eFootball 2022 Dream Team Review
Dream Team is much much better than My Club
I'm so happy with how much better Dream Team is than My Club. This is the rival to UT that should have been many years ago. I've always loved the gameplay and the individual feeling of each player in PES. But there was never a mode online to truly sink my teeth into. Now with Dream Team and the sublime gameplay, I haven't been this addicted to a football game in a very very long time.
So why is Dream Team so much better than My Club?
So why is Dream Team so much better than My Club?
Well firstly I have to be honest and say that My Club has always been a medicore mode at best, arguably a bad mode. Lack of content was one thing, but the horrible and bizarre design choices made the mode a poor experience.
Acquiring players
Finally they listened and you can actually directly sign the players you want. I mean isn't that the whole point of a Dream Team?
No more of the tedious, complicated and frustrating agent auction house where you had to wait several days to win an agent. Yes. You had to firstly bid, win the bid, then proceed to the next round. Then have to win the bid again, essentially doing the whole auction all over again. Just to... not sign a player... but a agent. Yes, so you had to sign multiple combos of agents to meet the criteria and specifications to sign the exact player you wanted.
For example, to sign Harry Kane, you'd need to sign a 5 star quality scout who signs English players, then sign a 5 star CF scout. Sometimes depending on the player you might even need a 3rd scout to guarantee you get the player. Assigning the scout basically changes the pack odds when you open a pack to sign a player. Setting specific scout combos essentially lowered the pool of players and by being very specific, you could get the pool down to the 1 player you wanted.
What...just what?! It's always been a bizarre horrible design choice, not fun by any nature and not more challenging in a believable way. This system alone makes My Club not worth playing.
I guess you could argue at least there was a way to get a player you wanted. Before then, in My Club , you literally had no way to sign players of your choice and it was completely tied to random chance in loot boxes.
No more of the tedious, complicated and frustrating agent auction house where you had to wait several days to win an agent. Yes. You had to firstly bid, win the bid, then proceed to the next round. Then have to win the bid again, essentially doing the whole auction all over again. Just to... not sign a player... but a agent. Yes, so you had to sign multiple combos of agents to meet the criteria and specifications to sign the exact player you wanted.
For example, to sign Harry Kane, you'd need to sign a 5 star quality scout who signs English players, then sign a 5 star CF scout. Sometimes depending on the player you might even need a 3rd scout to guarantee you get the player. Assigning the scout basically changes the pack odds when you open a pack to sign a player. Setting specific scout combos essentially lowered the pool of players and by being very specific, you could get the pool down to the 1 player you wanted.
What...just what?! It's always been a bizarre horrible design choice, not fun by any nature and not more challenging in a believable way. This system alone makes My Club not worth playing.
I guess you could argue at least there was a way to get a player you wanted. Before then, in My Club , you literally had no way to sign players of your choice and it was completely tied to random chance in loot boxes.
Contracts:
This was the next thing that made the mode horrible to play. So you had a quality level of player starting from a white ball, essentially a 1 star player, all the way to a black ball, essentially a 5 star player. Contract lengths were stingy and you had to pay GP to renew them. 1 star players were much cheaper to renew than 5 star players. The problem with this was that eventually if your team became too good, ie filled with too many 4 star or 5 star players, your team was too expensive to play and got to a point where the amount of gp needed to renew contracts exceeded the amount you'd earn.
This lead to sim farming. This is where you could play a mode in My Club where the AI would control your team. The farming method was to field disposable 1 star players to play all the sim games so that you could earn some GP without taking a hit to your main team contracts.
This again is incredibly tedious.
This dynamic was quite manipulative in the end. At first it seems like it's easy to get an amazing team, which it was, it felt like a breathe of fresh air compared to FIFA. But there was a catch. The catch being that the hard part was maintaining your great team and it meant you practically had to spend money to keep them. What this meant however was a feeling that every match you play is going to cost you time or money one way or another. Almost like an arcade. It wasn't good.
Now we have a very generous and much better system. You get to keep each player for a whole year. A very fair system that I can't praise enough.
This lead to sim farming. This is where you could play a mode in My Club where the AI would control your team. The farming method was to field disposable 1 star players to play all the sim games so that you could earn some GP without taking a hit to your main team contracts.
This again is incredibly tedious.
This dynamic was quite manipulative in the end. At first it seems like it's easy to get an amazing team, which it was, it felt like a breathe of fresh air compared to FIFA. But there was a catch. The catch being that the hard part was maintaining your great team and it meant you practically had to spend money to keep them. What this meant however was a feeling that every match you play is going to cost you time or money one way or another. Almost like an arcade. It wasn't good.
Now we have a very generous and much better system. You get to keep each player for a whole year. A very fair system that I can't praise enough.
No more restricted formation and tactics:
The new manager system is fantastic. Before your formation was restricted to a manager you had. Now, you can change anything and even change playstyle. But your manager will have a preferred playing style which when used, will boost your playing style and eventually boost the stats of your players. This is a much more interesting and believable way to have managers in the game. It makes managers feel important but not artificially important and restrictive like before.
Last thing to mention. Improved levelling system: the leveling system wasn't that bad in My Club in fairness. The actual idea itself is the best thing by far in PES/eFootball and is an element that makes this a lot better than FUT.
Leveling now though is even better because now you have creative freedom to improve the stats you would like to for your player. You can turn your team and favourite players into anything you want (within reason). My Romero might be very different to yours. Purely because of the stats I chose to improve. This is fantastic.
Dream Team all in all feels like you can really make the team you want and individual to you, thanks to these improvements. With a bit more content, this is no doubt better than FUT.
Last thing to mention. Improved levelling system: the leveling system wasn't that bad in My Club in fairness. The actual idea itself is the best thing by far in PES/eFootball and is an element that makes this a lot better than FUT.
Leveling now though is even better because now you have creative freedom to improve the stats you would like to for your player. You can turn your team and favourite players into anything you want (within reason). My Romero might be very different to yours. Purely because of the stats I chose to improve. This is fantastic.
Dream Team all in all feels like you can really make the team you want and individual to you, thanks to these improvements. With a bit more content, this is no doubt better than FUT.
A few suggestions:
Give us a small amount of GP after every game played, especially in divisions.
Allow us to customise our Club more. Can we acquire kits? Real and fantasy kits?
More stadiums and with the ability to buy the stadiums with GP or coins. Fantasy stadiums, generic stadiums and licenced stadiums, whatever it is, allow us to do it. Whatever the case, the kits and stadiums will allow us to give our club and the mode a bit more personality.
Themed tournaments - group stages and knockouts
A few things from PES Manager and PES Mobile in terms of tournaments and content.
Keep it up Konami, this is a big step in the right direction and you have the foundations of a excellent mode.
My Club 4/10 Dream Team 8/10 - potential to be 10/10
Allow us to customise our Club more. Can we acquire kits? Real and fantasy kits?
More stadiums and with the ability to buy the stadiums with GP or coins. Fantasy stadiums, generic stadiums and licenced stadiums, whatever it is, allow us to do it. Whatever the case, the kits and stadiums will allow us to give our club and the mode a bit more personality.
Themed tournaments - group stages and knockouts
A few things from PES Manager and PES Mobile in terms of tournaments and content.
Keep it up Konami, this is a big step in the right direction and you have the foundations of a excellent mode.
My Club 4/10 Dream Team 8/10 - potential to be 10/10