FIFA 18 won’t be released until late September, but the beta will no doubt be available a few months prior to that and it’s therefore time to start looking forward to the future and working out what needs to be done as we move towards the release of EA’s next football title.
The following is a list of 10 things that I personally would absolutely love to see included in FIFA 18 Ultimate Team:
BETTER REWARDS FOR WINNING
At the moment, the rewards for winning games and divisions as well for that matter are really quite feeble. It takes a pretty long time to build up coins from playing matches, and currently it’ll set you back several games worth of match coins just to pick up a healing card.
More coins should be offered for matches, especially if you win them, and in my opinion; the prize money should also be a lot better for achieving glory within the game. Right now, if you win Division 1, you get a mere 15,000 coins. Hold your position in the top division and you’ll get an even less; 7,500, enough coins to buy ONE premium gold pack. You do get automatic qualification for the Weekend League in both of these cases as well, and the rewards from doing well in that are admittedly pretty good, but not everyone has enough time at the weekend to compete in 40 matches and reap the full rewards that the Weekend League experience potentially has to offer.
I would love to see more match coins awarded for successfully completing matches, and a more generous offering of coins for doing well in Divisions would make progression through the league system far more appealing. Maybe you could get a 100k pack for winning Division 1 in addition to some sort of coin reward? Even if it was untradeable, at least this would provide a bit more incentive to work your way up the ladder and ultimately strive to win Division 1.
CHEAPER PACKS/CHEAPER FIFA POINTS
Moving on from that last point about receiving better rewards from winning things; another thing that could do with being addressed is the cost of packs. If you’re playing matches to make coins, 7.5k is a fair amount to save up for a Premium Gold Pack where a Squad Fitness Card is probably usually the most valuable card in there.
If match rewards were better, then pack prices maybe wouldn’t seem so steep, but right now; the price of packs is just far too much, which makes taking the FIFA Point route a much more appealing method, as at least that way you’re not eating into your hard earned coins. FIFA Points are expensive though; 12,000 FIFA Points cost about twice as much as the game itself does in the first place. £79.99 if you’re in the UK, or £71.99 if you have EA Access. This makes Premium Gold Packs about a quid each, or 90p each if you’re signed up for EA Access.
Whether you’re paying with coins, or paying with FIFA Points, FIFA Ultimate Team packs are incredibly expensive and in my opinion, the price of them should be much lower.
LEGENDS ON PS4
At the moment, Microsoft have an exclusive deal with EA and Legends are therefore only available on Xbox. Potentially that exclusivity period is coming to an end though and the likes of Pele, Gullit and Okocha could well be arriving in FIFA 18 Ultimate Team for PS4 users as well as those on Xbox. Maybe David Beckham will be introduced as a new legend for FIFA 18 as well? I live in hope.
IMPROVED TRANSFER FUNCTIONS
At the time of writing this, squad fitness cards are selling for about 1,000 coins each, yet if I search for Gold fitness cards between 950 and 1,000 coins buy it now, I have to scroll through pages and pages of regular fitness cards before I come across the items I’m actually looking for.
It’s a similar sort of issue with in-form player searches as well; you can search for a player’s special card within a certain price range, but if that player has more than one in-form card, you can’t narrow that search down to simply look for the card that you’re interested in. You can hit ‘Compare Price’ once you do find the card you want, but it then displays EVERY card for sale on the transfer market, regardless of their listing price. Oh, and if you want to find a specific stadium on the transfer market? Good luck with that.
Another thing that’s slightly frustrating right now is the lack of a rare/non-rare filter on the transfer market. This would be a useful addition to the game and I for one would definitely appreciate the inclusion of such a filter.
I definitely feel that the search function could do with some improvements, and the same goes for selling items as well. Throughout the year, I tend to pick up hundreds upon hundreds of contract cards and fitness cards. Occasionally I’ll have a clear out and get rid of them en-masse, but this can be quite a long-winded experience as you have to go through and list up each item individually. It would be quite a nice time saving feature if you could set your price, then list multiple items at this price point at the same time.
SQUAD CONTRACT CARDS
Some people would like to see the complete removal of fitness and contract cards, which is fair enough, but if they are here to stay; something that I’d definitely like to see added to the game for FIFA 18 is squad contract cards. When your team are looking a bit tired, you can happily apply a squad fitness card and restore the team to their full effectiveness, but sometimes multiple players run out of contract at the same time and it’s just a bit frustrating having to go through and offer them all fresh contracts individually before you can hop into your next game.
Squad contracts would provide another fantastic time saving feature, and a smoother, more hassle-free experience is surely something what we’re all ultimately striving for.
THE RETURN OF ONLINE TOURNAMENTS (BRONZE/SILVER ETC.)
Presumably they took away the old online tournaments to encourage more people to get involved in the Weekend League, but personally I’d love to see the return of regular online tournaments. I’ve always been a big fan of trying out different players within the game, and in FIFA 16 I absolutely loved playing the online bronze tournaments. Putting together a team of bronze beasts and going up against other people seeking to get the best out of their bronze beauties.
Adam Armstrong scored so many goals for me in online Ultimate Team tournaments last year; he was one of the most clinical finishers I ever used in the game and always seemed to place the ball into the top corner against the opposition bronze keepers.
This year though, bronze and silver tournaments only exist for offline action, and who really plays FIFA Ultimate Team offline? I don’t think I’ve used any bronze players whatsoever this year, possibly not really any silvers either, and the lack of these kinds of tournaments has made me far less adventurous in my team selections. I play most of my matches with a pretty regular Premier League side, but further incentive to play with more bronze and silver players again would definitely be much welcomed. Perhaps Bronze and Silver drafts could become a thing in FIFA 18 Ultimate Team? The entry fee could be lowered to reflect the different levels of Draft and this could be an interesting new expansion to the FUT Draft experience.
GENERATIONS CARDS?
On Futhead you can put together a Generations squad and use cards from any version of FIFA Ultimate Team. You can have a bit of fun building together teams featuring some of your favourite players past and present, and it would be absolutely brilliant to see these generations cards brought into play in FIFA 18 Ultimate Team. Maybe not in regular packs, but perhaps there could be a new Generations FUT Draft game mode. There was so much hype around the FUT Draft last year, but with the introduction of the Weekend League this year, that all seems to have died down a bit.
A Generations FUT Draft could be a good way of restoring more interest in the game mode again though, and could provide a fantastic opportunity to play with some of those old cards that you loved so much in years gone by. I’ve only played one draft this year, but a Generations Draft would definitely get me involved in the game mode again and I could certainly see myself spending a lot of time and potentially money on it, too.
ABILITY TO CREATE YOUR OWN BADGE/KITS
You’d probably end up with a LOT of ridiculously ugly kits, and a fair amount of badges featuring poorly drawn penises, but the ability to create your own kits and badges in Ultimate Team could be quite a nice touch. You name your team and you can use any kits and badges featured in the game that you like, but allowing people a little bit of creativity like this could be absolutely awesome.
Currently when you pre-order the game you get a few special edition kits, but maybe in future, instead of doing this, pre-ordering the game could grant you the access to start putting your own design work and creativity to the test, producing a couple of kits and a badge that you can choose to use in the game? Personally, I’d love that.
ABILITY TO LOAN OUT YOUR PLAYERS
Loan players obviously already exist in FIFA Ultimate Team, but not in this manner and a cool new feature for the game could perhaps be the ability to loan out your players to other clubs. In addition to the transfer list, there could be a new loan list where you could search for players available for loan. Different loan lengths would be available, so maybe you could take a player for one day, three days, or one week, and you could use the filters to search for your desired loan length.
We’ve all been there where we’ve splashed out big on a new star player for our side, only to get into a few games with them and find that they don’t suit our play style whatsoever. You instantly want to move them on again, but then of course you get hit with that 5% tax. A try before you buy system like this could be a good way of experimenting with different players, and could also provide a nice additional way of making a few coins when you’re away or unable to play the game for whatever reason.
Also, sometimes you get a really good untradeable player, but for a league that you don’t actually play with and so that player largely goes to waste. If you could loan them out though then they’d at least serve some sort of purpose.
POSITION CHANGES FOR PLAYERS THAT CAN PLAY MULTIPLE POSITIONS
Despite the fact that he plays there on 7 chem, Moussa Sissoko has been an absolutely insane centre mid for me this year in FIFA Ultimate Team. He’s big, he’s strong, he can defend pretty well, and also has some very nice finishing ability as well when he’s venturing forward. Also, if you look at his positioning in-game then you can see that the game does actually recognise him as a CAM as well as a right mid.
What I’d like to see for FIFA 18 Ultimate Team is the ability to switch players into another position that they’re capable of playing. You could switch regular Ronaldo for example from a left winger to a striker, or stick super Sissoko through the middle without the need to have him on 7 chemistry. You can already turn a CDM into a striker… Why not allow it so that players can play other positions that the game already recognises them as able to play?
If you’ve got any thoughts on what you’d like to see changed for FIFA 18? Let me know your ideas in the comments section down below!
UK based film graduate with a huge passion for music, sports and video games.
