In regard to FIFA or PES switching to subscription model - if anything they may go full "free"-to-play route, though I hope this won't happen. The yearly cycle of sports games may not be ideal, but at least it is an incentive for developers to make some significant changes to games instead of small tweaks here and there to "not upset the playerbase", especially when the games would focus on online competitive modes. And it also gives us a chance to go back to older games if we so choose. With a switch to one FIFA or PES, without the added numbers, just updated from time to time, this will be no longer the case.
Make a significant tweak so that people who thought they were good at the game suddenly would start loosing (because it got more realistic and thus harder, for example), seemingly because of said changes, and you have an angry crowd demanding to revert this.
Obviously this affects PES and FIFA already but I think it would actually slow down the evolution of those games even more. And the revolutionary stuff, like switching to a completely new engine, total revamp of the game, would become even more rare than it is now. Not to mention, the game tweaks/patches would at that point be based almost completely on the online crowd feedback, and I don't think any of us want that.
I may be wrong here, but from what I see most people who play football games online (or any game really), competitively, don't really seem to care if the game is realistic or a good virtual approximation of what football is - they treat it as a game, a system you have to understand, master and (if necessary) exploit in order to win win win. You can see this in player behavior, even the small things like immediately skipping every single cutscene/replay because it just gets in the way, quitting after conceding a single goal, the whole pursuit of what's meta to ensure success. I look at reddit/FIFA once in a while and all of the discussion seems to revolve around scripting, icons, card updates, pack luck, lags, "I won 28 games on WL" - hardly any discussion about the actual football side of FIFA. And note that this is the FIFA community, not FUT which obviously has it own subreddit. To compare, there's also FIFAcareers but I'd say the post count is literally 100 times lower. I know there are FIFA discussions outside of reddit, but I'd wager it's a good reflection of what FIFA players think about most of the time.
I believe the eventual f2p model is the only one possible, since the console gamers, who constitute most of the playerbase, already pay their subscription - PS Plus or Xbox Live - and people are not willing to add anything more to that. They may splurge their earnings on microtransactions but stacking monthly subscriptions for different games is something people are much less inclined to do - the game no longer remains free to play. Better stick to whales to support your business model.
Konami may have a good idea with releasing the Lite version with full access to myClub and barely anything else, I wonder why EA did not parrot that especially since FUT earnings alone are apparently on par with the game's sales - why not increase them by letting everyone download FIFA - FUT edition for free? Maybe that is the (near) future - stick with f2p versions and play the "Gacha" mode or buy the game for full experience, your choice. The only scary part is - what if the sales of full games became so minuscule compared to the microtransaction revenue that only myClub and FUT would remain? It's a business after all, and if the CEOs will decide there is no need for single player content anymore as it barely affects sales, because nobody really plays them anymore, that's a probability.
Ideally (well, just an opinion) myClub and FUT would become separate entities, games on their own, available for free, while the "boxed" games would continue on their own path with yearly updates, aimed for a different, more hardcore crowd. You could still lure the only-online players to boost the sales with some hefty and unique bonuses for their myClub/FUT needs. Problem is, that would actually require employing an additional dev team that would handle the online version of the game exclusively, while the original dev team would keep working at the "original" one. Or would it be the newly appointed "B" team to handle the original game, while the bigger and more experienced team would move on to myClub/FUT version because of its higher priority (i.e. bigger bucks)?. Anyway, maybe EA could afford to do that, but Konami - serious doubt.
Also heard rumblings World Cup game will be DLC and not a stand alone game which is really disappointing because those have been some of my favorite one-off games going back to World Cup 98. Anyone read anything of the World Cup game/DLC?
It's 3 months before the World Cup and we still don't really know. At this time of year all the previous WC games (standalone) were already unveiled. I also had hopes for a full-fledged WC game from EA cause if it happened it would probably be the best WC game ever, though 2010 still stands strong IMO, best footy of last generation together with PES 2013. And maybe except for the soundtrack as 2006 and 2010 were phenomenal.
Full roster of national teams - that's all I really need, I wish Konami did include all of them in PES, even with all players named like "Mongolia001" (remember the Dutch player names in PES 2?) and all kits in pink - I don't care, I can edit that, just put them in the game! EA used to put tons of national teams in FIFA as well but ever since 2003 it's always just 50 or so of them, always with glaring omissions (Japan, Netherlands etc., though I know lack of Japan is due to Konami holding the license).
Unfortunately, it will probably be a free DLC, or even just an event on FUT, and it will only include the teams qualified for the World Cup. I would call it a success if they added a single Russian stadium. Actually, I wonder if PES will receive a World Cup themed DLC as well, like PES 2014 did.
Here's one I hit and I have another from quite some distance that surprised me.
http://xboxclips.com/CalcioCalabrese/73f73ac2-a01f-47f5-be23-740225ea741f
Nice one! I have to try out that camera angle, what are the settings exactly?
I don't score many long rangers, but every once in a while I do. I don't think shooting itself has regressed (I only use manual shooting btw) but I think the "issue" is that keepers have gotten better, maybe boardering on overpowered. I've definately had situations where I thought to myself "the keeper shouldn't have been able to get to that." But then again, sometimes I've watched the replay and saw that the ball wasn't as well placed as I initially thought.
I think also, maybe the game is a little better at accounting for contextuality when shooting, by which a shot from a slightly awkward angle is harder to pull off than in 2017.
To me there seems to be a sweet spot on the power bar for high placed long rangers. So if you hold the shoot button until the bar reaches just below of max it will go to the top of the goal. See these videos for reference and look at the power bar:
I had several games yesterday (had a good time, every match was different, sometimes crazy but fun nonetheless) and saw some goals outside of the box, and even managed to score a free kick (glad they got rid of the whole shot trajectory stuff). Yeah, I guess testing shooting in training mode is not a good idea since the keepers behave differently there - always on the spot, not distracted etc. During a real match their response may sometimes get delayed or can get confused by player positioning or so I think. I mean, I saw the KingOfPES vid on youtube, 9 minutes of screamers on superstar and legendary (according to his description) so I realize it's possible, but you can easily get the impression that the balance is not quite there.
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