EA SPORTS FC 26

My biggest gripe, amongst a few others, with these newer games has always been how easy it is to score.

You read on these forums about gritty 0-0 draws etc... so out of interest I just looked back at my team - Villa - and how many 0-0 results we had this season... 3.

Modern footy IRL, seems to have more goals than ever before, and I do think if they released a game that was littered with low scoring matches, before long everyone would be moaning it's boring and hard to score chances.

I've downloaded FC26. I'm going to tinker with the sliders and see what I can do. I played a couple games last night and it wasn't too bad.

It's probably that WC DLC that's tempted me. The missus is off out for the day on June 20th, so I've already told my 2 lads to not make plans and we will do a WC on this while watching the actual WC.
 
SP83 said:
My biggest gripe, amongst a few others, with these newer games has always been how easy it is to score.

You read on these forums about gritty 0-0 draws etc... so out of interest I just looked back at my team - Villa - and how many 0-0 results we had this season... 3.

Modern footy IRL, seems to have more goals than ever before, and I do think if they released a game that was littered with low scoring matches, before long everyone would be moaning it's boring and hard to score chances.
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I get this, I really do - it's the same with overall speed of the game, it is a faster sport now.

However, the difference is, you still have to work really hard in real life to create opportunities, and the satisfaction from scoring comes from "unlocking" an opponent, through great passing moves or from "figuring them out" tactically.

Right now in FC that's just not a thing at any level. We have deep tactical setup options, and even separate tactical sliders, and yet the 1v1 magic "switch" that is embedded in the game (with zero teamwork AI defensively), alongside the rigidity with which teams stick to their pixel-perfect positions (defensive lines glued together and moving back and forth like a tide without doing actual defending), means you don't have to work for anything.

You don't have to aim accurately with your passes, you don't have to weigh up risk of giving up possession, you don't have to think about anything - yes, you can dial up sliders and make it feel harder, but not in any kind of realistic way.

There aren't as many 0-0s nowadays, but that doesn't mean a footballing brain is no longer required.

Also, it depends on the level you're playing at, too. At a lower league level, you will see more goals from a different kind of football (lumping the ball forward and causing chaos) - because in real life, the ball is loose and mistakes happen. In FC, pass accuracy never changes and the impact of attributes is fairly flat, which makes every game feel the same - and is historically why PES has always beaten FIFA for realism (and fun).

I see genuine effort on EA's part to appeal to the sim audience, but it's just not going far enough to make it anything but a tweaked version of an arcade game right now.

Who knows what the future holds - but taking the base game and making it slower isn't enough.
 
Also - for as long as responsiveness is the priority and animations warp and rewind/fast-forward to ensure the best result, it will always feel like everything you do wasn't earnt, but simply forced:

 
I am so glad others, who have a louder voice than us, point things like this out.



Authentic mode needs to be truly distinct.

I booted up FC26 earlier to try out the new international teams, and (even with sliders) as soon as I hit a pass and the ball moves like a marble being smacked across a glass surface, I just, to be frank, hate it.

For as long as the ball moves like a rocket with instant start/stop functionality, I cannot enjoy it, and I fear "Authentic" will continue to add things like wind effects as opposed to fixing the cartoon fundamentals - which it can only do with its own physics model.

If it doesn't feel like football, it isn't football.
 
Chris Davies said:
I am so glad others, who have a louder voice than us, point things like this out.



Authentic mode needs to be truly distinct.

I booted up FC26 earlier to try out the new international teams, and (even with sliders) as soon as I hit a pass and the ball moves like a marble being smacked across a glass surface, I just, to be frank, hate it.

For as long as the ball moves like a rocket with instant start/stop functionality, I cannot enjoy it, and I fear "Authentic" will continue to add things like wind effects as opposed to fixing the cartoon fundamentals - which it can only do with its own physics model.

If it doesn't feel like football, it isn't football.
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Now that we are near the end of the yearly cycle, can we finally admit that, pad in hands, Authentic mode revealed once again to be nothing more than a gimmick? Except that "it's slower" I can't point out to a single fundamental that changes enough to make me believe it's a distinct thing. Even the majority of people enjoying the game here seems to prefer custom sliders or other kind of mods.

I'd like to believe in the good faith of people who worked on this thing, but when they look you straight in the eyes and they sell it as a supposed simulative, separate thing only to be, well, this... it gets hard.
 
Oh wow - and this...

There's a uniform creator AND a stadium creator?! If only FC could have this stuff too. Changing a real team's details will be a licensing issue I'm sure (which is a shame because I'd love to make Prenton Park more realistic, and/or use club finances to improve the stadium throughout a career) - but for your Create A Club saves? This would be great.

 
Okay, this is the last time I'll post Madden / College Football stuff in here - but this is all stuff EA have in their other sports franchises and... it feels like they get them first, and FC gets them years later.

But this advert...

Man, have they nailed the exact feeling I want as a manager when I play FC career mode. It's sensational. (Whether their game makes you feel like this, I don't know, but...)

It also makes me want an online career mode, with transfers, and stealing players under my friends' noses - and an AI-generated podcast where I get slated by the fans for making terrible decisions (with specifics)...

It's 2026 - it's not crazy to want the game to reach a whole new level and not just iterate on existing features year-on-year, right?

 
Chris Davies said:
Okay, this is the last time I'll post Madden / College Football stuff in here - but this is all stuff EA have in their other sports franchises and... it feels like they get them first, and FC gets them years later.

But this advert...

Man, have they nailed the exact feeling I want as a manager when I play FC career mode. It's sensational. (Whether their game makes you feel like this, I don't know, but...)

It also makes me want an online career mode, with transfers, and stealing players under my friends' noses - and an AI-generated podcast where I get slated by the fans for making terrible decisions (with specifics)...

It's 2026 - it's not crazy to want the game to reach a whole new level and not just iterate on existing features year-on-year, right?

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I keep thinking about this, I know on the field gameplay is one of the biggest issues with football games in 2026, but there's so much they could do with career. Maybe if we lived in a parallel universe where Ultimate Team and easy monetisation wasn't a thing, we could have actual single player experiences that actually have a big budget chucked at it, to make it actually feel like a modern game.
 
Chris Davies said:
Okay, this is the last time I'll post Madden / College Football stuff in here - but this is all stuff EA have in their other sports franchises and... it feels like they get them first, and FC gets them years later.
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I love this kind of stuff being added, but don't completely fall for EA's marketing. Many of these things they're "unveiling" as new features are things that were in EA Sports games over a decade ago. NCAA Football 06 (thru 11) had a "create a program mode". Older generations of Madden had a create a stadium that wasn't 100% customizable, but let you do the basics and more. The NCAA Baseball series had a full blown create-a-school and create-a-stadium in 2006 and 2007.

There's a Youtuber (can't remember his name right now) who talks about this stuff occasionally and how new games have ripped out old features and slowly bring them back as "new" (not just EA doing this).
 
FCDallas_Fan said:
I love this kind of stuff being added, but don't completely fall for EA's marketing. Many of these things they're "unveiling" as new features are things that were in EA Sports games over a decade ago. NCAA Football 06 (thru 11) had a "create a program mode". Older generations of Madden had a create a stadium that wasn't 100% customizable, but let you do the basics and more. The NCAA Baseball series had a full blown create-a-school and create-a-stadium in 2006 and 2007.

There's a Youtuber (can't remember his name right now) who talks about this stuff occasionally and how new games have ripped out old features and slowly bring them back as "new" (not just EA doing this).
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I know Angry Joe always brings that point up. I'm far from a Madden or NFL fan, but I do enjoy his rants every year
 
I might be one of the few ones who thinks this, but I think that a Career Mode with too many cutscenes and/or in-built roleplaying options actually detracts from the experience. Part of the immersion for me is to imagine and create the narrative on my own and not have the game dictate it for me. Some of the most satisfying campaigns I've had have been in "bare-bones career" games, like FIFA 15, 16, or PES 2017 or 2013, where yes, you do get notifications, letters from players, have some board goals and rules, etc.. but the game setup actually gives you the freedom to invent and imagine your own immersion in your head. So yeah.. I guess that when the game engine "holds my hand" and tries to force interactions and/or roleplaying situations, it's like it's trying to tell the story FOR me, which I don't enjoy. Yeah, probably an uncommon take, lol.
 
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millossobek said:
I might be one of the few ones who thinks this, but I think that a Career Mode with too many cutscenes and/or in-built roleplaying options actually detracts from the experience. Part of the immersion for me is to imagine and create the narrative on my own and not have the game dictate it for me. Some of the most satisfying campaigns I've had have been in "bare-bones career" games, like FIFA 15, 16, or PES 2017 or 2013, where yes, you do get notifications, letters from players, have some board goals and rules, etc.. but the game setup actually gives you the freedom to invent and imagine your own immersion in your head. So yeah.. I guess that when the game engine "holds my hand" and tries to force interactions and/or roleplaying situations, it's like it's trying to tell the story FOR me, which I don't enjoy. Yeah, probably an uncommon take, lol.
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They certainly, in my experience, detract from the fun if they're the exact same cutscenes over and over and over again (like the player transfer ones in FC) - especially when they're acted as if they're from bad soap operas, to try and convey drama when it really isn't necessary.

It reminds me of the in-game cutscenes too, which are always from the same camera angles - in FC26, the game cuts to the manager during a stoppage in play, but it's the same shot and the same animation every single time. You see it twice and you're immediately removed from the experience (same with the transfer cutscenes - particularly the "sad, walking out of the building" one which just becomes silly when it's repeated every time).

There were older PES games that would switch from the gameplay camera to a zoomed view (for example, when a referee had to get involved in something) but it wasn't always the same angle and there was no "dramatic" start to the animation, so you had a bit of suspense every time because there were no "tells" where you knew e.g. "ah when the camera angle changes so you can see the sideline and the ref points to it, he's about to get out a red card". As soon as you realise that, you just go "yeah yeah get on with it"; there's no suspense.

That could easily happen with the manager close-ups, where - instead of being a specific "this animation makes it look like he's deep in thought" cutscene or "talking to a substitute" animation, which get frustrating and immersion-killing immediately - have a range of different, longer animations the managers can do independently of a cutscene being "triggered" and just show them zoomed in during breaks in play, which would add a ton more realism and make it take a lot longer before you saw the exact same thing twice.

I understand how fans of the game can resort to calling devs "lazy" when covering ground like this - I don't think that's true, but when certain parts of the game get improvements (those manager close-ups with the nameplate that appears weren't there last year AFAIK) and yet they don't feel next-gen (when the capability to make them next-gen clearly exists), they just feel like very old-school "video-gamey" crap additions thrown in as an appeasement... It doesn't feel great as a consumer waiting for a "blow me away with your biggest-budget-in-gaming" experience.

For me, you either have to have a cutscene system that's way deeper with way more outcomes and is way more believable (and doesn't feel like a mini-game), or you strip it all back to Football Manager style text-only stuff (which requires way less to work to create way more complex outcomes) and leave the imagery of the conversations to our imaginations. There's a reason Football Manager has been huge for a long time, and your imagination is a big part of it.
 
FCDallas_Fan said:
I love this kind of stuff being added, but don't completely fall for EA's marketing. Many of these things they're "unveiling" as new features are things that were in EA Sports games over a decade ago. NCAA Football 06 (thru 11) had a "create a program mode". Older generations of Madden had a create a stadium that wasn't 100% customizable, but let you do the basics and more. The NCAA Baseball series had a full blown create-a-school and create-a-stadium in 2006 and 2007.

There's a Youtuber (can't remember his name right now) who talks about this stuff occasionally and how new games have ripped out old features and slowly bring them back as "new" (not just EA doing this).
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@FCDallas_Fan

I guess this must be SOFTDRINKTV -> I like hes videos.
https://www.youtube.com/@SOFTDRINKTV
 
In addition to the above essay (sorry @millossobek)... I think an interesting "next-gen" experiment would be to replace UI with something that really puts you "in the club" day-to-day, similarly to Ultimate Soccer Manager (one of my favourite Amiga games). That's what those Madden marketing videos did for me.

I don't know about making it open-world like FC's rumoured new mode (I don't know how "walking simulator" I'd want a sports game to needlessly become)... but just to make all of your decisions in the appropriate places added to the immersion for me - e.g. to feel like I had to be in the manager's office to make managerial decisions, pick up the phone to talk to a player's agent etc...

10668037-ultimate-soccer-manager-98-windows-manager-room.png


...and when interacting with other clubs and seeing their letterheads, that was always a little bit exciting (because it felt a bit more "real")...

10667832-ultimate-soccer-manager-98-windows-all-transfers-are-dealt-by-fa.png


...and when talking to the coaches and sorting training, to be at the training ground...

sc75ul.jpg


...and being face-to-face with the chairman after some bad results.

Ultimate-Soccer-Manager-2-Your-team.-From-a-time.jpg


There was a PS2 game that experimented with this - Premier Manager 2002/2003 - and it made it feel like you were talking to humans rather than simply clicking icons. That, for me, would be really exciting, if only it didn't feel incredibly repetitive (and if the gameplay was good enough to back it up, which sadly it wasn't and currently FC isn't):

 
Chris Davies said:
In addition to the above essay (sorry @millossobek)... I think an interesting "next-gen" experiment would be to replace UI with something that really puts you "in the club" day-to-day, similarly to Ultimate Soccer Manager (one of my favourite Amiga games). That's what those Madden marketing videos did for me.

I don't know about making it open-world like FC's rumoured new mode (I don't know how "walking simulator" I'd want a sports game to needlessly become)... but just to make all of your decisions in the appropriate places added to the immersion for me - e.g. to feel like I had to be in the manager's office to make managerial decisions, pick up the phone to talk to a player's agent etc...
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Funnily enough I made a similar post on the Football Manager forum a couple months ago referencing those 90s games. There's so much more personality compared to the spreadsheets we have in modern games. There's too much focus on high fidelity at the expense of any real depth or identity.

It's a tricky balance as those types of UIs can be a nightmare to navigate if not done well, but little graphical touches and customizations can go a longer way in giving a sense of immersion. I used to love when you could build your own palace in the older Civilization games, it had no impact on the gameplay but gave the illusion you're a Emperor in charge of any actual place.

Slight tangent, that Ronaldo animation is another good comparison. With lower graphical fidelity it's easier to implement animations that look real enough that your imagination can fill in the blanks. With high fidelity graphics it quickly descends into an uncanny valley effect, the image looks realistic but the movement makes it feel completely wrong.

I'd play a 16-bit polygon football game if it had good mechanics, foot planting, and a database full of fake players. As long as it felt like football then it doesn't matter if the graphics and licenses aren't there.
 
Jay-Jay 10 said:
Not directly FC but on the EA Sports app you can now play the World Cup matches of each day in Sensible Soccer.
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I was just coming to post this, don't know how it's not bigger news!



EDIT: Yikes, the difficulty level might need looking at. Just got hammered 6-1 by South Africa... :D Great fun though.

I wondered when EA acquired the rights to Sensible Soccer and apparently it's when they acquired Codemasters in 2021 (source here). It'd be interesting if they did more with it! Very interesting...
 
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