While FIFA 22 and the next year of Ultimate Team is still a long way in the distance, there’s no time like the present to look forward and come up with some ideas and improvements we’d like to see to FIFA’s flagship game mode.
While FIFA Ultimate Team still goes from strength to strength each year, generating more and more revenue for EA, we believe there is still an incredible amount of unrealised potential.
FIFA 21 certainly made great strides in the right direction, adding online co-op FUT for the first time and doing away with the tedious fitness mechanic.
So what tricks do EA has left to implement in their most popular mode.
Here are the features, improvements and changes we want to see changed in FIFA 22's Ultimate Team.
Additional FUT Game Modes
It’s no secret that FUT is a very competitive game mode at the core, with FUT Champions and Division Rivals being the biggest modes to play, with Skill Based Matchmaking even in Friendlies.
To appeal to more of a casual player base, we’d like to see some potential new modes added into FIFA 22 Ultimate Team, with shorter, small-sided games or short, free to enter repeatable tournaments that keep players coming back every day!
NBA2Ks ‘Triple Threat’ mode is the perfect example of a shorter, small-sided game that could be a big hit if an equivalent was added to FIFA. We’d love to see a 5v5, first to 5 mode introduced into FUT without a doubt.
Imagine stepping out onto a pitch with your ultimate 5-a-side team in some short-sided games that are solely intended to engage people for a small length of time. It’d, without doubt, give people more reasons to play, especially if players could be rewarded, or work towards special 5v5 objectives to earn exclusive rewards.
Additionally, we’d love to see some form of Tournament Mode return to FUT, similar to the good old days of the Gold and Silver Cups. Free to enter tournaments that are repeatable, updated regularly with decent, but not over the top rewards would give the FUT player base even more reasons to play.
FUT Co-op Overhauls
Arguably one of the biggest additions to FIFA 21 Ultimate Team was the introduction of true Co-op gameplay in both Division Rivals and Squad Battles, allowing players to team up, play together and work towards objectives.
While this was a big hit, there still needs to be so much more done in FIFA 22 Ultimate Team.
Co-op FUT Champions is a mode that has endless levels of potential. Being able to squad up with a co-op partner for a 30 game 2v2 Weekend League would add a completely new dimension to FIFA's most competitive mode.
Additionally Co-op FUT Draft would also be another mode that would benefit from a 2v2 system, seeing as you can already play with a guest, why not make it fully co-op integrated for FUT 22?
Finally, the ability to invite other duos for a 2v2 friendly is a much-needed addition in FIFA 22. How this wasn’t included in FUT 21 we don’t know, as social gaming doesn’t get much better than facing off against your friends.
Cross-Platform Matchmaking And Markets
One of the biggest developments in gaming over the last couple of years has been the ability to play games across platforms. Whether on Playstation, Xbox or PC, you’ll be able to match up with your friends and play anyone and everyone, however when it comes to FIFA and FUT, that’s still not possible, to the detriment of certain consoles.
Especially when it comes to FUT, with a live market that requires players to populate it with auctions, the PC and Xbox communities have been suffering somewhat, with 10x and 5x fewer auctions respectively on average throughout the year than Playstation players.
Such a clear split in the player base across consoles calls for cross-platform to be enabled, both from a matchmaking perspective, but also from a cross-console market perspective.
Revamp FUT Champs & Division Rivals Rewards
FUT Champions and Division Rivals are the two big competitive modes in FIFA Ultimate Team, yet they both, the former especially, have been under heavy criticism for a number of years now over their outdated and somewhat unworthwhile reward structures.
The Red Player Pick system whereby players are given the opportunity to earn untradeable red versions of TOTW cards simply doesn’t stack up for more than a couple weeks each year, with these rewards feeling pretty worthless most of the time, due to poor TOTW player selections that don’t meet FUTs highly constricted meta.
It’s clear that rewards need to be restructured and rethought going forward, either to include guaranteed rating rewards, i.e. only 81+ red picks for certain ranks, or the inclusion of promo cards such as OTW, Future Stars and even Team of the Year items into red picks, to reward players for playing the biggest modes in FUT.
Chemistry & Position Modifier Overhauls
The Chemistry System has been a staple in FUT since it’s inception back in 2009, with Position Modifiers also being very much the same since the first years of FUT.
In today’s FUT, it’s all about making the most meta team possible to compete in competitive modes such as FUT Champions and Division Rivals.
With a small pool of “meta players,” coupled with chemistry and position limitations, many of the meta teams look incredibly similar, which I feel somewhat hurts the feel of creating your “Ultimate Team,” as most teams look identical. How many times have you faced the players below in FUT Champions this year?
To combat this, perhaps changes to the chemistry and how it is calculated are due.
In addition, perhaps it’s time to widen the potential positions that players can play in FUT, either by allowing secondary positions, such as Neymar as both an LW and CAM or by simply having more options for position change consumables.
Milestone Objectives Improvements
Milestone Objectives in FUT have been slowly getting better and better in FUT, with long term grindable objectives starting to be introduced, as well as the new Squad Foundations objectives to start providing lower leagues with more usable players, however, more still needs to be done going forward.
FUT is a grindable game, so let’s make some big objectives to work towards from the start of the year.
Say for example at the start of the year a 90 rated Gareth Bale is released, but the requirements include:
- Scoring 500 goals with a Welsh player
- Playing 300 games with a Premier League team
- Scoring 10 bicycle kicks
- Scoring 50 outside the box goals with left-footed players etc
Sure, it’s a long term grind, but we need some high-end player rewards to work towards in these milestone objectives. If you’re willing to put in the time and effort, you should be rewarded with some top cards that give you an edge over the competition, not just generic pack rewards that are totally reliant on luck to be worth a grind.
Additional Purchasable Content - FUT Season Ticket
With FIFA Points continuing to be scrutinised across the globe by governments for their unethical “loot box” like appeal, it’s highly likely the EA will look to other purchasable content in future FUTs.
With FUT Seasons being released every 6 weeks roughly in-game, allowing players to earn XP for various rewards, including packs, players and customisation items, a Battle Pass style “Season Ticket” would be a brilliant way to go in our opinion.
Offering premium content such as additional pack rewards, small FIFA Point bundles, players and cosmetic items, this would allow EA to curb the “loot box” pressure and instead offer guaranteed content and rewards throughout FUT that engage audiences into grinding XP for guaranteed rewards.
More Detailed Stats Tracking
Something that fans have been wishing for years in FUT, has been a greater level of stat tracking on their FUT items throughout the year.
Being able to view goals and assists are great, however, there is the possibility to go much deeper, with position themed stats, heat maps, and so much more.
Being able to view clean sheets and total saves on our goalkeepers, passing percentage, tackles and interceptions on our defensive midfielders and dribbles completed on our wingers would add another level of immersion to FUT, and allow users to fully get to know the qualities of the players in their club.
Promo Themed Menus
While this may only be a purely cosmetic change, imagine how crazy it would be to have promo themed menu screens during certain events throughout the year.
A snowy, wintery feeling for the FUT Freeze event, a royal blue for the Team of the Year promotion, a confetti-filled party atmosphere for FUT Birthday, a sunny, summery vibe for Summer Heat, the possibilities are endless.
Things like this would just make FUT an even more engaging experience from the menu side of things!
General Quality of Life Improvements
For the menu grinders among us in FUT, there is definitely some quality of life improvements that would go a long way in making FUT a more user-friendly experience, here are some things we’d love to see implemented in the future.
- Bulk List Feature - How many times have you had tonnes of consumables to list up, and have had to go through each one at a time. We’d love to see a system whereby you could tag a number of items and all list them up at the same price, for the same length of time.
- Bulk Consumable Application - We all know that frustration of wanting to go into a game, only to find out that half your team is out of a contract. We’d love to simply “Apply Contracts To All” with the click of a button to get back out onto the pitch as quickly as possible.
- Selecting Tradeable vs Untradeable Consumables - Giving players the option to apply tradeable or untradeable consumables would be a useful addition.
- Stack Packs in the Store - Given that the FUT store only shows us 30 saved packs at a time, it’d be great if we could instead see 30 different pack types available, with another number showing the quantity of each pack available.