7 things we want to see in FIFA 19 Ultimate Team

From extending the Weekend League to better comms, here's our blueprint.

4. More incentive to try other teams

It always used to be fun to build silver teams and other wacky hybrids and just play for fun, but in these days of FUT Champs and Squad Battles and all the rest, that kind of thing has rather fallen by the wayside in favor of a more rigid meta. (Seriously, if we never play against Gabriel Jesus ever again, that would be great.) We'd love to see EA incentivize players to try unorthodox approaches again. You can see flickers of this in the Daily Objectives, but being asked to score three goals with a Liga NOS player to earn some bronze contracts isn't hitting the spot. Why not force us away from the meta more often, perhaps with unique rewards?

5. More new gameplay challenges

Similarly, we'd love to have other ways to play FIFA 19 Ultimate Team. It's a common refrain among dedicated players that there isn't enough to do outside the Weekend League, and while Squad-Building Challenges are insanely popular, they are also starting to feel a bit like a cheap substitute for actual gameplay. How about some new modes to mix things up? Daily scenarios that match up to real-world events, five-a-side matches, and maybe even some sort of Skill Games integration. EA has done a good job of making us want to fill our every waking moment with FIFA, so how about making those hours more varied?

Near post is still OP too. (Source: EA Sports.)
Near post is still OP too. (Source: EA Sports.)

6. Fewer "Untradeable" rewards

One big bugbear we have with FIFA 18 is EA's excessive use of "untradeable" rewards, especially for things like Prime Icons. We assume that EA uses these to help balance the in-game economy - essentially Squad-Building Challenges force players to 'cash out' their excess wealth by dumping massives of coins into items that have no trading value. But coupled with EA's poor communication and the game's famously horrendous pack weights, the prevalence of untradeable items just fuels the "greedy EA" narrative. After dumping over two million coins into a Prime Icon Ronaldinho or Thierry Henry, our reaction should be unbridled delight, not excitement tinged with mild nausea at the thought of all those lost coins. Find another way to balance the economy and let valuable things be valuable.

7. Better communication from EA

Spend any time on the FIFA subreddit and you may notice that players have a bone or two to pick with EA. Rather a lot of bones, in fact, and in rather colorful language. Even by Reddit standards, the tone of the discourse is toxic in the extreme. Part of the reason for this is that it's one-way dialogue. EA only communicates with players through very basic patch notes and promotional content on social media or in esports live streams. There's none of the dialogue you see between players and developers of games like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds or Fortnite, and EA needs to take a lesson here. Players won't always agree with you if you talk to them and explain what you're doing, but they will respect you more for trying, and they will also find it a lot easier to empathize with the human side of a developer than the bland, corporate visage which has become the default. If EA does nothing else in FIFA 19, learning to talk to its players would be a huge improvement.

Editor-at-Large

Tom is probably best known for the 15 years - FIFTEEN YEARS! - he spent at Eurogamer, one of Europe's biggest independent gaming sites. Now he roams the earth, but will always have a home here at AllGamers. You can try and raise him from his deep, abyssal slumber through tom.bramwell@allgamers.com or he's also on Twitter.

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