Hello everyone! It’s been a fair while since the last post, and my apologies for that, but life takes precedent, and I had some family stuff going on that needed my attention, is with that in the foreground, gaming was firmly in the background, well, didn’t feature at all really.
Now things have settled down a bit did manage to get a few games in here and there, whilst also renovating my gaming/cinema room, which now boasts an 82″ 4K TV, rather than the 1080p Projector, and is a vast improvement both in visuals and gaming performance.
I’ve taken the time to play a few different games, picking up the PS5 version of Call of Duty: Cold War, in the PSN sale, which is a very good, ‘take your brain out’, pick up and play game with superb graphics, and ray tracing, really shows off the PS5’s power.
Also been maintaining a few games of FIFA 21 Ultimate Team here and there, which all feels a bit pointless really due to the setup, but the matches are just more enjoyable in the main than playing against the AI every match.
I say pointless as the main, ultimate goal, is to earn enough points through playing division rivals matches, to qualify for the weekend FUT Champions League Tournament, which I have done, several times, but in that weekend league you just play against the absolute best, well, when I say best, there are a few very good players, but mostly, its who has the fastest most powerful players in their squad.
Every team is littered with Neymar, Messi, Mbappe, and if you play against a team that has any of those players, you may as well just concede, o if they have all 3, which many do, forget it.
They are so overpowered in the game its ridiculous, you just cannot defend it, it’s impossible, they ride every tackle, sprint past any player, and keep the ball so tightly that every goal is a skill-fest, dribble down the wing, cut in and shot, or get to by-line, cut back and tap in, you know its coming, but you just cannot do anything about it.
Also the Main way, apart from these weekend league rewards (if you manage to win a few games), to acquire the big players is through SBC’s, Squad Building Challenges, which again, are impossible, and the complete anti-thesis of what football should be.
Trading squads full of players (cards) in to meet a set criteria in exchange for one player.
My very modest GUT squad:
So, I tried to do the Kenny Dalglish Icon SBC, there are 4 challenges you have to accomplish to get him, the first one was to assemble a squad containing players from 5 different leagues and no more than 4 different nationalities, with a team chemistry of 85, and a team rating of minimum 84 !!!!
My main squad I use to play matches is only rated 84, with a chemistry rating of 99. and all the surplus players assigned to my club are the crap, the fodder, the bronzes and silvers you get in packs, so this was impossible to achieve at the first hurdle, unless I wanted to trade in my whole match day squad, or go to the transfer market, and have to spend real £££ to buy a ton of players that fit this criteria, and that was just challenge one, there are 4, ever increasing in difficulty just to get one player.
And players have squads full of these cons, its a complete mystery how they do it, do they really spend a lot of real money? No wonder EA’s gravy train brought in over £500 million USD last year.
So FUT for me, whilst enjoyable for the human vs human aspect, is pretty much no more than a glorified friendly mode as i don’t have the time, patience or will to spend the money needed to amass a squad that could ever compete, so don’t ever trade in my points to enter the weekend leagues any more.
It was this realisation that drove me back, in my currently limited playing time, to trusty old Carer Mode.
Anyway, some recent FUT goals, against real people and everything, and yes, the Chip lob is ridiculously overpowered in this game:
So, far away from the packed screaming stadiums of FUT glory, to the sandy bare patches of Kenilworth Road, and Luton Town FC.
You may, or may not recall, in my last proper post, that we were struggling languishing near the bottom of the Premier League, but amazingly managed to win the Carabao Cup, it is now end of March and with 8 matches left to play, the fight for top flight survival is still on.
Avoid Relegation was the main objective set by the board at the start of the season, so even a 17th placed finish, along with the cup win ‘should’ be enough to keep my job, a job made even harder as star Striker, Awoniyi, signed from Liverpool, has just limped off injured in our last match and is out for 3 months with a broken toe, Stalwart James Collins, a much lesser player, both in speed and ability, has had to fill the slot.
I have switched to a 3-5-2 formation to mimic what I use in FUT, defending is so hard in this game with the ‘tactical’ defending mechanic, that rather than play a 4 or 5 at the back, I prefer to defend with 3, and supporting midfielders, and have the numbers in attack, we may concede a few but we’ll score a few more, is the mentality, our matches are always worth the ticket price if noting else.
FIFAFX.com 
Echo your comments Paul, the offline squads can feel a real grind and online you know as soon as the team sheet comes up what is going to happen. If they could just match online speed to career mode it would make for a much more varied experience and people would have to think about their teams. Currently you can’t really progress without huge speed. And I agree on the sbcs. I’ve done a lot of them but can’t get near any of the icons or top player efforts. My best team doesn’t reach the level and like you say you’re trading your 11 best for 1. I also get a ridiculous number of swaps in packets which can’t be right if they are supposedly random. When I see you need 11 players from one team for an sbc it’s clear they want you to buy them. I’ve rather lost interest with UT for now, especially as I started getting nerfs like when you played me.
Abbeyhill – what about them Tractor boys then? First sight of some tween at Glastonbury wearing the shirt and I’d leave for Norwich.
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All True Turf – Its a serious grind mode, and i’ve seen youtubers that have opened £5000 worth of fifa rare gold packs in order to get icons and TOTS players, the youtube video was sponsored by a gambling company who paid for the 5k’s worth of packs, how are you meant to compete with this type of shithousery?!!?
We will have to have a few more matches sometime.
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On the contrary Turf, with our ambitious new owners and Ed Sheeran sponsoring the kit we are on the road back to being a household name once again. Even my kids were impressed that Ipswich had a feature on Newsround last week!
Great to have you back Paul and delighted to hear that your wife’s health is improving. New TV setup looks epic, should be a perfect match for the PS5. I had been wondering how long you and Turf would have the patience for Ultimate Team given the irritations that you outline such as the same speed merchants up front and everyone playing the same way. Fair to say you lasted longer than I expected! Still, that FUT gameplay video looked really good fun, quite different from playing the sterile AI, and you have certainly mastered the chip shot
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Also nice to see Luton competitive in the Premier with a squad of players in low 70s and high 60s OVR. That Cornick looks really good Paul, loved the knuckleball free kick.
Lloyd – congrats on the cup double, I think that means we’ve all won the Carabao cup in the last few weeks! Higgins at the centre of everything still. One thing that struck me about your video was how many goals you get from crosses and corners, in contrast I never score any headers – any advice, special techniques etc?
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Thanks Abbeyhill – i’m still playing FUT, just casually, still haven’t redeemed my 2000 points for entry into the weekend Champions tournament, just don’t see any point, its just an ass whooping exercise.
I am enjoying the games and the challenge against human opponents more than the sterile AI matches though.
There’s a setting for headers, manual or assisted, maybe make sure its on assisted, saying that i don’t score many headers or corners at all either.
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Abbeyhill – as Paul stated, assisted heading helps. Got crosses on semi. I use R2+O to really whip the ball in as well.
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Thanks Lloyd, I guess that’s R1 with standard FIFA controls. You also use that on corners? Might have to shift to semi crossing at the expense of sending a few out of play.
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Abbeyhill – yes, R1 adds pace to the cross, the usual effort rarely gets anywhere but the fast bend in – and I regularly try a fast along the ground effort – stand a decent chance of being glanced in. Corners are pretty useless imho.
This week is the first I’ve gone completely FUT-less since I got it. There just seems little point in playing for rewards when the season is nearly done and there’s no chance of me getting to the icon level. The problem is entirely the pace. If they turned it down a notch there wouldn’t be the same old teams and same old outcomes, I actually prefer the AI because of that.
I’d love to see Norwich sign up Taylor Swift or a Kardashian, Deliah Smith doesn’t quite cut it now.
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Turf – I had a splurge the other day. I’ve played over 350 FUT matches since starting it a few months ago, and rarely ever sign any transfers, only ever use the players i get in reward packs, so had amassed a fair old amount of coins, around 750k, so i had a shopping trip.
My FUT squad now has Icon Franco Baresi at CB, TOTW Messi at RM, UCL Rare Raphina, and icon Maradona (Loan) in CM, with MBappe and Haaland up top. Firepower, I score a ton of goals, the only trouble is conceding them.
It is virtually impossible to defend against any decent player with decent players in the team, you cant press as such, only jockey and contain so even a slight feint or millisecond delay, either due to your reactions or the often shoddy game not responding to commands, and the player just makes a yard of space and bang, past you or shot and goal.
Also no matter what instructions I set my team up with, stay wide, fullbacks stay back etc, i always get done with raking through balls down the wings where my RB and LB seem to be miles away from the opponents players. madness.
Quite a few cunts about lately too, up to all sorts of shit housery and messing about during games, from multiple pointless pauses, to just standing still during games, playing it back to the keeper and keeping the ball for large portions of time…….
Trouble is, having played against so many good FUT players, the AI is stake and boring now and very predictable.
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I read on one forum that a fair few of those shitbags play golden goal – basically whoever scores first wins and the other quits because it’s always going to be advantage to them. Straight from kickoff ridiculous dribbling is almost impossible to stop if they have a few drag back tricks. I’m well into ESO now though, not played any of the games you sent, or the FF7 free March download. It’s not Skyrim though, I’ve yet to find that peaceful moment of simply walking through the landscape.
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Whats the point in that Turf?!! if I’m matched with a player and he scores then quits immediately, its registered as a DNF on his account which affects his coins multiplier. he might get awarded a 1-0 win by the game, which is ridiculous as there could be 80 mins left, but if he does this so many time she gets a 24hr ban.
I’ve also seen players start a Div rivals match in co-op mode, he connects 2 controllers, and then if you go ahead in a match, he will disconnect one controller and then the game is automatically forfeited because a co-op player disconnected, but it doesn’t affect his DNF rating.
The levels knobheads will go to for what’s meant to be a casual game!!!! ridiculous.
Will conclude my Luton Town season tonight ready for tomorrows new post, only 4 matches left to save premier league status.
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It’s the one who is losing 1-0 who quits, because they reckon the game is over once one player is ahead. I’ve only felt like doing it when I was getting the piss taken out of me but you’re right, that coin threat put me off. Must be some daft boys club agreement, makes no sense but then I don’t understand half the things they do. That co-op thing is pathetic.
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New post will definitely be up today boys, just a little later in the day, all content ready just need to edit it into a post, ran out of time last night and have several project meetings today with work, so will be up late afternoon/early evening, if not before.
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