A case for full manual

[newxieland]

Right now I'm trying to play with everything on manual except passing which is on semi-assisted. I had experimented everything on full manual before but was being fed up with misplaced passes between my CBs that led to easy 1v1 for the opposition striker.

I think between two human players you definitely end up with a far more enjoyable game when you're playing on manual. This becomes a lot harder against the AI as when I play on Legendary, you get absolutely no time on the ball what so ever and the time it takes to power up a pass usually means getting crunched by the defender.

I think the time delay factor is what's holding most people back - if only they could some how reduce this delay factor according to your player's passing attributes etc.

Also another problem I have with manual is that it makes no difference when you're hitting a long ball with say a Fabregas than some League 1 reject... When you see RVP peeling off the last defender with Assisted Fabregas delivers the perfect ball (like in real life - well most of the time), but I sent it sailing into the crowd when using manual. Seeing my beloved Arsenal dominated in possession against Southampton in the FA Cup is just not right

I certainly don't prejudice those playing on full assisted - I mean hey you paid for the game, play what ever way you want. But I do agree that there should be more online options for the manual players out there.

And on that topic if anyone out there ever feels like playing manual my PSN id is the same as my user name.

Cheers

 

[nerf]

Also another problem I have with manual is that it makes no difference when you're hitting a long ball with say a Fabregas than some League 1 reject... When you see RVP peeling off the last defender with Assisted Fabregas delivers the perfect ball (like in real life - well most of the time), but I sent it sailing into the crowd when using manual. Seeing my beloved Arsenal dominated in possession against Southampton in the FA Cup is just not right

I don't know if manual Long Passes are affected by the player's attributes or not, but I know attributes come into play with manual Shooting is so it's not an impossible idea. One could speculate that the pass has more pace/curl/dip, maybe the accuracy cone is tighter, something like that.

Regardless... maybe think of it this way: Arsenal's players will still be stronger and faster, will find space more intelligently, will bring the ball under control more quickly... all the ingredients are there for you to dominate possession against Southampton. Like it would be down to Fabregas himself to be better (make better decisions, be more consistently accurate) than his opponent in that cup tie, it is now down to you to be better at controlling possession. RvP made the run for you; he counts on Cesc to deliver that pass, now it's down to you to be accurate enough to do the same. Isn't that part of the attraction of manual? That's how I approach it, anyway.

 

[Radiation]

The game could do with a training mode for manual players showing you a directional arrow of where you are aiming and when you start to press the button to add power to your pass, lob or shot an arch should appear showing you exactly what you're about to do should look like.

I think that would ease more players into using manual settings.



The advantage for manual players could come from the player stats being used more. I think that would add more of this 'soul' that PES has with player individuality.

So when you aim at the goals in manual you're doing it because you want to aim at a certain section of the goals yourself, not because you want to be able to aim your shots at the corner flag. No one would ever go 1 on 1 and actually want to aim their shot at the corner flag so the game should take that into account and close down the angle as you get closer and closer to the goals.

So say you press top right and shoot standing at the halfway line, your ball will then be kicked towards the corner flag.

Now say you run into the box and stand by the penalty spot. For a skilled player with high shooting accuracy your angles should close down like in this image.

You can still blast it wide if you add too much power, or are off at a bad angle or using your weak foot or under pressure from a defender. And if you have a less skilled player/injured player/fatigued player then their angle would not close down as much leaving you more likely to knock it wide or over.

If your on the pro camera and using manual aiming you really should be able to then run at the goals 1 on 1 and if you spot a gap think 'I'm going to aim this into the top right corner' and then do it. Whereas an assisted player would have to hope the AI aim it into the gap for them.

Unless this is exactly how semi shooting works. If so I'll shut up.

 

[Shazam!]

there should be more online options for the manual players out there.

Og God, yes. I played a manual/semi game as Arsenal v Man U at was a typically affair with a scrappy first goal, but when I came up against an opponant on assited I was being hammered 5-0 and then the git had the nerve to score 5 own goals to take it into extra time. I couldn't stand the idea that he was on the other end thinking he was amazing.

 

[NACK22]

The game could do with a training mode for manual players showing you a directional arrow of where you are aiming and when you start to press the button to add power to your pass, lob or shot an arch should appear showing you exactly what you're about to do should look like.

I think that would ease more players into using manual settings.



The advantage for manual players could come from the player stats being used more. I think that would add more of this 'soul' that PES has with player individuality.

So when you aim at the goals in manual you're doing it because you want to aim at a certain section of the goals yourself, not because you want to be able to aim your shots at the corner flag. No one would ever go 1 on 1 and actually want to aim their shot at the corner flag so the game should take that into account and close down the angle as you get closer and closer to the goals.

So say you press top right and shoot standing at the halfway line, your ball will then be kicked towards the corner flag.

Now say you run into the box and stand by the penalty spot. For a skilled player with high shooting accuracy your angles should close down like in this image.

You can still blast it wide if you add too much power, or are off at a bad angle or using your weak foot or under pressure from a defender. And if you have a less skilled player/injured player/fatigued player then their angle would not close down as much leaving you more likely to knock it wide or over.

If your on the pro camera and using manual aiming you really should be able to then run at the goals 1 on 1 and if you spot a gap think 'I'm going to aim this into the top right corner' and then do it. Whereas an assisted player would have to hope the AI aim it into the gap for them.

Unless this is exactly how semi shooting works. If so I'll shut up.

Looks like drogba's been tackled by a terradactyl.

 

[romagnoli]

The potential problem there is you don't get the consistency of controls so you don't know from one player to the next where you should aim. Without consistency it's hard to learn how you should actually be aiming.

As soon as the direction of your shot is adjusted by the CPU like this it ceases to be manual. I don't think therefore that it should be applied to manual controls. Maybe semi controls should be overhauled like this; I don't really understand what semi controls offer that manual doesn't at the moment. Maybe pulling backwards should be a shot modifier but I could see that leading to really annoying turns when you want to shoot.

I wonder how well FPS controls would map to Be A Pro. Right stick to aim passes or shots, make L1 the trick button, use L2 and R2 as pass and shoot, with the amount you press the button representing the weight of the pass/shot rather than a dely due to power bar charging. You could also theoretically hold the trigger in and see the power on a moving bar before deciding when to release the pass (this would also give people in space the ability to make more of the extra second of time they get).
Click left stick in to sprint, with R1 plus left stick being knock on and L1+R1 being skill dribble. Dunno how you'd get long balls in though. With shooting at least you could use towards/way from goal as a shot type modifier, whereas using aiming and movement on one stick would cause those turns above.

Any suggestions with this? Other than, stick it up my arse?

Edit: I definitely agree that there should be some sort of visual aid for beginners to manual play. Some sort of line emanating from the player, maybe even with a marker to indicate where the pass will be in one second with your current weight. I think I suggested this on EA's forums a while back with little response.

 

[RuneEdge]

Yes. It's only fair. At the moment assisted passes are unbelievably accurate; in PES (which is assisted-only) the passes at least have an uncertainty built in which slow the gameplay down.

Read one of my ridiculously large posts in the FIFA 11/12/13 thread for what I think. We obviously can't get rid of assisted passing, so we should at least cut the gap so that manual players and assisted players are actually playing the same game.

But randomly making assisted players make mistakes is just stupid. Its basically adding the kind of "scripts" that anti-PES supporters have been moaning about.
And another thing, you say its to create a level playing field but its not really, is it? If I was to totally master manual passing to the point where I could make inch perfect passes, now I'd have the unfair advantage cuz the CPU wont be randomly costing me the game by f*cking up the move.
What I suggested makes sense cuz it goes with what assisted is supposed to mean. By removing the power bar, the CPU will now assist you with that also. Which means when you have two players in the same direction of the player in possession, you can no longer choose who it goes to cuz the CPU will "assist" you and choose for you. This works because its not really cheating you, the CPU is simply limiting your passing. Or maybe you can take it a step further. Maybe all passes with the A (or X on PS3) button can only have a short range. So lets say you're facing left and want to pass to someone to your right who's standing at about 70 degree angle from where you're facing, like in my crappy diagram below.

On assisted, you'd press up and pass to give the ball to the player marked with the red line. But lets say assisted passes only had a short range, and that player was too far way (outside your range), the assisted passing system wouldnt understand that there's a player there so the ball would go where I marked that blue line. Maybe if the player was a little closer then the pass would work but cuz he's too far, it doesnt. Basically, if you're standing inside that circle, then you'd be able to send an assisted pass their way. What this does is give assisted players their "assistance" but also limit them with how and where they can use it.
This idea can also be used with semi and manual too. In semi, maybe the circle would be a lot bigger so that you have more range but at the same time, you would lose some assistance in the direction of the pass. And with manual of course, you'd have no circle at all but also no assistance. The cool thing with this idea is that you dont have to narrow it down to just "Assisted", "Semi" and "Manual". You can have a slider that lets you increase the size of the cirle but at the same time decrease your passing assistance.

 

[Andersson]

And another thing, you say its to create a level playing field but its not really, is it? If I was to totally master manual passing to the point where I could make inch perfect passes, now I'd have the unfair advantage cuz the CPU wont be randomly costing me the game by f*cking up the move.

I don't think you would be able to master it though. It's the same as in real life, you may be able to hit close to a perfect pass every time if you're under no pressure. Once you start getting pressured you start making mistakes because you either have to make the pass when you're out of balance, or you just rush it and mess up.

On assisted you don't really have to worry about it because there's always the option to just hit the pass button and the ball will find its way to another player most of the time, but on manual it works well (too well the way some people are pressuring online) to make sure you'll never be able to put every ball where you want it every time.

 

[romagnoli]

Introducing some sort of error is perfectly fair compared to being able to hit passes perfectly. If you play with assisted settings then passing is automatically scripted; there is no such thing as unscripted assisted controls. I can't see your pic but all your system sounds like it'd do is script which player the ball would be passed (far too accurately) to. That is instantly exploitable just by setting up a formation where everyone is perfectly spaced apart. Introducing inaccuracies in passing is a no brainer anyway - there is no justification for such super high accuracy.

As for saying that it gives manual passers an advantage if they master the controls - that's EXACTLY what should be the case. If you are a perfect manual passer then you are a world class player and deserve to beat your average assisted player. Almost nobody will be a perfect manual player though as it is such a sensitive control scheme, so it is more likely that a good manual player vs a decent assisted player will be a close match. As it is, the manual player has no chance in most cases.

 

[RuneEdge]

But randomly deciding things is still wrong. You're taking things out of the players hands and letting the computer decide for no reason. Maybe if the game took into condsideration how much pressure you're under and let that affect the pass would make a good system. With maybe higher skilled players like the Xavi's and the Fabregas' being affected less.

 

[romagnoli]

Again, you're letting the computer decide the moment you use assisted passing.

I can only assume you misunderstand what I meant. I'm not talking about assisted including complete fuckups at random. I'm talking about player ability related imperfections in the pass. Fabregas can be a brilliant passer but there's no reason why Senderos should hit passes just as accurately. The worse the player, the wider the margin of error. The better the technique the more accurate the first time pass. Bam. Player individuality, no ping pong passing and more patient buildup in one go.

 

[RuneEdge]

So basically, players with lower stats should have a bigger price to pay?

 

[Rodelero]

Yes. You have to miss. It can either be done in a heavily scripted manner, or it can be done randomly. That's the ONLY logical way to do it. It's not 'scripted' in a negative way (anyone who even uses the word scripted is being ridiculous).

Look, it's this simple. Assisted passes MUST miss. Fact. Therefore, they must either miss EVERYTIME in certain situations - stupid... or they must be randomly innaccurate.

I wouldn't do it on a diceroll though - it should be a range of possibilities with varying probabilities.

If you don't want assisted passes to miss you want assisted to be broken.

Regardless of the control system - the player you are using should be a factor. If you are using Senderos, then the probability of it missing should be higher, and the possibilities wider. On assisted, this would be an inaccuracy towards the player, and on manual, an inaccuracy from where you aimed.

 

[romagnoli]

So basically, players with lower stats should have a bigger price to pay?

Exactly. Players with lower stats should be less capable. Do you disagree? If so, how do you think stats like passing accuracy or shot accuracy should be represented in game?


Btw I can see your pic now. I actually suggested this on the official forums back in June or so. Anything above a certain power bar value would be very manual; anything below would be assisted. The problem with that though is that the change from that player being just inside to just outside the circle would be quite a big jump potentially. I also think maybe the angle by which you can be inaccurate needs to be tighter than your pic suggests. Other than that I think your idea should be implemented as well as more general passing inaccuracy.

Regardless of the control system - the player you are using should be a factor. If you are using Senderos, then the probability of it missing should be higher, and the possibilities wider. On assisted, this would be an inaccuracy towards the player, and on manual, an inaccuracy from where you aimed.

Do you think the inaccuracy should be equal though? I think it should be greater in assisted, although subtly so. For me the key thing is that it's in there at all - from there, EA can look to slow down the pressurizing and improve the AI to try and use the space more, rather than frantically dash forwards.

 

[AlaaEG]

Ever played a racing game and noticed how assisted puts you behind manual? It's because automatic features tend to have "error" in their timing for whatever they help you do.

 

[ant0n]

Hey Chris you takin notes? This is how assisted is supposed to work.

 

[TH14]

It seems like what I feared is indeed true.. I started this thread because I'm hoping someone would point out that there will indeed be an advantage to learning manual controls, and that mastering it will be the key to unlocking that advantage. However, as I was playing the game, I kinda find this advantage non-existence, due to the invincible nature of assisted scheme.. The replies from you guys seems to confirm this.. sigh..

Anyway, I think I'm going for semi for now, cause it's still a balance between playable (because manual passing is too difficult and too sensitive and power bar issue... etc), and requiring player skill and control..

Can I confirm the online scheme for semi is as follows:
1 - passing: semi
2 - through pass: manual
3 - Shooting: semi
4 - crosses: semi
5 - lobs: assisted

I haven't ventured online yet, just wanna practise on the scheme that i will be using online on the semi filter..

 

[romagnoli]

Yup, that's the setup. I actually prefer manual shooting but since semi is what you have to use online for this filter I decided it'd be better to practice with it than have to work it out online.

 

[TH14]

OMG!

I tried online for the first time today, and nothing works apart from assist Due to the lag, i cannot perform anything which requires any form of precision.. Only assist works because i have to buffer every button presses, and only assist allows my passes and shots to find a target..

Sigh, i hope its just today..

 

[Rotocoro]

I am currently playing semi/maunal controls on legendayr and am having some enthralling and close games so I'll stick with that for now. Although, if i start finding games to easy to win I willl make the leap to fully manual controls

But randomly making assisted players make mistakes is just stupid. Its basically adding the kind of "scripts" that anti-PES supporters have been moaning about.
And another thing, you say its to create a level playing field but its not really, is it? If I was to totally master manual passing to the point where I could make inch perfect passes, now I'd have the unfair advantage cuz the CPU wont be randomly costing me the game by f*cking up the move.
What I suggested makes sense cuz it goes with what assisted is supposed to mean. By removing the power bar, the CPU will now assist you with that also. Which means when you have two players in the same direction of the player in possession, you can no longer choose who it goes to cuz the CPU will "assist" you and choose for you. This works because its not really cheating you, the CPU is simply limiting your passing. Or maybe you can take it a step further. Maybe all passes with the A (or X on PS3) button can only have a short range. So lets say you're facing left and want to pass to someone to your right who's standing at about 70 degree angle from where you're facing, like in my crappy diagram below.

On assisted, you'd press up and pass to give the ball to the player marked with the red line. But lets say assisted passes only had a short range, and that player was too far way (outside your range), the assisted passing system wouldnt understand that there's a player there so the ball would go where I marked that blue line. Maybe if the player was a little closer then the pass would work but cuz he's too far, it doesnt. Basically, if you're standing inside that circle, then you'd be able to send an assisted pass their way. What this does is give assisted players their "assistance" but also limit them with how and where they can use it.
This idea can also be used with semi and manual too. In semi, maybe the circle would be a lot bigger so that you have more range but at the same time, you would lose some assistance in the direction of the pass. And with manual of course, you'd have no circle at all but also no assistance. The cool thing with this idea is that you dont have to narrow it down to just "Assisted", "Semi" and "Manual". You can have a slider that lets you increase the size of the cirle but at the same time decrease your passing assistance.

I love this idea as it will allow players who are new to the Fifa series to gradually become acustomed to the game over time, meaning more people will progress onto using manual controls.

I have been waiting for Fifa to bring sliders in for ages, it would make games online so much easier as you could search for say:

Ranked
6 minutes
Passing: 1-2
Shooting 2-3
Crossing 1-2

Basically, your finding people that use the same control schemes as you and will get rid of off the high double pressure tossers that play online.

 

[romagnoli]

I don't agree with that idea because it still allows for inch perfect passing when set to maximum, which leaves us back where we are with people setting passing to maximum by choosing assisted. It also still doesn't take into account who you are using to pass the ball, which is kind of the point; you should be reluctant to try certain passes with certain players. I'm more than happy for manual inaccuracy to be merged with assisted accuracy to create an overall level of variance, perhaps taking the player's passing skills into account as to how much of the overall direction is manual and how much is assisted, but I think a sudden transition from one to the other based on a single controller slider rather than 22 player sliders misses the point.

A few weeks on, I do actually think semi-passing currently kind of uses this too - I've hit a few perfect passes when I know for a fact I'm aiming in a pretty different direction.

 

[RuneEdge]

I don't agree with that idea because it still allows for inch perfect passing when set to maximum, which leaves us back where we are with people setting passing to maximum by choosing assisted.

Yeah but your passing range is limited. Which means you're left with a choice. Do you want to go manual and be able to pull off any kind of pass that you want (providing you practice)? Or do you want the CPU to help you but you can only pass as far as a few yards in front of you? What my idea does is reward you for mastering manual. So like Rotocoro said, newer FIFA players will naturally progress onto manual instead of being thrown into the deep end from the start. Just picture a game where an experienced manual player was up against a new assisted player. Sure the newbie will string a few ping pong passes, provided the player was close enough. But lets say he was defending a corner and won possession just inside his box, he'd love to send a long pass to one of his forwards to start a counter attack but he cant cuz the player is too far away, so the pass would come out like a weak manual pass even though he's on assisted. He cant blame the CPU for randomly c*cking things up for him like your idea does with inaccurate passes. The c*ck up was made by the player himself at the start when he chose assisted.
You have to understand that you cant just take assisted passing away or make it randomly inaccurate cuz then 70% of the players out there will start moaning that the game is too hard, and then it will impact sales. What your idea does is create a level playing field, which is fine if you're a manual player. If you're on assisted, you're gonna be complaining when your passes dont go where you hoped because of some random factor.

 

[quiet_riot]

No-one seems to be mentioning how the PS3 sticks are far too loose and inaccurate for manual to work anyway.

 

[RuneEdge]

Lets face it, FIFA was clearly designed for the X360 and then ported to the PS3.
With PES its clearly the other way round.

 

[ant0n]

No-one seems to be mentioning how the PS3 sticks are far too loose and inaccurate for manual to work anyway.

Bullshit.

 

[YoungGun_UK]

It depends which pad you prefer. I find the PS3 pad much better than the 360 one.

 

[RuneEdge]

It depends which pad you prefer. I find the PS3 pad much better than the 360 one.

The PS3 has the better dpad which is always the deciding factor when playing beat 'em ups like Street Fighter or Tekken.
But I like how there's more emphasis on the left stick for all your movement and navigation on the X360 pad. And IMO its the way it should be with next gen devices and with how everything should be moving away from "8-way" and into 360.

 

[romagnoli]

I genuinely don't know how you perceive what I suggest as player inaccuracy on assisted passing. It sounds like you're expecting passes to go several miles off-target, rather than some subtle unpredictability as in real life.

Yeah but your passing range is limited. Which means you're left with a choice. Do you want to go manual and be able to pull off any kind of pass that you want (providing you practice)? Or do you want the CPU to help you but you can only pass as far as a few yards in front of you? What my idea does is reward you for mastering manual. So like Rotocoro said, newer FIFA players will naturally progress onto manual instead of being thrown into the deep end from the start. Just picture a game where an experienced manual player was up against a new assisted player. Sure the newbie will string a few ping pong passes, provided the player was close enough. But lets say he was defending a corner and won possession just inside his box, he'd love to send a long pass to one of his forwards to start a counter attack but he cant cuz the player is too far away, so the pass would come out like a weak manual pass even though he's on assisted. He cant blame the CPU for randomly c*cking things up for him like your idea does with inaccurate passes.

That completely contradicts what you say in the next paragraph. You want assisted passing to stay in the game so that beginners can play and not find things too hard, but you also want to refuse them the ability to play long ground passes (assuming, as your comment about weak passing heavily implies, that charging up the power bar has no effect whatsoever). There is no balance here; rather than making assisted passing more balanced against manual passing so that users of both are evenly matched and fun for people across the spectrum, it cripples assisted passing to the extent that the '70%' of players you mention consider the demo broken and don't bother buying the full game. How will this '70%' of players who want to use assisted controls be happy to stick with FIFA when the restriction applied to their game follows the mantra

The c*ck up was made by the player himself at the start when he chose assisted.

?

It also adds the absurd effect of players, say, 10 yards away being found with an utterly perfect assisted pass, while passing to a player 11 yards away results in a wayward and misweighted pass. That just doesn't add up. You can't just have an on/off switch based on an arbitrary distance. It's oversimplification on a dramatic and gamebreaking scale.

You have to understand that you cant just take assisted passing away or make it randomly inaccurate cuz then 70% of the players out there will start moaning that the game is too hard, and then it will impact sales. What your idea does is create a level playing field, which is fine if you're a manual player. If you're on assisted, you're gonna be complaining when your passes dont go where you hoped because of some random factor.

That's nonsense, even if you ignore the baseless statistic (PES in its prime was outselling the extremely arcadey FIFAs of the time despite representing player imprecision pretty well, precisely because it combined being fun with being a sim). Making passing by bad passers less accurate than passing by world class passers is not a random factor whatsoever. It's common sense. I genuinely don't see how anyone could even begin to argue against that with a straight face, especially compared to making every single player either perfect passers or wildly erratic, based on a difference in distance of a yard or less.

If you're worried about the inaccuracy being completely random then there is (sort of) a solution.

If you make that inaccuracy a result of combining the individual player's passing accuracy and the inaccuracy of the left stick and weighting to calculate the end result then you get a far better end result for everyone involved; however assisted passing is then still given the advantage as it dilutes the imprecision. If you want to achieve a genuine balance for assisted and manual players then it's common sense that, if you're going to leave aiming correctly up to the computer, you should not be able to rely on the computer to aim 100% perfectly for you.

 

[RuneEdge]

I'm not actually disagreeing with your idea of how assisted passes should be calculated. As a matter of fact, your calculations could work alongside the idea I suggested.
The whole point of my idea is to say to newbies "Look, this is what you can do with assisted. Its fun, its easy and requires little effort. But look at how much more you can do with manual. Its a lot more rewarding and all your practice will pay off."
If you made a system like the one you suggested, yes it will balance the game between the assisted and the manual players but seeing how both are now equal in terms of effectiveness, what incentive do assisted players have to switch over to manual? Nothing really. With my idea from that picture above, the restrictions arent random. You know from the start what your limitations are so no one will be moaning whilst using them cuz you'd only have yourself to blame for choosing it in the first place.
Another point to consider is, if we went with your idea of assistance, how would you explain player individuality when it came to fully manual passes? If I the player was very accurate with my aiming of passes with the right stick, how would you explain why I'm able to string great passes whilst controlling weaker players? You cant have them randomly messing up their pass because of their low stats cuz then that isnt manual, is it?

Right now, the fanbase is split between the different settings. My idea can hopefully push players towards one sweet spot that everyone can be happy with.

 

[romagnoli]

How does your idea support individuality? All you're doing is raising one of the tricky questions about manual passing, regardless of both of our ideas. How can you aim the ball exactly where you want and still have player individuality? In truth there is a very slight amount of assistance with manual passing, so there is room in which to manoeuvre here, but it's very slight.

I don't think players should be made to switch to manual. Manual should be on generally equal terms with assisted passing; it shouldn't suddenly become the far superior option. That defeats the whole point of balancing the game, which is that manual players should be able to play against the other 95% of FIFA players out there without feeling cheated. If they want to play with assisted passing then they should, but they should expect some random inaccuracies because that's what they chose to put up with (notice how this argument applies just as validly to putting in randomness as it does to your idea).

Besides which, I can only see your idea leading to people ramping up the size of the circle and just hitting more passes until it gets to the right player. Slight formation change so that everyone's evenly spaced and you can ping pong between them, et voila. Assisted wins again.

The whole point of using some sort of random factor is that the player doesn't know exactly what is going to happen when they press pass. The problem people have with PES is that they can't articulate what type of pass they want the player to try and hit, whether they mis-hit it or not. Complaints of scripting are a combination of bullshit and not having a power bar/proper analogue aiming system to properly select the right player to aim at or whether the through pass should push the recipient out wide or infield. It's not that players mis-hit it randomly; it's that they hit the wrong type of pass randomly.