How To Get Your Own Little (And Big) Ws

Introduction

Lately I’ve noticed how so many in our THE GUIDE community, but also in the FC community in general, struggle to find their enjoyment in playing the game. FC has become a grind and a lot of the game modes push you to your boundaries of what you can accomplish. If you aren’t able to severely improve, you will hit the same ranks in Champions or get stuck in the same Division with losing most of your games. This can become really frustrating and some of you may even start doubting themselves or their skills. With this article, I want to help you to open your eyes to some other aspects that you can have your own little success stories and perhaps this might even help you to get past a plateau.

Disclaimer: this text is quite focused on Ultimate Team and the experiences you might encounter in it. If you play FC in online seasons, career mode or with your friends, you might not relate to the issues explained in this article - which is very fine. But Ultimate Team has become the primary game mode and a lot of players spent most of their time there. Thus, the article is targeted to these kinds of players.

The Problem

A lot of the game modes within Ultimate Team have become really competitive. Whether it’s Champions (aka Weekend League), Division Rivals or just “Friendlies”. Most often you will face opponent’s on a skill level similar to yours and they also have the motivation to give their best. And since everything revolves around this competitiveness, it’s quite easy to fall into the trap of getting your gratification from the ranks, promotions or rewards that you achieve. But in case you end up achieving just the same ranks all the time or you don’t win enough matches anymore to promote into the next division, this can become really frustrating, since you don’t see any progression anymore. This can be especially problematic in Division Rivals, because there are some severe flaws in the way this game mode is designed. First of all, since you can’t demote from a Division (apart from the seasonal setbacks) as well as reaching those checkpoints, you can climb into a territory at which you not only face opponents with a similar skill level, but actually above yours. All you need is to hit a win streak from time to time which leads you to reaching the next checkpoint and this can just happen by playing a lot. Then you’re one step closer to a pool of opponent’s which don’t match up fairly to you. (Personally, I don’t like this way of progression, but we can use it to our advantage, as I will explain later on.) Second, with the setbacks in Divisions, it gets really absurd. For context: when a season ends in FUT, everybody gets setback one or two divisions in Rivals. What is the consequence? When you were Division 3 before the setback, you were playing against Division 3 players. After the setback, you’re in Division 4, but you’re playing against the same opponents from Division 3, because everybody gets a setback. So now all of a sudden, you feel you got worse, because you face the same tough opponents from before, but labeled as Division 4 instead of 3. Over time this gets diluted and players end up in their “right” division, but especially right after a setback, this can cause quite some confusion or frustration.

My Approach

Since I started playing FIFA online in 2011, this climbing and improving aspect was my driving force. I have a competitive nature, so I always wanted to improve and play the best, see how far I can get. Actually this got me to the point that I competed on national or international level in tournaments. But even I recognized that I shouldn’t just get my wins (“Ws”) by reaching only the best ranks in every Weekend League. Perhaps it’s because I’m not good enough anymore or I don’t have the drive to give it all in every of the 20 games per Weekend League, but I understand that it’s not only about me whether I will reach Rank I or not. I’m only allowed to lose one game out of twenty, when I want to get Rank 1 and for this, I need some luck in matchmaking, good connection during the games (not having disconnects to lose a game also helps a ton :D), but also a little bit of luck during the matches itself - just to name a few variables that come into play. I can’t influence every of those variables. What if I match Anders Vejrgang in my first match? With 99% chance I will start with a loss into my Weekend League - should I now question everything? No. It would be very unhealthy to make the outcome of the Weekend League as important to my happiness. So alternatively I pick my own targets. Instead of getting the gratification of the game by displaying me a rank at the end of the 20 games, I measure success in my own metrics or in my own ways. For example I like to change up my team for every Weekend League that I play, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. To try out new players, discover some hidden gems or cheap beasts, but I don’t build the team with the sole purpose of just building the best team with the best players I can afford or get in. And this already eases off the pressure of me a little bit. I didn't hit the desired rank this time? Well, I was trying out players or another formation or tactic, no problem. My expectations for my result would be different, if I would always just bring my best team and players, because I would expect to always perform to my best with the best possible team. But if I then don’t get the result I want - over and over again - it can become really disappointing. And I can apply this approach not only to the way I build my team, but also how I play. Perhaps I try to integrate a new skill move or technique, set a focus point for my defense that I want to work on. I understand that as soon as I change up my “default system”, there is the short term possibility that I might lose some percentages of my capabilities, so as long as I’m aware of this, again this can help to reduce the pressure to perform. But the great thing along the way is that it gives me room to explore and to grow. I learn about players, what suits me in terms of player types, attributes or PlayStyles while I can also refine my skills without always having the pressure to perform to the maximum. When the results are not there, your first reflex doesn’t have to be to question your skills and capabilities. This is a much more healthy environment and mindset to improve!

How To Get Your Own Ws

So this is how I handle it in terms of the fear of underperforming or stagnation. Obviously I understand that when you’re in a phase that you want to improve (most likely this is why you’re part of THE GUIDE+ community), you want to achieve and push for your best results all the time. My point is that this shouldn’t be your sole target. You get similar results with a slightly changed team or formation? Great, no you just have proven to yourself that you can also do it in a different way. Progress and improvement isn’t only displayed with better ranks or rewards. Perhaps going “off road” with some of your choices for players, formations, tactics or style of playing helps you to get some new ideas or to integrate some new defaults into your gameplan or team. And I’m convinced that in the long run this will increase the chance of you improving, since you get a broader perspective on everything and you can work on your skills in a less pressure environment. Here I want to briefly bring back the checkpoint system in Rivals. Remember, in Rivals there are checkpoints that you can reach at which you won’t drop anymore. While I don’t like this system in terms of overall progression, actually it creates an awesome low pressure environment - because when you’re at such a checkpoint, you have nothing to lose. You can try out whatever you want, even when you lose you don’t lose any “progression” in terms of climbing in Division Rivals.

At the end I want to give you some more suggestions about what other targets you can set or things you can use for your own motivation. I already talked about the team and tactics. You can integrate players that you got out of packs or build complete new teams. You can also make some topics or “handicaps” around it (for example you only play First Owned players or only Informs - which I did last Weekend League). Try out new formations or new settings for tactics. In terms of gameplay, you can try and refine the use of a certain skill or technique or work in particular on a specific aspect which you have seen in a lesson here. Those two lessons can help you with the way how to do it:

• How To Practice With Purpose
• How To Set Goals Correctly

You can also see how you can complete objectives or Evolutions during your playing time. That way you make sure that you make progress on another level as well. There are plenty of ways you can get your own Ws while playing the game and mixing it up. And what if you totally screw one weekend and end up with a horrible result in FUT Champions? What is the potential harm here? What the heck, we can just go again next weekend!

---

About the author: Benjamin "TaZz" Drexler is creating tutorial videos since 2011 and started to compete in tournaments at the same time. Among several weekly and monthly Top100 finishes in FUT Champions, he reached the Top8 at the Virtual Bundesliga in 2013/14 and finished in the Top8 in 2017 at the first European Regional Qualifier Event in Paris.

In case you didn't know: You can also access THE GUIDE+ on your PC with our Web Version and watch the lessons on a bigger screen. Here is the link: www.theguide.gg

Music from https://filmmusic.io "Future Logo Intro" by WinnieTheMoog (https://taigasoundprod.com) License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)