If one has just gotten their hands on EA Sports’ latest football title, this is the guide to EA FC24’s most popular game mode: Ultimate Team. The game mode sees individuals making their team featuring their favorite players. But many things must be considered before advancing to the football pitch.
Apart from being the most popular game mode, the game mode is also one of the most competitive ones to play. First, one must learn various mechanics before moving to the big leagues. Several elements like chemistry, the transfer market, objectives, XP, in-game Seasons, and promotional content, among many others, must be taken care of. While this may sound too complex, it becomes second nature during one’s playthrough.
A guide to EA FC24 Ultimate Team: setting the sail
As one begins their journey to creating one’s Ultimate Team, the first step is as easy as heading to the game mode. The new menu for EA FC24 is straightforward to navigate. Use the left stick on your controller to browse to the game mode. After that, you will be required to choose a starter pack. The starter will determine which nationality contributes the most to your starter squad.
We recommend Brazil as the top choice. That is because Brazilian players are widely available in many leagues, building team chemistry will be easier. Chemistry in the game means that you cannot randomly link players with each other. We will discuss it entirely in this guide to EA FC24 as well.
You will get a pack opening animation once you have picked a starter pack. Get used to this; you will open plenty of packs through the game. After this, you will see your team for the first time. Notice that most players will be from Brazil or the starter pack you chose instead of it. Now, you can replace any player in your squad with a loan player.
Loan players stay in your squad for numbered games, and then, as the loan expires, you cannot use them before you buy them separately. Choose any position, but recommend an attacker since goals are essential early on.
Keep in mind to choose a player per the Chemistry guideline you can find below. Once done, you can select the home and away kits and the crest for your Club. Remember that you can trade these for coins, so choose one from a well-known club that you can later sell for coins.
Once done, you will see a screen with two alternatives: Learn and Upgrade or Play Now. We recommend you choose the Learn and Upgrade to undergo a training session in the game, which will most likely benefit you.
A Guide to EA FC24 Ultimate Team: All About Chemistry
If you have played last year’s title, there are only a couple of changes you need to know if not. Here is everything you need to know about Chemistry:
- Players in your Ultimate Team are connected based on one or more common affiliations: the country they play for, their team, and their league.
- Each player starting for your squad will have a small circle to the left of their position indicator. This will have three chemistry indicators.
- One indicator will light up to blue, indicating one link, and this is how links work:
- Two players from the same nation will give you one link; two players from the same Club will get a link. However, you need three players for the league to get one link.
- After one link is formed between two or three players, adding players from the same league, nation, or team as any one or more of these players will give you additional links for better chemistry.
One might ask why chemistry is essential. Ultimate Team allows team owners to apply unique chemistry boosts to their players. The essential chemistry boost on a player increases all areas of a player’s attributes, i.e., pace, shooting, passing, defending, and physical, in the same proportion. Only the essential chemistry boosts are effective if a player only has one link in the team. Others are effective in boosting a specific set of attributes but require more links.
Players in Ultimate Team are divided into Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Special. The initial three are divided into Common or Rare. The rarity of the cards decides their attributes and availability. For instance, a rare Gold care will be more complex to obtain, have higher stats, and be worth more on the transfer market than a common one.
Notable players are part of the game’s regular promotional campaigns or the Team of the Week. These unique designs make them stand out compared to the game’s Bronze, Silver, and Gold Cards.
A Guide to EA FC24 Ultimate Team: Stepping on the Pitch
Now, you can head to the play menus after doing all that. These have various game modes with various offerings summed up below:
- Moments: you play parts of a match and have to complete an objective in a stipulated time to earn stars, which can then be used to redeem rewards.
- Squad Battles: play against AI opponents with a half-length of four minutes and earn points to reach various ranks in the Squad Battle competition. The higher the difficulty and stronger the team you face, the better the points. The more points you have, the higher you are on the leaderboard, and the more you earn better weekly rewards.
- Rivals: compete against online opponents in the same division as you. You will start small in the lowest rankings and reach higher divisions. Win at least three games to earn base rewards weekly and seven to earn upgraded rewards.
- Champions: this is the highest order of Ultimate Team. You face some of the best players playing the title in this mode. You must qualify for this mode by winning matches in the Rivals mode and earning Champions Qualification points.
- Friendlies: this game mode focuses on online and offline modes where you can play against AI or online players.
- Draft: play using a squad randomly generated against the AI or other players.
Suppose you are starting and have no clue how the game works. Head to moments to learn the basics. After that, play against AI opponents in Squad Battles. Once your team contains mostly rare gold players, head to Rivals to show your opponents who the boss is. Also, to improve your team quickly, look at various objectives and try to complete them to earn rewards.
A Guide to EA FC24 Ultimate Team: The Transfer Market Explained
Players and items in the game are either tradeable or untradeable. You can list players and items for sale on the transfer market. To list items, follow these steps.
Once you are on the menus, head to clubs, Stadium, and Club. Once you are done, you can switch your crest or kits. You can sell the most well-known on the transfer market if you have multiple.
You can list items on the market by pressing X on your Xbox controller or Square on your PlayStation controller and moving the left stick to highlight the List on Transfer Market option in the radial menu.
Press A on Xbox or X on PlayStation. See the price trends by heading down and selecting compare price. Check the starting price, buy the price set by most players, and list the item.
The same can be done for tradeable players. Please select a player from your squad, from the bench, or in your Club and follow the same steps to list them on the transfer markets for some coins. If you need some quick money, you can also quickly sell for instant coins, but you will get much less.
You can also get to the main menu, head to transfers, and then transfer market to search for players and items on the market, such as club cosmetics, consumables, contracts, etc.
Buy players for less and sell them at market price for a long enough time, and you will gain enough coins to buy your following club legend from the market very soon. This is the basic idea behind trading in the in-game market.
A Guide to EA FC24 Ultimate Team: Improving Your Squad
You can improve your squad by the following methods:
- You can complete objectives to earn rewards and XP. Rewards can be player packs, player picks, items, etc.
- Your XP can be used to redeem seasonal rewards, which you can see below. Seasonal rewards can also be similar to rewards earned from other objectives.
- You earn weekly rewards such as player packs by playing and winning matches in Rivals, Squad Battles, and Champions.
- You can play drafts for rewards as well.
- You can evolve your players by going into the Club menu from the main menu, then Evolutions. For this, the player must meet the requirements for an evolution. Some Evolutions are also behind a paywall.
- You can also complete Squad Building Challenges or SBCs, in which you trade players you currently have for various rewards.
- Finally, you can buy players from the transfer market as well.
This should be enough to get you started with your Ultimate Team in EA FC24. While your goal may be to build the best and the most overpowered meta team possible, keep in mind to breathe and relax as the road ahead requires commitment and resilience. More than anything else, you will encounter sweaty players who rage-quit, quit just before an equalizer, showboat, and more. So giddy up and giddy along!
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