FIFA 11 Career Mode Thread PS3/360

I personally liked the FIFA09 method of employing coaches who could increase the amount of development points players could 'earn' through playing, then leaving it up to you to choose exactly where every single dev point earned for a player would be distributed. This method actually made playing young players relevant, as you could send someone out on loan then upgrade his stats manually where you saw fit when he came back with all his accumulated points. With a bit of tweaking and refining, this method could have been great.

You could, for example, play Walcott on a fairly regular basis, safe in the knowledge that if you wanted to develop him in a way that plays to his strengths of pace, first touch, acceleration etc, you could just award his dev points in these areas, but of course to the detriment of other areas of his game. The more you chose to spend your budget on top coaches instead of buying players, the more points players would earn through giving them game time. This method's not ideal but at least places the development of how you want your young players to develop back into your hands as the manager.

To me, the only downside to this method that needed correcting was that FIFA09 was too liberal with the points once you'd upgraded your coaches to maximum. It was easy to make players rated at 99 which was just plain silly. All the dev team needed to do was maybe introduce a transfer system for coaches, as you can now do in PES, which has a major impact on your finances but encourages you to bring on youth accordingly, have those coaches be able to allow you to manually add dev points to your players in the key areas of your coaches' abilities, then make the points far harder to come by compared to than in FIFA09. That's it, really. It allows you, as the manager, to dictate who coaches what, who you want to play to develop, and where you want players to improve, thus moulding them into specific players according to their potential abilities (within reason - you shouldn't be able to mould Wilshere into a powerhouse midfielder for example).

The only other problem needing correcting would be for players to be able to develop at a far slower rate if they don't play, but the quality of your coaches could again allow for more dev points to be accumulated for players not playing than if you had a rubbish coach.

I just don't understand EA. I've come to realise that FIFA09, which was the game that made me switch over from PES in the first place, has gotten worse and worse with the following two versions. I really feel that the Manager Mode was better in 09, awful in 10, boring and threadbare in 11. Add to this that I feel that the great gameplay in 09 has been ruined almost exclusively by the new 'jostling' physics that have been in force since FIFA10, and I'm totally off this series now. I've been enjoying PES far more, mainly for these reasons stated above. PES is offering me a far better one player experience, and a game experience where I still find it tough, but tough in a footballing way, not in a 'FIFA10/11 constantly being sprinted at and rugby tackled by groups of rampaging opponents' kind of way.

Bizarrely, some of us think that EA must be trying their best to drive away customers, yet game sales are increasing as the games become increasingly frustrating and bug ridden.

As for EA's marketing, well, I'm astonished that I, like most other people, fell for little add-ons to the game like the theatre mode, highlights mode, custom soundtracks etc, all of which are marketed as awesome new features, but all of which have been in PES as a matter of basic game necessity for a while.
 
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LTFC said:
I just don't understand EA. I've come to realise that FIFA09, which was the game that made me switch over from PES in the first place, has gotten worse and worse with the following two versions. I really feel that the Manager Mode was better in 09, awful in 10, boring and threadbare in 11. Add to this that I feel that the great gameplay in 09 has been ruined almost exclusively by the new 'jostling' physics that have been in force since FIFA10, and I'm totally off this series now. I've been enjoying PES far more, mainly for these reasons stated above. PES is offering me a far better one player experience, and a game experience where I still find it tough, but tough in a footballing way, not in a 'FIFA10/11 constantly being sprinted at and rugby tackled by groups of rampaging opponents' kind of way.
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I think you've described how many if not most people are feeling right now, although I have just as many issues with PES's gameplay as I do with CM, and i keep going back and forth between the two games. Needless to say, I'm a fairly unsatisfied and miserable gamer atm.

You're spot on with the timeline of FIFA's MM/CM imo, although too bad you waited till 09 to switch because 09 MM was pretty much the same as 08 except in 08 players accrued XP at a slower pace, which was much better. I switched with 08 and though MM was a shallow mode compared to ML it was pretty damn good relative to what it's become.

It was 09 that the decline began, with the accelerated growth that made it far to easy to develop super stars, and then they removed the option to assign growth yourself in 10 rather than fix or improve the system. I can understand the argument that the manual option wasn't the most realistic, and I agree it wasn't ideal, but good god how I wish we had that option this year - CM might then be bearable to play! Instead we have the current disaster.

It's really too bad because if we only had 08's MM with today's gameplay, I'd be satisfied. And I'm pretty sure Placebo is right - your loaned players auto grew just like other CPU controlled players.
 
Nick Cave said:
It is disheartening, it's also understandable that the powers that be are reluctant to mess with the biggest selling sports title.
How can you turn round and say they are doing it all wrong...;)
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Reluctant to mess with it? That's sort of contrary to both our points - MM/CM has actually gotten worse, with fewer features and more major bugs since 08. In truth, they have messed with it - as in messed it up!

And I don't think many, if any, of us are meaning to suggest EA are doing it all wrong. Most of the complaints these days seem to have little to do with the core gameplay but instead focus on CM or EA's quality of service. I think people are more willing to accept the current gameplay, faults and all, because it is clearly progressing. That cannot be said for other areas of "the FIFA package."

Surely they're doing something wrong when I've now been playing PES more than FIFA for the first time in years. And judging from comments in several forums, I'm not the only one that that is true for. And before someone says so, this has nothing to do with being "hardcore" or a small niche of customers and all to do with EA delivering a poorly conceived, poorly implemented, and poorly programmed game mode that was short on features to begin with.

So yes it is disheartening but no it is not understandable because what we're talking about here is not a hesitancy to mess with a winning formula but quite the opposite - the foundation for success, from gameplay to MM to customer relations, was laid in 08 but since then there has been a marked decrease in quality in important areas, such as customer relations and MM/CM. I'm sorry if it sounds cruel but i hope that EA suffer, some how, as a result.
 
I have to agree 100%.
EA has taken the mode backwards over the past 3 years. I have serious doubts about this so-called 3 year plan for MM/CM that they are supposedly working towards (this being the 2nd year). It looks to me that after the horrendous bug riddled mess that was MM in FIFA 10 they actually scrapped the 3 year plan and still couldn't produce a MM/CM that functions in a logical way even after removing a load of formerly key features. I don't buy any argument that says that this years CM is all part of the plan. Player growth is a complete mess - that is a straight feck up. And the fact that this has not been fixed in the most recent patch - a patch that took 7 weeks to release - is a pathetic joke. Basically the 'plan' seems to be produce MM/CM that doesn't work properly and then try again the next year. They can't even seem to get the basic foundations of the mode right. I mean, what hope is there to 'build' new features into the mode if they are incapable of getting the fundementals right?

Its such a shame as there is a superb game, CM et al, waiting to be released underneath all the malfunctioning dross. The gameplay is an improvement although granted there are some extremely frustrating elements to it. It just seems that EA simply do not care enough about the product and certainly not the schmucks like me who purchase it to ensure that key features actually work.

The lack of communication about the content of the patch was further evidence of the contempt to which EA obviously hold its customers. First they say they have a 'list' of fixes. Then they sit on it for days driving everyone batty on the FIFA forum. Then the actual 'list' turns out to have no specific fixes beyond Lincoln City's kit and some general murmorings about CM. The patch itself turns out to have no real affect on CM beyond correcting cup fixture duplication whilst core defects are totally ignored. EA are cherry picking the trivial issues that they respond to and turning a deaf ear to the major flaws. Given its track record i can't see EA doing anything else with FIFA 11 beyond this sorry excuse for a patch. My only hope here is that consumers finally learn and hold off on buying FIFA 12. Hopefully by then Pro Evo would have made further strides and will finally provide a better alternative. Just like the old days...
Cue Hovis theme tune...
 
Fair enough, loaned players didn't earn xp, but I still think the 09 system of earning xp points, but making it miles harder to earn than in 09, would be better.
 
murphyr said:
EA has taken the mode backwards over the past 3 years. I have serious doubts about this so-called 3 year plan for MM/CM that they are supposedly working towards (this being the 2nd year). It looks to me that after the horrendous bug riddled mess that was MM in FIFA 10 they actually scrapped the 3 year plan and still couldn't produce a MM/CM that functions in a logical way even after removing a load of formerly key features. I don't buy any argument that says that this years CM is all part of the plan. Player growth is a complete mess - that is a straight feck up. And the fact that this has not been fixed in the most recent patch - a patch that took 7 weeks to release - is a pathetic joke. Basically the 'plan' seems to be produce MM/CM that doesn't work properly and then try again the next year. They can't even seem to get the basic foundations of the mode right. I mean, what hope is there to 'build' new features into the mode if they are incapable of getting the fundementals right?

Its such a shame as there is a superb game, CM et al, waiting to be released underneath all the malfunctioning dross. The gameplay is an improvement although granted there are some extremely frustrating elements to it. It just seems that EA simply do not care enough about the product and certainly not the schmucks like me who purchase it to ensure that key features actually work.

The lack of communication about the content of the patch was further evidence of the contempt to which EA obviously hold its customers. First they say they have a 'list' of fixes. Then they sit on it for days driving everyone batty on the FIFA forum. Then the actual 'list' turns out to have no specific fixes beyond Lincoln City's kit and some general murmorings about CM. The patch itself turns out to have no real affect on CM beyond correcting cup fixture duplication whilst core defects are totally ignored. EA are cherry picking the trivial issues that they respond to and turning a deaf ear to the major flaws. Given its track record i can't see EA doing anything else with FIFA 11 beyond this sorry excuse for a patch. My only hope here is that consumers finally learn and hold off on buying FIFA 12. Hopefully by then Pro Evo would have made further strides and will finally provide a better alternative. Just like the old days...
Cue Hovis theme tune...
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Agree 100% with everything, the sheer arrogance and contempt from EA to its consumers is shocking even to me and I've been around for longer than most people as a gamer.
 
Some things just smack of laziness, that is what gets me.

VP career is meant to be put into the CM mode. So why does your team not buy anybody while you are a VP there? it makes the game not progress and a bit stale after a while. Also other big teams lineups are pretty much the same. I am in season 4 and Chelsea still have the same players, so Drogba who would be about 36 now? and also Lampard 36 and Terry around 34. it is happening at other teams aswell. So if I play the full 14 seasons, then Terry, Lampard, Drogba will all still be playing at 45years of age?! and my Arsenal team will never change aswell?

Also little things like playing in the Community Shield and them making references about it being a cup final and how well we have played in the previous rounds to get their etc.

Another thing are Highlights straight after the game for me. I scored 4 lovely goals in a game and hit the woodwork twice. It only showed two of the goals, they were the only highlights?! it happens all of the time. But when you look at the highlights section they are all there. How hard could it have been to just write some code to make the after game highlights, just automatically run through the saved highlights? such a simple thing, but just felt like they could not be arsed to do it?

Things like these just make me think that they are not working as hard as they say they are. Or something else just isn't right.

It is hard to think if they have a dedicated team for CM mode, then how can these things be so overlooked?
 
I doubt they have a dedicated 'TEAM' for CM.

And If they do, those guys are the most incompetent bastards ever!
 
Laziness, incompetence or just sheer deception. Its hard to say. As consumers we can only measure the game against the way that EA has promoted it and, in terms of the small drops of info that EA has bothered to release on the forum in relation to CM, the way in which they still claim it is supposed to work. Player growth and development should be the very essence of CM. Its a no brainer. For the game to be released with this element basically working in reverse (I have started one CM since the patch and no players have grown in 4 seasons and several - even young players - have actually diminished) is a travesty.

Personally i find it extremely difficult to believe that EA were not aware of this before the game was released. Given last years debacle with MM i just cannot accept that this was not identified during basic testing of the mode this time around. Obviously, we are never really going to know one way or another. However, having received a consistent stream of complaints about this issue through its own forum all highlighting this problem, it is staggering that fixing this was not given the highest priority and integrated into the patch. Initially i was actually quite hopeful that, regardless of the hideous mess that EA decided to release, the length of time it took to release the 2nd patch meant that it was really striving to address this. More fool me. Whatever way you slice it, whatever the underlying reasons are for not getting it right in the first place the fact that it looks like they are probably not going to fix this is appalling.

I know i can trade the game in to lighten the hit to my wallet but that really isn't the point. EA still have my cash. I bought this game primarily to play CM and i find it unplayable due to the fact that the fundamentals do not work.
 
Against my better judgment i just played a few matches of my Ligue 2 CM... two of my top youngsters just went -1 in OVRs... I fucking hate CM.
 
PLF said:
I doubt they have a dedicated 'TEAM' for CM.

And If they do, those guys are the most incompetent bastards ever!
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I thought they did? wasn't it somebody called Marcel? that was in charge of it etc.

If they don't they should do.
 
Hi all. I am trying to get away from the jungle of the official forum in order to get some sense of the growth system, and it seems that this forum may provide some answers.

I haven't installed the lastest patch for ps3, so I was wondering whether the growth issue has been addressed and fixed in that patch. I don't want to start a new career at this point in time, which it seems the only way to solve some of the bugs.

In my current pre-patch CM mode, I do try to loan out my young players until they are at least 23. From this point onwards, the growth system seems to be working better. Apologies if this has already been mentioned elsewhere. I can see people complaining about the growth system but no specification is made until when the player is getting negative growth despite the age, performance or number of games played. As mentioned earlier, in my experience I have noticed that the age of 23 seems to be sort of inflexion point. Has anyone experienced similar stuff? Are there any answers from the developers?

Cheers.
 
The patch has not addressed the player growth problem. Young players still do not grow and some will actually decrease in overall ability. The whole player growth system has been a complete balls up by EA. I highly doubt that they will do anything else with it. EA has been completely silent on the issue. In fact, it seems that the offical forum moderators are now actually deleting threads that are critical of FIFA 11 and where people state that they have sold the game.

http://forum.ea.com/uk/posts/list/92774.page
 
Regarding young players specifically, they do grow, just rarely and not as much as players over the age of 22. Player attributes are split into three categories for the purpose of growth, and before the age of 22(?) only one of the three attribute categories grow (or is it they just don't grow much until 22?). I believe that is why such little growth has been reported for the youngest players.

All players, young and old, can decrease in OVRs.

Player growth is shit. Good luck.
 
If the new patch has not fixed the issue. What has actually been fixed? I wonder... The kits of some players (i.e. Lincoln)? It is actually very disappointing their attitude and approach to the matter. Instead they give us FUT or whatever, what's going on?

I have also noticed that domestic cups do not seen to get registered in your achievements. I don't give a damn about it, but it reflects a great part of the picture and how the development of the game has been handled. It is very bad executed and in some cases I feel that they are pulling our legs by selling something unfinished. Still, I think that overall is good game, the best under my opinion, but due to that attitude, I will research more next time before making a decision. I prefer the foundations of any game to be robust without obvious and blatant errors, and provide a full positive experience not a taste of what it could be.

In my experience Rockstar seem to be reliable and perhaps a good example, at least, every game I've got from them has provided a satisfactory experience. Nevertheless, providing games with lots of bugs seem to be the tendency nowadays, we have to see the problem with Bethesda and Fallout New Vegas... I hope that this does not become the norm.
 
Sadly they don't give a toss, it's reached the point where they believe they're untouchable, give us 1 patch that fixes pretty much nothing and then they go into silent mode ignoring everyone, despite the fact that every mode is broken/flawed in a number of ways.
 
Placebo said:
Sadly they don't give a toss, it's reached the point where they believe they're untouchable, give us 1 patch that fixes pretty much nothing and then they go into silent mode ignoring everyone, despite the fact that every mode is broken/flawed in a number of ways.
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As if this is any kind of news to anybody even remotely invested into FIFA franchise. Thier modus operandiis well known and documented.

However...
I actually believe it's getting worse.
With the release of FIFA 11 and now when comparing this game to FIFA World Cup and also FIFA 10,9,8 there is a shift in the following ballance:

Actual substance, changes to existing modes and addition of new modes VS Hype and propaganda used to mask up deficiencies and lack of effort

To me it seems as if they are on a very obvious decline here.
There is less and less truly good and worthy new additions to the game while there is more and more hype about 'nothing modes' (like Be a goalkeeper that could have and should have gone by as a simple addition to the Clubs mode). It's not only stagnations, it is actual decline in quantity and often quality. Career mode is the obvious and best example of this.
They are stiffled by the fear of losing their throne and dare not risk a lot of effort and time on new things. Pair this with obvious arrogance and increasing lazyness and you get what we have here.
Right now, with FIFA 11 they still got away with it.
Do this again and what is now a mild decline could become a slippery slide. Then you are pressed to deliver and that brings another set of issues.

I honestly don't understand how they operate and why they show such contempt to those that feed them.
All I do know is that is ALWAYS fires back in your face when you're an arrogant dick.

As for the Career mode, well, I just started mine so I don't have too much to say. It is crippled to the bone, that is easy to see.
But I truly can't ignore the fact that it looks like a very, very good base for the next edition (considering that there will not be an in-between game to divide their attention).
Not to be the devils advocate, just that when I started FIFA 10 MM I didn't see anything but the tangled mess it is. Now at least I see potential for expansion into a half decent, half chalenging, less buggy offline mode.
I know I'm being a fool for buying it over and over again but hey, I still manage to oversee these deficiencies and dream away while conquering the world with Shrewsbury or Leeds united.
 
zlopasha said:
I actually believe it's getting worse.
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Agree completely, at least after last year's pathetic single patch that fixed about 1% of the game's bugs they kept trying to come up with excuses about why they couldn't patch it anymore (we're only allowed two patches, no wait that's not it we're only allowed a max size of 3mb blah blah), this year they just simply stopped answering, terrible PR.
 
Terrible PR? More like smart PR - to paraphrase the saying, if you've got nothing good to say, don't say anything at all.

In truth the biggest PR mistake they might have made was spoiling the community a few years back by participating regularly in the forums, answering PMs, etc. When things were looking good with FIFA 08/09, communication ran relatively smoothly; PR was easy.

But with the quality issues and fan unrest mounting, they're now screwed with their relations with the online community. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation: they get crucified for anything and everything they say, because they have nothing positive to report, and they get equally crucified for remaining silent.

Look at PES. There's little to no community relations and PR but that's what PES fans are used to so it's okay. PES has loads of problems but there's no similar forums to the EA forums for us to go yell, and because there's no history of back and forth dialogue between the fan base and Seabass, there's an attitude of just enjoying what we have now and waiting for next year.

So EA's mistake might have been that it set itself up to fail by promising too much, from in game promises to establishing expectations among the fans that EA were going to continue the relationship it began to build with the community a few years ago.

I have no proof but I don't think it's a coincidence that both the game and EA's efforts at community relations both started tanking roughly the same time the economy went to shit and EA began layoffs. So to me it seems pretty simple:

FIFA 08 is out, everyone is happy, EA is happy to participate in forums --> Economy tanks --> Fifa quality begins to decline, first with MM --> EA decreases communication/activity with fans --> Economy is still crap --> EA devotes little effort toward non-profit driving activities (e.g. MM, forums), while increasing efforts to online and profit-driving activities (e.g. Clubs, UT) --> Economy still poor --> EA seeks to maximize profit and squeeze FIFA for everything it can --> FIFA 11 (i.e. FIFA 10.5) is released with UT following a month later (packs... cha-ching!) while EA releases pathetic CM and doesn't bother to waste its time with the forums and fan discontent.
 
The hype and propaganda about FIFA 11 has been sublime. All their investment and marketing strategy with the licencing has clearly paid off for the FIFA series. However, there's no better PR than a robust product and consumers are becoming more demanding on this market sector. Failing to deliver to expectations might mean that they are simply digging their own grave, but after all, their key of success is marketing and licencing strategy, and they know how play these cards very well. There's no serious competitor on that subject yet, not even PES.
 
Totally right about EA not saying anything where there's nothing to say. From past experience with FIFA games, we're now at the stage with FIFA11 where nothing more will be done. Efforts are now being concentrated in making FIFA12.

I've had it with FIFA now. 09 was great, 10 was ruined by the overly physical addition to the game's physics and where MM was completely and utterly bugged.

Then, I really liked the World Cup game, but had two major bugs occur in it whereby I qualified for the World Cup in second place, but a team who finished 3rd in my qualifying group actually progressed to the tournement instead of me. This bug was never fixed. Then, when I did get to the World Cup, my players stepped onto the field and I only had 5 players on my team. FIVE! I had to delete everything off my HD and start again.

Now, FIFA11's player growth is bugged and it totally ruins the CM experience. I don't play online, so if EA can't provide a decent and working offline mode to play for the third year running then I'm out until I hear otherwise :SHOCK:
 
Argh... just had a really good couple of results in my Newcastle CM, earning a 1-1 draw at home with Man Utd followed by beating Man City 2-1 away.

Then I was trying to upload some replays from the post match highlights, and it told me the upload failed. Would you like to try again? Said yes... and it just sat there on 50%. Forever. The annoying little circle spinning on the left side of the screen, blatantly doing nothing at all.

Luckily, underneath it says there's a Cancel button... which does nothing at all. I'd expect a Cancel button to, y'know, Cancel the attempted upload. So there was no way of quitting manually. I left it for about an hour to see if it would wake up, I tried unplugging my console from the internet entirely to see if that would jolt it.

Nope, I could only quit to the Xbox dashboard and lose unsaved progress. So there goes that hard-fought win at City, as if it never happened. Thanks EA. Your programming standards continue to impress.
 
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