Have you tried playing on Ultimate yet?
I was literally just going to post about the difficulty levels not being (such) an issue anymore. I've now played a quarter of the EPL season with Crystal Palace on Ultimate and I'm sitting 16th with a 2-5-3 record; I've scored 13 and conceded 14.
Maybe it's just me but this is a stark contrast to last year, where I had to purposely not sign any attackers above a 75 rated or else it'd get too easy. I'm finding it WAY harder to beat CPU defenders and create easy chances; passing is harder too. Stats mean so much now, in that the only Palace player worth his salt is Zaha. My squad morale is hovering between unhappy and content.
Not saying there aren't issues, because there are. The defensive AI is just very inconsistent. Sometimes they react, other times they don't. And if you get past one line, whether it's the forwards or midfielders, they just turn off and don't help. That's driving me nuts.
Then there's still this issue:
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Three goals is the most I've scored in the EPL yet and it was against Man City. Now, this game was hard as fuck. As you can tell, I was constantly under attack. It was a miracle they didn't put 5+ past me. I played with a back 5, drop back defense, and long ball... and it worked a treat. Despite the result, it certainly wasn't
easy.
But in some ways it was a little easier to defend because Man City's attackers are super aggressive, which leaves them not just more exposed, but also it's easier to get the ball from them because they do cool shit. I've found it hard to dispossess lesser teams because they just play so conservative with passing and not enough dribbler. Now, against Man City I barely could hold on to the ball (those possession stats are inflated b/c I cheesed them at the end!).
I look forward to what others think once they play the retail version, but I'm having quite good fun, and it's really just the AI at times that's bothering me (aside from CM issues). For someone who yelled constantly about Ultimate being too easy last year, this has been a decent challenge for me so far (probably the main reason I'm enjoying it).
**I should add that I'm using a second controller to fix the CPU's starting lineup before each match. Man City was about to play a bunch of scrubs against me for example. Also, I wonder if I'd edited their tactics/instructions to be a bit more conservative, whether I might then not have scored.