Today, Electronic Arts revealed the first details and the big changes coming to Career Mode this year in FIFA 20, which, unlike some previous years, is getting more attention with this installment, which should delight the passionate and vocal fans of it across PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch. According to EA, it wanted to make sure a landmark release like FIFA 20 had some notable changes to the mode, which has taken backseat to the more popular and lucrative Ultimate Team mode in recent years.
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“We have heard the feedback coming from our players in the past years and we wanted to ensure that FIFA 20 will mark an important milestone not only for FIFA in general but especially for Career Mode fans,” said EA. “We strive to evolve and create experiences in FIFA that give our users more diversity and choice each year.”
Press Conferences & Player Conversations
According to EA, this year its biggest goal was adding “highly relevant features that would represent an important step forward for Career Mode, and especially Manager Career.” For this year’s entry, the new feature line-up consists of proper Press Conferences, Player Conversations, and all of the systems in place behind the scenes that make these features worthwhile.
“Our vision was to breathe new life into the Manager Career experience by leveraging the huge amounts of data that playing this mode generates, and build a variation of ever-changing stories that would surface to our players through Pre and Post-Match Press Conferences and Player Conversations,” said EA. “hese are not just general story lines that we put together to mimic authenticity. These are stories built based on player progress which each player will be able to interact with and influence the morale of the team and their standing as the team’s manager.”
EA claims that the experience of each match will be treated differently by journalists and the conference will always feel dynamic and authentic, with factors like outcome, goals scored, opponent, time of the season, and competition having an impact. Of course, it remains to be seen just how much variation there will be. In other words, will this new system get old and repeated after a few seasons? Only time will tell. Hopefully it’s not formulaic though.
In addition to Press Conferences, managers will also have to deal with players, and depending on your interaction with them, their morale can decrease or increase. And this also can change your rating as a manager.
“In the same way as with Press Conferences, the newly added conversations enjoy the same level of complexity,” said EA. “The manager will have to deal with a variety of requests from players as well as happy or disgruntled players that are trying to get their thoughts across. The manager will have to find ways, either through direct actions or by communicating his/her stance in order to mitigate and solve these situations. (Player attribute values shown in this session are just an example and subject to change)”
According to EA, aiding all of these systems is the revamped Player Morale System. Morale will be influenced by a multitude of different factors, such as play time, wages, how well the team is doing, and if the player is meeting expectations. Also, how you interact with the press and players in 1-on-1 conversations also has an impact. And the reason you want your players happy is not only because you don’t want them handing in a transfer request, but because it will influence their attributes in matches.
Manger Customization:
There’s new manager creation tools that allow for a wider range of managers, and it seems to feature some pretty in-depth customization, at least compared to what was previously offered. You can also create a female manager now as well, which is a first for the mode.
“Most of you probably remember the limited customization options within Career – which are now a thing of the past,” said EA. “The new Manager Career experience will provide the freedom to create an avatar that reflects your own style and see it reflected in game. Moreover, you will now be able to change your manager’s outfit at any moment during the season.”
Dynamic Player Potential:
FIFA 20 is making some big changes to how players develop through each season. In other words, potential will now be based on performance more than some pre-determined number. For example, if you score a lot of goals with a young prospect the season before, his potential will be higher in the upcoming season rather than stay the same. Meanwhile, older players won’t decrease as they get older if they play well. In other words, the decrease of the player’s attributes as they get older will stall for a longer period of time if they are on good form. This is a small touch, but a much needed one. And of course, it can go both ways. Potential will decrease for players if they aren’t performing well or aren’t playing much. So, if you have a starlet, they are going to need to play to achieve their potential, not just train.
Live New Screenshots:
The “News” section has been revamped with actual gameplay screenshots that show key moments from any given match. Also, the pieces of news around these events have been improved. As a result, the News section should feel less generic and more tailored.
League UI Themes:
Five new unique Central Menu UI treatments have been created for the Premier League, Ligue 1, Bundesliga, LaLiga Santander, and MLS. Besides more authenticity within these five leagues, the UEFA Champions League and Europa League will have their own unique UI as well.
General Improvements and Additions:
- New Negotiation Environments – Another addition aimed at diversifying our interactive negotiation scenes is the introduction of two new environments, Rooftop Lounge and Restaurant that are now part of our line-up of scenes used for player negotiations.
- Spot Fixes and Balancing Changes –
- Added an option in the Player Actions pop-up to add a player to the shortlist and immediately go to the Transfer Hub with the respective player.
- Redesigned Team Management layout to allow for easier player attribute comparison. (Player attribute values shown below are just an example and subject to change)
- Added an option to disable International Management job offers at the start of a new career.
- Increased the initial Composure attribute values for generated youth players and redistributed weights for player growth between physical, mental and skill attributes to allow for more physical growth.
- Improved distribution of ethnicity within a country when generating youth players.
- Significantly increased the initial amounts for wage budget allocation.
- Increased the player value of defensive players based on the latest transfer market activity.
- Fixed multiple issues with leagues that split into play-offs after the end of the regular season. League objectives are now correctly tracking the play-off instead of the regular season standings. Champions celebrations are triggered at the end of the play-offs.
- Improved the algorithm used by AI teams to determine their starting XI. Moving forward you should see far fewer instances in which the opponent isn’t using their prime starting XI in important matches.
- Re-adjusted the number of saves to 8, inside Career Mode, to address the feedback received from our players during the ’19 cycle.
- Competition Changes –
- Fixed multiple fixture congestion issues. The winter break roll out this season as well as the removal of the FA Cup 5th Round Replay have improved fixture congestion issues in English leagues. We’ve slightly altered the authentic schedule of the English Championship by pushing its completion to a later date. This ensures that schedule conflict situations between Championship rounds and European football nights aren’t possible. A lot of the congestion issues reported by the community were happening with mid-week league rounds happening at the same time as European football, which, although unlikely in the real world, is a common occurrence in Career Mode.
- Added the new format and schedule of the Spanish Supercup.
- Added support to round down the points in leagues that split into play-offs and halve the points such as the Austrian Bundesliga.
- Updated usage of the 4th substitute in extra time to all competitions that support this new law of the game.
FIFA 20 is set to release on September 27 via the PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch. For more details and media on Career Mode changes, click here.
