Players push back is deserved, here's why

The players push back is fully understandable.

Passing
They were told for months since the beta and before the release that the passing system was terrible. They refused to understand it and wasted time trying to patch a passing system that was born with terminal cancer, very likely due to ego and refusal to acknowledge it. The whole thing is trash, through balls especially. You can't play any open space in this game, it's mediocre and nothing like football. The fact that none of them immediately saw that it played indeed like a cheap mobile game is worrying to say the least.

AI
The AI needed a huge focus for years. You can't control every player, so you need reliable, non-broken movements AI for both attacking and defending. The attacking gap is made by the decision you take from your AI runs. They failed to make a proper one, whether from bad decisions, poor resource allocation, or both. They needed good AI specialists dedicated to that, this is not an easy task. Multiple people working all time on that and that only was necessary, I doubt that it was the case.

Movements
As responsive as the game is, it's not smooth at all. Players lack of something that make them feels smooth on the ball while spinning around is meta, go figure.

Defense
The defensive tools should have been a priority long ago. Instead, they waited until a week before and after launch to touch shoulder barges, tackling radius, pressing, etc. That's just a non sense, it was sure that it would end up unbalanced.

Testing
They NEED to find a way to test the game properly before pushing an update, they probably need a bunch of pre-recorded inputs/replays with a ton of different passes, tackles, shots, AI runs, etc. and run them all after they compiled it to review just to see whats going on before pushing a patch live.

Look
Game is ugly, straight up. 5years of development for that result of pretty mediocre.

Decisions
Overall, they wasted massive time and resources on things that desperately needed a full rework or simply were not important. They ran in circles, they’re still running in circles, and it feels like they’ll never stop.

P2W
They lied to their playerbase probably due incompetence/amateurism, but they did. (Or by greed, which is possible) Simply because the game is indeed pay2win while they promised that it wont be and they still cope that it isn't. It is even if you can beat someone with a better team.

The way they sell packs and the outcome of it fit the pay2win definition 100%.

Here is the reasons why:
- You can’t get the store packs by grinding. Whales get more and better cards, more options, it's a clear handicap to play against them.
- Stats matter (not as much as they should, but they do). That's why someone like Marso was more inclined to use a WF at the CDM position due to the pace/dribbling stat. Even after spending 200€, he still couldn't get a better option while anyone who paid like a whale had way more options, more height diversity and higher stats overall.
- Their current reference point is the win rate of whales, it should not be. It should be whether the same skilled players win more or less after using a pay2win squad. They don’t have that data because the game has been pay2win since day one and they've made it even worse by dropping cracked packs with crazy potentials less than a month after release, and they drop new packs each day, every day. Lol.

It should have been 1 Starter Pack to avoid starting with bronze cards and that's it, nothing else. Only cosmetics paired with that "GOALS+" thing they've mentioned in the past and if the game was playing good then it would have been enough.

Social
Some will say, “But look, no other company listens to its community like this”
True. But let me ask you this: if this is the game after 5 years of development and community feedback, just imagine what state it would be in if no one had told them what was wrong. Just imagine.

Playerbase
The playerbase is partly to blame too, as they often complain about non-issues and create confusion. Still, it’s the developers job to separate good feedback from bad, and it’s clear they’ve gotten it wrong on many occasions.

The game
Their intentions were good. The execution was bad. And the way criticism and complaints have been handled was even worse in some cases. I'd like to tell them that it isn’t a “skill issue” guys, this is straight up bad and frustrating design on so many layers. Have they forgotten that they were supposed to be making a video game? A video game is supposed to be FUN before anything. That whole "we're going to be an esport game tralala" is a huge cause of it imo. First you make a GOOD game, then you balance it to create a proper skill gap.

To conclude
- A better passing system is needed, better movements, a good AI with the help of people that know what they do and that also know football. This is the most important thing to do.
- Once a decent playerbase is reached, remove all the pay2win aspects, I would even say remove packs from the store altogether, or make it easily buyable with the in game currency so grinders can buy it too. All in with skins for the monetization.
- The game graphics need to be more appealing to the degens that like football games, we are not Fortnite gamers.

It's not over, but be better or it will be.