Dan & Nath return to take a bit of a step back and look at the overall direction of FC24 over the past few weeks. Is EA's apparent generosity here to stay, and if so is that a good thing, or will it lead to burn out? We discuss that and much, much more.
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[00:00:36] Now, let's start the show.
[00:00:38] Hello, FUTIS. Welcome along to your latest dose of EAFC Ultimate Team Podcasting goodness.
[00:00:42] We are Foot in Review, powered by Footcoaching.com.
[00:00:46] My name is Dan Wimbers. I am with the Scout Nathan Downs.
[00:00:49] Loads as always to get into here on episode 602.
[00:00:55] We're recording this around lunchtime on Tuesday the 9th of April.
[00:01:00] Thanks very much for being with us, Nathan.
[00:01:02] We're going to mix things up a little bit from today's show.
[00:01:05] You know, usually we'd go through all of the content.
[00:01:07] We'd talk about the pros and cons of the SBCs and the objectives and things like that.
[00:01:11] But we're going to mix it up today because there's almost been so much content
[00:01:15] and so many cards thrown at us in this Galazzo promo.
[00:01:19] And with the way the market is as well as we'll come on to,
[00:01:21] it almost feels a little bit too nitpicky to be talking about the difference in merits of doing
[00:01:27] some cards. So I think we're just going to kind of take it a bit more freestyle.
[00:01:31] Yeah, absolutely. I'm really excited for a bit of a sort of more chill lead back chat and catch
[00:01:36] up with you, Dan. So much to do, so much to grind, so many cool cards out,
[00:01:42] some interesting SBCs, whether they're for you or not.
[00:01:46] But yeah, it's such a... I'm actually really enjoying the time and place we're at at
[00:01:49] the moment. I think it's really good fun. You know, rivals, I know you've been promoted.
[00:01:54] I've got myself into promotion as well, which is kind of disgusting.
[00:01:57] But at the same time, it's probably easier than maybe even two divisions below us.
[00:02:01] I think it's... The game's actually in a good state at the moment,
[00:02:03] I think. And I've been seen on social media, some people saying games dead,
[00:02:06] this that and other, which we'll come into. But I'm really enjoying things.
[00:02:11] Yeah, look, we talk often about the kind of soup, the whole soup of this ecosystem
[00:02:16] of this game, be it the menus, the gameplay, just sentiment around EA,
[00:02:20] the whole situation in the gaming world. And the soup, the flavours seems to have changed
[00:02:24] in the past few weeks. Some of it good, some of it bad. And you talk about getting promoted,
[00:02:28] you're now in elite, I am in Div 1. There was lots of pain along the way.
[00:02:33] We both have the bruises to show from it. But we are there. But
[00:02:38] you talk about the flavour of the soup changing, I actually think that the rivals,
[00:02:42] the whole thing around rivals has changed massively since EA changed the rewards at the start of the
[00:02:46] season and crucially changed the way the cups are done as well now to remove the game limits.
[00:02:52] And what I think that's done, Nate, is that people now are playing rivals a lot more casually,
[00:02:57] they're a lot more happy to promote because they're not worried about,
[00:03:01] I've got to stay in a lower division because I need to pay the cups and get my...
[00:03:05] You only get five games a day, so I want to get that done.
[00:03:08] Now with really good rewards to go for people thinking, right, I want to get up a division.
[00:03:12] And also, it's like, well, it doesn't really matter because I can just play the cup casually.
[00:03:15] Yeah, it might take me a few more games because I'm in Div 3, 2, 1, whatever.
[00:03:19] But people just seem to be actually finding their level and that makes it better for everybody.
[00:03:24] Yeah, 100%. I think before the sort of revamp of the rewards, I looked at it and thought,
[00:03:29] Div 4 is a decent division for decent rewards. Div 2 were getting good rewards. There wasn't
[00:03:35] much difference between Div 2, Div 1. Whereas now each division seems to be
[00:03:40] better and better. And to be fair, there's not a lot between Div 1 and Elite,
[00:03:44] but even then you look at Elite and go, I kind of want those rewards. So let's grind your way
[00:03:49] sort of as high as you can. And it's not for everybody. And I'm lucky enough to have gone
[00:03:54] into Elite, but some of the teams are super stacked. And there's stacked teams and there's
[00:03:59] some of these sort of squads that you're coming up with. But fair play to everyone.
[00:04:02] It means if you lose a game, you lose a game. It's fine. Get your seven wins at least.
[00:04:07] Try these cards. Try the new formations and different approaches to the game. But
[00:04:12] I think you're right. I think we've got to give a Q-Dust a A because people have been crying out
[00:04:17] for the people that grind the hardest. And there should be a bit of a reward for players
[00:04:23] kind of further up the tier regardless, because you're there on merit in a way.
[00:04:27] So I think it's a good thing. And I think it feels a bit more rewarding.
[00:04:31] Yeah, you shouldn't be getting rewarded for staying below what your actual ability level is.
[00:04:36] And for a long time, especially in this game, particularly FC 24, the equation was so heavily
[00:04:42] balanced towards actually you're going to have a much nicer time if you sit down the divisions
[00:04:47] in rivals. I was playing on my second account. I finally got back to that for the first time
[00:04:53] in four months, I think this week. And I've been relegated all the way down to Div 8.
[00:04:58] And it's only when you play in those divisions that you actually realize
[00:05:01] how quite and quite fun the game can be because you aren't dealing with people that
[00:05:06] play in exactly the same way with exactly the same squad. There is that little bit more freedom. Now,
[00:05:10] I guess I'm what I just complained about in that scenario because I am much lower than what my
[00:05:15] rank is. But I'll just go through the divisions naturally along the way. And I apologize to
[00:05:19] those people that I beat. But my overall point is on my main account, I'm playing more rivals
[00:05:25] because it doesn't feel an absolute ordeal because I am playing people that are whether
[00:05:30] it's just they're playing more relaxed or people have moved up through the divisions.
[00:05:34] It just yeah, it's opened up that game mode again for me. And you know,
[00:05:38] something that I'm really glad of because it was one of the big main complaints
[00:05:41] that we've been talking about on this show a lot is that for three, two thirds of the week
[00:05:45] you were forced into this mode wherever you were in a high division. It was often quite painful.
[00:05:51] Yeah, absolutely. But then at the same time, I think I was playing Elite yesterday and today
[00:05:57] it does seem chill. You're right, it does seem a lot more relaxed and you're obviously going to
[00:06:01] come up against good players in any division regardless of what number that is. Because
[00:06:06] you know, if you're there nine times at 10, you kind of found your level now. So I think
[00:06:10] it's good thing. I think we've got to say well done to EA. It kind of you do feel a little
[00:06:15] bit reinvigorated by it. And I'm sure even playing, you know, you say that you,
[00:06:20] you quote unquote, sort of sandbag, well, you weren't sandbagging, you got relegated back.
[00:06:25] But you were there because you hadn't played. And to be fair, if you haven't played for four
[00:06:28] months, your team's going to be four months older than everybody else's because cards and players
[00:06:33] and SPC's are so, so, you know, so frequent and so easy to come by now that a four month old squad
[00:06:39] realistically is going to be well behind the curve apart from the odds, you know,
[00:06:43] odd player or two. So I think, you know, I think it's great. I think it's a really
[00:06:48] good thing and it can only be seen as a positive one. Yeah, look, the really old,
[00:06:52] you know, the really good thing if you want to consider it good, but other people might not
[00:06:56] say so is that yeah, I picked up that second account and add a couple of really good, you know,
[00:06:59] the cards that were probably still meta because I've occasionally popped on and just logged on
[00:07:04] on the companion out to open up a few packs or do a daily login or whatever. So I had like,
[00:07:08] I think team of the year icon Zola was my only real, real meta player. The thing is,
[00:07:13] I've been back on that account for a few days and the good or the bad thing and look,
[00:07:17] it will lead in something I'm going to talk about is that I've already managed to get that
[00:07:20] team back up to a really meta level because the packs, the pack weight is so good at the moment
[00:07:26] and the amount of packs they give you, it's just ridiculous. You know, you look at some of these
[00:07:31] cards that are going for near discard and three, four weeks ago, you would have said, oh, that's
[00:07:35] a top tier card. Yeah, there's so much choice, so many variety around the, like you say,
[00:07:42] the quite big packs even if you do some of the objectives, you get an 84 times three or
[00:07:46] whatever. They've got the 84 times seven SPC just now, which also helps. The only thing I'm finding
[00:07:52] is unless you do the daily upgrades, I'm getting no rest and no common goals anymore because they're
[00:07:57] all getting, they're all sort of higher 80 plus or higher than 80 gold rest. So,
[00:08:03] it's good that they're giving you that, but you've got to think of a different
[00:08:06] way to now grind the lower cards, which last FIFA we would never say that that was
[00:08:11] a challenge, shall we say? It was always like, oh, we need more high rated whereas,
[00:08:14] you know, we've managed to do the hero packs, the icon packs. There's plenty of SPCs there,
[00:08:20] which are still coming in that it says there about 1. Whatever million, but realistically,
[00:08:24] you could probably do them in a week for next to nothing. So, you know, it could be
[00:08:28] seen as good, it could be seen as bad. That's something I know we're going to go on to talk
[00:08:31] about. Yeah, look, there's ways to do the ground. I mean, I'm still going through League
[00:08:35] SPCs, but there are ways of, you know, when you consider the cost of an 89 rated card these
[00:08:40] days, boom, they get to 51 cards, we just chuck that straight back into the exchange,
[00:08:44] or if you're doing an 84 by 7 and you end up with a couple of 87s, 88s, there are so many ways to
[00:08:50] recycle. And you could spend limitless time on the menus and that's good and that's bad,
[00:08:55] again, depending on which way you want to see it. But one of the main talking points I want to get
[00:09:01] onto is, have we just been given too much now, Nathan? And I know a lot of people immediately
[00:09:06] say, Dan, what are you talking about for months? You banged on about having a repeatable menu
[00:09:12] grind and accessibility and greater pack weight. And I know this on the surface might be critical
[00:09:17] and I'm happy to throw myself out there for that. But we've almost got so much now,
[00:09:22] Nathan, that it's kind of gone the other way. You know what it's like, isn't it? It's like,
[00:09:25] you know, you lust after a chocolate bar or whatever when you're on a diet.
[00:09:29] And then you go the other way, maybe you've fallen off the wagon and you've
[00:09:33] sit there and you've eaten three Easter eggs and suddenly chocolate doesn't taste good anymore
[00:09:37] because you've just had too much of it. And I almost get the feeling that this promo may have
[00:09:42] swung that a little bit too much in that there are so many good cards and we, you know, there's
[00:09:46] so much choice that nothing kind of feels special. And it's this promo alone has basically made
[00:09:52] almost every single other promo certainly before foot birthday feel just worthless.
[00:09:59] Yeah, I mean, first things first, I want to call you out on something you said the
[00:10:02] last time we did the pod about two weeks ago where you told everybody to not expect
[00:10:07] awful oftenness promo. You'd sort of be really quiet, you know, lead up to footy,
[00:10:11] it's nothing's going to happen. And you know, kudos to EA everything has happened. We've had
[00:10:17] great cards, we've had, you know, decent cards for people wanting us to start other accounts or
[00:10:22] start the game. We've had, you know, top tier cards. We've also had an EA mistake in the
[00:10:27] Beckham SBC. So we've had kind of a bit of everything that you'd kind of expect and more.
[00:10:33] It's really hard to say whether it's good or bad, in all honesty, the good parts is obviously you
[00:10:38] get all these cards that are, you know, most of them are really cheap apart from the absolute
[00:10:43] top tier ones. So I think it's good that you've got the variety. And I actually think people
[00:10:49] having these cards creates a bit of a skill gap on its own when you're playing because,
[00:10:53] you know, you can't really say I'm being completely outteamed. You know, you're always going to get
[00:10:57] players that have, you know, the 97 crore, if the team of the year and Bappies, even the team of
[00:11:02] your Highlands, blah, blah, blah. So I think, you know, when you've all got squads that are,
[00:11:08] let's say competitive, because you have got full, you know, you filled them with these very good
[00:11:12] cards, I think it shows it's down to the player then it's the user, which I think is a good
[00:11:17] thing we've been calling for a slight skill gap at times and not a complete pay-to-win game.
[00:11:22] So I think, you know, from that side of things, it's brilliant. From the opposite side of things,
[00:11:27] and one that I think will probably hit you and Shaq hard, Dan, is that you spend so much time on
[00:11:31] the menus and so much time trading and trying to build your coin balance and build your club
[00:11:36] that actually is slightly frustrating that you put all this effort in, especially sort of early
[00:11:41] stages of the game. And you know, you're sitting on what 1.4, I'm sitting on 1.7 mil.
[00:11:46] And it's almost like, what do I do with that? Because I don't want to buy players because
[00:11:49] the market's crashing. I mean, it's a good time to try these players. But at the same time, it's like,
[00:11:54] well, we're talking off air, I'm probably going to go buy some 89s and put them in exchange to
[00:11:59] fill out my club a little bit. But then you feel a bit daft when an 89 rated player just into an
[00:12:05] exchange. So there's good and bad parts. And to be honest, I don't think you're right if
[00:12:09] you say it's good or you're right if you say it's bad. I think everyone's got their opinion
[00:12:13] on it. I think it's probably a good thing in all honesty. But I can also sympathize with
[00:12:18] those that get a little bit frustrated by it. So, you know, I'm getting splinters in my backside
[00:12:22] because I am firmly sitting on the fence here. No, look, I agree with you. It is something
[00:12:27] that is very much in the eye of the beholder. And the one thing that I would say is, you know,
[00:12:32] you talk about all this, you know, might make people like you and Shaq feel,
[00:12:35] you know, a little bit bad. I don't necessarily mind as much. But being I never consider
[00:12:41] myself very great at gameplay. I am certainly not bad, I don't think the people that, you know,
[00:12:49] give me a good thumping on weaker league might disagree. But I think, you know, 11 win regular
[00:12:54] player have been in div 2 to elite most most of the season. Most of this game cycle.
[00:12:59] But I used to be able to get an edge, Nathan, because I did know the menu is really well
[00:13:03] and I knew the ability to grind and things like that. And let me get players that maybe
[00:13:08] propped me up a little bit. Now, that that current advantage is kind of gone now really
[00:13:14] because everybody has if you put in a decent amount of time in this game, everybody has
[00:13:19] that super team now, everyone has a team that has very fine margins. I mean, you're looking at the
[00:13:23] cards that are pittance now like that G song, the G song park midfielder 55 midfielder who's got
[00:13:31] 91 pace 86 shooting 89 passing 94 dribbling 84 defending 88 physical. It's a tots level
[00:13:37] card. And he's 440 K and packable as well, very, very packable as well. Robbie Keane getting a hero
[00:13:46] card of five star week for four star skill move striker 34 K for a guy with 92 pace 93 shooting
[00:13:53] 93 dribbling 82 physicality. Like your advantage is gone now because even if you've you've
[00:14:00] you've screamed and you saved and you know, you've got card, you know, you had the ability
[00:14:04] to craft out someone like an Mbappe or your Sabio or hullet and these cards boom, your advantage
[00:14:10] is gone there because everybody's caught up. And like you said, that is kind of a good thing
[00:14:14] because it puts the emphasis straight back onto the you know, the old fashioned it's like playing
[00:14:19] seasons isn't it? Because it's just two people pick a team that's slightly different, but they're
[00:14:23] roughly the same value then it all comes down to who's the better player on the day.
[00:14:28] Some people might like that. I actually quite like being able to give myself a leg up
[00:14:33] through working a different aspect to this game. And I feel like that's gone. And yeah,
[00:14:39] but that's just me. And I don't know if that's you know, some people might say, well, you know,
[00:14:45] good, everyone should be level. But yeah, it doesn't quite sit sit right with just me in
[00:14:51] the way I like to play the game anyway. No, I totally get that. And to be fair,
[00:14:55] I'm there's a few players that I really want to buy, but I'm not because I know that either
[00:14:59] in a couple of weeks time, they'll be probably will be behind the curve if you know, if it goes on
[00:15:04] how it's looking just now, or they just gonna drop even further in value. One thing that kind of comes
[00:15:09] to mind though is I think this might lose and I'm going to do a Dan from two weeks ago. I think
[00:15:13] this might lose into sense of security where, you know, Tots cards are going to be another
[00:15:18] step up. So we've got, you know, the better car just say 94, but the Tots are all going
[00:15:22] to be 96 rated at least I have to imagine like the least the ones that you want to use.
[00:15:26] So I think the drop rate on them may be slightly less until towards the end of the promo,
[00:15:30] would they do sometimes go a bit wild. So I think that these cards, most of them do have
[00:15:36] like the odd floor and you know, I've packed that Viali the night through Viali like so many times.
[00:15:41] He's actually amazing to play in game. He's only, you know, 40 K. So yeah, that's unheard of.
[00:15:46] So from a, you know, a market point of view, you might actually be all right,
[00:15:50] stocking up in some of these high rated cards because we will have an R9 and our,
[00:15:55] you know, we've already had an R10, but you'll have an R9 a croy for maybe a Vieira or another
[00:16:00] Hollitts SPC, which will be heavy on the demands. And, you know, these 90 rated squad still aren't
[00:16:06] even the easiest to compete just now. So yeah, I think I sympathize for people like yourself that,
[00:16:14] you know, have put all the work into the market into the menu ground. Because I think
[00:16:18] the whole game should be, you should be taking all games of package and that is
[00:16:21] certainly part of the package that if you're good at that should pay off. But I do think it's also,
[00:16:26] on the other hand, really good that there's more of a skill based sort of impetus and like you say,
[00:16:31] the fact that the rivals, you can't get relegated. Some people were complaining earlier, but it
[00:16:37] could make it a lot more chill. You know, the Cup game being unlimited, certainly for this Pro,
[00:16:41] will definitely makes it a lot more chill. So I'm not against it in all honesty. I'm not
[00:16:46] against it. I do think it's decent, but I can obviously see the other side where it's less than
[00:16:52] ideal for people that want either that other advantage or spend a lot of time grinding other
[00:16:56] aspects. But I do think that time will come back round certainly through thoughts.
[00:17:01] Yeah, it's a two pronged thing for me because yeah, look, I see exactly what you're saying.
[00:17:06] But I always think here, everything EA does is very deliberate. And I think this is just
[00:17:12] another test for them because I think they have gone, we've certainly gone through promos for a lot
[00:17:17] of this year, Nathan, you know, this only too well where promo cards have been almost impossible to
[00:17:22] pack, especially the good ones have been almost impossible to pack. And they would have seen
[00:17:26] what's that doing to the amount of games that people playing? What's that doing to the amount
[00:17:30] of packs they're opening? And, you know, time spent on the app and things like that,
[00:17:34] they will have all this all this data, they're always collecting our data. Now I get the
[00:17:38] feeling that they've gone the other way. So they said, right, here's the results when we're
[00:17:42] really stingy and tight and a pack weights low. Let's see what actually happens if we let everybody
[00:17:47] have really great cards, if we make the pack weight really cheap, and we're giving out,
[00:17:51] you know, cars everywhere. So I think this will be a very interesting experiment for them to see,
[00:17:57] okay, are we actually getting people to play this game more now they've got loads of good
[00:18:01] cards? Or is it causing people to drop off because they've eaten too much chocolate
[00:18:05] and they're full and they want to go and be sick? It'd be interesting to see the results in the
[00:18:10] store though, because we know during it was maybe it wasn't team of the year, but one of the recent
[00:18:15] pro was the only way really to get decent promo cards was to get the biggest door packs. So
[00:18:21] I've noticed this still in the store. But now that the drop weights, you know, a lot,
[00:18:25] a lot higher, does that stop people going to the store or does that make people go
[00:18:30] to the store more thinking I've got a better chance of getting my 97 crore for my
[00:18:34] 94 Joe's, you know, or pushcast or whoever it is. I've seen so many more people now opening
[00:18:40] the big store packs with coins, which is something we never, you know, we usually
[00:18:43] throughout most of the year say, don't do it, you know, don't attempt it. But now we're getting
[00:18:46] to the point where, you know, with the pack weight and the way it is on the level of
[00:18:49] these players, it almost does make sense to say someone, okay, you know what, you've
[00:18:53] got 2 million coins, go spend 650,000 coins on that top pack. And then you can go away
[00:18:57] and whether you're going to be starting to crowd for an old Dino or somebody else you've had your eye
[00:19:01] on, you're probably going to get a couple of decent cards that will make at least your bench
[00:19:05] or your squad or give you something to think about. But yeah, the instrument thing will be
[00:19:10] are people still loading up on the AFC points? Or are they not? And also, is this the old
[00:19:17] fashion reel them in to then pull them in later? So is this a deploy to get from EA to
[00:19:22] get everyone to spend their coins on these packs? You know, go for broke. And then,
[00:19:26] like you say, Tots comes out. Suddenly people haven't got, you know, suddenly there's a
[00:19:31] now cards are even better than people could possibly have dreamed of. Now there's a 500,000
[00:19:35] coin store pack and all I've spent all my coins during Galazzo. I'm going to then have to go back
[00:19:40] and load up on the store. So yeah, this will be very intriguing for me as point of view. And I
[00:19:45] do get the feeling that this is a test and look, I'm happy about it. I'm happy to try
[00:19:49] in this strategy. And actually, you know, could this lead to a better game next year?
[00:19:55] Who knows? The only way that we're all going to know whether we're enjoying this is not right now
[00:20:00] when we're into the second week of this promo, it's going to be in sort of five, six weeks time
[00:20:05] where are we burnt out? We feel like okay, the team's got as good as it's going to go.
[00:20:09] Team the season. It's not that great. I'm going to drift away or is it just going to keep us
[00:20:13] hungry? That's why I thought we would have a really quiet week because that is the cycle.
[00:20:18] They pump us up. They get excited, thunderstruck. Amazing, great. Then they get
[00:20:23] quiet right down with team of the group stage or whatever it is. Team of the year, great.
[00:20:28] Then it comes down with road to the final and things like that. Even during team of the season
[00:20:32] we've seen it in the past. I remember there were years where it was things like the La Liga
[00:20:36] team of the season week was amazing and great. And then for whatever reason,
[00:20:40] Bundesliga and Serie A were absolutely awful. And then all Liga and team of the season
[00:20:45] will make it great again because they can't keep people hyped all the time.
[00:20:50] In terms of the actual team of the season cards and things like that, I think that will be the
[00:20:53] start of the three play style pluses. And it will just be a case of how much do they affect it.
[00:20:58] But I think the other thing to consider, Nathan, with team of the season this year
[00:21:01] and the guys are probably getting into it more on the weekend show so we're still their
[00:21:05] thunder is. Now we've got double the player pool and we've got all these new leagues
[00:21:09] from the women's game in. What are we going to do? Because historically it's been
[00:21:14] major league on the Friday and then you get the second, quote unquote secondary league
[00:21:19] in the midweek. So you would get Premier League and then the EFL or Serie A and the Turkish
[00:21:26] League and things like that. But what do they do? What do you think they do, Nathan? Do you think
[00:21:29] that they will go on Fridays, Premier League and WSL? And then is it midweek still a minor
[00:21:36] league and a minor women's league? I mean how do you think they're going to hold it?
[00:21:40] I couldn't see them doing a major and a minor together. It's like Premier League and say championship
[00:21:48] on one and then WSL and Turkish League on another one. I don't think they can eat it out just to
[00:21:54] keep it one on one unless they do get rid of some of the minor leagues. But then you'll be alienating
[00:21:59] some of the player base as well because you've got some die hard sort of rest of the world.
[00:22:04] Say because it's not even championships, if I know you're a red in player and
[00:22:06] to be honest, red in probably won't get anybody in the team at the same time. You'll have some
[00:22:14] teams that some fans that definitely would want that type of thing. So I can see them doing like
[00:22:19] a major and a minor on a Friday, a minor and a major on a Tuesday say whatever it will be.
[00:22:26] But I think you're right because I think last year, you know, team the season goes on so long
[00:22:30] by the end of it, you're just dead and you kind of go in, I'm just going to say for
[00:22:33] all of them at Tots and you don't because there's so many ways to get packs as it is.
[00:22:37] Like saving packs is kind of redundant. I kind of say from usually from a Thursday, Friday and then
[00:22:44] open them and then open what I do until the next Thursday, Friday. It's Wednesday, Thursday, sorry.
[00:22:48] So be interested to see how it goes. But you know, I'd like them to condense it,
[00:22:52] which I know they're not going to do because it's all, you know, it is still money at the
[00:22:55] end of the day. I do think Tots goes on too long. And by the time you get to the end of Tots,
[00:23:01] the Tots players you pull in week one, they're obsolete because they have to keep
[00:23:04] increasing that curve. Like maybe not by actual player ratings, but like you say by play styles,
[00:23:09] by certain certain stats might get tweaked a little bit. And yeah, I'd like a four week rather
[00:23:14] than a six week promo. I think that would be ideal. But again, that's a topic probably for
[00:23:18] another day. Yeah. And then footage comes along straight after that. And the cards are
[00:23:21] absolutely bonkers. You know, you're getting 99 red cards with, you know,
[00:23:26] everything under the sun straight away. And suddenly that, yeah, like you said,
[00:23:29] the player you pulled in Bunders League a team of the season is fodder two, three weeks later. So
[00:23:33] there is the kind of natural thing. And I guess it's, you know, you can't rage against the dying
[00:23:38] of the light because we are getting already towards the end part of this game. We are two
[00:23:43] thirds of the way through realistically, the game launched in September and we are rolling
[00:23:48] towards the middle of April. You know, usually around July is when they start getting you
[00:23:54] hyped for the new game. And that's, you know, 10 weeks away. So we are reaching that point where
[00:23:59] your journey comes to an end. And like I said, I don't, I might be coming across as hypocritical
[00:24:05] here because you can go back and listen to lots of shows where I'm saying I'm sick of my team
[00:24:10] standing still. It's really hard to pack an upgrade. You know, everybody's got your Sabia
[00:24:15] and Bapay, you know, the Hullet, the same players we were talking about. There was a
[00:24:18] good eight to 10 week stretch. And it's been a pattern now the last couple of years where
[00:24:22] it's been that stretch from mid December through to March where people do seem to have very static
[00:24:28] teams. Then all of a sudden EA released a floodgate and everything, you know, my team is, I don't
[00:24:34] know about yours, Nathan, my team has changed more in the last three weeks than it did in three months.
[00:24:41] Yeah, absolutely. And we offline, we have a lot of chats because I don't even know how to set
[00:24:46] my team up anymore because there's so many good options in areas. There's still certain
[00:24:51] positions that I can't seem to pack an upgrade in. Not if I want the try and I open a lot of these,
[00:24:56] I grind my way through a lot of these packs, but there's a couple of positions I do want
[00:25:00] upgrades. But for the most part, you know, I'm stacked up front, I'm stacked at centre back,
[00:25:05] I'm stacked on the wing. So yeah, it has changed and it keeps changing. But that's
[00:25:10] something I quite like because I can change it around and, you know, if I have a day where
[00:25:13] something's not working for me, then I can mix it up a little bit. There's not one player safe.
[00:25:19] I mean, Shaq's going to kill me, but I've dropped Neymar now, which he will absolutely,
[00:25:24] he'll go on me for. But you know, it's mental to think that a player like that is replaced.
[00:25:30] But that's the sort of stage of the game we're at where there's so many good options. And to be
[00:25:35] honest, there's not many bad cards around even the baby versions of somethings. I've seen a
[00:25:38] lot of people saying, you know, like the baby Vidditch is meant to be amazing. I'm
[00:25:42] not going to use him because he's not the daddy Vidditch. But at the same time,
[00:25:46] if you look at stat wise, he looks incredible. And there's loads of cards like this that are
[00:25:50] cheap that are easily packed so that would improve like a lot of teams or if not improve,
[00:25:56] at least be a good sort of viable alternative. Absolutely. And look, we're going to get more
[00:26:01] into this because there was a quite a divisive tweet that was doing the rounds this week about
[00:26:05] the community and their approach is going to get into. We've also got, we are going to talk
[00:26:08] a little bit about the news and releases, including news of a patch and much more. We're
[00:26:13] just going to take a very short break. So stay with us. Hi, it is John and I know advertisements
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[00:27:03] on the exclusive content on Spotify. And now let's return to the show.
[00:27:08] Let's get into part two. I mentioned that we were going to talk about a pretty divisive tweet in a
[00:27:12] minute, but I just want to get through some of the actual news lines. We have had title update 12
[00:27:18] NAITH. Now on the surface, no actual gameplay changes on this one. You know, they've not
[00:27:23] nerfed any particular skill move or anything like that. However, this could be quite an
[00:27:27] important patch for some members of the community because over the past few weeks,
[00:27:30] since the last patch, lots of people have been reporting things like micro stuttering,
[00:27:35] high pings. I know there's been lots of tweets from people playing in Africa,
[00:27:38] for example, say that their pings have skyrocketed in the last couple of weeks going up to like
[00:27:42] two, 300. And one of the patch notes is that they have improved some stability issues. So hopefully
[00:27:50] that is just going to improve the general connection and gameplay experience
[00:27:54] fingers crossed on that. So any any brief thoughts on title update 12?
[00:27:59] No, like you say, there's not major news. I play on 20 ping, but if they could bring that back to
[00:28:04] bring that down to about two, that would be delightful. But I don't think we're going to have
[00:28:07] that unless you somebody like our John that's got an EA server in his basement or something. So
[00:28:13] no, nothing, nothing huge, not really a lot to really need to go into. I don't think.
[00:28:17] Yeah, well, it means to be seen and look at anything they do to improve everybody's
[00:28:20] overall experience is great. And look, will they sneak some sneaky changes in? I mean,
[00:28:25] who knows? Who knows. But anyway, let's get to that divisive tweet and it's one that you know,
[00:28:31] you brought up an idol so seen as well sort of introduce everybody to what it was.
[00:28:36] Yeah, so on Twitter or X, there was a tweet and I would need to be forgiven because I can't
[00:28:43] remember the original poster. So I'm not trying to take credit for this at all. It just
[00:28:47] didn't really pay attention. But basically what it said is the game isn't dead. The player base
[00:28:52] is killing the game. So I found this really interesting because I have seen more and more
[00:28:56] people saying the game's dead because people are doing the same things over and over, etc, etc.
[00:29:01] But you know, the thread kind of goes on to say EA are now giving us so many players like we've just
[00:29:07] discussed. The sort of the addition of play styles this year or the play cell pluses have
[00:29:12] been phenomenal. So in theory, there are more ways to score goals. But what he's basically
[00:29:17] saying is 90% of the people use the same players and use the same method of scoring goals, which
[00:29:23] is usually the cutback sort of goal hit the byline cut it back. So Dan, for before we kind of go
[00:29:29] anymore, what's your thoughts on that? Do you think the player base is killing the game or
[00:29:32] do you think the game is still direct us into a certain direction? I don't think you can condition
[00:29:38] a gamer base over a number of years to be so obsessed with rewards and then
[00:29:43] be complaining that that is how the majority of the user base is performing and what they are working
[00:29:50] towards. You know, we talked about this off air, didn't we? I said like, yeah, okay, I could start
[00:29:55] playing some really different kind of football and trying some more skill moves and stuff in
[00:29:59] the middle of the park and stuff. And I might score a couple of really great goals. But I've
[00:30:03] lost six to and I've just spent 20 minutes and I've just considered six cutbacks. How am I
[00:30:08] going to feel after that game? I might feel like I've had the moral victory because I've scored a
[00:30:12] couple of nice goals and maybe I post them to my profile. But ultimately, what have I really got from
[00:30:18] it? So I don't think you can blame it now. Where I think they've got a point is in cut modes
[00:30:26] and things like that. It annoys me when I go into a cut mode and I see everybody playing like
[00:30:31] gold Van Dyke all of the same players they've literally spent the last four months using it
[00:30:35] have only just moved away from that they just go straight back to, you know, things like cups are a
[00:30:39] great opportunity to try new players and try different things. And actually, I think a lot of the
[00:30:45] game, game base are doing that. I see lots of different teams. I see people scoring probably
[00:30:49] because one of the the good thing they did in this Galazzo Cup is make objectives for
[00:30:53] like scoring headers and crosses and things like that. So people are having to mix up their
[00:30:58] gameplay. You know, thankfully, they didn't put an objective to score 20 cutbacks. So I see what
[00:31:05] he's saying because and again, it goes back to me saying when I might be hypocritical right at the
[00:31:09] top of the show because you know, we cry out for usable cars, we all moan and say,
[00:31:14] I'm forced to use your Sabio because there's nobody else as good as him out there. And then
[00:31:18] they hand us Robbie Keen, Berbatov, Vialli on a plate and we go, oh, I'm still probably
[00:31:26] going to use it. I'm not criticizing John for this, but John talked about this on the weekend show,
[00:31:30] didn't he? He said to Ingvi, you know, I mixed up my team and actually I have gone back to it because
[00:31:37] I need that little extra edge that you get from using Hullet or from using
[00:31:42] Kakar, etc., as opposed to using a Van Nistel Roy card at Striker. So it's really difficult.
[00:31:49] Again, I think the incentive has to be on EA to create more gamers, more opportunity to reward
[00:31:55] players for just playing football rather than getting people to play for Ws.
[00:32:01] Yeah, no, I agree with that. I mean, like I said, the playstyle plus is I think it's a big deal.
[00:32:07] I've changed my game around this week, which actually is five me like we said earlier into
[00:32:12] Elite and to almost a good weekend league run. I did the Beckham SPC before it got taken
[00:32:18] down. So I've got my Beckham on the wing, I've packed Drogba. So I've been scoring goals
[00:32:23] with fun basically just switching to I'll get the ball out to Beckham and crossing it in
[00:32:27] and Drogba was just a bully. So I like that. That reminds me of the Man United team I fell
[00:32:31] in love with back in the 90s when I was growing up where Beckham would do that, he would ping the
[00:32:36] crosses in. So I kind of agree with the tweet. I think that we have been conditioned so I
[00:32:41] don't think it's necessarily the player base is full, but you do always see it. I'm one
[00:32:45] of them. I have to admit, I've got a cafe playing right back and you always see cafe
[00:32:49] or James at right back. You usually see or you say, Bjoe, there's normally a team of the year
[00:32:56] Cassius I think it is in goals who I've just packed, which I am absolutely using. So I was using
[00:33:00] the Veneziaan goalkeeper before he had popped on hands. So like you do have like a core of
[00:33:05] the same teams. But I also think I'm like especially since this promo I am seeing more
[00:33:10] variety than ever before. I think since maybe the gold players were kind of all the craze.
[00:33:15] I think there is a little bit more, but I do think people are reluctant to take risks.
[00:33:20] But now the rewards are better. Maybe we will see people kind of mix and off. I'm seeing
[00:33:24] Willy Orban a lot at center back who you know, his stat wise has been brilliant,
[00:33:28] but I've never really seen him. But we always comment on how good he should be. And you
[00:33:32] know, so I was still there, but you know, that's fine. Like I'm okay with people using
[00:33:36] similar players. I don't think that's necessarily killing the game. But I do think
[00:33:41] this cutback matter is a pain in the backside. But the more you get used to team to second man
[00:33:47] press and partial team press, the better I've become at stopping it. And you know, little
[00:33:52] things like learning not to hold sprint and jockey at the same time. That's that's huge.
[00:33:56] And that's training yourself not to do something that I've always done, which is a bad habit.
[00:34:00] But at the same time, these cutbacks are they're not completely foolproof, you know,
[00:34:04] that they aren't you can't stop everyone because sometimes it just happens. But
[00:34:09] you're better equipped. And when if you use certain play styles, like I know that Dan,
[00:34:13] you love bruise a plus if you use bruise a plus using intercepts plus like these things help you.
[00:34:19] So I'm not just looking for I'm playing x y and zed in my backline because I like the name I'm
[00:34:24] looking for stats and play styles. And I think if you've got if you've got a good combination,
[00:34:28] your team gets a lot more balance. And you do become better at stopping that and you can
[00:34:33] play a little bit more football the way that you like to play. Yeah, it's just really difficult
[00:34:39] though, isn't it? Because I you know, I just said with, you know, seven months into this game cycle,
[00:34:44] you know, people have been trained to play a certain way for so long, that it's really difficult
[00:34:49] to then go actually, I'm going to try and play a different way, especially because generally,
[00:34:54] you have to take a step back to take two steps forward. Don't you know, John always
[00:34:59] talks about it, you know, you're not just going to immediately master something
[00:35:03] straight away, you're probably gonna have to take a few hits. You know, if you're trying to learn a new
[00:35:07] skill move, the chances are you're going to pull it off badly through a four, you know, three,
[00:35:12] four, however many times first before you get it right and use it contextually in the right
[00:35:16] place. In the meantime, you might do it in the wrong place, it'll cost you a chance or a
[00:35:21] counter or break on you and someone will score. And if the only incentive to be playing that
[00:35:26] game is to get our W, then you're not going to gravitate towards that. Are you? Because you're
[00:35:31] like, well, I've wasted my time. Yeah, okay, I'm maybe 5% better at that skill move than before
[00:35:36] this game. But I don't want to go through three, four, five hours or days or weeks,
[00:35:42] taking L's and getting nothing for my time because again, everything is so
[00:35:46] rewards driven. And the difference being that if they increase things like this,
[00:35:51] you know, there's more things like the daily play and the Galazzo and the goals just goals
[00:35:55] objective are great because suddenly you can lose a game, it's no five three. And you've actually
[00:36:02] achieved something because you scored, you know, your three goals closer to getting a Galazzo pack
[00:36:06] or whatever. So you don't come away with that empty feeding that we talked about in rivals
[00:36:09] a few weeks ago where, you know, you're at high level in rivals, what have I got to show
[00:36:13] for it? I've just taken three beatings in a row, I've spent an hour of my time and
[00:36:16] it's literally got me absolutely zero. As opposed to if I sit in div six,
[00:36:22] in that hour, I'll probably win at least two of those games and I'll be getting something.
[00:36:26] Yeah, absolutely. Like you say, it's the same with the is the pack weight and all these players
[00:36:31] are good. They're a bad thing. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to be honest.
[00:36:35] I certainly don't think the game's dead. I do disagree with anybody that says it's
[00:36:38] dead because there's so much to do. Everything's changing, you know, it may
[00:36:44] quiet and down and the game may be perceived as dead come July, August time, which to be
[00:36:49] honest is usually a natural little anyway before the new game. But right now, if you
[00:36:52] asked me if the game's dead, I say absolutely not. I think there's too much going on.
[00:36:56] I like I said at the start, I'm really enjoying it. There's lots to do. I've probably not got
[00:37:00] enough time to do everything that I want to do. But at the same time, I think it's great.
[00:37:06] This things that I want to improve, of course, there isn't it? You'll be the same, but
[00:37:09] you know, you're never going to have a game that's a complete game that pleases,
[00:37:14] you know, the entire millions of the player base like, and that's to be fair, that's why we
[00:37:18] do the pod, isn't it? So, you know, we don't want to have the same opinion as each other.
[00:37:23] John will think differently to how we think. So I think it's good. It gives us lots of talk about
[00:37:28] lots of discuss and again, I don't think there's, you know, you can say X is right for saying this
[00:37:33] because, you know, that's, that's the beyond handle because I think that's why we love the
[00:37:37] game so much to think about in so many different sites. Yeah. Let's not rule out
[00:37:41] the fact that burnout can be occurring here. And I'm not talking about short term burnout.
[00:37:46] I'm talking about long term burnout and not even in a dramatic, you know, complete flame out burnout
[00:37:51] way. I'm just talking in a gradual, hmm, kind of been here and done that. You know, lots of
[00:37:56] people came into this game like myself during the pandemic 2020 and ultimate team is like nothing
[00:38:02] I'd seen before. And over the ultimate team has changed a lot, even since FIFA 20.
[00:38:09] Lots of things have gone away. Lots of things have come in. You know, we talked about at
[00:38:13] the start of this game cycle, you know, putting out whatever it was, you know, 83 by 30 packs on day one
[00:38:20] of the game, you know, guaranteed icon packs and all these things that we used to not see until
[00:38:25] the very end of the promo, you know, the amount of promos had gone up the way it has the amount
[00:38:29] of players. It has got to that point where I think for a lot of people they are kind of like,
[00:38:34] well, I've seen this and I've done it. I need something new. And whether that's
[00:38:40] something new within the AFC or actually they're going, well, you know, Helldivers is great.
[00:38:45] You know, I'll go play that for a bit because it's something completely different. You know,
[00:38:48] we've not seen that type of game for a while or whether they're going off and doing anything,
[00:38:52] whether it's Minecraft, Animal Crossing, Cod, whatever. Lots of people can be just at the
[00:38:56] point now where, you know, I've done this for seven months. I've built my ultimate team
[00:39:01] and I'm done. And or I've built my fourth ultimate team or my fifth ultimate team.
[00:39:07] What else am I going to get from it? Because that's why lots of people like Inception and Nick
[00:39:12] and NEP and lots of content creators and veterans of the scene are sitting there pointing out to EA,
[00:39:18] you've got to innovate because actually, yeah, okay, you've given this card a new shiny coat
[00:39:24] of paint and you put a new shiny pack in and okay, there's nice little things like evos.
[00:39:29] But actually we're just doing the same thing over and over again. And to expect people
[00:39:35] to engage day in, day out, hour after hour doing the same things. Eventually, people will
[00:39:41] burn out whether that's, you know, again, in a dramatic way or not so dramatic way.
[00:39:45] Yeah, absolutely. No, you're fully correct there. But they've got things within the game they don't
[00:39:50] use. You know, we've got the different friendlies, the online friendlies even the king of the ring
[00:39:55] ones, the no rules or whatever. Like I don't understand why they're in the menus if
[00:40:00] you're not going to use them. I love the no rules games. I did play that with my pals offline.
[00:40:05] I think it's great fun. You can literally just kick everybody and stand offside.
[00:40:09] I think it's brilliant way of play. But, you know, last year, I think we had one
[00:40:14] time where we had to use that for one of the objectives, but we've not seen anything like
[00:40:17] that now, you know, Silver Lounge, we're getting bronze and silver cards that their only real
[00:40:21] purpose is to go into other SPCs like you're not using them unless you use them in the first
[00:40:26] week to get the objectives for the jumbo rare player where it's win 10 bronze friends, 10 games
[00:40:32] with a bronze team or something like that. So I think I think the whole card sort of
[00:40:37] issue needs revamped because I don't see the point in, you know, having even with the icons
[00:40:42] you've got to put in for two of the squads is a bronze rare and a silver rare. That's
[00:40:46] pointless because you get so many of them anyway. It's not really adding anything to
[00:40:51] complete in an SPC, in my opinion. And I get it for certainly like Marquis matchups, you might not
[00:40:56] want to use your gold so you can use a couple of the silvers to get your team in for that certainly.
[00:41:00] But apart from that, it just seems pointless. But at the same time there is some, I still
[00:41:05] think there's lots to do. Yes, it's a little bit stale that was basically champs rivals and,
[00:41:11] you know, things like, not having but reducing the squad battle halves. That's a good thing.
[00:41:16] You know, some cops maybe bring in a golden gold for some cops because that was quite
[00:41:20] fun when, you know, EA decided that's what was going to be. There's so many things they can do
[00:41:25] that won't take a massive change or, you know, it wouldn't cost them anything to do.
[00:41:31] But at the same time where that's why we're sitting in an office recording a podcast and
[00:41:36] we're not sitting in Vancouver making millions for EA. Yeah. And that's the bottom line for EA.
[00:41:42] They, you know, I've said it all throughout my podcasting career here on Furion Review.
[00:41:46] It's all about the bottom line for EA. And but that bottom line has to be balanced because,
[00:41:51] yes, they can make as much money as they want today, but they do still need to ensure that
[00:41:55] new people are coming into the game. Old people aren't leaving the game because,
[00:41:59] you know, the bigger the volume of the player base and certainly the bigger volume of your
[00:42:02] committed players, the more money you're going to make in the long term. You know,
[00:42:05] okay, yeah, you might make record profits, but if you're driving off 20% of your game
[00:42:08] as this year, it's going to be harder to hit that target next year. Those you'll have
[00:42:13] natural drop off at the top end of that. And gradually and gradually, you know,
[00:42:17] your products will go down and so will your profits. So it is a delicate balancing act.
[00:42:21] They did certainly go for the almighty dollar in the first half of this game. And now I do
[00:42:25] feel that they've gone, okay, we have made a load of cash here. We can be a little bit more,
[00:42:31] you know, take the shackles off and let people have what they actually really want more.
[00:42:36] You know, we've never had a menu grind this good. Really. You know, I look at
[00:42:39] the things you can do with the icon picks, the hero picks, the just normal gold player picks,
[00:42:45] the exchanges is fantastic. I could if you asked me to design a dream menu grind,
[00:42:51] I don't think I could do much better than this for someone that just wants to sit there on the
[00:42:54] companion app. We talked about it early, you could literally just spend hours and hours and
[00:42:58] hours doing player picks and eventually you will get players for your team because again,
[00:43:02] the pack weight is actually good. So it's not just a menu grind without purpose like it was
[00:43:07] largely during like team of the year. We had a great menu grind, Naith, but it was pointless.
[00:43:11] We were all getting just all, you know, feeling sick from just doing the same old things over and
[00:43:15] over again and getting nothing. Whereas this you're actually getting rewarded for your time.
[00:43:18] So that's great. And like you say, they've made great changes. The squad battle rewards,
[00:43:23] as I've just said, things like taking out game limits in cups and things like that,
[00:43:26] all really good things. It's, but that's still, like you say, not going to keep enough
[00:43:33] people, you know, make a mystery ball cup, make a king of the hill cup. Hell, you've got things
[00:43:38] like Volta. Why not have a Volta crossover whereby, you know, you have a Volta cup because I have
[00:43:45] not been into Volta, but I used to love indoor mode and old FIFA's. So just make a mode in there.
[00:43:50] You know, they're like you say, there's so much they can do make a co-op cup,
[00:43:54] eight million things that they could do, you know, we could rattle them off in five minutes,
[00:43:59] like 10, 20 amazing ideas. But it will all come down to what is their resource? What is their
[00:44:06] priority? And you know, how are they making money? So it does feel like, you know,
[00:44:11] shouting into the wind a little bit, but there is so much potential here. And I think that's
[00:44:16] where we come at it. We're not coming at this from a negative point of view of, oh God,
[00:44:19] this goes turtle rubbish and beyond saving. It's like no, with some small tweaks,
[00:44:23] this game could go from being pretty good to wow, really good.
[00:44:27] Yeah, absolutely. Don't forget though, if they were to do something like that,
[00:44:30] they'd probably need to quality control it so anything could happen because you could go into
[00:44:33] Volta and end up playing under the sea or something like that. So it's not, it's not EA's
[00:44:38] forte to have good quality control on new things, including SPC's or game modes.
[00:44:43] Very, very true. But again, this is where a company that is making literally billions
[00:44:48] could afford to invest a few hundred thousand in getting some quality controlling. But
[00:44:54] you know, if they again, they've got their priorities, they want to make the maximum amount
[00:44:57] of profit. And that is just the way capitalism works. So let's not get into a wider debate
[00:45:03] on that because we could be here a long time. Let's wrap up the show then because we have been
[00:45:07] going off long enough. Look, by the way, I hope that this conversation has been
[00:45:12] interesting for those of you listening. I apologize if some of you are saying,
[00:45:15] I want you to talk about Dino and we've not talked about Dino.
[00:45:20] For a good reason.
[00:45:21] Yeah, well he's very, very expensive. Very, very expensive.
[00:45:25] We're just trying to speak a little bit different with today's show.
[00:45:28] Just seeing, you know, we're always trying to evolve here on foot in review. And again,
[00:45:32] that your feedback is really important here. Like if you're like, no, I actually quite like the
[00:45:36] structure and going through and having a pattern that's great or actually, you know,
[00:45:41] whatever you want to see from and hear from this show. Let us know on the socials,
[00:45:45] at foot coaching everywhere. And of course, join the discord. The discord is absolutely
[00:45:49] free. And from the discord, you can whisper John, you can whisper anything and give that
[00:45:52] feedback. You know, we've got foot in review at gmail.com as well. Get your feedback in being
[00:45:57] like, I liked this show because of X hated the show because of Y or I liked bits and didn't
[00:46:01] like bits. Your feedback will shake the show. We're only doing this for you guys at the end
[00:46:05] of the day. I don't think it's a secret here that me and Nathan not getting paid to do this.
[00:46:09] So if people are sitting there going, I can't be bothered, you guys are rubbish,
[00:46:13] then we'll happily hang up our headsets and walk off into the sunset.
[00:46:17] But that's a bit dramatic. So let's let's end the show with something that is a bit
[00:46:23] more familiar for our Tuesday show. Now let's do player in review.
[00:46:29] And who's your player? So mine is the 94 rated D.D. Drogba. I think it's a player
[00:46:35] that you've been wanting. Dan, I packed him hadn't realized that I packed him. So I threw
[00:46:39] him into my weekend league. He he's one of these players that you kind of say he plays
[00:46:45] like he did in real life. He's a batter and ram, but he's not just a batter and ram. He's an
[00:46:49] auto shooter as well. His finishing is ridiculous. Like his face sets are 95 on the cards,
[00:46:54] but he's 99 shooting and he's five star weak foot as well. So he's amazing. He's got the aerial
[00:46:59] plus trait as well. So that means that he is absolute dominant. So like I said earlier, playing
[00:47:04] Beckham Beckham to play crosses into him is just ridiculously good. Power shot plus as
[00:47:09] well. But he's also got other sort of he's got normal play styles as well, but he's got
[00:47:13] a lot of them. So he's fantastic. He's coming in at 360 on PC 382 on console. Well worth the
[00:47:22] money if you're looking for a striker. I'm playing him with a smaller agile striker. So
[00:47:27] I grew up in the two like the era of two strikers where you played one big one little
[00:47:31] sort of striker and he feeds straight into that. He's an absolute monster. So
[00:47:35] highly, highly recommend him if if you're looking for a striker and you can fit him in.
[00:47:40] Yeah, I have a I'm going to review soul Campbell player that I again, I think came out in a mini
[00:47:46] release. I hadn't realized it even been released when it popped up on my car. I know it's like,
[00:47:50] Oh, he's got bruiser plus and we talked about it earlier. I love bruiser plus on my defenders.
[00:47:54] So put me into my team guy is excellent. He's so surprisingly quick for what you think of
[00:48:01] in soul Campbell and he plays like I remember Campbell playing in real life. You know,
[00:48:05] he has got that strength when he needs to be just a really silky on the ball as well. He's not
[00:48:10] I don't find him to be a complete tank. I find him agile. It's formed a great partnership. I've
[00:48:14] tried him alongside both deaths ie and my cares as well. And I think he's out shun both of them
[00:48:20] for me. I think he's going to be the player that I build my defense around. And again,
[00:48:25] it's been great to use a player that I always sort of watching football again
[00:48:29] throughout the 2000s always thought love what soul Campbell does as a defender and
[00:48:34] to be able to get that player into my team in a usable way again. He's only about I think he's
[00:48:37] about 250k now. And I said, I'd put him easily in the top 10 defenders in this game. There might
[00:48:42] be little bits and pieces that people don't like. Again, I think the passing is particularly
[00:48:46] elite on him. And again, of course, he's not going to give you, you know, if he does pop up
[00:48:51] with a ball at his feet in front of goal, he's not going to do much good there. He is only
[00:48:55] three three. So not absolutely everything that you'd want. And he's only got six play styles.
[00:49:02] So there are flaws in the card, but I still think it's brilliant. So yeah,
[00:49:06] give Solago. I don't think he'll let you down. But then I said there are so many defensive options
[00:49:11] that Nathan a bit like you. I'm sat here with Desai Campbell, Marquez, Kanji, Kempembe
[00:49:18] and I just don't know who to really play and pair up in that sense.
[00:49:21] And I've not had selection issues like this throughout the entire well,
[00:49:24] like you said, probably since the gold days.
[00:49:27] Yeah, I mean, it's good though, especially with a lot of them being heroes, icons, whatever,
[00:49:32] you can either you can get them in sort of on camera as well, which is big because I'm still
[00:49:36] loving having full chemistry. But I think it's good to we were we were chatting before. I still
[00:49:41] think you need to keep someone like Marquez and your team because I like passing out from the
[00:49:44] back. And I have Marquez and I can't remember who plays next to Marquez now. That's how bad
[00:49:51] it is. But yeah, I like having somebody that you can play out with as well. But again,
[00:49:55] that's my playstyle. It wouldn't be for for everyone. I've got Milly Tal next to him, obviously.
[00:50:00] That's who it was. So yeah, a bit of pace and a bit of passing. So but it's good though, because
[00:50:05] you find combinations that work for you, which is that's what I like about the game.
[00:50:10] Yeah, well, look, we are in a fantastic period for if you've got any kind of buying power or
[00:50:14] just any power to actually play the game and growing these packs, you're probably going to
[00:50:18] stumble upon one of these really good cards. And there are so many meta, meta cards,
[00:50:23] like we pointed out earlier in the show that are absolutely going for nothing.
[00:50:27] So it's a great time to spec, if you've drifted away from the game for a little bit and you've
[00:50:31] still got a few hundred thousand coins, again, you can catch up like that, just like that.
[00:50:36] And when you look at cards, the quality of Drogba going for 380k,
[00:50:40] and Roberto Carlos down below 600k. It's only really those very, very big cards,
[00:50:47] the likes of Jazzino and Pushkus that are still going to cost the millions. But I still
[00:50:50] don't think there's that, you know, Inge was talking about it on the show on Friday.
[00:50:54] You know, okay, Pushkus is 3 million coins, but actually Pushkus is four star, four star.
[00:50:58] So is he actually overall going to be that much better than 91 red Robbie Keane or Drogba?
[00:51:05] Quite probably not. So there's never been a better time to close that gap
[00:51:08] and be able to feel you can compete with anybody. Even, you know, I was looking at
[00:51:13] earlier, even if you've got like team of the year, Rodgery, which is still a very,
[00:51:16] very good card, by the way. But actually if you compare the stats to Chabrillonzo,
[00:51:21] the one you can get for absolute free, again, there's not a great deal in it.
[00:51:25] So pop back in as Nath sort of said, try these new cards out. We've got modes like the cup.
[00:51:31] If you've not done the cup so far, highly recommend it. Rivals does feel a lot less
[00:51:35] sweaty and of course you've still got weekend league and playoffs and things like that.
[00:51:38] And the play base should swell again, Nath, for the next few weeks because team
[00:51:41] this season does tend to bring a few players back. Yeah, it's usually the hardest weekend
[00:51:46] leagues of the year though, apart from maybe team of the year, but hopefully there'll be
[00:51:50] more people around so playoffs might be a little bit more straightforward. Weekend league should
[00:51:54] be a little bit more straightforward if everyone's on unless you've got the demons coming back.
[00:51:58] But no good time to be picking up the controller and give it another whack again, I think.
[00:52:04] Yeah. And I love the fact that there's so much to talk about in this game. You know,
[00:52:07] I kind of worried coming into this podcast or saying to you at John and the guys,
[00:52:11] I don't know what we're going to talk about really, but I suddenly looked down at the clock and we've
[00:52:14] been talking for the best part of 45 minutes plus. So it's good that we can have these conversations
[00:52:19] about the game. I hope everybody still feels in a positive place with it. You know, I've
[00:52:24] pointed out some of the things that I didn't necessarily don't like, but there, you know,
[00:52:28] as I said, there's a hell of a lot I do like about this game at the moment. Is it perfect?
[00:52:32] No. But I think the greatest threat to any game, Nath, is apathy when you're not even
[00:52:39] talking about it and you're not even thinking about it. That's when you know a game is dead,
[00:52:42] when you're not even thinking about it, when you're not even logging on at six o'clock.
[00:52:46] That's at the point where a game really needs to worry. And I don't think we've hit that point
[00:52:50] yet. I just think that there is just a little bit of overall fatigue with the game that might
[00:52:56] be causing some people to cycle in and out again. Yeah. And there's a little bit of
[00:53:01] anticipation, right? Eagerly or not so about how they're going to deal with the power curve
[00:53:06] now. It's at a good height already and you've got thoughts coming in, like you said, footies
[00:53:10] and probably some sort of Euros based competition in the summer as well. So not quite sure how they
[00:53:17] go with it, but I'm quite intrigued to see how they do deal with that. And, you know, for somebody
[00:53:22] that likes to do both gameplay and menu grinding, I think it's quite an exciting time still
[00:53:26] and still plenty left of FC 24 for me anyway. Yeah, plenty of potential for that. And of course,
[00:53:31] if you do want to get better at your game, go check out footcoaching.com. Great packages available
[00:53:37] and they really do teach you the key fundamental mechanics and strategies, both mental and practical
[00:53:43] to be able to take you to that next level, especially when you have access to these
[00:53:46] players. Now it's never been a better time to, as I said, to sit there and learn different
[00:53:50] strategies and learn how to use different play styles and skill moves and tactics and things
[00:53:55] like that. This is a great time to do so in the team at foot coaching are there to help
[00:54:00] you with that. Again, join the discord is absolutely free and look if you want to go the
[00:54:03] extra mile to support this show, patreon.com forward slash foot in review, especially now
[00:54:08] that we've opened up the discord, I can only thank our Patreon members even more because they are
[00:54:14] still going that extra mile to support us. And the funding you give us pays for all sorts of
[00:54:19] things you both do and you don't see it pays for tools in recording and software pasting
[00:54:24] things like headphones and lots of different things. It all goes back into was making
[00:54:28] this show better. As I said, we're not sitting here. No, John's not sitting there handing us
[00:54:32] Patreon money to go out and buy pizza. Although John, if you are listening and you do want to
[00:54:36] buy us pizza, you know, just saying, just saying. But no, in all seriousness, thank you so much
[00:54:43] for the support, both financial and for those of you who are just following us on social,
[00:54:47] spreading the word. Thank you for all the feedback on episode 600 as well. Hope you've
[00:54:50] enjoyed it. I certainly, you know, it was it was really nice and a little bit emotional
[00:54:56] as the other guys have said, listening back to that and seeing the difference that the podcast
[00:55:01] has made to such a diverse group of people as well from all across Europe and the world
[00:55:07] coming together to unite to do this. So thank you very much. I'm going to wrap the show up there.
[00:55:12] They will be back over the weekend with episode 603 where we're expecting to know, I think,
[00:55:17] team of the season warm up. Yeah, that's usually the pattern. So it feels mental to
[00:55:22] think that in terms of the real football season still got eight games plus to go. But
[00:55:27] that's where we're at. Let's see how they speak for yourself. We've got like four or five games
[00:55:31] left in the FL in the FL, not even not even in the season just in the EFL until you get relegated.
[00:55:40] We're going to beat Bristol Rovers tonight. We're going to be tonight.
[00:55:43] Probably won't. But the fact you'll know by the time this shows release, whether we beat
[00:55:47] Bristol Rovers or not, tell me or be a time I'll be all over my DMs.
[00:55:51] Yeah. So that means basically, you know whether you can speak to Dan in the Discord or not tonight
[00:55:55] or give him a wide berth. Absolutely. And on that note, you can follow me at with me, your NJ Downs?
[00:56:01] Absolutely. Yep. And of course, as I said, foot coaching for all the socials for the show.
[00:56:05] Join the Discord. The link is in the show notes. One thing left to do, Nathan.
[00:56:10] Drop it. We are going to drop it.
[00:56:20] You.
[00:56:23] If you see, see, give it to you.
[00:56:50] You.
[00:59:20] You.