Ah FIFA, the much loved game franchise by EA Sports that has gone onto become somewhat of a gaming religion which has also birthed many a professional gamer in recent years. Even Premier League football teams have been signing eSports gamers to represent them in tournaments and online, where they also practice their craft. Then you also have FIFA gaming scouts too, and even though you might enjoy a game of FIFA 18, it’s probably not that fun to play against people who do nothing else but play FIFA 18 all day.
The latest update for FIFA 18 is well into gear already, with the much popular FIFA Ultimate Team mode returning and dominating the online gaming landscape of the franchise, as it has done in the last few years since its initial launch with FIFA 2009. Yes, nowadays most online games occur in FIFA Ultimate Team, a mode where you spend FIFA coins and FIFA points on Gold, Silver, or Bronze packs to unlock players and build your own custom team that you assemble as you wish, to face off against gamers across the world.
Unfortunately, this has lessened the amount of players enjoying 1 v 1 matches with their chosen favourite clubs in standard 1 v 1 online gaming modes.
Famous and angry YouTube e-celeb, KSI. Credit: YouTube
The FIFA 18 Ultimate Team phenomenon was helped to be brought to a fever pitch of excitement and popularity through YouTube gamers such as KSI, which brought with it a sub-culture of almost religious proportions in recent years.
So if you’re new to FIFA 18, you may have some serious catching up to do, if you intend on playing online that is! If you’re not new to FIFA and you’ve been playing it for years, when you have the time, you may now be in for a surprise. Many players are already possessing ridiculous amounts of the best players through relatively big financial investments on the Playstation/Xbox/Nintendo Store in order to acquire the best players to place inside their teams.
What’s annoying with FIFA Ultimate Team is that it boils down to gamers that seemingly do nothing but play FIFA 18 all day long. Whilst you have a job, responsibilities and others aspects of life to deal with, once you finally find the time to sit down and play FIFA Ultimate Team, there’s a high chance you might come up against gamers that seemingly do nothing but play the video game, and thus, have teams that are way better than yours. You’re in a for a thorough beating nearly every time. So, the only way to combat against that is practicing until you’re perfect, and also to avoid any FIFA Rage, which is also completely unnecessary.
The Ultimate Team of the Week is available from 1800 GMT on Wednesday, January 17. Credit: FIFA 18
In the week, Monday through Thursdays, FIFA Ultimate Team hold tournament qualifiers in order to qualify for the Champions Weekend League, meaning that you have to win the week tournament in order to be able to compete on the weekend. You would think that EA Sports and FIFA 18 would understand that most people simply don’t have time during the week to play the game, making them already exempt from playing in the FUT tournaments on the weekends. Since you didn’t have time to play on Monday through Thursday by being a normal person, you probably wouldn’t have qualified either way, because if you’re not a World Class level FIFA gamer, it will be hard for you to join the fun with all the best players in the world, who have countless hours clocked in from playing the game already.
FIFA 18 has other game modes available, but by the time the weekend rolls in, even if you qualify for the FUT Weekend Champions League, you can expect to be thoroughly beaten by someone better, or not even be able to play online at all since you didn’t qualify. This online gaming disparity is making FIFA 18 all the more frustrating, resulting in lots of gamers opting to play other games.
FIFA games have a huge eSports following. Credit: Red Bull
The other game modes, such as 1 v 1 Online, can only be played with Online Friends only, and let’s be honest, not everybody has real or virtual FIFA friends in their list. You can even try to fetch a game in Online Seasons, where you can choose a real team and try to find a gamer to face-off with… let’s say Juventus vs. Real Madrid, but in this game mode, you’re more likely to hear the sound of crickets, as you sit there not finding a single opponent.
Surely on the weekend is when most people would like to play their games, right? Well, in Ultimate Team on FIFA 18, you won’t be playing much on the weekend, unless you’re a FIFA 18 obsessed professional eSports gamer, that is!
Should EA Games/FIFA 18 roll out some other online gaming modes, outside of FIFA 18 Ultimate Team in future releases, for those that enjoy the game but don’t consider it a professional eSport? We reckon it would help make the game still enjoyable to play on the weekends.
Brainstain, over and out!
<Story by The Narrator>
Featured Photo Credit: EA Games