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EA SPORTS FC 25

I have watched some old career mode matches on FIFA 21 on PS5.
It was really great : look at the cpu, the crosses, the ball physic freedom.
I have more than 20 crosses and 10 long ball!

Marseille Vs RC Lens career mode FIFA 21 PS5 Legend FUMA
 
saturator said:
I have watched some old career mode matches on FIFA 21 on PS5.
It was really great : look at the cpu, the crosses, the ball physic freedom.
I have more than 20 crosses and 10 long ball!

Marseille Vs RC Lens career mode FIFA 21 PS5 Legend FUMA
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Barely noticeable skating, different pass types, build-up play from the AI as well as the human player, (my favourite) passes that bounce on the ground and aren't just lasered immediately from passer to recipient. (And this isn't even the best FIFA.)

It's not even close. Which is why I can't honestly see any FC ever being (in my opinion) a good game, ever. It's just not designed to be a football game. You can make it slower, but you can't make it a good game. In my opinion.
 
Chris Davies said:
Barely noticeable skating, different pass types, build-up play from the AI as well as the human player, (my favourite) passes that bounce on the ground and aren't just lasered immediately from passer to recipient. (And this isn't even the best FIFA.)

It's not even close. Which is why I can't honestly see any FC ever being (in my opinion) a good game, ever. It's just not designed to be a football game. You can make it slower, but you can't make it a good game. In my opinion.
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Yes but EA FC 25 vanilla was ok. They speed up the game patch after patch.
I was surprised because in my mind, it wasn't a great FIFA, FIFA 21.

To catch CPU ball, it was very hard, the timing has to be perfect. On FUMA, I have more freedom and yes the ball is free. You have foggy matches too. FIFA 21 is nice. The inertia is there you can't move quickly like a chicken without a head. A nice surprise.
 
Hels The Ronin said:
Know the funiest thing? If the game had more emphasis on defence, and defenders actually defended as they are supposed to, instead of that "manual defending" everyone is asking for, the game would be way more interesting. I don't say that defenders hard press the rival automatically, but I am absolutely in favor they do a minimum press to not let him advance higher in the pitch. And fucking following marks. A lot of times, you won't actually defend the mand on the ball cause you will be selecting your fuckin 90 something average CB and putting him in the right place to be, because the tactical intelligence of the AI is just non-existant.

That's what kills the game. I don't want to win every game. But I don't want either to have to follow the same patterns once and again to score. I want to be forced to do build up, to have to stop with the ball and maybe play back to my CB, wait my midfielders to move. And I actually want them to move. Even jogging, or running mid pace, not sprinting all the time, but defenitely create new pass lanes. I want press to be expensive, and also not invincible. I don't want AI hard pressing all the time I have the ball in my pitch, but neither all the time retreated to the back. I want hard choice tactics where I can select how hard I want my players to press, but also how hard I want them to come back when the enemy team manges to move the ball in my third.

I defenitely want to have to find new passing lanes to my midfielders, to have tiki-taka being useful, and not normal passing lanes. Doing crosses, moving around, actually doing some football, instead of just doing random shit, or staying static. Moving with purpose. But that's not what the average FIFA fan wants, probably not even what the average football fan wants, know why? Cause then it wouldn't be the most "skilled" winning, but the most intelligent. Yeah, knowing some tricks would help, defenitely, but it would be much more of a tactic battle, and loosing wouldn't mean being unskilled, or not having enough technique, cause that can be trained easily, by simply repeating... It would mean something really worse, that is that someone was more intelligent than you. And everyone is afraid of that. Having the feeling that they are not intelligent enough... That's really something that no one wants to feel.
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Something can be done through attribute manipulation, set them more like football manager, where the average footballer has few tops and more cons.
That way you'll be forced to build up, scarce stamina and pass make you go looking for your playmaker to give him the ball, possibly without him to be marked. Bad thing FC doesn't have a button to call a player close, but only to force him run in the space. Try to think what happen if players has only one/two skills around 70/80 and the rest around 20/30. Pick a striker that can shoot or move well, that can run or just use the physique. Wanna someone that can do both? That's only material to top tier teams like Liverpool or City.
The bad thing is that it will ruin the overall calculation and so, the career mode. I've found a way to fix that, still I need to find a formula that works well generically.
 
fifaccitiu.com said:
Something can be done through attribute manipulation, set them more like football manager, where the average footballer has few tops and more cons.
That way you'll be forced to build up, scarce stamina and pass make you go looking for your playmaker to give him the ball, possibly without him to be marked. Bad thing FC doesn't have a button to call a player close, but only to force him run in the space. Try to think what happen if players has only one/two skills around 70/80 and the rest around 20/30. Pick a striker that can shoot or move well, that can run or just use the physique. Wanna someone that can do both? That's only material to top tier teams like Liverpool or City.
The bad thing is that it will ruin the overall calculation and so, the career mode. I've found a way to fix that, still I need to find a formula that works well generically.
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Nah, it is not an attribute thing. Won't say that attributes don't play a part but is way too small. Besides, is not only attributes but also the fact that someone with 90 finishing is gonna score almost everything, for example. Sometimes shoots that irl would not score. My biggest issue with this game is mainly movement, which is absolutely insane, and obviously, the lack of defensive attitude of players.

Sure, you can fix this with mods partially, but even then it is exaggerated.
 
Not sure whether to continue playing this. Its not bad , its not great, its just...blah. if feels otherworldly but not necessarily in a good way.

Passing is meh, movement is very iffy, defending unrewarding and very inconsistent . Attacking can be somewhat fun, shooting and goal feel feel quite nice. No player individuality whatsoever, zero.

It feels less scripted than vanilla pes21 but somehow I also feel less in control of what's happening on the pitch.

Career mode is either too detailed in places or plain boring.

I'm really not sure what to make of this one. It just meanders along a bit without being much at all.

Meh
 
EA is acquiring a company to improve animations, but we know how the game will stay at launch and after.

They need to decide who they want priorize, if they want Online do it all the way.

 
Mathgamer said:
EA is acquiring a company to improve animations, but we know how the game will stay at launch and after.

They need to decide who they want priorize, if they want Online do it all the way.

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Animation is not the problem. The problem is the real speed of the game. I mean, if you have an animation that a player made and did X meters in Y seconds, if you know make your virtual player to go X*2 in Y seconds, now the game is completely unnatural. That's one of the problems with FIFA. The other one is defenders not marking correctly, 1v1 having defenders literally stepping out of the way giving an angle instead of actually holding it's ground, etc. etc. Animation is the least problem EA has to face now.
 
Hels The Ronin said:
Animation is not the problem. The problem is the real speed of the game. I mean, if you have an animation that a player made and did X meters in Y seconds, if you know make your virtual player to go X*2 in Y seconds, now the game is completely unnatural. That's one of the problems with FIFA. The other one is defenders not marking correctly, 1v1 having defenders literally stepping out of the way giving an angle instead of actually holding it's ground, etc. etc. Animation is the least problem EA has to face now.
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I think the animation and the football logic have to work hand-in-hand. If not, we run into warping or clipping that is all too common in EA Sports games from FC to Madden. Even before the 1v1 implementation, the logic was there, but the animation to support it wasn't.
 
Matt10 said:
I think the animation and the football logic have to work hand-in-hand. If not, we run into warping or clipping that is all too common in EA Sports games from FC to Madden. Even before the 1v1 implementation, the logic was there, but the animation to support it wasn't.
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I agree with you, but thing is, EA has gone a path were what they want is to make the game faster and more direct. They don't want defenders to defend. I mean, the logic of EA is that defenders have to be in the middle to more or less disturb a bit, but not to actually do any kind of propper defensive work. A lot of times you're holding LT and your defender will just get away from the ball. They all say that defence is going to be manual, but we still get defenders that get completely dazed by the tricks of attacking players. I can cope with the fact that gives a little bit of input lag because your defender has been "fooled" but right now, the reaction times of the defenders is simply not realistic. Either they are completely fooled, or they completely take the ball away from you. There's no middle term, and also, it doesn't depend that much from how you position your player, but it feels quite RNG.

This is the real problem of EA. Is not animations, animations have nothing to do with how you actually move your character, if you deny it, then you clearly don't know how videogames work. You can make a running animation that is supposed to move 1'5 m per stride, and make the character actually move 3m.

So problem isn't lack of animations. Problem is game focus. If you don't belive me, try a FIFA 16/17 game with some mods. You'll see the only problem you have in those games is the CB Jockey (essentially, defenders not running when the ball is past them in the wing to cover the pass or the enemy players running into the area, and instead simply jockeing), and there wasn't so many animations back then. So no, actually, the problem is not the animations itself but things like dribble burst, crazy bonuses on skill dribbling, etc. etc. All the kind of things that FIFA likes to make so that you get essentially a FIFA street game with 11 pitch players, with defenders that look taken from the street instead of actually profesional defenders, etc. etc.
 
Hels The Ronin said:
I agree with you, but thing is, EA has gone a path were what they want is to make the game faster and more direct. They don't want defenders to defend. I mean, the logic of EA is that defenders have to be in the middle to more or less disturb a bit, but not to actually do any kind of propper defensive work. A lot of times you're holding LT and your defender will just get away from the ball. They all say that defence is going to be manual, but we still get defenders that get completely dazed by the tricks of attacking players. I can cope with the fact that gives a little bit of input lag because your defender has been "fooled" but right now, the reaction times of the defenders is simply not realistic. Either they are completely fooled, or they completely take the ball away from you. There's no middle term, and also, it doesn't depend that much from how you position your player, but it feels quite RNG.

This is the real problem of EA. Is not animations, animations have nothing to do with how you actually move your character, if you deny it, then you clearly don't know how videogames work. You can make a running animation that is supposed to move 1'5 m per stride, and make the character actually move 3m.

So problem isn't lack of animations. Problem is game focus. If you don't belive me, try a FIFA 16/17 game with some mods. You'll see the only problem you have in those games is the CB Jockey (essentially, defenders not running when the ball is past them in the wing to cover the pass or the enemy players running into the area, and instead simply jockeing), and there wasn't so many animations back then. So no, actually, the problem is not the animations itself but things like dribble burst, crazy bonuses on skill dribbling, etc. etc. All the kind of things that FIFA likes to make so that you get essentially a FIFA street game with 11 pitch players, with defenders that look taken from the street instead of actually profesional defenders, etc. etc.
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I think we're more or less talking about the same thing - it's nothing about believing or having to know how videogames work or not. I hope this doesn't come off as combative, it's just a good discussion. No I'm not an animator or gameplay developer. I am a software tester so the UI/UX approach supports content/context is where my line of thinking is relative to gaming. I'm also a licensed footy coach, so proper technique and base fundamentals in the logic have to be supported by what I see on the field - the animations.

I am addressing animations within the context of the logic they need to perform. Animations also play out for the CPU player the user is facing. For example the defensive angle animation (DAA) is one that fights both logic and animation. It forces the defending player to half-sprint out of position for no rhyme or reason. The same thing happened in NCAA 13 and 14 where the safeties would all of a sudden sprint to the sidelines before the ball was thrown - leaving a wide open pass every time. Those animations exist - should they? Not within the context of what I'm doing - no thank you.

Back to footy, in FIFA 16 when a shot was too powerful, the goalkeeper would dive backwards to save it rather than cut it off in the air. In FIFA 17, 18 and 19, the goalkeeper would also dive below the ball's path in the air. In all four of those iterations, the defenders would rarely reach the attackers in the back. FIFA 17 got the closest with the Ibrahimovic shield/post up animation with his back to goal.

I agree with you about the CB Jockey, in the slider world we've discussed that quite a bit, along with the multiple other issues you mentioned. A big one right now, for FC25, is the desire of the backline to sprint back towards their preset defensive line, an issue we saw a lot in FIFA 21. What's worse about this iteration is the rigidness in tactics causes any team with a low-block to perform this way. Pair that up with 1v1 defending for both User and CPU and it's a bit of a pain.

Long story short, yes game focus is of course the issue as it's been all the years - but in year's past they have been made to work through customization, whether that be sliders, game mods, etc. The problem is fighting an uphill battle this year with rigid tactics that prevent animations to remain contextual, which defies football logic. I don't want less animations, I want the right animations to appear at the right time.
 
RDT_20250212_1810221289845059015676371.jpg

Before the patch, manual defending was already effective for experienced players, while auto-defense helped less skilled players maintain defensive shape without overcommitting. The AI defense was solid, staying compact and covering zones, but it was still inferior to a human player who could be more proactive in winning the ball back.

After the patch, auto-defense was nerfed to the point where defenders became static and disorganized, requiring constant manual marking. The defensive line now endlessly backs up against attacking runs without proper man-marking or lane coverage. Pressing is ineffective because defenders don’t step up on attackers, and midfielders don’t contribute defensively, making it easy for opponents to play out of pressure.

Now, even well-executed defense can be easily broken down by a competent opponent since the AI fails to react properly. Attempting to press often just opens up spaces, which can be exploited with simple passes, making defending feel frustrating and ineffective.
 
Mathgamer said:
View attachment 333129

Before the patch, manual defending was already effective for experienced players, while auto-defense helped less skilled players maintain defensive shape without overcommitting. The AI defense was solid, staying compact and covering zones, but it was still inferior to a human player who could be more proactive in winning the ball back.

After the patch, auto-defense was nerfed to the point where defenders became static and disorganized, requiring constant manual marking. The defensive line now endlessly backs up against attacking runs without proper man-marking or lane coverage. Pressing is ineffective because defenders don’t step up on attackers, and midfielders don’t contribute defensively, making it easy for opponents to play out of pressure.

Now, even well-executed defense can be easily broken down by a competent opponent since the AI fails to react properly. Attempting to press often just opens up spaces, which can be exploited with simple passes, making defending feel frustrating and ineffective.
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Appalling isn't the word. It's just deeply sad.
 
Deeply, very deeply yes. Where's David Rutter btw? He was literally the Fifa / EA savior when the 360 was out, copying PES at first then started to build Fifa's gameplay identity as a lone game.
Devs teams where under his control to test and rectify almost all things and the game was always nicely balanced.
No matter if there were bugs or hard to handle at first Tactical Defending, which fitted very well with the gameplay in fact, only a bit buggy like every new features on Fifa 12. He didn't listen too much the multiple demand of YTbers and tweets etc.

I can imagine Rutter, the EA's Kojima mixed with Seabass, get retrograded.

Asking myself, why the minority of e-sport players are listen instead of all others people like... We - the rest of the world practically ? They're (e-sports peoples) on Youtube too with their channel and got a big influence.
But i don't think they would quit litterally Fifa same for Fi-fans, or should i say people needing their yearly FG i totally understand them, like i was when i was much more interested by real football. Now i got hard to get back watching real games on TV and it's not EA or Konami's, perhaps Covid period fault.

E-sport talking watched some quarters-semi finals on a E-Sport TV channel and scores were 6-7, 5-8, 10-6 etc. and the pace of ball movement gave me an eye's muscle strain. At least, all of you need to check once how they play, it's atrocious. Even Street Fighter seems more realistic.
They play Advanced Def., it's not only hard for us. I remember some old school tournament around 2010-15 and scores where okay.
 
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Just in case anyone cares, football video games are dead. Pes is dead and Fifa/FC is dead!

I'm giving up on EA FC 25 and have uninstalled it with all mods and cancelled the subscriptions for the mods.

FC25 is absolute crap, completely unrealistic, full of pointless errors and loads of bugs. It has as much to do with football as music has to do with flushing the toilet, for example.

I'm so sick of the game and €A! :RANT::MAD:
 
I bought EA FC 25 2 weeks ago for 20 euros but I feel like it's worth much less.

It's the first EA FC I've bought and I've noticed that the series has gotten much worse in 2 years. The AI that accompanies us is stupid. The players don't move forward looking for the pass. Our defense moves away so that the attacker receives the pass. The defenders break the offside trap.

Role tactics seem like a good idea to me, it reminds me of Football Manager but very few measures have an influence on the game.

Fast players are unstoppable. I'm going to try Sliders but the game is a disaster at the moment and I am only talking about offline modes
 
xexuroman said:
I bought EA FC 25 2 weeks ago for 20 euros but I feel like it's worth much less.

It's the first EA FC I've bought and I've noticed that the series has gotten much worse in 2 years. The AI that accompanies us is stupid. The players don't move forward looking for the pass. Our defense moves away so that the attacker receives the pass. The defenders break the offside trap.

Role tactics seem like a good idea to me, it reminds me of Football Manager but very few measures have an influence on the game.

Fast players are unstoppable. I'm going to try Sliders but the game is a disaster at the moment and I am only talking about offline modes
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It was not that bad before the last patch which totally destroyed the game.
 
I hope on a personal level that, when the inevitable 26 hype starts, I don't get suckered in again (feel free to quote me on this when I do). What FC25 is now, is the furthest from football it has been since the days of FIFA 99.

Yearly sports games have never been "new" games - we're getting an iteration of this every year til we die, and I cannot imagine how FC turns into a good game from where it is now.

How does it turn around from here? When half the audience don't want it to (even if the other half desperately do)?

There is so much that could be done with a football game that hasn't been achieved yet, so much life that could be breathed into the genre. So it absolutely fucking sucks to be here. It absolutely sucks. It's just not fair.
 
What's incredible is how high the most watched sport in the world was represented on Video games from managing games to arcade and action realism let's say i mean realistic in many ways but based on the biggest football moments so best actions (even on the midfield) to.... Nothing.
I feel the same unfair feeling when i see all others games, not always superb but sometimes bad or good regarding the version : like it was the case for us before.

I can tell that Video games isn't dead when i play a lot of current games, but sports games seems frozen in a big block of ice all togheter.
Racing, FPS, Action, Adventure, Fighting comeback are doing well. But sports games are all in a mostly negative shape and about Football it's worst years after years and seems already dead since some 2021 (whatever you like or not PES 2021 or Fifa 20).
Two games with zero offline mode and one with plenty but awful on the pitch. I brought it by error, no joke it was in my wallet and i through it was a demo : but it was a the -50% 2025 start promotion
:LOL:

I didn't hated the game on the first games but when i started to learn quickly how to attack, i saw how the balance and reality was completely not only broken, but literally a big laugh in our face from E-sport and YT Fifa young people who just want a game were they could win with their tactics and playing style, wanting paradox things regarding reality together on the same screen and pitch.

All of it together in the same time shouldn't be took seriously, i don't get why EA do it : their game, even if it wasn't not even football related, is a package of nonsense ideas.
The worst company, devs killers own all the exclusivity and licences. No chance to see a new football game to emerge soon. EA FC supremacy needs to die for all football fans in the world, and devs will be free to create any football game.

I would pray for it don't believe about a worldwide law for Video Games regarding exclusivity contracts prohibition, Especially for sports games.
That would be the best solution to keep some hope in a certain future to have something at least good to play, i'm not even searching something exceptional. Just good.

But no need to search the "why" about the actual situation, intellectually like that so in brief : The Games just dead and shit everywhere regarding football games, and i don't see hope anywhere for X reasons. Since a way too long time. Point.
 
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NeoRetro said:
Deeply, very deeply yes. Where's David Rutter btw? He was literally the Fifa / EA savior when the 360 was out, copying PES at first then started to build Fifa's gameplay identity as a lone game.
Devs teams where under his control to test and rectify almost all things and the game was always nicely balanced.
No matter if there were bugs or hard to handle at first Tactical Defending, which fitted very well with the gameplay in fact, only a bit buggy like every new features on Fifa 12. He didn't listen too much the multiple demand of YTbers and tweets etc.

I can imagine Rutter, the EA's Kojima mixed with Seabass, get retrograded.

Asking myself, why the minority of e-sport players are listen instead of all others people like... We - the rest of the world practically ? They're (e-sports peoples) on Youtube too with their channel and got a big influence.
But i don't think they would quit litterally Fifa same for Fi-fans, or should i say people needing their yearly FG i totally understand them, like i was when i was much more interested by real football. Now i got hard to get back watching real games on TV and it's not EA or Konami's, perhaps Covid period fault.

E-sport talking watched some quarters-semi finals on a E-Sport TV channel and scores were 6-7, 5-8, 10-6 etc. and the pace of ball movement gave me an eye's muscle strain. At least, all of you need to check once how they play, it's atrocious. Even Street Fighter seems more realistic.
They play Advanced Def., it's not only hard for us. I remember some old school tournament around 2010-15 and scores where okay.
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He is head of EA Europe. I even found this interview from the season of FIFA 10, World Cup 2010 and FIFA 11.

https://www.ea.com/en-gb/news/fifa-11-david-rutter
 
Chris Davies said:
I hope on a personal level that, when the inevitable 26 hype starts, I don't get suckered in again (feel free to quote me on this when I do). What FC25 is now, is the furthest from football it has been since the days of FIFA 99.

Yearly sports games have never been "new" games - we're getting an iteration of this every year til we die, and I cannot imagine how FC turns into a good game from where it is now.

How does it turn around from here? When half the audience don't want it to (even if the other half desperately do)?

There is so much that could be done with a football game that hasn't been achieved yet, so much life that could be breathed into the genre. So it absolutely fucking sucks to be here. It absolutely sucks. It's just not fair.
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I don'g know how much mods do change the game. I have a mod for FIFA 17 that would work pretty good if it wasn't because my defenders DON'T RUN BACK WHEN THE ENEMY COUNTERS. It's a pitty because out of that, the game is just amazing, and I've only installed Doctor Fidel mod (essentially a locale.ini) and changed some things inside it, then fiddled a bit with the game sliders and some settings, and I've got a very good gamepla. Responsive dribbling, good passing, and defenders are way better than recent entries. And yes, still really bad at defending but is kinda ok. If they only tracked back properly both marks or ball carrier, it would be a 100% game.
 
Hels The Ronin said:
I don'g know how much mods do change the game. I have a mod for FIFA 17 that would work pretty good if it wasn't because my defenders DON'T RUN BACK WHEN THE ENEMY COUNTERS. It's a pitty because out of that, the game is just amazing, and I've only installed Doctor Fidel mod (essentially a locale.ini) and changed some things inside it, then fiddled a bit with the game sliders and some settings, and I've got a very good gamepla. Responsive dribbling, good passing, and defenders are way better than recent entries. And yes, still really bad at defending but is kinda ok. If they only tracked back properly both marks or ball carrier, it would be a 100% game.
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What FIFA 16/17 was, bears no relation to what FC is. It's so sad. Expecting any future FC game to "feel" like football is like expecting Mario Kart to become an F1 simulator. What currently exists doesn't support it.

Mods shouldn't enter the conversation - they shouldn't have to exist. It's great that they do, but if the game doesn't already have something - or if something is deleted from it, such as the AI's brains - it can't be added.

I'm starting to feel the same way about sliders. Everyone has different preferences, yes - and (before the last patch totally killed the game IMO) sliders were the key to getting any enjoyment out of the game for some people. So I'm not saying they're useless.

But then again... they ARE useless when the core game is pretty much unenjoyable (like right now) aren't they? I've felt about FC25 from day one how a lot of Career players now feel about it since the last patch - sliders unable to fix anything, i.e. they can't make the AI do basic things all footballers do.

The fundamentals are the problem.

Who cares about making pass speed 10% slower when the ball has no friction and moves like an orb of light? When the contact made with the ball represents nothing about how it then moves?
 
What really annoys me is that every "alternative" has made the same basic game as FC - if the gameplay isn't genuinely new, nothing will ever change.

The route to real change, IMO, is someone creating a true football sim with all the online features you could want (including some kind of FUT mode).

Only when FUT players have the opportunity to play a game where there is an actual skill gap, where you have to think about every pass (and consider your player's abilities), graft to create each chance, and scoring goals becomes a semi-orgasmic experience as a result...

...only then would there be some kind of revolution (and I truly believe if FUT players realised how grossly oversimplified their gameplay is, and how much more reward they could be "feeling", they would instantly prefer it).
 
Chris Davies said:
What really annoys me is that every "alternative" has made the same basic game as FC - if the gameplay isn't genuinely new, nothing will ever change.

The route to real change, IMO, is someone creating a true football sim with all the online features you could want (including some kind of FUT mode).

Only when FUT players have the opportunity to play a game where there is an actual skill gap, where you have to think about every pass (and consider your player's abilities), graft to create each chance, and scoring goals becomes a semi-orgasmic experience as a result...

...only then would there be some kind of revolution (and I truly believe if FUT players realised how grossly oversimplified their gameplay is, and how much more reward they could be "feeling", they would instantly prefer it).
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Sorry to tag you like this but since you seem like you've played your fair share of football sim games, what would you say is your favourite FIFA? And if you consider a different version to be the "best" FIFA, what is it?
 
subtra3t said:
Sorry to tag you like this but since you seem like you've played your fair share of football sim games, what would you say is your favourite FIFA? And if you consider a different version to be the "best" FIFA, what is it?
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It's not really the place to discuss it - but look, I was getting nice-feeling matches out of FIFAs as late as 19/20. Going through clips on my YouTube channel, you can find clips like this FIFA 19 clip where body position made a real difference to shot accuracy - in-fact, this FIFA 19 goal is probably my favourite FIFA goal of all-time. Or, this FIFA 20 collection where you can see goalmouth scrambles, deflections, horrible mishits and other non-simplified-physics moments of joy. (Both were dumbed down by patches.)

(21 onwards, there is only one development goal; super-simplification, streamlining the journey from defence to attack and removing all AI.)

However, one game is head-and-shoulders above the others in my opinion, and I can demonstrate why in one clip. 16 (v1.0) is king for me, taken to the next level with Anth's physics mods. The physics/variables taken into consideration with each ball contact is the closest thing to a sim we've ever had:



1) Ball physics are genuine (not forced to deflect to the nearest player) and make sense (and hadn't been sped up yet) - the ball is ALIVE, 2) players have physical limitations (and the quest for responsiveness doesn't override them), 3) the defensive AI is probably the best it will ever be - they actively blocked your passing options, forced you away from goal and put you under pressure from the midfield onwards (and your AI teammates did the same)... whilst still feeling human.

But... Shot physics didn't have huge variation by default, and AI players/teams didn't really feel distinct from each other. 17 was a huge step forward there - suddenly I'd beat worse teams by big scorelines, whereas in 16 and prior games, every match had similar scores. But then 17 had more simplified physics, and was quite glitchy. The "feel" of the game has never got back to 16 levels IMO.
 
Chris Davies said:
What FIFA 16/17 was, bears no relation to what FC is. It's so sad. Expecting any future FC game to "feel" like football is like expecting Mario Kart to become an F1 simulator. What currently exists doesn't support it.

Mods shouldn't enter the conversation - they shouldn't have to exist. It's great that they do, but if the game doesn't already have something - or if something is deleted from it, such as the AI's brains - it can't be added.

I'm starting to feel the same way about sliders. Everyone has different preferences, yes - and (before the last patch totally killed the game IMO) sliders were the key to getting any enjoyment out of the game for some people. So I'm not saying they're useless.

But then again... they ARE useless when the core game is pretty much unenjoyable (like right now) aren't they? I've felt about FC25 from day one how a lot of Career players now feel about it since the last patch - sliders unable to fix anything, i.e. they can't make the AI do basic things all footballers do.

The fundamentals are the problem.

Who cares about making pass speed 10% slower when the ball has no friction and moves like an orb of light? When the contact made with the ball represents nothing about how it then moves?
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You can actually change a lot of things with mods. Including ball friction, weight, air density and TONS of things more. The problem is not that. The problem is defence logic and certain things that I am sure they are hardcoded in the game and if they could be changed, it'd be through locale.ini. I don't have any doubt that EA FC has the TOOLS to be a good sim. Is simply that they chose not to be such a thing. You can see even defenders getting out of the way. That's something terrible.

Dunno, IMHO, you gotta mix both the modding of EBX and locale.ini to get something decent, but at this rate I don't know what you could even change to make those games decent.
Chris Davies said:
It's not really the place to discuss it - but look, I was getting nice-feeling matches out of FIFAs as late as 19/20. Going through clips on my YouTube channel, you can find clips like this FIFA 19 clip where body position made a real difference to shot accuracy - in-fact, this FIFA 19 goal is probably my favourite FIFA goal of all-time. Or, this FIFA 20 collection where you can see goalmouth scrambles, deflections, horrible mishits and other non-simplified-physics moments of joy. (Both were dumbed down by patches.)

(21 onwards, there is only one development goal; super-simplification, streamlining the journey from defence to attack and removing all AI.)

However, one game is head-and-shoulders above the others in my opinion, and I can demonstrate why in one clip. 16 (v1.0) is king for me, taken to the next level with Anth's physics mods. The physics/variables taken into consideration with each ball contact is the closest thing to a sim we've ever had:



1) Ball physics are genuine (not forced to deflect to the nearest player) and make sense (and hadn't been sped up yet), 2) players have physical limitations (and the quest for responsiveness doesn't override them), 3) the defensive AI is probably the best it will ever be - they actively blocked your passing options, forced you away from goal and put you under pressure from the midfield onwards (and your AI teammates did the same)... whilst still feeling human.

But... Shot physics didn't have huge variation by default, and AI players/teams didn't really feel distinct from each other. 17 was a huge step forward there - suddenly I'd beat worse teams by big scorelines, whereas in 16 and prior games, every match had similar scores. But then 17 had more simplified physics, and was quite glitchy. The "feel" of the game has never got back to 16 levels IMO.
Click to expand...

FIFA 16/17 are the best IMHO, or the ones that need less changes. 18-20/21 are let's say decent, but already too accelerated, more each year. From 22 onwards is just nosense. Players are fucking faster than usain bolt, the ball goes from one side of the pitch to the other... Just horrible. If it wasn't because CB Jockey and the poor defensive reaction of my players at times, I'd say FIFA 17 is just a great game.

I am still looking for a game where I can feel football is well depicted. For example, PES, has players not being reactive enough. PES 21 has a lot of potential, but players feel simply dull and not willing to respond to your command at times. And if you try to make players more reactive, passthroughs will happen, which is something really frustrating. This doesn't mean PES doesn't have it's ups. The dribbling system with the right stick is way more logical and intuitive than the one from FIFA, and the way players are built, with the whole set of dribbling skills instead of having just stars, I feel is way more interesting, along certain other things, yet I like for example that players in FIFA have Vision as a parameter, something that can be used (and I think FIFA does this way) to see how fast your character calculates certain pass, and if you do it before the player has calculated it, then there's more chance of failing that pass, etc.

Dunno, I feel that each game has some really good things, also in the strategies, but the problem is how they move it to the pitch. In the pitch, FIFA is way to arcade in certain things, yet PES ain't much better, for more than PES fans want to convince you from the opposite. Without mods, there's not a single game I can say it convinces me, cause they are made to play 20 min matches maximum, and I want the complexity of real football. I want to play up to 45 minutes and having to think how to pass or break the enemy defence, having slow tempo, having players moving and creating new passing lines, having to actually look actively for those pass lines and moving the ball around. Having tools to sort the pressure, and also pressure being logical, not the players running like mad all the time, etc.

Again, in my experience, the closest things for me have been FIFA 16 and 17, but the fact that my players tend to be so passive in defence, and even let pass the enemy if I am moving another player to position, or don't run back properly to cover if I am pressing the man with the ball, just throw out the experience out of the window for me. You simply have too much to manage in defence because of the manual defence crap.

I can't remember how PES 2013 and previous felt, but if I already felt 2014 too clunky in movement (and not only because of the long animations) like still evolving from the 8 direction movement, I don't think that previous games are much better.
 
Chris Davies said:
It's not really the place to discuss it - but look, I was getting nice-feeling matches out of FIFAs as late as 19/20. Going through clips on my YouTube channel, you can find clips like this FIFA 19 clip where body position made a real difference to shot accuracy - in-fact, this FIFA 19 goal is probably my favourite FIFA goal of all-time. Or, this FIFA 20 collection where you can see goalmouth scrambles, deflections, horrible mishits and other non-simplified-physics moments of joy. (Both were dumbed down by patches.)

(21 onwards, there is only one development goal; super-simplification, streamlining the journey from defence to attack and removing all AI.)

However, one game is head-and-shoulders above the others in my opinion, and I can demonstrate why in one clip. 16 (v1.0) is king for me, taken to the next level with Anth's physics mods. The physics/variables taken into consideration with each ball contact is the closest thing to a sim we've ever had:



1) Ball physics are genuine (not forced to deflect to the nearest player) and make sense (and hadn't been sped up yet), 2) players have physical limitations (and the quest for responsiveness doesn't override them), 3) the defensive AI is probably the best it will ever be - they actively blocked your passing options, forced you away from goal and put you under pressure from the midfield onwards (and your AI teammates did the same)... whilst still feeling human.

But... Shot physics didn't have huge variation by default, and AI players/teams didn't really feel distinct from each other. 17 was a huge step forward there - suddenly I'd beat worse teams by big scorelines, whereas in 16 and prior games, every match had similar scores. But then 17 had more simplified physics, and was quite glitchy. The "feel" of the game has never got back to 16 levels IMO.
Click to expand...

Sorry I know this was entirely the wrong thread for this sort of discussion but thank you for entertaining me. 16 is also one of my favourite FIFAs, after 14 and 18. In the gameplay videos you spoiler tagged, were you using any sliders? What was the difficulty? And how did you obtain the v1.0 pre patch version?

If you feel that replying to this message would be too off topic, feel free to ignore it. Once again, thanks for the detailed response.
 
Hels The Ronin said:
You can actually change a lot of things with mods. Including ball friction, weight, air density and TONS of things more. The problem is not that. The problem is defence logic and certain things that I am sure they are hardcoded in the game and if they could be changed, it'd be through locale.ini. I don't have any doubt that EA FC has the TOOLS to be a good sim. Is simply that they chose not to be such a thing. You can see even defenders getting out of the way. That's something terrible.

Dunno, IMHO, you gotta mix both the modding of EBX and locale.ini to get something decent, but at this rate I don't know what you could even change to make those games decent.

FIFA 16/17 are the best IMHO, or the ones that need less changes. 18-20/21 are let's say decent, but already too accelerated, more each year. From 22 onwards is just nosense. Players are fucking faster than usain bolt, the ball goes from one side of the pitch to the other... Just horrible. If it wasn't because CB Jockey and the poor defensive reaction of my players at times, I'd say FIFA 17 is just a great game.

I am still looking for a game where I can feel football is well depicted. For example, PES, has players not being reactive enough. PES 21 has a lot of potential, but players feel simply dull and not willing to respond to your command at times. And if you try to make players more reactive, passthroughs will happen, which is something really frustrating. This doesn't mean PES doesn't have it's ups. The dribbling system with the right stick is way more logical and intuitive than the one from FIFA, and the way players are built, with the whole set of dribbling skills instead of having just stars, I feel is way more interesting, along certain other things, yet I like for example that players in FIFA have Vision as a parameter, something that can be used (and I think FIFA does this way) to see how fast your character calculates certain pass, and if you do it before the player has calculated it, then there's more chance of failing that pass, etc.

Dunno, I feel that each game has some really good things, also in the strategies, but the problem is how they move it to the pitch. In the pitch, FIFA is way to arcade in certain things, yet PES ain't much better, for more than PES fans want to convince you from the opposite. Without mods, there's not a single game I can say it convinces me, cause they are made to play 20 min matches maximum, and I want the complexity of real football. I want to play up to 45 minutes and having to think how to pass or break the enemy defence, having slow tempo, having players moving and creating new passing lines, having to actually look actively for those pass lines and moving the ball around. Having tools to sort the pressure, and also pressure being logical, not the players running like mad all the time, etc.

Again, in my experience, the closest things for me have been FIFA 16 and 17, but the fact that my players tend to be so passive in defence, and even let pass the enemy if I am moving another player to position, or don't run back properly to cover if I am pressing the man with the ball, just throw out the experience out of the window for me. You simply have too much to manage in defence because of the manual defence crap.

I can't remember how PES 2013 and previous felt, but if I already felt 2014 too clunky in movement (and not only because of the long animations) like still evolving from the 8 direction movement, I don't think that previous games are much better.
Click to expand...
I'd highly recommend you try out either SP Football Life 25 with the eSim next gen gameplay or the Fanurex Overhaul mod. I think that they are the most realistic football games you can play right now.

Also I remember FIFA 18 pre patch being very similar to FIFA 17, almost like a more polished version of it with some bugs removed and more animations.
 
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