Putting EA's claim "you can acquire all items without spending money" in FIFA Ultimate Team to the test

[MikeProtagonist]

You don't have to spend anything to get a very good team. It's perfectly viable to play without ever spending a penny other than buying the base game.

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You think the millions of kids playing this are fine with having "a very good team" of nobodies? No, they'll want their favourite superstars that they also saw some whale on Youtube use, and they'll do anything up to and including robbing their friends to get it.

 

[Djalminha]

Completely Off-Topic but I'm always amused by these "dream teams" which basically consist of 7 strikers and I guess a few defenders where you really can't play Ronaldo, man :/

(FUT is bullshit and I'm all for taking that shit down)

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What? They use a 4-2-3-1 (or 4-3-3 depending on field positioning), a super common system used by Super Depor to win the Spanish league 20 years ago for example, with one very defensive midfielder accompanied by two more offensive ones.

Anyways, FUT is a scam. To me, the worst part is you lose everything every year and have to start all over. That kills any attractive to me. Don't waste time or money with this crap, people, your lives are worth more.

 

[Sordid Plebeian]

They should make this shit free to play if they're gonna use that model, would make sense since every game is nearly identical anyway

 

[Proteus]

Interesting to compare this to something like the MLB: The Show Diamond Dynasty mode. I was able to put together an all Diamond team without spending a cent.

 

[Eoin]

That's an absolutely ridiculous team though. If everyone could easily achieve a squad like that it'd be weird as hell.

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There's a reasonable mid-ground between "everyone can easily achieve a squad like that" and the current FIFA position, which is "literally no human can achieve a squad like that".

 

[Gnorman]

You think the millions of kids playing this are fine with having "a very good team" of nobodies? No, they'll want their favourite superstars that they also saw some whale on Youtube use, and they'll do anything up to and including robbing their friends to get it.

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My son has 3 icons and Ronaldo and doesn't steal. 🤷‍♂️

 

[Patitoloco]

They forgot the option of just paying someone at EA to give you the cards. Apparently it's quite lucrative.

not a scam though. totally fine game.

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This is the reason why EA made the statement in the first place, and why this Twitter thread responded to it again, to prove them wrong.

Like EA even argued that no one should have a team full of leyends, because real teams in real life aren't filled with superstars, so why should FIFA players.
They had the GUTS to argue that in a mode literally called Ultimate Team.

This doesn't sound like you're playing soccer anymore

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You aren't.

Other modes in FIFA are arguable, but FUT in particular has different balancing values than any other mode, to make it way faster, arcade and beginner friendly.
Check any Youtube gameplay of FUT vs a normal career mode match, it's like the players took crazy amounts of coke and are dreaming of playing in The Matrix. Nothing is real, everything is possible.

 

[TheChrisGlass]

You think the millions of kids playing this are fine with having "a very good team" of nobodies? No, they'll want their favourite superstars that they also saw some whale on Youtube use, and they'll do anything up to and including robbing their friends to get it.

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Which is why they give whales a leg up at the start. Like how that one F2P Marvel game got exposed for doing.

They purposely try to get the YouTube celebs up to an impossible level so that regular people spend money to 'catch up'

 

[GrinWithoutaKat]

There's a reasonable mid-ground between "everyone can easily achieve a squad like that" and the current FIFA position, which is "literally no human can achieve a squad like that".

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But it is possible. I don't know who the person is behind these tweets, but the whole thing is kind of ridiculous to base it on the amount of coins you get from playing a match. Even if you're not the least bit interested in playing the market, you'd get far more from discarding your weekly packs than you would all the matches you played.

 

[The Albatross]

Glad someone broke this down. I once did a breakdown in Madden of how much you'd have to play to break through to those highly rated teams.. 90, 91, etc, and it would have been more than a full time job for a full year of one calendar release of Madden, playing non-stop from 9am to 530pm every day, while also maximizing your odds and getting lucky with good card drops.

Or you spend $40 which gets you most of the way there.

I only ever put time into MUT one year, the year we had a baby and I was basically on infant care all day for several months, and literally nothing to do for 21 hours of the day, while putting out fires for 3 hours a day. I think I reasonably built my team up pretty strong.. 80, 81 or something, good enough for me to have the strengths I wanted. I hate MUT but that year it was kinda perfect for me because realistically the most time I could commit in a session was 10minutes to playing a game, but 10 minutes over and over again was fine for me, but committing to a whole 60 mins was not going to work... I could stop playing at any time if the little poop machine woke up, needed milk, or was pooping on me.

And am I right in thinking that with every single new FIFA release you have to start an Ultimate Team from scratch? You can't carry over your previous squad of players?

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Correct. Madden used to have some bonuses for consecutive years, but I'm not sure if they do that anymore.

 

[Iucidium]

Andrew Wilson should be Thanos snapped.

 

[Tbm24]

I get the point the twitter thread is making, but I genuinely do wonder who actually wants that team.

 

[Jogi]

I'm curious how The Show fares in a similar comparison. I only play Franchise or RTTS, but I imagine Diamond Dynasty is pretty similar.

 

[Devil]

The "can earn for free" part is already wrong even if you don't take into account whether it is realistically achievable or not.

Cause the game releases at full price, lol.

 

[Sheepinator]

Didn't EA had this problem with heroes when Battlefront II launched?

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It's not the same. In BF2 you were in the game with dozens of other players, who had card upgrades they either spent time or money on. That was the core of the game. In FIFA, FUT is one game mode and you can play the computer or another player, at which time you'll be match-made with someone who has a similar level team as yourself.

 

[Gnorman]

It's not the same. In BF2 you were in the game with dozens of other players, who had card upgrades they either spent time or money on. That was the core of the game. In FIFA, FUT is one game mode and you can play the computer or another player, at which time you'll be match-made with someone who has a similar level team as yourself.

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Exactly. The p2w claims are clearly from people who don't play the game. If someone has spent a lot of money amassing a team that's way better than mine the chances are they will be in a higher division than me anyway.

 

[Sheepinator]

-

 

[gcwy]

Sad but not surprising. Companies being what they're created to be.

 

[mclem]

It's a shame that breakdown of these factoids aren't reported by the gaming press. Seeingthose number are very eye opening.

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For what it's worth, I did see Eurogamer pick this up a few days ago:

Putting EA's claim "you can acquire all items without spending money" in FIFA Ultimate Team to the test

EA has had a tough month. It's money-printing FIFA series has come under fire from multiple angles, but perhaps most sh…

www.eurogamer.net

 

[Rumenapp]

FUT is never going away, people spend money on fifa points like crazy.

 

[Lego]

It's weird, to me the game would be less fun if I had my dream team, there's something about grinding and working to improve your squad that definitely gives you a sense of accomplishment, when you go out and win or achieve a certain rank. It's why this game mode is addictive, even to those who don't spend a penny.

I usually play obsessively the first month or two the game is released, and then fall off though.

Exactly. The p2w claims are clearly from people who don't play the game. If someone has spent a lot of money amassing a team that's way better than mine the chances are they will be in a higher division than me anyway.

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That's not true though, I'm in Division 1 with a pretty average team and come up against full teams of icons frequently, you are 100% not matched against a team of a similar level, EA confirmed this. You're matched based on your skill points and location (or win differential in Weekend League).

I don't think the game is pay to win in the sense that a bad player can beat a good player just because they have a better team, but if players are similarly matched, then the player with the better team has a significant advantage.

 

[Gnorman]

It's weird, to me the game would be less fun if I had my dream team, there's something about grinding and working to improve your squad that definitely gives you a sense of accomplishment, when you go out and win or achieve a certain rank. It's why this game mode is addictive, even to those who don't spend a penny.

I usually play obsessively the first month or two the game is released, and then fall off though.

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This is me. Starting off with a terrible team working your way up one position at a time. That's way more fun than the end game to me.

 

[Gnorman]

It's weird, to me the game would be less fun if I had my dream team, there's something about grinding and working to improve your squad that definitely gives you a sense of accomplishment, when you go out and win or achieve a certain rank. It's why this game mode is addictive, even to those who don't spend a penny.

I usually play obsessively the first month or two the game is released, and then fall off though.



That's not true though, I'm in Division 1 with a pretty average team and come up against full teams of icons frequently, you are 100% not matched against a team of a similar level, EA confirmed this. You're matched based on your skill points and location (or win differential in Weekend League).

I don't think the game is pay to win in the sense that a bad player can beat a good player just because they have a better team, but if players are similarly matched, then the player with the better team has a significant advantage.

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I know the match up is based on player division and not team quality but the fact you can hold in div 1 with what you say is a relatively average team shows that you don't need to spend money.

 

[Lego]

I know the match up is based on player division and not team quality but the fact you can hold in div 1 with what you say is a relatively average team shows that you don't need to spend money.

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Agreed, it definitely helps though.

My main issue with these games is the amount of content, and promotions and objectives they put out basically means if you're not playing for hours a day you're missing out. The grind becomes too much at a point and I just settle with what I have.

 

[Serpens007]

Didn't EA had this problem with heroes when Battlefront II launched?

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Yep, it was a big mess and everyone complained and rioted.

You know what suck the most of this in these type of games? That sports games, mobile games, and the like, don't really spark the same enthusiastic interest than other games. These predatory tactics are in the most popular, less hardcore type of games, where the companies can just suck all the money or time from people that really are less enthusiastic than an average "gamer" that "really" cares about their RPG or FPS and will run campaigns that may hurt the reputation of a publisher, or will spark stories from news oulets, and then pushing a stop to companies from doing this.

This type of predatory monetization has been in mobile and sports titles for years and years and it only gets worse becuase they make a shit load of money of them and looks like some people are only starting to care.

 

[Deleted member 20892]

That said, I do like playing my FIFA every year and try to make fun stuff in the badly done Career Mode, but it's been really disheartening to see how EA has shifted the game entirely to FUT. Tried to play that mode, I really did, but realized it was a time/money sink that wasn't worth it at all.

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same. career mode is dead :(

 

[Decarb]

Didn't EA had this problem with heroes when Battlefront II launched?

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Yes, this where the infamous "pride and accomplishment of acquiring new heroes" line comes from.