The Anticipated Return of AirJapes

 

Hey comrades, welcome to the 39th FUT FM, featuring FIFA legend AirJapes. It’s been a while since he’s been on, and we want to give him a big thanks for a lovely chat!

Unfortunately Goran (drpoplove) had to sit out on this episode, so Nelly (nellygotbored) takes over hosting duties and, well… maybe forgets the format of the show.

Sorry Nelly, we still love you though. <3

This week we take a long hard look at the design of FIFA Ultimate Team, debate what the actual gameplay should reward, and so much more. Let’s get to it!

 

 

Quickly Circling Back On The 433 False 9

Last week, we brought up the 433 False 9 and questioned why it was so ineffective in high level play.

Although people have suggested many reasons, ranging from the ease of passing to absurdly high attributes on super powered in form cards, at the end of the day, it just leaves you exposed too often.

Compared to the more meta formations, the 433 is not reliable enough defensively.

And as Japes points out, you need a truly stacked team to make it work in attack in  FIFA 18. That brings us to our next point...

 

Does FIFA Ultimate Team Need To Be Redesigned?

 

 

With the new animation system in place and generally harder defending, there’s never been a bigger gap between Gold Players and In Forms/Icons.

As one of the consequences of this, it would seem that less and less people are playing/enjoying FUT Champs.

Between the FUT FM crew and Japes, we have amassed several decades of collective FIFA experience, and all of us agree that the power creep has gotten out of hand. It’s getting impossible to enjoy the Weekend League unless you have a hyper upgraded team, which of course means that you have spend to a huge amount of time playing.

Or that you spend a lot of real world money.

On the other hand, you should expect the likes of a 96 card to destroy an 81 player any day of the week. But how do you make that balanced and fun?

It’s a tough nut to crack, but a Hearthstone-style duplicate system could help level the playing field. Or perhaps a draft and ban system is needed, similar to the likes of LoL or Heroes Of The Storm.

Either way, striking more of a balance would require a major revamp of FUT’s mechanics.

If you could make one major change to how FUT works, what would you do? Let us know on Twitter. Or let us know if it should stay exactly how it is!

With the amount of highly visible FIFA pros and content creators leaving the scene, it might be be time time for change.

 

Should FIFA Reward Football IQ Or AI Mastery?

All sports games have to assist you in many ways. After all, you’re only controlling 1 player most of the time.

But the thing is… most successful competitive games take out as much of the AI element as possible. You can’t really do that in FIFA, outside of the Pro Clubs mode. As long as 1v1 is the primary focus, the AI will have to be a part of the flow.

As Japes and Valerio debate in this episode, there’s a real divide between how much the AI should help you out.

For example, the casual player needs to be able to pick up the game and have through balls work in order to create goal scoring chances. But then for the hardcore player, it can get frustrating when the defender auto lunges and misses the through ball interception all of the time.

On the flip side, if you make through balls too manual, the casual player (the most common player) will not have a good time.

Like with the FUT redesign point, the question is, how do you balance all of this?

Maybe the answer here is to have less AI assistance for the Weekend League, similar to how Madden has a setting to reduce RNG. But is that even truly feasible?

The casual player wants to log in and have a blast, but the hardcore player wants to compete.

Which side of the debate are you on? Or do you have a different idea of what FIFA should be rewarding? Give us a shout on Twitter.

 

The Potential Effect Of The EU General Data Protection Regulation On FIFA

 

The European Union is updating its internet privacy laws in about 3 months to accommodate the the current state of the internet.

The EU GDPR looks like it will fundamentally change how how we handle and process data, and it’s safe to speculate that similar laws will be adopted in other regions over the next few years.

One of the more FIFA-relevant aspects of the GDPR is that the data collection company should be telling you how and why it’s using your data. It’ll be interesting to see if this translates into generic “hey we are taking your data to

enrich your experience” disclaimers, or if companies will be forced into revealing more details.

Of course, over the years it’s become clear that game companies and marketers use all available data they can to encourage more online spending. So maybe we’ll finally get a clear answer on how packs work, and whether all of the rumors of them changing weights based on your behavior are true or not.

After all, EA’s VP of Engineering has stated that the company can alter the game experience as they see fit:

EA Digital Employees Present, "A Day In The Life"

Thanks for listening to FUT FM and reading this article, we’ll be back next week with another special guest, cheers!

And don’t forget you can always subscribe to us on iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music.

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FUT FM Episode 39 Highlights

0:25 Goran (drpoplove) has a problem!?

1:40 Past week of FIFA.

2:02 Japes’ “secret” tactics.

4:26 Japes’ past Weekend League Experience.

5:35 The difference between gold cards and in forms/icons.

7:50 Various FUT formats following games like Hearthstone and Magic.

13:50 The ghost of Goran (drpoplove).

14:40 New game modes in FUT, and redesigning current ones.

18:50 FIFA’s attributes and how they affect gameplay.

24:20 The balance between overly simplified gameplay and ultra complex mechanics.

25:50 Football IQ vs AI mastery.

36:00 Lunar New Year promotion.

37:00 Circling around to the 433 False 9.

44:05 Potential leaks about EA’s use of your data for FIFA and Madden.

47:20 Pros and content creators dropping out of the FIFA scene in large numbers.

55:00 Revamping FUT attributes.