I persevered with Ultimate Team through the most shockingly bad series of disruptions, disconnections, and frustrations any game has ever thrown at me. Even when playing entirely Offline, as I do, the game requires a persistent network connection that it was just unable to hang onto for some reason.
I was losing the online connection so much that I was spending more time reparing the damage to my team than actually playing.
Contracts are a key concept in this mode, and each disconnection was costing me. With no income, I couldn’t buy any more Contracts. It got to the point Monday night where I was totally stuck and couldn’t play.
Clearly, I had to resolve the PS3 network problems, or quit Ultimate Team.
Yesterday morning I sat down at the computer with a scary port forwarding guide open before me. I opened the FIFA13-critical ports on my router and configured my PS3 with a static IP address and changed the Subnet Mask and all that stuff.
It took about 10 minutes—a fraction of the time spent on PES Option Files—and I learned something. Yes, I learned how to follow a port forwarding guide.
And it worked. In two subsequent Ultimate Team sessions on Tuesday, across the span of 12 games, I suffered no problems. No disconnections. No freezes. Even the transitions between menus was snappy and swishy, whereas before it had been laggy and clunky.
So it turned out to be my router all along. Most people don’t have to resort to this kind of thing.
And we all lived happily ever after, The End.
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Oh, okay then. I won two trophies. You can make significant early progress very quickly in Ultimate Team. From those 12 matches—an easy Amateur-level Cup and one Semi-Pro pseudo-League title—I raked in about 3500 Coins. I probably made another 1000 Coins on top of that from Auctioning off a load of cards I didn’t need.
All of which enabled me to go shopping, and do this:
Click here for a version you can interact with, and see all the Bronze substitutes and reserves. I bought all-Spanish players who favoured the formation I play with.
Bronze to Silver in a day isn’t the kind of growth timescale you’d see in a Master League or Career Mode. But I’d be playing one of those modes if that’s the kind of experience I was after right now. Life at the moment is very busy. It could be the weekend before I get another chance to play.
And having spent all my Coins (I think I’ve got 57 left), I’ll have to play for quite a while with this lot—keeping them all topped up with costly Contracts as we go along—in order to get to the next level.
Yes, that is Tony Pulis as my manager. Why? He also favours the 4-3-1-2 formation I play with, and as such he helps boost my team chemistry. A starting team plays hilariously badly without chemistry.
(NB: only my Tony Pulis—that one specific card I found in the Auction house—favours the 4-3-1-2. Other Tony Pulis cards will favour other formations. The Panini effect is strong in this game.)
That player in the hole, BUENO, the 71-rated CF, is the one whose basic stats are displayed bottom left. He’s played 4 matches and scored 6 for me so far. He’s my best player, a true stocky no. 10 in the classic mould. Seems to play above his stats, in the olde PES tradition.
Right now I can only spend an hour or two on gaming every couple of days. Ultimate Team is right up my street. I like the set-up, I like the feel, I like the rhythms of this game world.
It’s something fresh.
Or, as perhaps those 1970s tunesmiths Showaddywaddy would have it, there are three steps to heaven. You find a mode to love. It falls in love with you. You kiss, and hold it tightly.
This is going to run and run. There’s no prospect of a return to PES in the short term. Even if Ultimate Team fades away, I’ll segue straight into Career Mode, with a wholly renewed zest towards FIFA.
I played a few non-Ultimate Team matches yesterday, just to put FIFA13′s gameplay through its paces.
I played a few of those concept Club games where you play as your club and contribute to some real-life table or other, or something (don’t ask me, because I dunno).
Coventry vs Leicester was a great game. I scored a peach of a chest-and-volley with Stephen Elliott. It’s the first goal below. The second goal is from Ultimate Team and shows BUENO scoring a lovely 20-yarder on his debut—the only goal from outside the box I’ve scored in UT yet:
(Sorry for picture quality. I’m using a new moviemaking phone app that won’t export to higher resolution. I’m getting a different moviemaking app soon.)
That second goal confusingly shows me wearing Atletico Madrid’s kit. That’s because it is my team’s new kit. I wanted to keep the Spanish theme running through this whole thing. I’ve still got the Fiorentina kit (and the Coventry kit) in storage.
diego—great tips, cheers, I was wondering how the staff worked. I spent ages looking for a way to assign coaches and trainers etc., but see now that they simply stack up in the Club and give you accumulated bonuses—? That is how it works, yes? I still worry that I need to do something with the rest of the staff.
I’ve got a few ideas for building squads, including a literal recreation of the current Coventry team within UT. What would be the point of that, really?! None, I suppose, but I like the idea…
I have a feeling the same port forwarding that worked for me should, in theory, work for Creation Centre. Last year on FIFA12 I gave up on that after dreaming of recreating a PES3 Master League, complete with Castolo and Espimas and co. The thing just froze on me all the time—I’ll have to take another look at this year’s and see if I get on any better now that I’ve done all this under-the-hood stuff.
NG – will you go down the root of having various teams made of of different players that are eligible for different cups, ie a bronze only team, a silver only team, an all english team, etc?
or just stick with one team and evolve it as you need to for the different cups?
Paul—I don’t know yet if I’ll change squad #1 as called for, or make a squad #2 and maybe #3. I’ll have to do something, if I want to play all competitions—but the plan now is just to play with that one starting team and explore the world. I’ve already got a second shadow squad made up of my old Bronze players that I’ll use to play a few of the early tournaments that I skipped over. You get 15 slots to make up different teams, so there’s plenty of scope, but I’d like to thoroughly familiarise myself with the UT world first.
NG – yes you assume correct, backroom staff are only active when you apply different cards: development, training, injury etc. Although it’s fun to discover things on your own, some things are not obvious, so I recommend checking out some good FUT strategy websites.
If you want to be Gordon Gecko and get a handle on trading in the market, there is a dedicated database with max/min/avg prices & trend graphs, it’s like the Nasdaq of FUT:
http://ultimatedb.nl
In the continued absence of my copy of Fifa 12 (no post for 3 days now…hmm) I dug out the previously NG mentioned PES2010. Would it surprise you to say I don’t remember playing ML2010… Avoiding a full edit job and all those ‘player 1′ efforts and will set up a game to dip in and out of. I do worry that I will find the absence of the right stick a problem – I have in all the previous retro-MLs I’ve tried.
Not that I have bought it or anything…ahem…but Fifa 13 is currently only £26.99 at Argos.
Just saying.
…and if it ever arrives Fifa12 cost me £1.97!
diego—cheers for the link, I’ve had to take a few days off any gaming but will be looking up the stock market of UT later.
Uncle Turf—ouch at you calling PES2010 a ‘retro’ ML. I’d call it a proper next-gen edition that should still be the standard baseline ML right now.
John—if you’re wondering, just fire up FIFA12 (if you still have it) and play a few rounds of UT on there. There are no ‘Seasons’ within the mode but you’ll get the idea. And there’s always Career Mode of course. I think I remember you saying you’d sold all your other footy games though.
John – Legend!! I work for HRG who own Argos so with my discount just got FIFA from my local Argos forr £1.64 !!
Shall finish my ML season on PES then get cracking with some FIFA. Be great if you could play UT competitive matches against friends teams, or can you ?
Paul—yes, that’s one of the features—there’s a quick-access button to play against online friends’ teams. Also a feature where you can play against the current Team Of The Week (from real life leagues and based on match ratings, e.g. Ben Foster was the TOTW keeper last time after his Liverpool performance, etc. (sorry, must still hurt, that one)).