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Career Mode: The Road To Success Part III

Mission – Objective – Achievement

It’s been a while since parts one and two were released in the Career Mode: The Road To Success series but now we’re back with part three, looking at how Career Mode can improve it’s engagement over what can be a quite phenomenal amount of time if you aim for the modes 15 season limit. As always hit the comments and let us know whether you agree, disagree or have your own ideas.

Time for a change?

In terms of scale and time investment, Career Mode is probably the biggest and the most daunting mode for FIFA players to get to grips with. If you were to complete a full 15 season campaign, with six minutes halves and you conservatively estimated domestic and European cup runs, you’re looking at a total time investment of around 144 hours or, 6 days. That’s only the match time as well and once you factor in transfer windows, menu navigation, emails, loading time and all other distractions, you can probably double that figure and then some. Gargantuan is probably the best term…

This creates a massive problem for EA because just how do you keep someone engaged for that length of time, when FIFA offers so much variety in other modes like H2H Seasons and Ultimate Team to name just two?

FIFA 12’s Career Mode received some promising new additions last year with Player Stories, media interaction and the Youth Academy system all being thrown in to the mix. Much of that was smoke and mirrors though because the impact they had on your game was still minimal. I also see these features as environmental rather than genuine engagement. They all contribute to building the feeling of a living, breathing, football world but they don’t really spur you on to keep playing when the grind sets in.

Even if you take a snapshot of a single Career Mode season, 38 league games and conservatively 10 cup matches weighs in at around 10 hours of match time only. The biggest problem is that much of those 10 hours is spent playing matches which in the grand scheme of things don’t really matter. Sure, winning games builds points, which allows you to challenge for titles further down the line, but does that individual match actually feel like it carries any genuine significance? Not for me.

So even if you decide to play just one Career Mode season you’re still looking at up to 8 hours of match time before you get to the business end which could actually see you win cups or league titles. The way football leagues are structured isn’t FIFA’s problem obviously but the game could still do a much better job of making that journey, more engaging and, more rewarding.

The solution for me could be broken down in to three objective layers one of which Career Mode already handles pretty well…

Long Term Objectives – 3-5 Year

When a manger takes the reins at a new club generally speaking he’ll have a vision of what he wants that team to become during his tenure. The board will also have their own long term ideas of what they want their new manger to achieve, which for a team like Arsenal or Tottenham might be “Win the European Cup within 3 seasons”.

These goals should be very high level but they must also be achievable. What long term objectives would enforce is your commitment to a club for longer than one season and also to instil the belief that the game itself is investing in you as a manager beyond 12 months. Career Mode is very one-season focussed at the moment and these long term “dreams” must become part of our managerial priorities. Long term objectives are the reason to develop youth, the reason to invest in experience at the right time and most importantly, the reason to go beyond 38 games which is something Career Mode is sorely missing.

Medium Term Objectives – Yearly

This is the category which Career Mode actually manages pretty well already because medium term objectives are all about the season you’re playing in at that time. Do the board want you to win the league, avoid relegation, win the cup or consolidate in readiness for an assault the following year?

These elements are already in Career Mode and on the whole the objectives themselves are spot on. I’d like to see the reward and communication once these goals are achieved massively enhanced but Career Mode’s medium term mission statements are actually very good.

Short Term Objectives – Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly

Now if we’re talking about engagement and keeping people not only playing Career Mode, but having a fulfilling and rewarding experience, short term objectives are an absolute must for FIFA 13. This is what Career Mode is crying out for in my opinion and there are many forms they could take.

Short terms objectives could probably be broken down in to three sections as well, driven by either the fans, the board or the media, each with their own expectations. Fan objectives could include winning derby matches or making marquee signings, whereas the board might expect a certain league position after 10 games and media pressure could come dynamically based on your results.

The key thing with short term objectives is that they should be regular, trackable and there should be repercussions depending on the outcome of the challenge. Losing a derby match may see a drop in fan confidence, whilst exceeding a half year league position could mean the board boost your January transfer kitty. The options are endless really but what’s most important is that we’re engaged and encouraged to perform on a regular basis.

Conclusion

In today’s industry games like Call of Duty reward gamers with a constant stream of achievement in the form of kill-streaks, challenges and new equipment. It’s forced down your throat and the screen is always awash with garish yellow text, but you know what? In that split second you feel good because no matter how insignificant it may be, you know you’ve achieved something.

Career Mode is the antithesis of that really as it leaves you completely to your own devices, allowing you to meander through the season at your leisure with little or no direction. Whilst the football world around you may be pulsating, your heart rate certainly won’t be until you hit those big matches some ten hours down the line which could define your season.

Career Mode needs a grand vision but it also needs a steady drip of regular accomplishment to keep you firmly within its grasp. It has to leave you wanting more after every session, providing challenges at every turn just like the rollercoaster that is real football management. There’s a reason 99% of us don’t complete 15 full seasons and whilst it isn’t all Career Modes fault, I want it to at least give me the motivation to try.

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  • David

    Another thing that is very important in Career Mode is TROPHY CELEBRATIONS. I think EA should really devote allot of attention and effort on this aspect because that is what you play over 30 games to win. So they should make it into a separate scenario that it would be saveable due to its lenght. They should show a pitch invasion, then the whole formal cup presentation culminating with the cup being lifted in the podium with the entire squad jumping and confetti all over, fans should be seen running around and taking pics, chanting. Fans should be shown running around outside the stadium and on the streets. The whole city should be shown in celebration mode. Then, on your career pages therr should be decorations in celebration of your win. You should receive many congratulations from everyone.
    One last touch to add would be to have you prepare a song from the begining of the campaign. This song would be use if you become league champions. This song would be played after you lift the trophy alongside memorable pictures of your season, it would be played alongside a film showing all your teams struggles and good moments ie when a key player weny down with an injury, when you lost a derby match, when you fought hard to get a win, spectacular goals scored throughout that season and finally culminating with the images or videos of your team lifting the trophy, all this as your song plays. I think this would be a nice touch, very memorable and worthwhile. You should also be able to keep your trophy in a cabinet to view whenever you want.

  • arghya ghosh

    yup…dat will be awesome!!!!!

  • James

    Ok im commenting on here but my comments about part two.

    i think the Career mode player editing is a win win idea, theres nothing more i want then to edit my scouted youth players, it would make them feel a who more real, especially getting rid of the god awful EA boots.

  • jibberishgamer

    I’ve read through all 3 parts of this article and agree most of what you have suggested here. Though there is one thing i really want to address here which is crucial to career mode: Player development.

    I believe a lot of the fun in career mode is in developing a potential player. Playing as the manager of the club, the one thing most of us love to do is to spot that hidden amazing talent and develop it into a star. Hence the addition of the youth squad was so well recieved in the fifa community. But while the youth squad did fulfill some of the job, the growth of all players in the FIFA games really does need more work to give players a sense of accomplishment.

    As of now (after the november patch)player development is dead linear. A 20 year old talent like Jack Wilshere could reach his full potential in about 5-6 seasons, given that you play him almost every single game. This is itself is already an unrealistically long grind to begin with. top it with other talents from your squad and youth players that you have signed, you would quickly find your squad end up like most other players by around 7-8 seasons in. The reason, as we’ve all come to understand, is that players are stuck signing existing big superstars to have the best competing squad while selling out most of your previous talent.

    The best way to address this I believe is to introduce several types of growth, coupled with the existing cap potential system. the best example is PES, which has around 7-8 growth types for the vast database to select from. while this might seem to be little at 1st, when you consider the many levels of players within the database, it already gives all these footballers much more character and differentiation.

    to give an example, Kun Aguero now age 23 should still have 2-3 more years to maintain or surpass his currently level. the game list him to have an OVR of 86 (i believe) and will grow to 89 or so make sense. In contrast, a youth player like Oxlade-Chamberlain at age 17 should definitely have much room to improve. But it shouldn’t take him almost 5 seasons to reach his stated potential of 85 from his current 74 OVR after the update. and that is if he plays more than 3/4 of the games. A player as young and talented as Ox should definitely reach around 80OVR with 1 – 1/2 season. But should slow down the growth once he reaches the overall standard of the league.

    obviously, the best way to fix this problem is to change the rapidness of the growth, hence I, and many people have suggested types of growth and curve growth. But to top this system, I would like to see that all growths of players would tweak according to the overall standard of the squad he is in. Say if you are playing QPR and expect to win the champions title in 5-6 seasons realistically, you’ve scouted aged 16 player striker at 68 OVR. this is probably your very own OX/rooney/messi in the coming! But after 5 seasons you realized he only managed to grow around 7-8 OVR in total, making him a 75OVR at aged 21 at best. He would definitely fit in your squad but your possibly still quite far from claiming champions with this guy. When you think about it, given the circumstances, this would make sense since any player wouldn’t likely grow tons in a small club even with lots of talent. But what if with in the 5 seasons you’ve bought a retiring top striker like van nisterooy? Shouldn’t his experience be able to help your talented youth or even th whole squad?

    At this point the game definitely has had this considered, but i can see this implementation work extremely well with all other elements.For 1, players will be much better distinguished between old experience and young developing talent. 2, the value of your experienced players increased and are no longer considered useless once their OVR starts dropping. 3) buying players will then be just as important as developing youth making you spending budgets a much more tactical task 4) the squad rotation between game to game, season to season will be much more dynamic and natural, coupled with the current injury system. To top it off, include national team call ups would make squad rotation even more meaningful but that’s not so much about development.

    Finally,1 last little feature would also be great, which is the ability to swap youth squad players into the 1st team before signing a professional contract with them. This will give players a hands on feel of the potential talent’s ability to fit into the squad, instead of only rely on stats. This swap should also give these young players a growth boost of some sort, to reflect how much experience he’s gained in playing with the 1st team. Couple this with what i suggested earlier, you will have the play time VS player growth problem fixed, and career is going to be that much more fun(at least to me;) )

  • jibberishgamer

    I apologize for the bad grammar and lack of organization of my response, which is turning into an article… Hope you guys understand what i mean.

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