FIFA 21 Pro Club: what would we like in the new edition?

Index

Personalization of your footballer An enhanced scouting for real bots Improving the team and the management part We lack a bit of the flavor of real football A shared social capital Integration with the FUT Fewer bugs and more improvements From when this mode appeared in the FIFA series, the Pro Club never had major implementations or development that made it essential in the game economy. Especially for EA's pockets, which in the other way, the most profitable one of the FUT, earned a billion and a half dollars only in 2020. But why abandon Pro Club to itself, when there would be dozens of ideas to make it more fun and at the same time profitable for the developer? Let's try to understand together what is missing from Pro Club and what we would like to be implemented in the new chapter, FIFA 21.

Personalization of your footballer

Inexplicable EA's choice to remove the Gameface function from FIFA 19 onwards. It was in fact possible, through an app on a mobile phone or PC, to create our three-dimensional face to be inserted on the Pro Club virtual footballer. Once this option was eliminated, only the normal game editor remained to be able to create a character as similar to us as possible. It is also true that our playmates did not see the face we created but a reproduction of it that differed greatly from reality, while remaining visible only to ourselves. Electronic Arts could however improve the existing editor allowing us to create our face automatically thanks to artificial intelligence routines (Nintendo 3DS already did it with Miis!).

A scouting pack for real bot

If it is true that in Pro Clubs you can analyze the rankings of the teams and players, with the possibility to invite them on the team, it would be fun to also create a sort of mode scouting for bots. In practice an enhanced version of what you could already do in Sensible Soccer, where we could go to see any of the championship (from Ghana to South Korea, including in the lower leagues), looking for new talent among young people unknown according to the rankings, markers, and statistics. The transfer market we could afford to bid (and reject about our players), allowing us to build a team composed of a mix of players, human and bots that is truly "ours".

Improve the team and the management section

it is rare that a team of Pro Club is composed of 11 human, but at the same time all the players to find online together. It would therefore be right to give more importance and emphasis to the players remained undetected, the roles bot to which we could, why not, also to a large extent. The fact that every game of the Pro Club players are (inexplicably) changed, both characteristics that name, is a choice that leads to a certain indifference to the rest of the team, making it anonymous. It would also be nice to have an editor more profound with regard to the team: the ability to customize the stadiums, the playing field, maybe to manage inputs and outputs, just like Football Manager, but in a way that all of this is not going to have an impact on the characteristics of the players and therefore does not offset the game towards people who spend more money. The team could have a president not only on paper, but with powers and economic change of the potential of the team. With the ability to purchase or earn virtual currency, Pro Club would open the door to a potential gain-exactly as is already the case in the FUT, if only Electronic Arts to develop the modalities in this sense.

We are missing a bit of the flavor of the real football

What is missing in Pro Clubs, also, is everything that revolves around the "real football". It is true that EA has developed a very deep and passionate in this sense with The Travel, but it would be impossible to take some of those ideas and implant them inside the Club Pro. Now try to imagine how would be able to make the conference pre-and post-race with questions of journalists and answers (guided, of course) that we could do to earn points and credits. You may put the interviews on the sideline between the first and second time, leaving the word to the best player so that both teams can feel a short statement is made to the microphone (virtual, but through the headphones).

You could then implement a range of options that go in the direction of the true simulation league: real accidents for the players who tear, with a few turn of stop; expulsion that make us skip the next match, warnings and disqualifications are true. The world of football off the field offers dozens of situations that would easily plug into a video game, if you only want to invest a little. We think, also, to insert the figure of the coach . A player for the purpose of making the formation by inserting or removing of the bot, that modifies the form based on the opponent, that the latter is a minimum and has prior to the match, being able to see its players and form. The coach, moreover, would be responsible for the changes during the race and would give guidance to those who are playing, with full decision-making powers on the team.

social capital shared

Speaking of the concept of the profitability of the Pro Club, an idea that would impact positively on the identification in the team and at the same time on the accounts of Electronic Arts may be the one to insert micro-transaction style FUT, but in the sense of a corporate, not personal to the player. Imagine you have a team, Pro Clubs with a certain social capital-virtual (convertible to real money). With the money of the company you could build a stadium, edit it, buy workout equipment, gyms, machinery, materials, new shirts and accessories for the players. Many (not all) of the elements that, playing at home, opponents are admire to realize the power of our company. Each player may purchase virtual credits that go into the share capital, without obligations to anyone, of course, and all so on a voluntary basis. In this sense, the victories of the cup or league should be to please the coffers of the club, allowing the next season to make the expense greater, a transfer is more effective for the team and make many aesthetic improvements to the elements of the club.

Integration with the FUT

Why not integrate Pro Club directly with the hen that lays the golden eggs of the FUTURE ? This option would certainly appeal more to the mode 11 vs 11 FIFA, allowing many more teams and people to gain access to the championships, making the waiting less long and increase the general challenge that this mode offers usually. We imagine that the points earned in the FUT can be used in Pro Club, and vice versa, including upgrades for the team or the use of special real players taken on loan. A player that we use in the FUT could go on loan to our team, Pro Club as a bot, or vice versa: the possibilities are almost endless, why not start developing in this direction? We know very well that Pro Clubs is a mode left a little to itself, because EA is committed, body and soul, where they come rivers of dollars, but on the other hand FIFA the pay always those 60/70 Euro for every time he goes out on the shelves.

Less bugs and more improvements

In the final analysis, finally, we would like that Club Pro has less bugs and is usually the most refined. The lack of interest of EA you note whenever it's released an update for FIFA, noting how rarely these improvements should be to affect the gameplay of Pro Clubs, but almost always that of the FUT. We would like to first of all, the possibility to change the jersey in the race to avoid unpleasant combinations of colors too similar (some games become know), removing the limiting of choice to only two meshes, but maybe extending to three or four to give more possibility to have two different colors in the field. It would also welcome the ability to change the color of the shirt of the referee , often of the same hue of one of the two teams. The server of Pro Clubs are often plagued by problems of disconnections and endless research of opponents. One solution could be to make the cross-platform between PC, Xbox and Playstation, so as to increase exponentially the potential players and the viability of the server. We want too? Maybe yes. But let us fantasize, on the other hand, a similar mode in the games of football exists only in FIFA then it is reasonable to expect an evolution and constant improvements, we do not allow Pro Club it folds in on itself in the indifference of the developer. And you, what do you think? What are the improvements that you would like in the next chapter of FIFA?