EA SPORTS FC 26

[dontellmama]

Not a customer for this game so i might sound a bit harsh.
Have EA FC graphics gone down the toilet in recent years, they look so unatural (vs for instance Fifa 17) lighting really bad not an issue maybe?
And the Ai defending by AM is laughable, backing away in and around their own box,defending also looks like two magnets trying to be put togehter but just repels from each other.
To me, this looks so poor, sorry for being a downer

That video is from the Competitive Mode. While it has many flaws, one shouldn’t focus solely on the drawbacks and overlook its merits.
Additionally, this year's Authentic Mode looks promising.

 

[dontellmama]

1v1 defending -> hypermotion 1 (largely non-positional, animation focussed) -> hypermotion 2 -> hypermotion V -> FC IQ

The issues of skating and awkward animations caused by HM became noticeably worse starting from 23.

 

[oldbox]

Here is the essence of hypermotion in my opinion:


In FIFA 22, FC23 – FC26, a player controls a ball with attached "kite", where "kite" is animated footballer.
In good games like FIFA 14 & 16, a player controls a footballer with ball dribling (footballer+ball).
For me, is the only right way for simulate dribbling in videogame is a delay of acceleration and a "heavy ball" effect. This gives a feeling of separation from the ball, and the footballer actually "pushes" the ball. This way like from FIFA 18 & 19, where there is a acceleration delay and a "heavy ball" effect. Especially FIFA 19 with the slider acceleration 49. I understand that this is not perfect in these games, but for me is way better to comparsion with other games FIFA & PES. FC26 looks like "kite"+skating", its bad.

 

[Anth James]

The issues of skating and awkward animations caused by HM became noticeably worse starting from 23.

People have been complaining about ‘skating’ since way before Hypermotion. I’m not blaming Frostbite, as I don’t think that’s the cause, but from my memory, it was since the introduction of Frostbite people started talking about it. The goalposts moved to blaming hypermotion after the ‘NG’ versions came out.

 

[wiiuchamp]

Authentic gameplay

 

[HeWillKnockFourTimes]

Authentic gameplay

Funny how I and a few others was saying about the bad commentary, and the commentators in that clip says "What more could you want apart from better commentators" (Yes I know gameplay is the most important but it should be better in 2025)

 

[simogto90]

Authentic gameplay

Ball physics is too much streamlined

 

[Isslander]

Authentic gameplay

Ah yes, the intro to the Champions League Final, where there will definitely be a giant image of a player from only one of the teams hanging on one side of the stadium. The realism is astounding

 

[Afferl]

Ball physics complete trash, skating on the pitch, unrealistic animations. Only good thing is the audio/stadium atmosphere. They need a new engine. It only seems to get worse with frostbite.

 

[Topaz]

I wouldn't call it a terrible decision. Its a good decision implemented poorly. It made the game more like Football Manager but they broke something with the instruction system added to it. It is fixable with mods if you just remove the instructions.


What scares me with EA when they suggest this is that they've essentially removed it. So once again we are hopping back and forth on a feature. If you read "Attacking Positioning - Players are less constrained by their Roles. If the opportunity presents itself, they can go beyond it or contribute to the play in more ways". This is annoying because if you have a system with a player in the role of "holding", you expect them to hold their position. If they are suggesting that they are removing that, then the IQ system just becomes pointless.

It reminds me on FIFA 16/15 how CDM use to bomb forward even though they were suppose to stay back whilst attacking and you get a lot of counter attacking goals. I really hope this is on Support role and not Defense role. I don't expect the player to bomb forward on defense role at all.

 

[Topaz]

Some of you here are wrong.

The first hypermotion was for individual animations, but one of the iterations were focused on overall team movement and positioning (where they mentioned mocapping non-league as well as pro-level 11v11 matches) and that was the year where the blocks of defence and midfield became extremely static. This year’s FC IQ then amplified this by limiting player to small zonal remits on the pitch.
This is indeed a separate point to the 1v1 issue in DMF and full back areas which was brought in FIFA 21 for the competitive crowd and has been slowly phased out.

1v1 defending -> hypermotion 1 (largely non-positional, animation focussed) -> hypermotion 2 -> hypermotion V -> FC IQ

As you can see these initiatives have been largely a failure and FIFA 19 (and to a lesser extent 20) were the last FIFAs with positional balance and active AI in both defence and offence. In terms of impact on animation, yes it’s added some player weight but also caused the limb distortion, skating effects and inertia inconsistencies to get a lot worse.

Yeah it seemed like FIFA 21,22,23 and to FC 24, they changed the positioning code(looking at EBX). I think with FIFA 22's NG edition, they fixed CDM tracking back or atleast i remember Matt10 mentioning that. I can see that they are trying. They aren't happy with the positioning either but I really think they should use FIFA 17 as a base and work from there or atleast make it more customizable via EBX so folks like Paul and Anth can fix it.

 

[Colon]

Ball physics complete trash, skating on the pitch, unrealistic animations. Only good thing is the audio/stadium atmosphere. They need a new engine. It only seems to get worse with frostbite.

I would not say that those are the only good things. I actually like how the cpu tries to build up the play. When there is no direct pass to the front, the ball goes back or the player turns around. It is not perfect, but the pace looks much more like a real match than before and things like the amount of first time passes could be decreased via sliders. But yeah the things you mentioned look (really) bad

 

[Chris Davies]

I would not say that those are the only good things. I actually like how the cpu tries to build up the play. When there is no direct pass to the front, the ball goes back or the player turns around. It is not perfect, but the pace looks much more like a real match than before and things like the amount of first time passes could be decreased via sliders. But yeah the things you mentioned look (really) bad

I agree. The physics are so simplistic I can't overlook it (nor the total lack of fouls due to the balance of gameplay, which is so open that you never really need to come into contact with other players) - BUT. There are definite improvements on Authentic Mode that make it enjoyable, if not as enjoyable as the classics (because attributes still don't matter enough and it's still very "skill gap"-py for the "competitive" players).