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Xaor’s Corner: Defending Part 2

Part two of a detailed examination into FIFA 12′s defending. This time covering AI, first touch, shielding and stamina.

See all previous articles here, and the first part here.

Last time, I covered a variety of areas that, in my opinion, are damaging FIFA’s defending. It became remarkably clear when I was writing the article that I had far too much to say for just one. I’ve already commented on pressure, locomotion physics, tackling, jockeying, the contain function, and interceptions. Without further ado, onto the rest.

First Touch

A prime tactic of high pressure users is to press particularly hard on the first touch. It makes sense – a players control on their first touch is usually at its lowest, so if there is any time to make a tackle, it’s probably as the player makes his first touch. Unfortunately though, FIFA’s first touches make this all too easy, and often nonsensically.

First touch in FIFA is a topic in its own right, so I’ll just cover the relevant part now. In my mind, the user doesn’t have enough control over the first touch. Often, you won’t really be able to dictate how your player traps or controls the ball at all, and this happens most often when you receive the ball from the air.

This leads to two prevalent problems: first, that sometimes, regardless of what you do with the controller, your first touch will give possession away pointlessly.  A typical example would be when you are chasing down a throughball with the attacker more or less alongside you. Your player gets there first, and slows very slightly as he pushes the ball ahead, only for the attacker to automatically steal it. The attacker doesn’t even have to tackle, and though you can usually avoid the situation with a clearance, it doesn’t seem particularly logical that in instances like this you can’t at least try to direct your first touch.

Secondly, and more generally, a lot of high pressure users have got very used to the predictability of these first touches, and will actively anticipate them, running to where they think your first touch will fall based on experience with a very high rate of success. Both of these issues come down to an unnecessary and irritating lack of control over the first touch. While there are plenty of things about FIFA’s first touch that is unrealistic in the receiver’s favour, this particular thing is not, so hopefully a package of changes to improve first touch would address these complaints – particularly as the World Cup 2010 game was much better in this area.

Shielding

A closely related problem to first touch is shielding. Amongst many changes made in FIFA 11, presumably as a side effect to the physicality improvements, it became much harder to shield the ball and hold off a player from behind, especially when receiving the ball. It’s too easy for a defender to get around you and nick the ball, and far too rare that a player running into you from behind results in a foul.

In FIFA 11, it was changed so that players try to shield a player who was along side them automatically and though some players are a little too proficient in this. I think a similar level of automation with shielding from behind should apply when stationary, receiving a ball, and when moving slowly so that you can hold up play a little better. Hopefully, this would aid players further in playing around high pressure tactics.

Stamina

Another area inextricably linked with the ability to use high pressure is stamina. Stamina, particularly in a one match basis, is represented very weakly in FIFA. It’s very rare to find yourself struggling with tired players to the extent where substituting a less able but fresher player is worth it, even if you are pressuring very heavily all match.

I know that most Career Mode players complain that it’s very hard to keep players fit over a number of games, but that is a separate issue to the effect over a single game. Over a single game, the fatigue incurred due to heavy pressuring needs to be increased, and the disadvantages of having low stamina need to become more pronounced.

Defending vs. the FIFA Philosophy

I’ve been through a large number of topics already regarding defending, but even if each of these areas were improved dramatically, I don’t think we’d be close to seeing the end of the major problems with defending. FIFA would be a dramatically better game, particularly if motion physics get the upgrade they deserve, but it would still be lacking in a very crucial way.

Defending, much more than attacking, is a team based operation where it is imperative that each player is doing their duty, but this is diametric to how FIFA works. The control you have over your team in FIFA is mostly centered around your selected player. You have only very vague controls to indicate to teammates what to do (secondary contain and the player run trigger), and very little good happens without you directly causing it.

The majority of what your team does in defence is down to the AI. Unfortunately, as we all know, this isn’t exactly one of FIFA’s strong points. The only thing you can absolutely rely upon with your defensive AI is its unreliability.

The reality of defending is that most of how you defend is not going to be acted out by you in real-time on the pitch, but by the AI, and there is a pretty hard limit on how much control we can have over the non-selected players. This is why having a strong tactical basis to the game is important: because a significant part of succeeding in FIFA should be down to tactical nous.

Artificial Intelligence

Reactions

Much like the locomotion physics issues described in the first article, the overly high reaction rates for the AI is a very pervasive problem. It permeates almost everything the AI does – whether it’s the AI you play against, your teammates, or even your controlled player doing things automatically, and I’ve already gone through the worst afflicted area in the article on goalkeepers.

In almost every case that I can think of, it feels that the AI reacts that little bit too fast. We’re talking about tenths-of-a-second differences here, but in terms of defending it just excacerbates the same issues that the lacking simulation of momentum does. Generally, if the AI does react (often with interceptions, as discussed previously, they don’t) it reacts very fast. This creates a schism between how fast we can react for the things we control, and how fast the AI reacts for the things it controls.

The contain function is the most obvious example, but I can’t help but feel a slight addition to the reaction & decision rates of AI players across the board would do wonders, and it’s important to realise just how many things fall under that category. Some cases are obvious, but others like players’ ability to react to ricochets and lock in to the ball need attention too.

It’s a very complex area to get bang on – human reactions are complicated, and it would be totally infeasible for EA to simulate (at this time) the way that anticipation and visibility plays into reactions, but that isn’t necessary to better the status quo. The primary goal should be that the way the AI reacts should be as similarly to how we do as possible.

Positioning

Defensive movement and positioning is a considerably more nebulous and pressing problem. Currently the defensive positioning on show in FIFA is horrifically poor and culpable for the majority of unfairly conceded goals. Again, you have to be sympathetic to EA here because nothing is simple when it comes to AI, but the poorness of the defensive AI in FIFA 12 is remarkable.

Take any goal and watch the replay and I will guarantee you that at least one (if not more) defender or midfielder will be woefully out of position and quite probably not doing anything about it. Most changes to FIFA’s defensive AI over the last few years have been sidesteps or even backsteps to the point where I spend more time trying to fix what my defenders are doing wrong than actively defending in any way.

It’s quite hard to know where to start – it’s with things like this that I most resent not being able to show video examples – because there is a huge variety in the ways that the defensive AI conspires to screw things up. How often do you see defenders strolling around as the attacker strikes into the net? How often does just one player cover a run on his own, breaking your defensive line? How often do just two or three players pull up to offside trap leaving you helpless? What about the midfield, which seems to have no interest in helping out whatsoever?

The sense I get more than any is that my defence does not work together, nor with me. They seem to work as individuals with very little awareness of what the others are doing – they don’t fill the gaps or cover each other.

Recently, I’ve noticed more and more how poor the defenders are at laterally positioning themselves to deal with the current threat. Their width is far, far too static – I’ll sometimes be defending an attacker at the edge of the area and yet have my left and right back inexplicably to the left and right of the area, not marking anyone. These are duties which transcend whatever tactics they may have been given – real defenders will do almost all of these things without fail.

This isn’t just the ‘shocking defending’ that Alan ‘Broken Record’ Hansen will critique with all the expressive capability of a lemon every weekend – I suspect most of us would give quite a lot for our defenders to make those type of mistakes – you see defensive errors in FIFA every game that you might struggle to find in a Premier League season.

Defending in FIFA is a farce – you’re trying to control a defensive unit that might comprise 6 or 7 players – you can never just try to play as one of them as you will be ripped apart by the simplest and most overused tactic of hitting the player run trigger and sending a ball over the top. To defend against this we have to repeat the mundane activity of covering each run they make, when this really ought to be something the defence does automatically.

It is critical that EA put a lot of focus on improving the defensive positioning in FIFA. I make a lot of criticisms of FIFA and suggestions for how to fix it that are relatively simple, but this is not one of them. It’s going to take a lot of time, and a lot of effort, but it will be worth it because convincing AI is key to a convincing sim.

Improving our control over the defence

Tactics

The main way that we should be able to affect how well we defend is not necessarily through what we do on the controller as one cog in a machine, but through the way our team is set up and how that relates to the team we are playing against and the way they are set up.

This is (like many of the major topics I’ve brought up) something which extends far further than just defending, but personally I’m not sure what the real benefit would be of continuing to work with the current tactical system. I’m not a fan of how users interface with the system through the tactical management screens, nor how this does (or doesn’t) translate into what you then see on the pitch.

It’s very difficult to ever get the desired effect. Many valid formations and tactics are practically unusable, with most successful players online using a very small number of very similar tactics, typically utilising high pressure, deep defence, negligible midfield, and three or four heavily attacking players. If you elect not to change the formation and tactics, you can be absolutely ruined from the start because certain styles of play (ironically the most traditional ones) are inneffectual while others are suicidal.

In another article perhaps, I will go into a lot more detail on this huge topic – I couldn’t possibly do it justice here – but improvements (or arguably a total overhaul) here are necessary for FIFA’s defending to be truly ‘tactical’, because ‘Tactical Defending’ didn’t get it close.

New controls

Improvements to the artificial intelligence and our ability to influence this through tactical changes would have a revolutionary effect on the way we play FIFA, but I don’t think that has to be the end of the story. I also think there is plenty of room for us to have more control over the way we’re defending while playing.

If you look at the defensive controls in FIFA 12, it’s clear that EA aren’t utilising the controller as well as they do for attacking play. The RB button is unused, and, as I argued in the first article, the contain button could probably go too.

I think there’s quite a lot of room for interesting ideas here, and I’d be particularly interested in hearing if anyone had any better/different ideas for what could be done with the unused buttons. For now, these are two of the ideas I’ve had.

Offside Trap

I don’t know how many people use the offside trap button (up, up on the d-pad), but it really takes the biscuit in terms of working horribly. Aside from the extreme clunkiness of actually using the d-pad in the first place (the Xbox 360′s d-pad is infamously poor), the control itself is so unpredictable and so risky to use. Usually, the defensive line will not only move so far up that it plays off the first man, but it will often go up as far as the current ball carrier, leaving him through on goal!

I do however think that the idea of having a button to intitiate a trap is a fairly good idea, even if trapping should also happen automatically if the teams tactics are set up to do so.

Ideally, such a function would not be on the dpad, and, as it happens R1/RB is unused in defensive play, and preferably the button should have a lot more control than just ‘Do an offside trap’, like the old version did. Instead, the defensive line should only move up so long as you had the button depressed, and, also, no further than your selected player, which would give the button a secondary function of allowing to to solidify your defensive line.

Two standing tackle buttons

One of the comments I made part 1 was that standing tackles are very unpredictable in where they will fall, often worsening the situation by tackling it back to the same attacker or a different one. Possibly then, having the ability to differentiate between a stronger tackle and a weaker tackle could give users the extra control they need to indicate how aggressively they wish to win the ball. One would attempt to get the ball away from the attacker, whereas the other would specifically attempt to gain possession rather than just kick it away. Tackles of the first type would be more likely to succeed, whereas tackles of the second would be safer and less likely to give possession straight back.

Conclusion

It may seem unreasonable to expect that EA should put as much effort as this article and the previous one argue is necessary just one year after the revolutionary change in Tactical Defending and the Impact Engine… but then defending is half of football, and right now FIFA’s defending is far inferior to the attacking side of the game. Tactical Defending may mean we have to put a little more effort in than before, but it’s still a long way short of being particularly fun, particularly realistic or particularly balanced.

Join the discussion
  • drunkenshaolin

    great post as per-usual from u. nice read.

  • Eddy

    one of the first things i noticed when i switched from per to fifa back in 2009 is that when you play the offside trap, defenders maintain their forward run even if the trap has clearly failed. this needs to be improved.

  • Neerander

    I think an option to shield the ball as a defender would really help. I mean how often do you see defenders shielding the ball out for a goal kick, throw in or to allow the gk to come and claim the ball in real football, yet on fifa if you tried anything like that your player would either take a touch because he’s locked onto the ball or more likely that the attacker would nick in and win the ball. A ‘jockey’ button for shielding the ball would be good for one of the unused buttons when defending or I suppose with tweaks it could be a function added to the ‘jockey’ button that’s already in place.

    I’d like to see the contain button removed as well. It was one step forward with tactical defending and two steps back, when they put in this automatic jockey button. This could then change to the secondary standing tackle button, which is a great idea by the way, and then O/X for standing tackle would be good/easier placing for the buttons.

  • David

    Good and valid points. I think AI is by far the weakest part in the whole of FIFA and it really stand out in defense.
    Here some ideas to improve on some aspects of defense for both player and AI:

    - NEW DEFENDING AI MINDSET: I think AI controlled players in FIFA have an overall wrong mindset to begin with so they need to be rewired. A new mindset needs to be constructed. AI controlled players in FIFA seem to have a making mentality and their zone defense is very restrictive. This means that sidebacks amd wingbacks will never bother to help the centrebacks because they think they have no business going there because is out of their “zone” eg; the wings. Then you have the midfielders who also feel they have no business getting in the box to block passing lanes or shots because they are midfielders so they belong in “midfield”. This is more evident when someone dribbles right thought the middle of the park just outside the box. So what I think needs to happen is that they need to have in mind is freedom to move anywhere where they could help the defense. They need to have in mind;
    1. Their position
    2. Open zones
    3. Passing lanes
    4. Anticipation
    5. Learning

    In recent FIFAs is mostly player role (eg; centreback) and strict marking of zone and player. But its really lacking in actually covering zones based on context of play put situation and also anticipation where they foresee the opponent gaining back possession hence retrieving back or covering a danger zone. No anticipation, or reading of the game. Also no learning eg; they study their opponents and actually learn and remember what they like to do and what their strenghts and weaknesses are. So to make AI controlled players read the game better it would be a good idea to experiment with giving them awareness of the “danger players” and also be able to beforehand mentally link the probable set of passes the opponents will likely make like drawing “passing lines” around the pitch to get a clue of what the stacking team will do and responding likewise. They need to be aware of situations eg; its two three attacking players on two defenders and the keeper so that means gotta go help in the box, or gotta go and block the shot etc. So a different wireup is what AI defenders need imo.

    -NEW CONTROLS: Firstly, I do agree that the auto press button has to go and instead have that be done manually by using natural player movements and calculating your momentum and speed, plus jockeying. Now, I think that R1/RB button can be used to bring up team defending options where you could shift your defense around, perform an offside trap and also switch players. This would happen by holding the R1/RB button down to bring up icons either below players feet or above their heads. Then if you tap one of those buttons you would simply switch to that particular player during defense. To perform an offside trap you would press and hold the R1/RB button and tap another corresponding button or use the right stick in conjunction with R1/RB to have your making perform the offside tap. Then I think there should be an easy way to maneuver your players on defense easily without having to switch around by simply holding R1/RB then when the icons come up to press and hold, not tap, but hold the button corresponding to the icon and moving that player with the left analog stick, them do that for another player quickly. This is to position your players even through they do still have to think on their own. So you press and hold the R1/RB + press and hold icon + left stick to move one player in any direction then release and choose another defender.
    - USE OF ARMS/ HANDS ON DEFENSE CONTROLS- Since if they do in fact get rid of pressing this button can be used to get a little physical with your arms, elbows and hands. While pressing and holding this button you would initiate some arm battles, this could be used in conjuction with tackling where you get physical first, then quickly stick your leg in (could also be used while dribbling in attack btw) This arms and hands usage could come in handy in the box when defending set pieces as you could use it to hold your opponent a bit or wrap your arms around him to prevent him from jumping. The amount of grip out force should also be determined by how long you hold the button form so if you tap the button it will be a light grip.
    - NEW MANUAL TACKLING CONTROLS- I think it would be a really good idea to make use of the right analog stick alone to perform manual tackles. By simply pushing the right analog stick in any direction your player on defense will such his leg in that direction. Also, the amount of force and length of time you push the right analog stick on that direction will determine the aggressiveness. So if I lightly push the right analog to my right he will perform a vet conservative and soft tackle in that direction. If I push hard he will do it aggressively and with more force. The skill of the tackle in any direction should depend on the overall tackling skill of the player you are using and your own decisions as to where you direct your manual tackles.
    Thanks for reading.

  • mfmaxpower

    Good stuff. Though on the importance of tactics, I think you’re expectations are unrealistic. Consider:

    “The main way that we should be able to affect how well we defend is not necessarily through what we do on the controller as one cog in a machine, but through the way our team is set up and how that relates to the team we are playing against and the way they are set up.”

    Maybe if this were Football Manager that we’re talking about but PES and FIFA will always be based around what you do with a controller. The reality of the situation is that, though many of us would like tactics to have a greater influence (and I’m one of them), neither Konami or EA are going to alienate the gamers out there that either a) can’t be bothered to that extent; or b) don’t have the ability/knowledge to utilize tactics.

    You write: “a significant part of succeeding in FIFA should be down to tactical nous.” I’m afraid this probably doesn’t fit with what Konami and EA are trying to do with PES and FIFA. If “tactical nous” is too much a part of these games you threaten to make the games unaccessible if not downright unappealing to a large portion of the market.

    The best case scenario that is also realistic is that we get a FIFA with improved player movement physics and AI, an improved Team Management and Tactics system, plus tweaks to the tackling/contain features and AI reaction speeds, plus maybe a few other tweaks, such as improved shielding.

    But to expect tactics to ever be more important than the use of the controller is simply unrealistic and never going to happen. I sincerely hope tactics become more important – you know, so they actually matter and maybe can tip the balance of a tight match – but tactics will always be of limited importance.

    And remember, tactics never decide a match – it’s how the players on the pitch implement said tactics that can determine the outcome. Thus it’s only realistic to expect that what we do in Team Management to have a marginal impact on a match result; it should never be the “main way.” But tactics, team setup, etc. need to be more relevant than they are now, that’s for sure.

    I like your ideas on defending otherwise though. Very insightful. Once again, great work. Really hope EA listen.

  • Toby Ross

    @mfmaxpower:

    You’re probably right, but I think it’s difficult to imagine FIFA progressing that far if the tactical base to the way the AI works isn’t improved massively. It doesn’t need to be inaccessible – the game should do a reasonable job of setting you up for a fixture automatically, something it doesn’t do right now at all – but I still think the tactical depth has to be there.

    I still think, when defending, the majority of what goes on is inevitably down to the AI. Football doesn’t focus on a single player in defence as it does in attack generally. Even in FIFA as it is now, the AI does a lot of the defending… it just uniformly doesn’t do it very well. If the AI is improved you will inevitably find that defending becomes less about the person on the controller because there will be less to do. Right now, what you ‘do’ when defending is usually fixing the AI’s hilarious inadequecies as quickly as you can. Outside of that, there isn’t a huge amount of action.

    Which is why I went into ways that our control over the defence could be increased – through new controls but also through tactics. I probably went a little overboard. I’m not really suggesting that emphasis is taken away from what you do on the controller… more that there needs to be more ‘game’ within the tactics or defending is inevitably dull.

    @David: I will reply properly at length when I’m less tired – thanks for such a detailed comment.

  • Ham.

    Great post as always, but I’ve lost hope that such changes will ever be made…

  • Konsta K.

    Great article, and hopefully EA will take notice. To paraphrase Arrigo Sacchi: You shouldn’t position yourself in relation to the attacker,but in relation to your teammates.

  • Q

    I always used to think of why holding/pushing the tackling buttons down harder doesn’t lead to more force in a standing tackle or slide, think about it, tap square for a simple slide e.g to clear the ball out of play, push square and hold for a lunging tackle e.g if a striker is clean through on goal as a last resort. Tap circle for a standing tackle where you are favourite, push and hold circle for a forceful tackle? the downside is that with the harder tackles you should be more likely to be booked. I think this is a good idea but there may be a flaw or weakness I’m missing?

  • HoB

    @Max:

    “You write: “a significant part of succeeding in FIFA should be down to tactical nous.” I’m afraid this probably doesn’t fit with what Konami and EA are trying to do with PES and FIFA. If “tactical nous” is too much a part of these games you threaten to make the games unaccessible if not downright unappealing to a large portion of the market.”

    A significant part does not mean the only part, or even the biggest part. PES 2011 more or less had the balance right, in fact (save for certain flaws with the gameplay that were universal to all formations and tactics). People could use basic formations and muscle through with their ability to play the game itself or the players on the pitch. But there was the depth in there for more tactically savvy players to know when it was a good idea to drop an AMF back 10-20 yards to better keep possession, or push a winger further infield, or swap the DMF from left to right of centre etc. On a number of occasions I used tactics to captialise on strengths that my weaker team would have from the start, or make a few subtle changes to turn a match around. Not saying you wouldn’t have people trying to exploit the game with through balls and speed merchanting, but even against them I felt that I usually had some say in the matter.

    Why is it that PES and FIFA both have tactical sliders and custom formations, yet for PES these are key and for FIFA these are vile sins that people publicly despise?

    In PES there’s much more of an interaction between formations, which benefits both sides in different ways – the defending side because the user doesn’t have to tell midfielders to get back, or fullbacks to squeeze the play; the attacker because their setup can disrupt that of the opposition. Because the formations adapt to each other to some extent (as they would in real life – attack heavily down one flank and it’ll naturally pin their attacking fullback to his own third), and because there is that sense of teamwork in defending, it allows so much room for depth that is lost in FIFA. With the current, every-man-for-himself defending and almost complete lack of interaction between strategies, you have to spend so much time focussing on the absolute basics on behalf of an entire defensive unit, particularly online, that the gameplay never allows you to get more sophisticated from there. Say what you will about PES, but this is an area that it got bang on with PES 2011 in particular. FIFA never has, as demonstrated by the need to pull CTs from online over the past few years, leaving preset formations which STILL generate too much imbalance.

    Personally I find it very counterproductive when the ‘this isn’t FM’ argument is used, because it implies that some sort of completely unusable extreme is being asked for. Of course the player holding the pad should make a *huge* difference – how much of a difference is he making if his teammates are so desperate to screw him over at any opportunity, rather than stick to the player’s plans to the best of their defensive ability? Right now far too much is being asked of the guy with the pad, to the point where the end result is completely alien to football. The person holding the pad is not being given the chance to use his head more intellectually because their thinking time is dominated by utterly basic tasks – tracking striker 1-2 spamming, or the offside line being decimated, or compensating for teammates not recognising and pre-empting the blatantly obvious pass, or moving to collect loose balls. The unintelligence of teammates, and the literal and oblivious nature of the formations & tactics, are like concrete boots to the tactical portion of FIFA.

  • mfmaxpower

    HOB:

    Yes, a significant part doesn’t mean the only part, or even the biggest part, but Xaor’s quote that I led with said “The main way that we should be able to affect how well we defend is not necessarily through what we do on the controller as one cog in a machine, but through the way our team is set up and how that relates to the team we are playing against and the way they are set up.”

    While I agree that tactics, team setup, etc. should have more importance than it does currently – which I’m pretty sure I said – I don’t agree that it should be the “main” decider of a match.

    And the reason why I was comparing it to FM is because in pure management games, the only influence we have on outcomes is through team management options. FIFA and PES are at the other end of the spectrum from FM in that it’s intended that outcomes are primarily determined by controller input during matches.

    I’m not really sure what you’re disagreeing with me about. Everything you suggest – that FIFA needs improved Team Management features and an upgraded AI to make those advances relevant – I completely agree with. I thought I made that clear. If not, apologies.

    Tactics are possibly my favorite aspect of football. I’ve probably spent as much time trying to eke out as much possible from the Team Management options as I have actually spent playing matches in CM. It drives me nuts that I cannot make my favorite real world teams play in FIFA similar to how they do in real life – in fact I tend to not play with my favorite real world teams anymore because it pisses me off too much.

    Still, I don’t think tactics should be the main decider of how well we defend or attack, and that’s all that I was replying to. Personally I’d like for it to be possible to gain an edge through the effective use of team management options in FIFA. I’d also prefer that unrealistic tactics and setups are less effective than they can be. And I’d love it if what we did in Team Management actually felt like it mattered.

    I just also think that EA is probably uninterested in making what you do pre-match more relevant than what you do during matches. It’s just not EA’s MO.

    Maybe I’m being overly-pessimistic, but the best I’m hoping for is a significant upgrade to the AI and marginal improvements to Team Management features. If the latter were to be emphasised to PES levels, I’d be as excited as anyone else.

    If I came off overly critical of the suggestion that Tactics/Team Management should be more relevant, then that’s not what I intended.

  • Bogside

    The stamina is a key one for me. Players using high pressure tactics should end up with very tired and slow players in the final quarter of the game – especially in defence. This should be especially true of lower ranked teams. Barcelona might be able to keep it up for long periods, but LA Galaxy should fall apart after the hour mark. It should also be further linked to a players age and in game tackles received.

  • Q

    @Bogside, exactly and in honesty Barca have 60+% possession most games so even they don’t have to pressure for as long as you can in Fifa, oh and great idea about stamina being linked to tackles received!

  • Toby Ross

    @mfmaxpower:

    I’m still not entirely sure you’re right. Right now, we have a situation where we have fairly little control over the defence full stop. You can’t really affect the AI’s behaviour much and regardless of your tactics it will cause you massive problems. I don’t really see the major disadvantage, even from a casual point of view, of having tactics becoming a more powerful way of effecting things.

    I do think that EA need to work on making sure it’s accessible. You shouldn’t be screwed if you don’t understand tactics, and the game could have assistance to help with this. But I simply can’t imagine that FIFA could be a particularly good sim without seriously improved tactical options. Having said that, I don’t imagine this is something that can be done quickly, but it’s something I hope EA take in mind when making to the next generation.

  • Toby Ross

    @David:

    Sorry I haven taken so long to reply. I definitely agree with your feelings on the mindset, as you put it. I think we’re a little way away from the AI being able to ‘learn’ from how their opponents play in a natural fashion. Certainly though some anticiptaion of changes in possession would be very important – one of the nastiest flaws in FIFA 12 is how utterly undone the defence is should a clearance be headed back at them.

    As for your ideas with controls. Not really sure what the benefit would be to having player switching on RB+face button, especially given that we have the manual switching on the right stick which works better than I’d imagine that would (albeit, I think it could be improved*). Using RB + other stuff for things other than switching though sounds like a really interesting idea. A lot of potential for quite a lot of controls really by using it as a modifier of sorts.

    I’m not really a fan of the use of arms/hands in defence. Not sure where you were imagining it going on the controller either. You could perhaps have a more explicit ‘jostle’ button, like FIFA used to have, but I can’t imagine much more than that. It really sounds like something which should be mostly contextual. It would be so hard to think to do all of that while going for a cross, for example.

    Manual tackling with the right stick I have similar feelings about, especially once you add in the idea of having the strength of the tackle dictated by the length of the press. It’s the kind of thing you’d really have to try to be absolutely sure, but I think it would be far too tricky, and not just for casual gamers. This would be far beyond the difficulty of manual passing. It’s tricky enough to correctly time a tackle already (the vast majority of tackles are automatic), so to add having to press the right analogue stick in the right direction (something very finicky, I’d imagine), when your thumb isn’t already over the right analogue stick?

    It’s a little too much. More control for the sake of more control than for the sake of gameplay or realism, imo.

  • Ice dilla nl

    Wow, just wow. I totally agree with you. It feels every fifa does one thing right in comparison to the next, but also does more wrong then (or doesnt fix the problems from a) previous fifa.

    The first touch is indeed one of the most annoying things that can happen. Great chances and attacks can be ruined by it when attacking and can set up counter attacks and scoring opportunities in defence and midfield.

    The basic problem EA fails to give the AI the most fundamental thing a real player has, “football awareness/logic” and the will to win.

    Everything you said comes down to the AI actually not knowing what football means, playing, moving and acting like a Team.

    Playing; do what your position means, defending–> stop the opponent from scoring a goal and watch your teammates (and your own) Back,
    midfield–> be a “bridge” between defence and offence and support where and when you must,
    Attack –> be there when you have to be, be on time in the box and duel with the defender/work for your goal.

    Moving – Defence–> The basic reason things go wrong is the positioning of the defence, or rather there lack of movement when the ball isnt near them. that leaves spaces open for the opponent to score.
    - Midfield –> well there never where there supposed to be. It takes to long for them to get where you want/need them to be.
    - attack –> every line has slight issues with this but in attack its frustrating, not moving in the right direction so you can create a chance, often the AI is standing in my way instead of becoming a good option to pass the ball to.

    Acting –> help each other!!! defence under pressure? then help them instead of goofing off, A lot of mistakes and chances could easily be avoided if there was more help from the rest of the pitch.

    another thing i hate is the fact that with every free kick the defence dissapears leaving the one player out numbered and opening the gates for a counter attack. only tall defenders that can head go forward and have other players covering there position.

  • David

    @Toby Ross:

    I think making the cpu learn is very doable, maybe not more sophisticated learning eg; learning how one particular player does his dribbling routine and small details like that might be too advanced for the cpu to learn at the moment. But when it comes to learning how the opponents like to play eg; 80% ball possession on the left side and about 20% ball possesion on the right flanks, 70% crosses coming from the right, opponent pays the ball down the middle of the park then gives to the centre forward who then tries to broke down the middle etc etc; things like that I believe are doable and the cpu can learn to keep count of percentages and other numbers related to action on the pitch. Also, the cpu needs to make more use of tactics; once they learn how you play they need to change their formations around. For example; if the cpu recognizes that they are causing harm with their crosses in the box, they will bring in a substitute who it’s an aerial threat. This is an example pof how the cpu can learn your weaknesses. Another example; if the cpu notices you pushing your sidebacks too high and in so doing leave gaps on the wings, they will do a flight formation change to have an attacking player exploit that gap on the flanks and create havoc on the counter attacks. Learning is very doable but first I think EA needs to change the overall mentality of the players THEN work on the learning aspects which it’s more or less a level 2 type of AI.

    On the right analog stick tackling controls, I said you would only use the right analog stick to tackle, no other combinations involved. I think this would make for a much more intuitive, easy and fun way of tackling. Simply you would only have to utilize two sticks; the left analog stick to move your player plus the right analog stick to to stick your leg anywhere. It would feel very natural, like you are really tackling, very ready and intuitive I believe.

    About the holding, this use of hands does happen allot in football. For defending against set pieces like corners, holding could be used BEFORE the attacking team whips the ball in the box. There is allot of holding, hugging and elbowing you see when teams defend in the box prior to a corner. Holding could also be used in other areas of defending like when an attacking player has you backed down against his back as he awaits a pass with his back against the goal. Here many defenders use their elbows and sometimes they also use their hands to push the receiving player our to hold his arms. This hands function could be replaced for the contain button. They should keep the jockey shoulder button but not the contain, instead replace out for something like this or similar.

    Thank you for reading.

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