In FIFA 23 EA SPORTS revolutionises the chemistry system in Ultimate Team. What does this mean for the boosts through chemstyles?
The chemistry in Ultimate Team was actually just right: For years, the teambuilding system of the trading card game was a constant in the FIFA series. This year, however, EA SPORTS decided to turn the system completely inside out. Instead of 10 chemistry points as before, each player can only receive a maximum of three counters.
How do chemstyles work?
Why is this interesting? The chemistry of the player has a direct influence on his stats and accordingly on his performance. If the chemistry rises, the player’s values rise with it. If it decreases, his values fall.
You can make the increase in performance more precise by using chemstyles. Equipped with these, players no longer receive boosts in all areas, but bundle them in a few areas. For example, a “Shadow” chemstyle ensures that only the card’s speed and defensive values are improved. In return, the boosts in the selected areas are greater than the more widely spread but smaller bonuses without chemstyle.
What has changed in FIFA 23? For one thing, there are no longer deductions to stats when a player is without chemstyle. So if you pick a strong card that doesn’t fit into your team at all, you can still play it and at least look forward to its standard values. Furthermore, team chemistry no longer has any influence, it’s all about the chemistry of the individual players. Additionally, EA SPORTS has done some work on how chemstyles work, adjusting them to the less subtle gradation of chemistry.
Lowering in favour of the power curve?
To explain these changes, let’s stay with the “Shadow” chemstyle, which is very popular for defensive players: While in FIFA 22 on full chemistry there were still ten bonus points on the two speed values, in FIFA 23 there are only eight. The boost on the defensive values is also somewhat lower. Only the straddle value is still boosted by 15 points. All other boosts are two or one point lower than last year.
This means, of course, that weaker players, who in the last few years have become veritable alternatives thanks to the escalating boosts, are no longer quite so interesting. Annoying at first, perhaps, the entire player community could nevertheless benefit. For the toning down could help to soften the power curve a little by not allowing chemstyles to create too many cards with exhausted values too early.
If a player acts with two chemistry points, the boosts are only half as big as on full chemistry. In terms of kicking and sprinting speed, there are only 4 extra points. In FIFA 22 this boost corresponds to a player chemistry of six out of ten points.
Transportation in FIFA 23 succeeds
If the player chemistry of a player in FIFA 23 is reduced to a single point, the bonuses are halved once again and rank between four and five out of ten points in FIFA 22 chemistry. If this sounds quite high at first sight, it has to be considered that in FIFA 22 all players below four chemistry points got deductions in all values. Since these are omitted in FIFA 23, as already mentioned, this classification makes sense.
All in all, it can be said that the new chemistry system has changed some small things in terms of chemstyles. EA SPORTS has succeeded in adapting the bonuses to the new chemistry system compared to FIFA 22. Whether the weakening of some chemstyles, which enjoyed the reputation of being a bit too strong in the last few years, will pay off, cannot be definitively foreseen at this early stage.
