Similar to the gameplay deep dive, the folks over at EA continue with their EA Sports FC 24 pre-release hype, this time with career mode. There’s a lot to unpack here, but we’ll keep this impressions article solely focused on manager career mode. Let’s get into it!
What I Like
The Level Of Depth Added
For years the avid career mode fan clamored for more depth in career mode, and slowly but surely EA has been adding it. Still far from the finished project, the new layers of depth created by the addition of Tactical Vision, which appears to be the umbrella by which the likes of Tactical Scouting and Player Development fall under to create a more Football Manager-like experience. Some might not like the level of complexity this adds as it will no doubt take some time to edit it all, but these additions are a step in the right direction and according to the trailer they can be set with some level of automation should it become a little too overbearing.
With specific Player Styles and managers who employ certain tactics, there should be the ability to search for players who fit your managerial style. If you’re a counter-attacking team and your assistant coaches are well versed in that style of play, shouldn’t you be able to scout players who fit into that sense of system and wouldn’t that in-turn make it easier for those players to settle at your club? As it stands now, there are really no flops in career mode unless you just fail to perform with them. There’s no learning curve for settling into a new league, country, and club. It’s simply plug and play and that’s just not representative of real life football.
Pre-Match Preparations
Sure it’s long overdue but it’s finally here, and for that reason I put pre-match preparations in this section. If you think about what happens in real life you can slowly start to see where EA is going with this:
- Probable Line-up – the opponent’s predicted formation, factoring in match availability, details on the opponent’s Tactical Vision, including a description of their offensive and defensive styles.
- Opposing team’s form over the last 5 matches and competition standing.
- Opponent Threats, split in Key Attacking and Key Defensive Players. These are opposition players that you should generally be on the lookout for and may need special attention.
Ideally you would get this information/data from someone on your scouting team.
Player Agents In Player Career Mode
Long overdue but still a worthy addition, the newly added Player Agents on the player side of career mode will rightly play a crucial aspect in your player’s future. Last year, player career mode saw a host of RPG elements added that created another dimension despite some of them being outrageous like buying a new mattress. Being able to shape your career path by targeting teams and having clear objectives from the start looks sound and a far cry from the pre-match objectives that were at times ridiculous (coming on as a sub in the 75th minute and being asked to contribute a goal and an assist in 15+ minutes).
Hopefully the difficulty will be tuned and some of the gameplay enhancements will make the on-pitch experience a little better.
What I’m Still On The Fence About
Player Physical Attributes Can Be Influenced
Overall I love the idea of assistants coming in with their specialized areas of expertise. Certain mental attributes like positioning can absolutely be improved through coaching, but there’s no coaches out there who are currently available in EA Sports FC 24 (attacking, midfield, defensive, keepers) who can increase Jack Grealish’s sprint speed from a 74 to an 80 (see above picture for reference). Top-notch physio and conditioning work can improve a players physical traits but Grealish, who will be 28 in September, isn’t all of the sudden getting that much faster. If anything, EA should be exploring the reverse and having certain attributes decline with both age (which the game currently does) and injury.
Hopefully the balance for these assistant coaches is done well and we don’t see assistants whose ratings are maxed out influence the overall of teams and players to the extreme.
What I Don’t Like
No Managerial Carousel
With all of the depth EA has added to EA Sports FC 24‘s career mode there’s one key aspect that remains absent: Managerial Carousel. With the addition of assistant coaches who can be replaced, it begs the larger question, “Why can’t managers be fired and subsequently replaced and/or resurface?” One of the main critiques of career mode is how stale it becomes because the managers never get sacked. Ten years into your save and Jurgen Klopp will still be at the helm for Liverpool employing the same tactics as he had in year 1.
NCAA Football was able to get this right ten years ago, even down to the assistant coaches who could be enticed with a head coaching position, so why can’t EA Sports FC do this? This can’t be due to licensing agreements because it didn’t hamper NCAA Football so it just comes down to whether or not EA wants to add it. Just for a second imagine how on alert you would be if a highly touted manager turns up in Tottenham with their entire back-room assistants.
No Mention Of The Transfer Market
To be fair to EA, the transfer market is as volatile and unpredictable as it has ever been so nailing it 100 percent would be asking too much, but there are some serious improvements to be had, some of which I think could feed off the additions they have already made. For starters, the transfer difficulty needs to be improved as does player scouting.
Tactical Scouting should help with the latter but negotiating transfers these days is increasingly difficult. Personally I’d love the ability to come to terms with the player before or simultaneously with the transfer negotiations — as it does in real life. If you can’t agree to terms with a player, there’s no point in stressing yourself with the transfer negotiations.
Still No Fluid Formations
Way back when PES added Fluid Formations, I thought that EA would quickly follow suit and “leverage” this idea. Unfortunately this isn’t the case and we’re still stuck with the same tactical system, albeit slightly tweaked this year. For all the fuss, the pre-match formations are usually just placeholders and it takes a minute or so to see how real-life teams setup when they have/don’t have the ball. All it takes is a few Arsenal and Man City matches from last year to realize how archaic we are when it comes to tactics in EA Sports FC.
On paper it may look like Arsenal is lining up in a 4-3-3 but rarely would you see the Gunners actually playing that. In possession, they are going to invert their fullbacks so that Zinchenko (a LB on paper) will push into the midfield and form a double-pivot with their CDM. Their left-sided midfielder (#8) is also going to push up high into the box with their LW hugging the touchline out wide. In defense, they are going to play with a flat three in the defense. Unfortunately this game does not give us the freedom to truly create tactics or approaches that we see in real life and would like to create from scratch.
EA could pull this off with just an expansion of Player Instructions and/or quick tactics. How nice would be to set your pressing triggers through some sort of team instruction or having the ability to hit a button and see your player press (possible on legacy defending).
Bottom Line
There are still a lot of kinks to be ironed out and issues to be addressed in career mode. Everything from CPU roster management to transfer window logic needs to be tuned, but by now we know that’s not going to attract headlines despite it being sorely needed. What we can see from EA is the strive for more realism and the commitment towards adding depth and additional layers to career mode. Now whether or not these changes will be tuned and balanced remains to be seen for now but the information looks promising.
