup matches and that has netted me 4 star squad. 

1% of all of FIFA sales is a bit rough. I suppose the sales aren't as bad as people are making them out to be, I mean it did reached number 7 in the individual charts.

It will be interesting to see just what EA's expectations were for the game.

Yeah. Need to know what they shipped? Game were doing 1 per customer.

 Amazon posted this. It's all very bizarre. 

Please note, due to stock limitations from the supplier we are unable to deliver any further orders of FIFA 18 - Nintendo Switch for release date. We expect to deliver orders placed today by October 13th, and will confirm an exact release date as soon as possible. If you've already placed an order for this product please check “My Orders” to confirm your expected delivery date.

 

[Clownferret]

The 1% of all sales figure is pretty meaningless and misleading. At this point in time I'm sure the Switch only makes up 1% of all consoles in comparison to PS3/4 and XB1/360. The most important figure will be attach rate. If EA know that for arguments sake 20% of Switch owners will buy FIFA, they can get a pretty accurate idea of sales based on how many Switches have sold and base their continuing support on these numbers. Switch still seems to selling good numbers, so EA can probably assume that they'll sell double next year and that figure will increase year on year.

[liger05]

9 minutes ago, Clownferret said:

The 1% of all sales figure is pretty meaningless and misleading. At this point in time I'm sure the Switch only makes up 1% of all consoles in comparison to PS3/4 and XB1/360. The most important figure will be attach rate. If EA know that for arguments sake 20% of Switch owners will buy FIFA, they can get a pretty accurate idea of sales based on how many Switches have sold and base their continuing support on these numbers. Switch still seems to selling good numbers, so EA can probably assume that they'll sell double next year and that figure will increase year on year.

Still wondering why the issues with shipments though? Seems quite the mess. 

[Sheikah]

20 minutes ago, Clownferret said:

The 1% of all sales figure is pretty meaningless and misleading. At this point in time I'm sure the Switch only makes up 1% of all consoles in comparison to PS3/4 and XB1/360.

That's a bit of a meaningless statement though, as the vast majority of people who bought PS3s/360s aren't playing them or buying games for them anymore. Overall it is a very poor percentage for the Switch, and I can see why third parties don't always treat the Switch the same as the other consoles.