FIFA 23 Impressions

[DaTaFuNkZ]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

Anyone had any issues with auto switching? Since the update when closing down with a defender, as soon as I get close it switches to a defender further away and the closer defender just wanders off, obviously the switch also means you’re not controlling the player you thought you were and you generally run the second defender to the wrong place. It’s making defending completely impossible as it’s every time..

[steelerfan]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

Will EA ever fix the electronic board that the 4th official uses?

I first brought this up years ago, like FIFA 17 or so. When there is a substitution, the board incorrectly shows the number of the player coming on in red and the player coming off in green.

It means nothing in the scope of the game but it has irritated me for many years.

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[405Cowboy]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

Picked it up today for PS4. After the 1.01 update I have to say I do like the game. Only gripe I have is tackles are too easy and they do call yellow cards (sometimes) like in previous games if your challenging the opposing player with the ball.


So far I'm doing an EFL Cup with all 20 Premier League clubs.(Still waiting on City Ground to be added).

[405Cowboy]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

Also is there anyway to increase fouls/yellow cards? Every time I try a clean tackle (hitting "O") I win nearly every time. In previous FIFA games the official would call foul or give the occasional yellow card. It doesn't seem to happen in FIFA 23.

[Gee_Simpson]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

Will EA ever fix the electronic board that the 4th official uses?

I first brought this up years ago, like FIFA 17 or so. When there is a substitution, the board incorrectly shows the number of the player coming on in red and the player coming off in green.

It means nothing in the scope of the game but it has irritated me for many years.

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I didn't even notice that, damn you!

[steelerfan]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

I didn't even notice that, damn you!

I needed to know someone else is irritated by it too. You're it! [emoji1]

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[face2face]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

I needed to know someone else is irritated by it too. You're it! [emoji1]

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Just played a game of fifa 19 and the color on the board were correct.
(unless I'm color blind

[steelerfan]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

Just played a game of fifa 19 and the color on the board were correct.

(unless I'm color blind

It might have been 20 when I first noticed it. 20 was the last one I played before 23. I thought it was something that was messed up before 20 and carried over but I could be wrong. Either way, it's been wrong for a few years (or wrong some years and right others) and I really wish they'd fix it.

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[jwilphl]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

FIFA '23 Review (Career Mode and Create-A-Team Emphasis)

I think I've played enough of the game now to get a good sense of it. I'm through my second full season at the helm of a created team and manager in Career Mode. We started in League Two (4th-tier England) with the ultimate goal of getting up to the Premier League. We had a mid-table finish in season one. In season two, we've won the league title and are about to be promoted to League One.

First, let me start by saying the Create-A-Team feature is a welcome inclusion. I did play FIFA '22 a good bit (after it was made free for PS+ users) and ran through six or seven seasons there, but I never delved into the creation tools. I did see they made a couple additions like the third jersey which is important. However, I can't help but feel a little disappointed because we're left to compare this pared-down version to the Creation Centre of old. That's where much of my critique will come from.

Once in Career Mode, immediately you notice the layout change to the main menu, altered to mirror the home screen. For stylistic purposes I guess this was important to them, symmetry, but I personally have no opinion either way. Once you get used to it, it's a fine UI but nothing overly impressive or regressive. I do like that some of the things have moved (such as where to find Youth Academy and transfers) to a better location. I miss the quick-save button, as you now must navigate to the save function manually, or save upon exiting. It's hardly a deal breaker, though.

Aside from the menus, the other noticeable changes are to the transfer system. Basically, what they've added is a handful of new cutscenes and a grading system. I think both are fine additions long-term, but for the short-term they aren't fully fleshed out in any way.

• The cutscenes are nice just to see something different. In time, yes, they'll get bothersome and repetitive. It's a starting point, I presume. This might benefit from something that's a tad more interactive or even something that has written dialogue included. I will say the video for sending young lads out on loan should be different and maybe less depressing.
• The grading system is a fine inclusion, as well, but it's also a bit broken. Basically, it appears as though you get an "F" for any transfer that doesn't meet the game's arbitrary price point. The relative amount compared to the transfer total doesn't seem to make a difference. If I didn't eke out an extra $30k for this guy that I sold for $3.2 million, the game decides I failed. Okay. Definitely in need of some refinement here.

Most everything else in Career Mode is exactly the same. The youth academy is unchanged, as far as I can tell. You still pick three scouts to send on missions to countries of your choosing. I don't mind this system, though it might be interesting if there was a way to expand it from 3 to 5 scouts or something (performance-earned?).

My main issue with the youth academy is name repetition, which has been a problem since at least FIFA '14. In many of the countries you'll run across the same first and last names repeatedly. I suppose this is random, but they really need to expand their name index for each scouting country. This is an easy fix to implement if they took the time to do it.

Transfers are all scouted in the same way, as well. You have a stable of six scouts to find players to buy or loan. I don't have much critique here other than I'm not sure why I was getting random free agents in my scouting reports, free agents that weren't from or located in the country/league I was scouting. I've never noticed that in past FIFA games.

Coach and player mojo is still measured basically the same. Things changed a little for your manager in that the number has moved to a menu, and at the top-left of the screen you get that pentagon and colored bar. I'm mostly indifferent to this change. For players, you still have to motivate them and give good answers in the press conferences to boost morale.

About the press conferences, however: these are a bit of a mess. I'm constantly inundated with off-base questions that aren't at all related to what is actually happening in the league or with my team.

• For example, near the end of the season my team is in 1st place. The press will then ask a question about whether or not we can still compete for the league title as we've supposedly "fallen off" the title race. It makes no sense.
• Another popular one I've seen a lot is: after playing a team for the first time in a season, the reporter during the post-game will ask "how we've managed to beat them twice" or "lost again" despite it being the first game.

The out-of-context questions greatly impact what little immersion you can take from these events. What's odd is I don't remember this problem from FIFA '21, so this seems to have broken at some point before '22 and hasn't been fixed. These legacy problems are rather common if you're a veteran of the series.

What else is broken? A lot of it comes down to the details. Now, I'm not sure how many of these smaller issues are from previous versions, but I'll mention the ones that I can remember:

• The fourth official's placard only shows a placeholder "league logo" image during my League Two games. This is a minor detail, to be sure, but it's obvious sloppiness from EA that always makes me question their model.
• Create-A-Team has plain white banners that hang over the stadium during certain games. Part of me thinks this might be a feature not yet released for created teams, wherein you create a handful of generic banners with simple designs for this use. For now, however, this is simply an odd-looking mistake. They need to remove the banners or set some kind of default.
• Create-A-Team cannot select the same jersey even with different colors. If you try to use the same jersey style for home/away/alternate, it changes one of the other selections into something else. Kind of a silly programming kink. I don't know if this was intentional or not.
• Create-A-Team sounds don't always seem to work. For example, when I select certain entrances, they don't appear to function at all. I selected Iceland's intro for my team, as an example, and it never happens. I don't even hear the chants I selected, whereas other chants will work fine.

As you can see, a number of these problems arise from the custom team feature. If you never use this feature, you'll never notice any of these problems, and thus there's little concern for you.

To delve further into Create-A-Team and what I'd like to see improved, well, most of it can boil down how the old Creation Centre functioned.

• Add Custom Shields/Logos - This one is self-evident. In Creation Centre, we could upload graphics we created or downloaded off the internet. I still have my old team's logo that I never got to use during the PS4 era. Either rebuild the web app or allow in-game editing.
• Add Sponsorships - Basic one that also existed in CC. We could create or upload custom sponsor logos. If for some reason that level of customization is impossible, I'd prefer if they gave us a preset number of sponsors to add to the jerseys (optionally). It's a little thing but can help with immersion.
• Add Custom Sounds - Probably harder to achieve now, but I'd love to see custom sound additions to the game. Think MLB: The Show, at least how it worked in the past.
• More Jersey Styles/Catalogue - An obvious choice. More jersey styles from various brands, and then have tabs like in a catalogue. This way things are a bit more separated for those of us that want to use the same brand for all three of our jerseys. Rather than endlessly scrolling down.
• Edit All Kit Pieces Individually - Kind of a no-brainer. Let use edit the color and style of our shirts, shorts, and socks all separately. Some setups don't look right with certain color variations, or numbers become invisible on shorts while remaining visible on the back. It can be a headache not knowing what color each piece of your uniform will be.
• Banners - As I previously mentioned. Those white banners look awful and so out-of-place. Either take them out or let us edit our team banners.
• Better Stadium Creation - Right now you're just picking one of the FIFA default/generic stadiums and naming it. How about something a bit more advanced like in NBA 2K? The default name still appears in your Career Mode UI, by the way.

I will say one of the best additions they've managed with the created teams is the ability to change your jersey and stadium setup each offseason. This is something that has sorely been missing from most sports games for eternity. No one uses the same jersey 20 years in a row, and most teams across all sports change some things from year-to-year. It also means you can start in a small municipal stadium and work up to a big arena.

It's a minor change, I think, but it's absolutely welcome.

As you can see, it's mostly a mixed bag. EA's biggest problem is not dedicating enough time to bugfix. Of course, this is the primary problem with a yearly release cycle. What they're doing is adding new code on top of old code that hasn't been fixed and calling it a day.

Imagine trying to restore a car but all you do is replace the body panels and paint them. The car looks great, but all the underlying mechanical and electrical parts are still old and degenerate. Therefore it doesn't run nearly as well as it should, or even close to how it looks.

This is an EA sports game in a nutshell.

I don't blame the developers. They do what they can, and they have to come up with new stuff for the marketing team each year for sales. Unfortunately, a press release that says, "we've fixed lots of bugs but nothing else was added," doesn't sell great to casual users.

I don't know if anything changes going forward when the FIFA name is gone. My guess is probably not, as least not as long as they try to force the yearly release into a high-budget, code-heavy game.

I didn't delve into the gameplay too much because I think others can critique those items better than I can. I will say it feels like they tried to make '23 play more realistically. It is definitely slower and more deliberate in many ways. I might discuss the gameplay in further depth later, but this post is already long enough.

If you played '22 Career Mode, I don't think enough has changed for me to sell you '23. If you're using a created team and want to take advantage of some of the changes, then wait for a sale and get the game then. Maybe it will become free eventually.

[jwilphl]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

I have to add a brief addendum to my review above: it's been brought to my attention there might be a glitch with player development. Truthfully, I don't know if this is a glitch or something intentional to limit the amount of "special" players, but after coming into my third year, it's something I have also noticed.

As I understand it, the dynamic potential system might be screwing up players' rate of development. Coming into my third year, my squad was mostly built with developmental players. I had a dozen or so players rated with "Showing Great Potential" or higher.

After actually starting my third season, I'm down to about half that number. I had two players that had the "Potential to be Special" moniker. One of those players is now "An Exciting Prospect." Fortunately, the other player still has that highest potential. I didn't realize it before, but I also lost a few after my first season, including a couple of my own youth players.

To me this wouldn't necessarily be a big deal if players could also RAISE their potential from a lower category to a higher one. That I have not seen, however.

Again, I don't know if this is a glitch or done purposefully by the developers. I can say, at least related to the last two games, it is a much harsher change. This isn't something I had seen (at least not to this extent) in previous versions.

To give a more specific example of what happened with one player, I brought in Tommy Conway from Bristol City. He was rated in the mid 60s my first year with the "Showing Great Potential" tag. Into the second year, his potential dropped off (though I hadn't really thought about it) despite him starting for me almost every game.

After the second year, on the last day of June, I got a notice that his development schedule was finished, so to speak. He was and is now rated 73. In past versions of the game, this didn't necessarily mean anything. Players could still grow further.

However, in this case, Conway was the League Two leader in goals last season and playing quite well. It doesn't make much sense that his potential died off in this manner.

I can't really confirm whether this is a glitch, but if it's something important to you - building a team out of your youth players, which is what I personally prefer - then it might be something to consider. You might be rolling through a lot of extra players than you're used to in order to find ones that keep their potential.

It's close to a dealbreaker for me, but at this point I'm already invested so I plan to keep playing and see what happens. If it is in error, hopefully they fix this before too long, but I'm hardly holding my breath.

[Gee_Simpson]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

It is indeed a bug: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Report.../td-p/11909437

A massive one at that, but it will probably take months for them to fix it. I assume you have also noticed the -1 sharpness bug during games? These 2 issues are the most popular topics on the Fifa support forums atm.

[jwilphl]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

It is indeed a bug: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Report.../td-p/11909437

A massive one at that, but it will probably take months for them to fix it. I assume you have also noticed the -1 sharpness bug during games? These 2 issues are the most popular topics on the Fifa support forums atm.

Thank you for that info! Really unfortunate. Guess I learned my lesson about buying FIFA early. I have noticed that -1 sharpness thing but assumed it was some odd visual glitch. Does it affect performance, too, in some way?

[steelerfan]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

Thank you for that info! Really unfortunate. Guess I learned my lesson about buying FIFA early. I have noticed that -1 sharpness thing but assumed it was some odd visual glitch. Does it affect performance, too, in some way?

In my experience I believe the Sharpness bug is visual only. I'd love to prove it to myself by not training anyone (is that possible?) and letting their Sharpness drop and playing a match like that. I'm positive they'd perform horribly and I'd know that "-1" is simply a visual error.

From personal experience, I've seen guys like Lukaku and Kante not be able to hit the target at all after coming off of injury or arriving after being recalled from a loan and having poor Sharpness. When their Sharpness went up, so did their performance.

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[Gee_Simpson]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

-1 sharpness bug been confirmed as a visual bug only. Both bugs are now on EA's trello page under investigation to be fixed.

[fzbronco77]

Re: FIFA 23 Impressions

-1 sharpness bug been confirmed as a visual bug only. Both bugs are now on EA's trello page under investigation to be fixed.

Are you speaking on the PS5 version? Because for me it’s not only visual. My players lose twice as much stamina going into the half and when I start the 2nd half of matches, at least 4-6 players on the pitch are around 3/4 to 1/2 of their stamina. Which was never the case before the big kicked in.

Also the weird thing is that I already had the update and the bug kicked in after 5 matches of play all of a sudden. This bug is a game killer!


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