Someone tried it again but I scored before his pause was activated. A quick win that time.
Someone tried it again but I scored before his pause was activated. A quick win that time.
10-6 right now which is great.
My defence is rock solid now, I've won 2 matches 1-0 where I was clearly worse. Last week I'd have lost those 2 no doubt.
Is David Silva worth doing? It's not like I'm gonna pull a TOTY anyway so.
Ibra done using untradeables.
Will make for a nice bench option.
He was dirt cheap compared to Robertson who had gone up massively. Here is them compared on the chem styles I was running
https://www.futbin.com/19/compare/17...&schem=100,100
PVA is quicker and offers more going forward. Defending is pretty fair except for heading which PVA makes up in his incredible jumping. I havent noticed much of a difference to be honest.
Arthur can fuck right off.
Done the necessary shuffle of Courtois and Sandro for De Gea and Marcelo. I'm going to complete the loan Virgil and likely play him for 20 games this weekend to see if hes worth it.
I love his standard gold card and this POTM is +5 on everything. Hopefully those 20 games get me the 14 wins I want/need. I'll judge him based off that and if he's good I'll sell Neymar and do the SBC.
I'd bloody well love his TOTY card but I can't afford him for at least a few weeks and these cards are going to rise in price after they go out of packs.
Still no TOTY from packs but I got an IF Cathorla who will be useful.
Would have preferred Modric but fuck it:
Premium La Liga packs coming up BIG.
Going to sell Desailly and I will have to bring in Lloris and I might need to change Aurier to give VVD full chem.
Nope, I need to replace De Gea with Van Der Sar and then everything is solid.
Wow, nice one. How many packs did you open?
No fucking clue.
All I know is that I started on over 1.2k players and now I have about 115 in my club.
Probably not as much as Yev is going through but it can't be too much less.
I really want to have a go with Zlatan in for Bobby. I can get him in there on 8 chem.
https://www.futbin.com/19/compare/17...&schem=100,100
How do you get him in there on 8 chem? I have a similar looking team and I would really like to get Ibra in there.
I think I would be happy with 8 chem.
Start like this. Manager and loyalty get him to 8
https://www.futbin.com/19/squad/4064108
I built a questionable team (incluing loans for Ronalo and TOTY Neymar) to do the challenge to get his loan. Will be trying that later to see.
Tempting. I can do the same as below,
https://www.futbin.com/19/squad-builder/4059093/copy
What teams do you need players from to complete his loan challenge?
Glorious.
Funnily enough baby VDS has the most IGS of all 3 of his cards and the second most card stats.
I also have about 750k left after selling Desailly and buying VDS so I'm going to rip some promo packs whenever special ones drop.
The Bale requirements and rewards
Yeah that is embarrassing.
10 50k packs:
Pack 1: Ederson
Pack 2: Javi Martinez
Pack 3: Pique & Pjanic
Pack 4: Verratti
Pack 5: IF Lopez
Pack 6: Kasper Schmeichel
Pack 7: Thiago
Pack 8: Christensen, lol
Pack 9: Mandanda
Pack 10: Mane
Cracking way to piss 500k away.
IF Deeney. I thought for sure it was gonna be Eriksen
Did Van Dijk POTM sbc. Spent about 200k the rest I already had. Got Griezmann & Immobile in packs and two shit IFs.
I had to stop at 7am this morning, four hundred and thirty five packs in and still not finished.
Back on now.
https://mixer.com/Chemical_Locust
I had it on my laptop until about midnight my time. Gave up on the PS at that point and went to bed.
Stayed up far later than I should have. So many walkouts I thought were going to be the one.
And we're done! Sort of...
So I started at 6:30pm last night, with 207 packs. This allowed me to cycle through and build a hell of lot more than I ever imagined, finishing on 479 opened packs at 14:00 today, having had 4 hours kip between 7 and 11.
Here are the packs:
So essentially 6.5m+ coins worth.
And what we pulled:
The IF Walkouts were Asenjo and Arthur, with the Walkouts including Mertens (x3), Neuer, Sane, Casemiro, Navas (x2), Pique, Isco, Rakitic, Dybala and some other decent ones as well. But perhaps most importantly, at this stage of the game I didn't pack a useable card. No Pogba, no Suarez, no Hazard etc. Now you could say that's because of the players I already have are too good already, but Neuer and perhaps Sane aside, I don't think (m)any of the players I did pack would go into people's first teams now*. So you're essentially looking at a game with thousand upon thousands of players in it, with a couple of hundred (?) people actually want to use.
So do I regret it? I'd say on balance, no. I could have sold the players I put into the initial packs and I'd be sat here with TOTY Mbappe and Marcelo now, but with all the players packed what I did get to do was Raul. Obviously I had to put an icon - Rivaldo - into this which was nothing to with this process, but still, it's amazing how all of these players stack up and you can just hammer through them. If I'm willing to sacrifice some untradeable special cards, and I am, I'll also have Ballack later too. So that's why it's not really over yet as there are more packs to come as a result.
The competition
First off, it's fair to say that while people complain about pack weights being shit, there's still a huge amount of overestimation of what you're likely to pack. People were coming into the stream (particularly this morning) and seemed surprised that I hadn't packed a TOTY having opened that many packs. But if you think about it, let's assume all packs are equal (they're not, and it was staggering how shit some of the better packs I started with were) and that I packed one, my hit rate would have been 1/479 = 0.2%.
Now we know that the chances of packing a TOTY from an Ultimate pack are less than 1%, so the odds of me getting one even from 479 packs are still going to be shit, properly shit. That's just the way it is and EA are very clever with Lighting rounds and limiting the number of Ultimate packs you can open in a row as otherwise we'd have streamers sat there opening 200+ of the things and not getting one. That's 3 grand. Three thousand pounds, not to get a TOTY card that will be worthless in 6 months. Even if the odds are 0.99999% (lol), you'd still need to spend £1,500 to statistically expect to pack one.
But I digress.
If someone wants to have a check over that (as I'm on my feet now) feel free, but otherwise congratulations to Trance. If you want to PM me your email address I'll work out how to gift the 4,600 FIFA Points to you and may you pack a blue.
Other things
Streaming is odd. I've presented a bit for work and while I don't like that much, speaking in front of 200 people you can see is easier than 12 you can't. Eased into it over the night and had some great bants with a troll who asked me what I could offer over all the other streamers and why he should follow me. I mean, clearly nothing. He and 2 others felt the ban hammer.
On a similar note I've got new found respect for people that do this professionally. Sitting on my sofa for that long, trying to force yet another duplicate Malcom or William Carvalho into an SBC with a horseshit formation really grated at times and if I had to do all that again tonight and tomorrow I'd absolutely hate FIFA. Sure, people like Nepenthez, Castro etc. are no doubt sorted for life already as a result, but if you think of the shit load of people there must be who're hovering on the cusp of making a living, it's those poor bastards I really feel for, particularly when EA finally get properly called out on this racket. Spending £1,500 on a game that has a shelf life of 9 months should get you everything, not just a(n unclear how good) chance to pack a TOTY and that's before we get onto the gambling side of things.
People were genuinely staggered by my team, which is lopsided at best at the moment. Which brought home to me how many casuals there are that can't/don't want to put the time in therefore can't comprehend how someone could build a team that good. We in TTH live in a bit of a bubble in that regard. Which you may all be aware of, but whether you're me fucking around with this shit, or Merse and Fox hitting up WL most weekend, we're the exception.
Which leads on nicely to my next point, I play this game too much and I don't think that's healthy as I'm clearly addicted - I'm already thinking how I might do something bigger and better next year, which is nuts.
Oh and I did a bit of advertising for TTH with the 10-15 viewers and 21 followers, so expect a deluge of new members chaps.
Thanks for supporting it gents. It was, on the whole, a good laugh.
*People who have played the game for a decent (should that be insane?) amount of time.
Last edited by Yevrah; 13-01-2019 at 03:26 PM.
Good stuff Yev. Heroic stuff (if, as you say somewhat mental). I dipped in and out of it a few times and it seemed a slog.
The numbers are mental when you think about it and there's so much bias/idiocy around what people think they can pack. The chances are obviously against you.
Jesus. I made it to 12.30ish, and could see there were a couple of hours in it, but that's quite some commitment.
Now we know that the chances of packing a TOTY from an Ultimate pack are less than 1%, so the odds of me getting one even from 479 packs are still going to be shit, properly shit. That's just the way it is and EA are very clever with Lighting rounds and limiting the number of Ultimate packs you can open in a row as otherwise we'd have streamers sat there opening 200+ of the things and not getting one. That's 3 grand. Three thousand pounds, not to get a TOTY card that will be worthless in 6 months. Even if the odds are 0.99999% (lol), you'd still need to spend £1,500 to statistically expect to pack one.Bang on, but... I'd also combine it with this...Spending £1,500 on a game that has a shelf life of 9 months should get you everything, not just a(n unclear how good) chance to pack a TOTY and that's before we get onto the gambling side of things.
I've thought about this before. There's clearly great disparity between the 'hardcore' - of which I think most of us fall into, and the 'casual'. I'd love to see these broken down in the way we'd break down the users of the platform I manage - cohorts divided by two-three factors around engagement. EA obviously have it, and use it to drive engagement and of course, sales. It's genuinely intriguing though. That microcosm you speak of - it's even bigger in the Reddit world. I often see posts proclaiming 'finally made it to the WL!' or 'My first ever weekend league and I got Gold 3!'. They're few and far between though - Reddit is by and large a closed shop of Gold-Elite player discussion, I'd say this is too, only some are more casual in their entry and priorities (aka only me and Fox are mental enough to aim for 20+ games a weekend). As such, spending time watching the Nep's of this world, talking Fifa in places like this and reddit... It normalises that 'hardcore' behaviour - and almost instills an ethos that it can't possibly be enjoyable any other way.People were genuinely staggered by my team, which is lopsided at best at the moment. Which brought home to me how many casuals there are that can't/don't want to put the time in therefore can't comprehend how someone could build a team that good. We in TTH live in a bit of a bubble in that regard. Which you may all be aware of, but whether you're me fucking around with this shit, or Merse and Fox hitting up WL most weekend, we're the exception.
Anyway, on to the relevance of pack weight.
The size of the hardcore community brings with it some really difficult pricing decisions for EA.
On one hand, they likely open >10 x the value of packs of a casual, minimum.
They're also very vocal and very visible.
Give them all top players on demand and you're going to see the market crash, everyone able to afford competitive teams as a result, even casuals, and both microtransaction sales and overall engagement will be impacted to some degree or other. The whole cult of pack opening is likely to be lost entirely.
On the other hand, be more conservative and you risk the value of your product to the consumer becoming so low as to be undesirable altogether, and also to kill the aforementioned 'cult'. You'd also be consigning casuals to an even worser fate.
I think they've managed to avoid either extreme, but they are getting closer and closer to the latter, and need to tweak a bit.
Pleasure, good work mate.Thanks for supporting it gents. It was, on the whole, a good laugh.
Anyone decent looking likely for the TOTW?
I'm at 11-6 right now and wondering if there's any point to push further.
There is one online mode which tells you how many players are in each division. Is that normal seasons?
Parts of that first paragraph as well as the last one is why the EU was getting on their case about the odds of things. There is a genuine addiction to seeing those top cards come out and you end up getting into that "just one more pack" phase, or worse you get the people who start thinking "Well, I've seen Nepenthez get 3 blue already so I'll whack £20 on."
The truth is they're only showing you the good times, not as you said, the 12 hours he spends locked in his office or at his xbox constantly resubmitting these things and not seeing any friends or family. The top guys are handsomely paid for it, but if you go on Twitch you'll see dozens and dozens of guys streaming who have maybe 50-100 viewers. It's not enough to make your living from, but enough to make you think you can soon.
So you sink your money into it hoping it pays of later down the line. It's crazy and this is why I will never, ever spend any money beyond the purchase cost. I mean if you know him, Bateson87 has spent 600,000 FIFA points on this and is yet to pack a TOTY card. That's 4 grand on a game you'll be starting new again in September.
As for the team thing I get it. This is the first year I've had proper pack luck and only the 2nd year I've played the weekend league seriously. The last one saw me regularly playing the full 40 games per weekend and then getting shat on in the rewards.
I'd still be that guy now if my luck was different and it's why I took last year mostly off. It's not healthy to keep going with no reward.
The other thing this year has taught me is, what it's like to have a team ahead of the curve. Most peoples teams will improve slowly or steadily through the year in what would look on a graph like a curved incline. That's because most of the people who play this are only playing what's in front of them. Like we all know here there's potentially another Icon or Flashback card tonight, or X promo coming in a few weeks(lunar new year?) and so sink their coins in as EA would like and move exactly at the speed EA wants.
They want you sat looking at these pros teams thinking how much you want Gullit for example. In reality Gullit himself does and will for the length of the game, cost more than most people will have in their clubs in the whole year.
The casual guy isn't posting about his club on a forum or anything. I mean the reason we're all here is because once upon a time we all played FM a bit too much.
That being said this is the first year I've received hate messages because of my team. Some accusing me of using my credit card to build the team is actually a bit satisfying. I'm quite proud of what I've got from this year, without spending a penny, even if it's been in part down to some luck.
Tired and not looking forward to getting requalified
Oh and here was TOTY VVD's first goal, channelling his inner Zlatan:
That bloked who kept 1,000+ packs still has more than 999 in the store.
He's not left himself anywhere near enough time to finish it without just Bateson'ing the shit out of it.
Just completed the weekend league thing for the first time. Considering how shit i am and that I've been unable to get out of div 6 in the weekday stuff I'm pretty chuffed with how it went.
Was doing awfully this morning and getting dead frustrated, went for a shower, had a fag, and went into my last two games on 12-16. Managed to somehow win them both, including 8-5 after extra time in game 30 to scrape into Gold 3. Bostin.
Great stuff Igor.
I haven't got enough players to get Ballack (without spending some of my coins) and I'm 100% getting TOTY Mbappe today, and can't do Ballack and Mbappe without relying on pack luck. If opening 479 packs has taught me anything...
Ballack's SBC expires tomorrow.
Yep, but the bits of it I have done I've done through all the shit I accumulated during the pack opening, so it's no biggie.
I've basically got his 86, 87 and 88 to do, which is 800k's worth and while I can get that down, I don't think he'll be good enough to be worth replacing Keane with if it means I can't get Mbappe.
Pulled 87 Inzaghi from a gold player pack from one of the new TOTY sbcs
Played through some 12 games now and find myself 11-1. I should be 12-0. I was 2-0 up in the loss and was defending well. I did everything right and I blocked 3 shots from the D, only to have the ball deflect to a guy inside the box open to slot past De Gea.
Raul has now hit 100 games for the club and did so with exactly 100 goals and 57 assists. Quality. Ballack who I really like is now coming in to help out with a few goals too which I really needed. In the 12 games he got 6 goals.
The TOTY Ramos and POTM VVD defence is stupidly good. Both are bullies and the former has 89 dribbling now, which helps massively when playing constant pressure wankers. I've even started moving up the pitch with him and he's slotted 2 through balls for assists as well.
POTM VVD feels lighter than his gold card and noticeably faster and stronger. I'll be completing this SBC at some point tonight.
I'll have to sell Neymar to afford it, but given he's down to 500k that'd be 3 weeks or so of rewards to get him back. I have Willians 86 to fill in whilst he's gone, but if I do regain something out of the packs, it'll go on Felipe Andersons 86 card.
I may play up to 14 wins later for the sake of coins, but I can't see me wanting to get to 17. May try and whack up a stream, but it'll probably late and I only have 1 monitor so it may not be the best.