Anth, thanks much for your work. Just snagged GP 17 to play with. Loved seeing some errors in passing (interceptions!! WHAT! I haven't seen those in a minute...) and player movement
I'm wondering-- as a fan of fouls, would you be willing to share some of the GP attributes and their effects, so that I could try to build out my own "more fouls" mod? What I want is essentially to see some more potential set piece plays from both teams, so that a dead-ball specialist's skill set isn't nullfied entirely. A few games with 17 normal, and I'm seeing like 1 foul a game (unless maybe I need to clear everything out and do a fresh install....) in the EFL Championship.
What I'm hoping is that you could provide some insight into tweaking player behavior (more likely to hard tackle, more likely to make a mistake leading to a foul), maybe spacing (more congestion, a little less room to move, a little more opportunity to tackle) and ref behavior (more likely to whistle tackles)... I know there's probably a lot. I looked at the GP attribulator in the Live Editor, and I can kinda see there's thresholds I can tweak, but curious what directions I should be moving things in....
Thanks as ever. I'd love to hear your thoughts on fouling.
Thanks for joining man, glad you're enjoying it!
Ahhh fouls. It's a really difficult one, unfortunately there's no simple answer. Despite what you might hear, there's a number of reasons as to why fouls don't always just present themselves in the way we might all want.
I won't go into every area, as I'll be writing forever, but a lot has to do with 1v1 and the reason for the overall lack of contact in the game. There's also the fact that the CPU doesn't really ever use the physical button itself. So it really only defends 3 ways - contain (no contact at all), stand tackle and slide tackle. If the CPU used the physical 'button' more it would lead to more potential fouls and overall a lot more contact. It's all there, it just doesn't seem like the CPU ever really uses it. It doesn't shirt pull, it doesn't harass properly. These things would create a lot more battles around the pitch.
As you've suggested, the areas we can influence are the CPU's likelihood to make more tackles - and to do so from positions and angles that would most likely result in more fouls. You can also go into balance, making players more likely to fall over from contact etc etc. Lots of areas interrelate with each other to create some solutions, but none are a perfect storm.
The other area is the rules/referee of course. This can lead to many issues also, as you can introduce fouls for the sake of fouls, but you'll most likely end up with a scenario where clean tackles are given as fouls way too often.
From there, we move into the fact that the tackling button/stat doesn't appear to be varied enough. Overall it is able to steal the ball too perfectly, too often, so that presents issues. There's a possiblity to do something with the DB here that I'm looking into, but what impact this has remains to be seen. I see this more mechanical than stat based, which is why I'd love to see EA introduce some more defensive variety in terms of tackling, physicality etc that are really based on stats going forward.
So all in all - there are things that can be done to help, yet there's so many variables, so many things that will impact - including how you play. If you're a player who likes to draw contact and let the opposition get close to you when you play, then you'll see more fouls. If you pass before they get close to you, then you're going to see way less fouls due to all of the reasons listed above. It's why I say the 'scope' for fouls are greatly increased in my mod. There's far great 'potential' for fouls, especially from behind etc - but it doesn't mean there's going to be a huge bunch of fouls every game. I play matches where I have over 10+ fouls and I also will have matches with 3-4 only.
.....as I said, difficult conversation with no easy answer!!
