FIFA 18 Beta...

[Jason]

Is available right now on PSN. Haven't heard much about any new features this year...curious to check it out.

[Jason]

After playing a half I now know that it supports HDR, looks great and plays even better. I wasn't expecting to be so impressed in such a short amount of time.

[Ted]

I was watching some Chris Smoove videos and I gotta say I'm tempted to make a day 1 purchase of this just for the front office stuff.  I haven't played a soccer game in quite some time.  Gonna spend some time with the demo.

[Jason]

I've been meaning to ask you why you don't play soccer games anymore. You were the one who got me into Winning Eleven back in the PS2 days and you even ran the honor league with WE 6 & 7 for a few seasons.

If I didn't have so many other games to play, FIFA 18 would probably be a day one purchase for me too.

[Ted]

I've never really been into the actual sport.  I think at the time the WE games portrayed their sport better than the football, baseball, and basketball games portrayed their respective sports.  I did like the master league play of WE at the time too so that kind of got me into it as well.  I also remember kind of being into the commentary of those old WE titles and that it felt more natural than the other sports titles of the time.

Then as the other sports caught up in terms of realistic gameplay I switched back to sports I enjoyed more and understood the strategy more.  I'm a sucker for front office gameplay too, so even though I can't stand football in real life I really have enjoyed the last iteration of Madden and the NCAA game back from 2014(?) I think.  Soccer gaming has really taken a back seat to baseball (The Show) and now football.  I find the NHL franchise extremely boring now as the on ice play just hasn't evolved much over the last 5 years, imo.

So, basically, if the on field play is at least somewhat interesting and the commentary doesn't grate on my nerves, and if the off field game is engrossing, I can get into a title even if I'm not interested in the real life sport at all (Madden, FIFA).  If the on field play is boring (NHL), and the commentary annoying (NHL), then I can't get interested at all even if it's a real life sport I enjoy, even if the off ice play is interesting.

[Ted]

The demo really has me in that "just one more game" mode.  I really like the play.

[Jason]

The demo really has me in that "just one more game" mode.  I really like the play.

I feel the same way even though I've played a ton of FIFA 16 & 17.

Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk

[Ted]

Presentation has really stepped up since I last played (2014?).  I really like the replays on goals now with the swinging camera angles.

[Jason]

How are you enjoying the gameplay so far? I had planned on getting PES 2018 first this year, but after playing both demos a handful of times today, I've now decided to get FIFA first.

[Ted]

Quite a bit I guess as I have pretty much been playing it non stop since release day. 

I'm absolutely a career mode guy and not into just picking up and playing a one-off match to kill time and so far it's hitting on all cylinders for me with its career offerings.

I simmed a lot and played a couple games per calendar month in my first career and then ran into a known and nasty bug that has been in the game for at least two years.  It's the forfeit bug which skyrockets your travel expenses and plunges you deep into the hole.  I had to forfeit a match due to not able to field a full team because 5 players were on international duty.  The forfeit was completely my fault as I sold a bunch of players on the transfer market and refilled from scouted free agents.  I didn't realize at the time, but a lot of those available free agents have international obligations and disappear from the roster several times per season.  I was at -56M loss for the season when I got fired.  Financial goals were a critical part of that first team so that's why the firing happened, but it ended up not mattering because I was done with that team after learning some of the intricacies of career with it.  I actually played on for a couple of calendar months before getting the sack so it wasn't an immediate problem, but I knew the clock was ticking so I kept experimenting with that career.

Restarted a new career with a different team and lessons learned about depleting my roster and keeping sufficient reserve players.  Started simming and playing again trying to figure out a balance between challenge and fun on the field.  I thought I was ready for professional, but it is just a tad too frustrating for me.  I'm an offense guy and I'd rather play a .500 or even a losing season with games ranging from 0-5 goals reliably then a bunch of 1-0 wins a losses even if I take the championship.  Also I just need to get better and I am already noticing different things I can do after watching a couple of let's play careers with a couple youtubers I like.

So I started my third and hopefully permanent career this weekend with EPL2 Crawley Town.  I chose them because they have what appears to be the easiest goals to achieve this season to keep my job.  Very low critical goals on everything except financial which is medium.  I should be ok.   Then the patch came out this weekend and made semi-pro a little too easy, but whatever....I'll take the offense now and move up to professional after this season if it proves to be too easy.

I'll try to give updates a little further on as I experience the different parts of career, but so far I have already gotten $60 worth of value out of the title.  There's a lot going on in career and you have stuff to check and do every few days on the calendar.  That could be it looking at emails about scouted players, negotiating contract extensions or delegating those negotiations, negotiating transfers or delegating same, or  rearranging formations.  You also have to try to keep players in form and also happy and meeting their contract expectations.  And of course just playing 1 or 2 games per calendar week while managing fatigue.  The real difference between this game and other sports games is you really seem to have to plan when to play your starting 11 because you can't really play them every game.  So you need to look at the calendar and figure out which games are the most important and get those players rested and in form for those games.  I really like that part of it.  Add to that the financial limitations of being in EPL2 and there's a lot of thinking about what I want to do between games.

I also think there is a depth here that I don't fully understand yet because I think not all players with the same rating are equal.  There seems to be a lot of detail that you can get into if you want to.  I think if you really know the sport you can find very specific skill sets in players to complement your other players.  So maybe a 60 rated striker is not just a scrub, but would be the exact player to fit in with some others on your team and would be very effective if his skills and traits complement their skills and traits and match your playing style and formation.



Edit:  I forgot to even mention the training that you can play or sim with your players which improves their skills at a faster rate than normal, but (from what I've read) lowers their overall top potential or maybe just their pace rating.  And the youth scouting and signing.  Always looking for that next star player and replenishing the roster for future years.  Or in EPL2 looking for that player that can make an impact for 2 to 4 years and then sell on for a healthy profit when he becomes too expensive to keep.

[Ted]

Scored from a free kick for the first time ever in FIFA (as far as I can remember) to win the game in the 89th minute after coming back from down 1-0 late.

[Jason]

Nice! I don't think I've ever scored one of those. I either shoot 20 feet over the net or right into the defenders in front of me.

[Ted]

Hey thanks for getting the video to show up!

[Jason]

Hey thanks for getting the video to show up!

I just need to figure out how to get them to show up in Tapatalk again. Apparently the new plugin I just installed is not compatible with it.

[Jason]

Are you using manual passing in that video?