EA SPORTS FC 26

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.
 
Paul-v said:
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.
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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.
 
Eb.bela1125 said:
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.
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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.
 
Afferl said:
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.
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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 :((
 
Colon said:
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 :((
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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).
 
Something I feel has a lot of room for improvement is movement without the ball, and I know it is one of the focuses of the future. They want to use the reinforcement-learning-driven system that they applied only to goalkeepers for more key players. In this system, the AI would be trained to understand the movements with and without the ball and generate behaviors within the game, but in this case, it would be for the intelligence of each player on the field.

RL GK Positioning [NG]

One of the most significant updates in FC 26 is the introduction of Reinforcement-Learning (RL) Goalkeeper Positioning.

This new system uses machine learning to help AI-controlled goalkeepers make more realistic decisions about where to position themselves in the box.
By analyzing countless scenarios, the AI can now better cut down angles and react to different types of attacks while adjusting their position more intelligently.
It’s important to note that RL Positioning is only active in certain situations, and is only used to position the Goalkeeper. The system is not active when making a save or performing a catch.
 
Mathgamer said:
Something I feel has a lot of room for improvement is movement without the ball, and I know it is one of the focuses of the future. They want to use the reinforcement-learning-driven system that they applied only to goalkeepers for more key players. In this system, the AI would be trained to understand the movements with and without the ball and generate behaviors within the game, but in this case, it would be for the intelligence of each player on the field.

RL GK Positioning [NG]

One of the most significant updates in FC 26 is the introduction of Reinforcement-Learning (RL) Goalkeeper Positioning.

This new system uses machine learning to help AI-controlled goalkeepers make more realistic decisions about where to position themselves in the box.
By analyzing countless scenarios, the AI can now better cut down angles and react to different types of attacks while adjusting their position more intelligently.
It’s important to note that RL Positioning is only active in certain situations, and is only used to position the Goalkeeper. The system is not active when making a save or performing a catch.
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Im not sure why EA need to use Machine Learning for something that is a relatively simple math problem that any programmer worth their salt could handle. On top of that, goalkeepers are hardly the thing I'd say FIFA/FC is weak on. I can think back to PS1 days and remember goalkeeper positioning being pretty good in all games and the problem was solved 20 years ago. I remember Sensible Soccer being fine on the Amiga too...

This is one of the those features that a marketing department came up with. Like all those phone, laptop and PC adverts all saying ... "BUY THE PHONE WITH AI". Never mind the fact that AI functionality is available on all phones, laptops and PCs.

/sorry ranting
 
Anth James said:
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.
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Of course, FIFA 22 NG also had skating-like movement, but it became more pronounced starting with FIFA 23.
 
Colon said:
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.
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It's quite obvious that FC 26's offensive AI is overall the best in recent years.
 
rockstrongo said:
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
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The graphics just look ugly. It looks visually worse than some x360 era games.
 
Paul-v said:
Im not sure why EA need to use Machine Learning for something that is a relatively simple math problem that any programmer worth their salt could handle. On top of that, goalkeepers are hardly the thing I'd say FIFA/FC is weak on. I can think back to PS1 days and remember goalkeeper positioning being pretty good in all games and the problem was solved 20 years ago. I remember Sensible Soccer being fine on the Amiga too...

This is one of the those features that a marketing department came up with. Like all those phone, laptop and PC adverts all saying ... "BUY THE PHONE WITH AI". Never mind the fact that AI functionality is available on all phones, laptops and PCs.

/sorry ranting
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Hypermotion is essentially a way to cut corners. Achieving truly ultra-responsive gameplay would require a vastly larger number of animations, but the machine learning-based Hypermotion system saves them a great deal of time and effort.

Furthermore, I believe the programming quality at EA Sports has declined since FIFA 18. The animations in FIFA 17 were noticeably more natural and fluid than those in FIFA 18—which also happened to be the first year Sam Rivera assumed the role of Lead Producer for gameplay.

Even more ironically, if you look at the Credits, the animation team for FIFA 18 and FIFA 19 was several times larger than in previous installments.
 
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The way players keep saying, "Cheers mate" during hand shaking is idk if I like it. It's such a small addition and has been done in a good faith. But it sounds so cringe. Maybe I'm biased because I grew up with the aggressive tone cutscenes that were present with ps2 era fifa games where players rarely acted friendly with each other.
 
Sami 1999 said:
The graphics just look ugly. It looks visually worse than some x360 era games.
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Yeah since they became EA FC the graphics took so many steps back. I think Fifa 21 on the PS5 is the only game, that looks somewhat realistic. Now everything looks even more like a cartoon and somehow the LOD also became much worse. Back in the XBOX 360 era they at least tried to have realistic colours and the whole look of the games were just more "mature" (especially Fifa 08 and 09).
 
Sami 1999 said:
The graphics just look ugly. It looks visually worse than some x360 era games.
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It's wild how poor the visual fidelity is from a gameplay camera perspective (which is what you see 95% of the time). The lighting is dreadful, unrealistic and cartoonish. Player movement is dripping with uncanny valley. Pitch textures and coloring have been off since FIFA 17 or 18. By and large, Ignite era FIFA titles were visually more appealing. Very underwhelming.

One of the most jarring aspects of recent FC titles and one of the biggest contributors to making it look as unrealistic as it does are the passing animations (or lack thereof). There's hardly any windup, extension of the limbs or body, every pass just flies off the toe in under 0.2 seconds. I imagine that's a conscious, deliberate choice to hasten the gameplay. Can't have players actually having to do the proper motion to hit a driven pass or a long diagonal, no sir. That would take too long! It's like I'm watching the Football Manager match engine or a game from 25-years ago. Beyond comical.
 
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Paul-v said:
Im not sure why EA need to use Machine Learning for something that is a relatively simple math problem that any programmer worth their salt could handle. On top of that, goalkeepers are hardly the thing I'd say FIFA/FC is weak on. I can think back to PS1 days and remember goalkeeper positioning being pretty good in all games and the problem was solved 20 years ago. I remember Sensible Soccer being fine on the Amiga too...

This is one of the those features that a marketing department came up with. Like all those phone, laptop and PC adverts all saying ... "BUY THE PHONE WITH AI". Never mind the fact that AI functionality is available on all phones, laptops and PCs.

/sorry ranting
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Yeah seems like the new programmers they hired don't really know what they are doing. They already solved this issue in FIFA 17's positioning system without the use of hyped up Machine Learning jargons.
 
Colon said:
Yeah since they became EA FC the graphics took so many steps back. I think Fifa 21 on the PS5 is the only game, that looks somewhat realistic. Now everything looks even more like a cartoon and somehow the LOD also became much worse. Back in the XBOX 360 era they at least tried to have realistic colours and the whole look of the games were just more "mature" (especially Fifa 08 and 09)....
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Redhat said:
It's wild how poor the visual fidelity is from a gameplay camera perspective (which is what you see 95% of the time). The lighting is dreadful, unrealistic and cartoonish. Player movement is dripping with uncanny valley. Pitch textures and coloring have been off since FIF...
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The LODs are the biggest offenders. FIFA rtwc 06 and wc 06 had almost full LOD during gameplay camera. Ronaldinho's hair would move during gameplay camera which truly looked next gen for it's time.

And on FIFA 08-11, the devs actually used clever techniques to add low res normal maps so that on somewhat close cameras [eg dynamic camera], the cloth wrinkles would still move. Compare that to newer games and the cloth wrinkles are just static during gameplay camera. And now with higher resolutions, it's even more obvious, even from tele cam.

The worst part is that high LOD mods have been possible ever since FIFA 2004 and it works perfectly unless you have a really low end gpu for it's time. Now we are on playstation 5 and LODs still look like it's a 20 year old game. The biggest offender in this case are Konami. LOD became really high in gameplay starting with PES 14 and it remained like that all the way until PES 21. But with eFootball they switched back to lower LODs. Like why?!



Another ugly looking aspect is the horrible black blob of shadows that are under players during overcast weathers/ shadow areas in day matches. It just looks like a huge black blob and not something you see in real life. And now that EA started using Temporal Anti Aliasing which is already an ugly means of anti aliasing image- every time the players and balls move on screen, it leaves a nasty ghosting trail. And those black blobs of shadows suffer the most- it leaves a black smear which just looks vomit inducing.


Grass looked best in ignite engine games. Frostbite engine games had decent looking grass too until FIFA 23 where it started looking like ass.

And finally, the lighting. I don't need ultra realistic lighting. Stylized lighting is fine too as long as it looks good. Look at FIFA rtwc 06, wc 06, 07 etc. They had very exaggerated cinematic lighting but it actually looked visually appealing/ beautiful. Whatever EA uses right now just looks neither realistic, nor it looks aesthetically pleasing to eyes. Only night matches have a bit of okay looking lighting. Day and overcast matches just look awful.


And you're right about the animations. It doesn't help at all. The skating and twitching automatically makes our brains think something looks wrong here. Can't believe, decade old games like FIFA 10 had better animations.
 
I've pre-ordered the Ultimate Edition of this sh*thouse game, but expect nothing from it. Is there any chance to have some licenced brasilian teams in FC26?
 
sir_mamont said:
I've pre-ordered the Ultimate Edition of this sh*thouse game, but expect nothing from it. Is there any chance to have some licenced brasilian teams in FC26?
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No, because Brazilian licenses are dodgy. The reason why Fifa had the Brazilian teams all licensed, but every one of those teams had fake players. If I remember, you have to get the license from the clubs individually, or the players individually, I can't remember which.

Plus, I believe Konami still holds a number of these, if not all
 
Sami 1999 said:
The LODs are the biggest offenders. FIFA rtwc 06 and wc 06 had almost full LOD during gameplay camera. Ronaldinho's hair would move during gameplay camera which truly looked next gen for it's time.
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That's right. In R2WC, Ronaldinho's hair had physics and would sway, but this feature was later removed.
 
FC Bayern said:
No, because Brazilian licenses are dodgy. The reason why Fifa had the Brazilian teams all licensed, but every one of those teams had fake players. If I remember, you have to get the license from the clubs individually, or the players individually, I can't remember which.

Plus, I believe Konami still holds a number of these, if not all
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would have been nice if the national team and the leagues were there but with incorrect squads at least. That way it would have been possible to just add the correct players back manually. They should add an option to import kits natively too, so that way even on consoles there would be correct kits.
 
Since we are talking about team licenses: Why does EA have to give unlicensed teams such bad kits? I really don't get it. As a console player I could live with fake logos and kits, if at least the kits would look like something, the teams wear in real life (it doesn't even have to be anything like the kit from that season). Inter and AC Milan for example: Just simple black and blue and black and red striped kits would be so much better than the disgusting fake kits they put in the game. That is just one more thing, where the art style and graphic is just so much worse than it used to be.
 
Colon said:
Since we are talking about team licenses: Why does EA have to give unlicensed teams such bad kits? I really don't get it. As a console player I could live with fake logos and kits, if at least the kits would look like something, the teams wear in real life (it doesn't even have to be anything like the kit from that season). Inter and AC Milan for example: Just simple black and blue and black and red striped kits would be so much better than the disgusting fake kits they put in the game. That is just one more thing, where the art style and graphic is just so much worse than it used to be.
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That's a thing that really annoys me about the game tbh. I mean, Lazio (Latium) had a sky blue and white kit, yet I've no idea what's in their brain for Atalanta, Inter and Milan? They can't just do a basic kit with blue and black for the first two and then red and black for Milan? Football Manager famously had a lot of missing licenses, yet still managed to do something with the kits
what-are-these-names-v0-unn8pb5vuf8e1.webp
 
FC Bayern said:
That's a thing that really annoys me about the game tbh. I mean, Lazio (Latium) had a sky blue and white kit, yet I've no idea what's in their brain for Atalanta, Inter and Milan? They can't just do a basic kit with blue and black for the first two and then red and black for Milan? Football Manager famously had a lot of missing licenses, yet still managed to do something with the kits
View attachment 372714
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That looks so much better.

Either EA must have some data, that proves, that 99% of the players are around the age of 10 (because nobody older would like the design choices), or it is some kind of "revenge" to those teams for choosing Konami as their exclusive partner. :NO:
 
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