The Road to FC Pro World Championship began on 1 October. However, the start of the FC Pro 24 eSports season turned out to be anything but world championship-like.
According to David Jackson, Vice President EA SPORTS FC, there was a simplification in the eSports circus. However, this found itself in chaos on the very first matchday of the FC 24 season. Technical problems and organisational issues prompted some well-known eSports players to harsh criticism, as did the tournament mode itself.
Unfulfilled entry requirements and eternal waiting times
The portfolio of complaints in the social media was quite diverse. One recurring problem concerned the player search. “I started my second game at 6.30pm and my opponent didn’t open a lobby for half an hour,” Riad ‘H96_Riad’ Fazlija, who was not awarded a win for his opponent’s omission, described on X (formerly Twitter).
Similar incidents occurred with veteran Savas Destan Oglou. The veteran, who played for the FIFA World Cup back in 2015, complained of “the same problem”: “Instead of getting the win after waiting 20 minutes, the game didn’t count and I had to find and play a new game.” Moreover, his opponent would not even have had the “Competition Mode”, which is actually needed to participate in eSports tournaments. A circumstance that left Oglou just as perplexed as the temporarily non-functioning page of the tournament organiser.
Phantom defeat for ‘TheStrxngeR’ – ‘Furky’ deals out
Cologne’s Tim ‘TheStrxngeR’ Katnawatos was hit even harder. Commenting on a screenshot of his results with a loss at 9.53pm, he said on the short message service: “I’ve been trying to get an opponent since 9.25pm, waiting permanently and it never showed me I had an opponent.” Yet he was credited with a loss in the meantime, even though he had “never seen a lobby”. A misstep that the tournament administrators rectified in the aftermath.
Furkan ‘Furky’ Kayacik of SV Wehen Wiesbaden had the most drastic comment on the FC Pro 24 debut. “First EA FC eSports tournament and another complete disaster,” was his scathing verdict. The event was “not well thought out” and the site was lagging. “Every year it’s crazy what you get,” he concluded his statement.
Quantitative advantages for frequent players?
But it was not only the technical implementation and organisation that faced criticism. The general process of the Open Ladder did not meet with exclusive approval either. However, it was not about the radical sorting out, which for 99 percent of the players means the end of the season in a few weeks, but about the game mode.
More precisely, the number of games that each player can play was under discussion. This is not limited. This means: Until the end of the Open Ladder, every ambitious gamer can play as many games in FC Pro as he wants. Or, as Kayacik put it: “Some have twice as many games as others.” This is tricky in terms of the FC Pro Open Regional Qualifiers. Because who is in the Regionals will be decided by a peak rating after the qualifying period ends.
Numbers games remain exciting
How the rankings will rate, for example, a pro with nine wins and one loss versus a pro with 18 games and two losses is unclear. The general concern that arises: Those who play more have more chances to bump up their rating. An unattractive thought as long as poor technology ensures that some players simply cannot keep up with the number of games completed by the competition.
“The mode itself would be nice if you could find opponents for once and everyone had the same number of games,” HSV eSportsman Steffen ‘Funino’ Pöppe put these concerns in a nutshell and received agreement from Ajdin ‘eyedin98’ Islamovic. “Don’t check why they don’t just do a limited number of games,” affirmed Greuther Fürth’s FC pro, suggesting a possible limit of 50 games in the two weeks estimated for the first phase of the Open Ladder.
However, it seems unlikely that such a limit will be introduced in the current competition. Which is why it should remain exciting until the FC Pro Open Regional Qualifiers. Not only in sporting terms, but also as far as the final evaluation of the number games is concerned.
