FIFA 16

Figured it was time to start the new thread

 

Pasta Padre says that for EA Access members (XB1 only) that they have bumped up early access on games from 6 hours to 10

 

Yep I didn't finish up my 10 hours of PGA until release day in the afternoon. May have even been Wednesday

 

The first part I don't think is exclusive to 15 and I don't expect to see changed but the 2nd part I do hope they will fix

 

I really enjoy the authentic crowd sounds though

Playing a match at Etihad and can clearly hear them singing the Manuel Pellegrini song

If you aren't familiar it's

"Sheikh Mansour, went to Spain
In a Lamborghini
Brought us back a manager
Manuel Pelligrini"

 

Yeah I don't expect any changes

 

I understand, that's why I don't expect changes to career mode. It's also why I don't play much career mode and have embraced UT and started playing it

 

The goal of FUT is to build your "ultimate team" so you work to build the best possible

In FUT players are sorted into bronze (rated 64 and under), silver (65-74), and gold (75+). They also have common and rare of each of these levels which are based upon how frequently they would appear in packs.

You start with a bunch of bronze players and a loaned really good player.

Winning matches (online and offline) gets you coins, you can use these coins to either buy packs of players or to bid on players in auction.

You can also use real money to buy "Fifa points" which can be used to open packs.
People sell coins as well but EA bans you for that.

You basically want to keep playing and winning seasons and tournaments so that you can get more coins and get better players.

During the year EA will have limited time available tournaments that come with higher coin rewards and special packs (when the team of the season for each league are released they'll do tournaments where you have to have a full 18 of players from that league and you win like 7000 coins and a special pack of 12 rare gold players).

They also release a weekly team of the week where you can get an "in form" player that has slightly higher stats than his normal card, the thing with these is that those boosted stats are sometimes actually more than what it states on the card. For example Paul Pogba, he was an 84 and his in form was listed as an 85, so his 2nd in form was listed as an 86, except that when you look at his actual in game stats he was better than that. As a CAM I think he would be an 88 or 89 and as CM or CDM 88. So this card became much more valuable.

There are then also the FIFA team of the year at the end of the calendar year, each league has a team of the season and on XBox they have legends. Retired players who were among the best.

 

I don't mind it, one of my biggest things would be wanting additional position changes.
Reus can only be LM/LF/LW in UT, guys that have more position flexibility should be able to play other spots without needing an IF

I understand not wanting to open it up too much otherwise people will have ridiculous lineups (chemistry is keeping most people from doing this) but maybe something where you could change position to any they have listed in game

 

FIFA 16 - Authentic Football Narrative
Posted August 5th at 1:00am.

Creating authentic match day experiences has always been fundamental to the EA SPORTS FIFA series. For FIFA 16, we are adding exciting presentation changes that will fully immerse you in the story of the match and your season.

BUNDESLIGA PRESENTATION PACKAGE*

One of the most popular leagues in the world, the German Bundesliga in FIFA 16 will now have its own authentic overlay package that mirrors broadcast matches. Matches involving two Bundesliga sides, will have the same look and feel as seen on match day.

OVER 450 NEW OR UPDATED PLAYER STARHEADS**

FIFA 16 includes over 450 new or updated player starheads, the most ever for a FIFA title. In addition to Barclays Premier League players and athletes from Women's National Teams, we have also captured the likeness of some FUT Legends, and players from the major clubs in Spain and other leagues around the world. (FUT Legends only available on Xbox One and Xbox 360).

NEW WEATHER CONDITIONS & DIFFERENT TIMES OF DAY*
Stadiums in FIFA 16 will be able to support a greater variety of weather options, with nine weather choices available. Expanding on FIFA 15’s sunny, overcast, rain and snow, FIFA 16features those and includes hazy, partly cloudy, foggy, random variable rain showers and variable flurries. Additionally, we've expanded the number of available kick-off times.

OVER 900 NEW CHANTS*

Building on club-specific chants introduced in FIFA 15, this year we have over 900 chants captured from grounds around the world. From South America to Europe and player-specific chants, the crowd continues to come to life in FIFA 16. Some of the new chants include PSG’s “Allez Paris,” and Liverpool’s “When The Reds Go Marching In”.

NEW MENU OPTIONS*
Explore the menus with our new interface that also includes the ability to choose the stadium of your choosing to serve as your background. Key moments from a match are easily available to watch again in our new Full-Time Highlight menu option.

VANISHING SPRAY*

Already a key tool for a referee, FIFA 16introduces the use of vanishing spray during dead ball situations.

NEW SIDELINE CELEBRATIONS*
Celebrations now include the ability to run to the nearest cameraman for a close-up or make a dash to the substitutes bench and celebrate with your off-field teammates. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see all of FIFA 16's new celebrations soon.

STORY OF THE SEASON*

FIFA 16 will fully immerse you in the story of your club’s season. Our commentators will remark on key storylines, including notable player or team performances, big player debuts, and transfer rumours. In-game graphics and commentary will also pick up on interesting team stats for matches, and reference the wider context of league standings.

WORLD-CLASS COMMENTATING
Commentary continues to expand in FIFA 16 with specific FUT Legends (exclusively on Microsoft consoles), Pre-season, and Women's National Teams commentary to deliver a fantastic match playing experience regardless of the mode.

For our worldwide audience, commentary options include Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Latin American Spanish, Japanese, Polish, Dutch, and an all-new Russian commentary team. These are available across all platforms: Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PC.

*Available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC only.

**Available across all platforms: Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PC.

 

More weather options, vanishing spray and being able to run to the camera or your bench teammates to celebrate makes me irrationally happy

 

Not so fast my friend

 

Futhead got their hands on the career mode
FIFA 16 - Career Mode Preview

• By Dave 6 hours ago
  

Has Career Mode managed to improve this time around?



After a year just gone of little change, we entered our FIFA 16 Career Mode play test with some trepidation. But pleasingly its clear that the team are back working features solely for FIFA 16's premier offline mode and here's how it's all shaping up.



For those who despise reading, here are the highlights.

• New Pre-season Tournaments
• New Player Training
• Updated Global Transfer Network
• New Club Transfer Budgets
• New Story of the Season
• And much, much, more...

Pre-season Tournaments
The first new addition to Career Mode is one we’ve championed as a site for some time – Pre-season Tournaments. Gone are the mundane series of pointless friendly games, and in their place a myriad of exciting tournaments spread across the globe. There are nine different Pre-season Tournaments in total, but you’ll be invited to choose from a selection of three at the start of each season.







The stature of your club will affect the quality of tournaments available, with Chelsea in our play through invited to the Asia Elite Trophy also featuring the likes of Bayern Munich and PSG. As well as altering the quality of opposition, the stature of the tournament will also affect the amount of prize money on offer. Which, you’ll be pleased to hear goes directly in to your transfer budget should you be victorious. For that reason alone, pre-season is now well worth playing.



The tournament format consists of a 4 team group stage, where you play each team other once before moving on to a Semi-final and Final should you be successful. But even if you find yourself knocked out in the earlier rounds, you’ll still receive a portion of the prize pool to go to towards your transfer war chest. So all is not lost either way.



The presentation of the new Pre-season Tournaments is excellent, as we’ve come to expect from EA these days. And it extends way beyond pretty menus too, with custom ad-boards, commentary, in-game overlays, and even unique trophy celebrations all designed and styled to represent the region and tournament you've entered.







Another small but incredibly significant change to the pre-season format is the much demanded inclusion of unlimited substitutions. You can now make as many as you want. It’s so minute but in terms of the realism and immersion of pre-season, being restricted to three substitutions in previous FIFA’s was a real killer, so it’s great to see this long standing issue finally rectified.



What Pre-season Tournaments add to Career Mode above all else is a reason to play. I used to (like most of you I’m sure) simulate the majority of my friendly games, because they were nothing more than dead weight before the season started proper. Now you have a potential transfer fund boost on offer, varied opposition, locations and potentially your first managerial trophy too. Pre-season Tournaments are a very slickly integrated and very welcome new addition to the Career Mode family.

Player Training
Another community most wanted feature for Career Mode has always been Player Training, which finally makes its debut in FIFA 16. It’s based around Skill Games (don’t panic, it’s going to be fine) but the whole process can be automated (told you) as well if you wish to do so.



You have five player training slots in total, which you can assign to anyone in your first team squad. That includes youth players also, providing you’ve signed them to a permanent contract. After that you select an area of focus for each player to work on during that week. For example as Chelsea we put Diego Costa on a finishing drill, and Ruben Loftus-Cheek on to passing.







Once assigned you can either manually play the Skill Games yourself, or ‘simulate all’ to see the results in seconds. For me, the latter is by far the most attractive option long term. The player’s performance in each drill (rated A-F) will then start to improve the stat areas the training focusses on. Over time, it will slowly increase their overall rating too. You can only train your team once a week in an aim keep things balanced, and we saw some pleasing results with that in mind when comparing the benefits received from training by established players, compared to upcoming talent.



We trained Diego Costa for about 15 weeks consistently on his finishing and he went from 90 finishing up to 91, which probably isn't a difference you’ll notice in-game. His overall rating didn’t progress at all during that time either. Ruben Loftus-Cheek however, over the same duration gained +4 for his through passes and his overall had jumped +3 too. As you can see, a much larger net benefit from training a ‘promising’ player, rather than someone already at the peak of their powers. Balance is always key in features like this, so it was nice to see the training logic working in the way we’d expect. There are rating caps as well (based on potential growth) so at a point, certain players won’t grow any more regardless of how much you train them.







An example of the training automation screen below...







As your players skills improve over time it also affects their transfer value and this is shown on the training screen as a percentage increase. We trained Courtois as well over the same 15 week period and the game listed a 10% increase in his value. That only represented an extra £3 million on top of his asking price, but it’s nice to know that your time investment in player training is paying off in more ways than just improved stats.



As I mentioned previously, you only have five training slots per week, so you’ll need to be very selective about who you want to focus your attention on. The game will remember your last training configuration too, enabling you to reload the same schedule from the previous week and run it again. That makes Player Training incredibly quick and easy to manage. Based on our time with it, to see genuine benefits you're going to need to train the same players consistently over a number of weeks, rather than chopping and changing all the time.







Will I ever play the training Skill Games myself manually?



I doubt it. But the fact that you can now control the development of your squad is absolutely huge for Career Mode. If you’re a big club like Chelsea, focussing on improving youth players is probably a good way to go. But as a lower league club, focussing on making your existing star players even better, may be the preferred tactic. Perhaps, you have a great winger who can’t cross for toffee. You might never turn him in to David Beckham, but you can at least target improvement in that part of his game. Or maybe you want to create the next La Masia, and bring through a new era of home grown success? It’s all up to you as the manager, and it's that freedom I think I like best about Player Training.



Another very welcome, and very well integrated new feature.

Global Transfer Network
The Global Transfer Network, seems on the surface at least identical to FIFA 15, but under the hood there are some neat changes. As you all know, EA decided to mask the player overall rating (OVR) in many of Career Mode’s menus (which I like for the most part) but that tended to hinder rather than help you when it came to scouting players you knew little about.



Now, when you take the time to scout a player in detail you’ll be rewarded with extra information, like their current transfer value, wages and the unmasking of their overall. These are small details, but they’re incredibly useful when you need to make quick transfer decisions about players your own football knowledge perhaps doesn’t cover. These new details are all displayed on the main GTN screen too meaning you don’t need to click on the player and filter through all their stats to see it.



I’d love to see this go much further with scouts also providing an indication of a player’s future potential (that is their job after all) but it seems I shall be waiting another year at least for that to come around. For me the Global Transfer Network still has lots of untapped potential, but at least this time there’s actually a reason to use scouting, because you will at the very least get back the key information you need to make better transfer decisions.

Club Transfer Budgets
One of the biggest gripes with managing clubs in the lower leagues in Career Mode is that if you eventually make the Promised Land and gain promotion to the Premier League, you still only have a League One budget to work with. Due to the commercial revenue that comes with promotion these days that’s just not right, so to try and tackle that, EA have made a few changes.



The first is around the balance of transfer budgets in general which have been tweaked somewhat across the board to provide more realistic starting positions. EA have analysed the amounts spent by clubs over the last few seasons in the real world, and have tried to match Career Mode to that benchmark. That change in conjunction with the chance to boost your transfer fund as part of Pre-season Tournaments, should leave you in a much better starting place than in previous years.







Another nice change too is that if you have money left in your transfer budget at the end of the season, a percentage of it will be carried across to your next campaign. How much you get back depends on your performance against board objectives, but it’s much better than having £10 million wiped, just because you didn’t spend it. So if the right player isn’t available, you can hold on to your cash and attack the market again in the following season, providing you're doing well.



There was no way for us to see it in action, but EA have also added extra logic to boost promoted clubs transfer budgets as they move through the leagues. So if you do guide Yeovil to the Premier League, you should have a budget which at least gives you a chance to compete with the clubs around you. We'll need full retail code to prove it though.

Story of the Season
EA have utilised their Player Stories engine in various guises over the last few Career Mode iterations,with fairly mixed success. Some of the stories are really interesting and engaging, and others not so. But combined with the some of the new audio technology EA are stepping up their game on that front yet again with their newly dubbed - Story of the Season.



Now as well as the general comments about your next opponent, you'll also get deeper routed discussion about big transfers happening in world football (even outside of your league at times), notable player or team performances and should you find yourself in a title or relegation scrap, they'll debate that in some depth too. Things have gone yet another level down in terms of depth essentially.







Some of that stuff we've perhaps seen or heard before, but normally it's in isolation or the odd comment here and there. Now Career Mode feels like it remembers, and plays more prominently on those key story lines as they develop and it does so almost seamlessly. Story of the Season also brings with it a suite of new overlays for transfer news to really enforce the things Tyler and Smith debate. This stuff is subtle, without doubt, but it's great to see EA continue to push the envelope in terms of overall immersion of the Career Mode experience.

Best of the rest
As well as the headline grabbing stuff we also managed to obtain an additional list of foundational changes which EA won’t be publicising as part of their main press release. I won’t cover these in detail, but I know you’ll find them interesting all the same.

• You can now sign free agents outside of the transfer window.
• After scouting a player, reports are available for an entire calendar year before they expire (previously they lasted 3 months).
• Short loans have increased from three to six months and there is now an option to issue two-year loans.
• While the transfer window is open, the number of ‘high-profile’ moves by big players has been tuned to better match the number that typically happen in the real-world.
• EA have addressed values of players to better match the real-world transfer market.
• Transfer Improvements: When the user receives a scout report update, we will recommend him three players based on the weaknesses of the team.
• Global Transfer Network: We added a detailed tab to the GTN screen where the user can filter all the players that are fully scouted.
• Auto Transfer Budget: If you have enough money to buy a player the budget will automatically adjust instead of having the user go back to the budget screen and adjust the slider manually.
• Season Target: There were several complains of people being fired even if they performed well, we did some tuning to ensure this doesn't happen.
• Team Management: Adding extra info for the Formations. Right now we can have 3 different types of 4-5-1 formation without any distinction between them, we will add some extra info, such as Wide, False 9, etc to help differentiate them.

Summary
Personally I think this year's Career Mode offering is perhaps another one or two headline grabbing features away from being truly AAA. That's not to diminish the impact of the new features I've discussed, but had they been backed up by just a few more stellar inclusions like revamped press conferences, the ability to move/upgrade stadiums, or increased transfer depth (buy-out clauses, etc) then it could have been a year to really remember.



But from our FIFA 16 Career Mode Community Wish List we drew up together some months ago, EA have knocked items 1) Training 2) Pre-season and 3) Licensing out of the park, with the Bundesliga now sporting its own broadcast pack to rival last year's Premier League deal. So looking at Career Mode through that lens, EA have hit our top three and improved many other areas on our wish list too like 6) Scouting. Perhaps not in full, but it's quite clear that they've really listened to community feedback and that's not something to be down-played.



Last year (through no fault of their own) the Career Mode team ended up working on a lot of shared tech, like the new Team Management system, and much of the updated presentation and audio systems which we all simply take for granted. But because that was all shared with the rest of FIFA, it felt like Career Mode didn't receive any exclusive development aside from tweaks. Even though the new Team Management system was perhaps one of the most important changes to FIFA in the last 10 years - that negative perception still lingered.



Now though, it seems the team are back to developing features exclusively for the core Career Mode platform with Pre-season Tournaments and Player Training really strong additions to the existing formula. All things considered I think this year’s Career Mode is something we can all be really positive about and it’s great to know that anything we as a community do suggest from now onwards, will be taken in to serious consideration by the team.



It seems that after a turbulent 12 months, Career Mode is back on track.