Fifa 11 Xbox 360/PS3

Re: Fifa 11

Great to hear you Romagnoli. I trust your oppinion a lot, as many in this thread, so whenever you post your impressions, it will be great to read them!

I had a question unanswered days ago about trapping the ball. Is there any specific game mechanic to it? It's still a matter of automatic trapping? Are players (even best ones) prone to error when trapping the ball? What conditions can affect a good or bad control of the ball? This is osmething important as in football nowadays people is underestimating how important it is to control the ball (both trapping and running with the ball). For example, yesterday I saw Algeria players trapping the ball very well (due to no opposition most of the time) and that lead them to build up play better, while in the past those teams would loose a lot of time just controlling the ball.
 
Re: Fifa 11

romagnoli said:
As for the defensive AI, I don't know how Adam could possibly have come to that conclusion TBH. The difference is Night. And. Day. No stupid fullbacks 20 yards behind the others, no defenders running away from strikers inside the box, the defensive lines felt more reasonably placed (though part of this could also have been that it's a lot harder to hit inch perfect passes through to them). I felt much more in control of the situation than I do in FIFA 10/WC
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I don't want to get too excited too early, but...

:DANCE::DANCE::DANCE:
 
Re: Fifa 11

Sounds good, it's far too difficult to keep any sort of shape in the defence at the moment.
 
Re: Fifa 11

Great to hear your opinion Romagnoli, most reviewers seem to give the generic 'WOW IS ALL I CAN SAY' speech without exactly outlining whats improved.

I don't really understand multiple players challenging for the ball in the air though, they must be mostly AI guided surely meaning an AI team-mate could rise above the player you're controlling and nod one in?

I like the sound of less clear cut aerial ability, it's way too predictable at the moment, I wanna be able to pump a long ball forward and not immediately assume the opposition will automatically lock onto and clear it.

Did you notice any improvements to pressuring? One of the biggest problems is how easily centre backs can charge into the back of strikers and take the ball, even with a big target man upfront it's almost impossible to hold up play.

And lastly, was there more time on the ball in general in midfield? You say you were able to spread the ball around with Modric, did you have time to pick out a pass or were you forced to just hoof it before you were closed down?
 
Re: Fifa 11

I'm up!

Feel like an empty husk of my former self. Shite England performance, when it got to my round they stopped doing 2 for 1 and I ended up paying £22 for 6 pints (the humanity), 4 hours to make a 2 hour journey home...

Thank the little baby Jesus for FIFA.

I'll start typing it all up after the Holland Japan game. Just to get a couple of the q's out of the way - with the AI jumping for the ball I mean that the AI doesn't proactively go and meet the ball so much (they do but not as much as your pad controlled player would) and as a result you only really get 2 players on the same side jumping at a time, and intermittently. It's still a nice improvement but whereas PES would end up with 5 or 6 players jumping for a ball (which is too much) in FIFA 11 you will get 2v1, or I think I saw a 2v2, but not on as regular a basis as I think it should. So I'll be asking EA to increase the likelihood of additional players jumping.

Re: pressuring. Still a bit too effective IMO. It is better though, you can use the much improved physicality to howls the ball on the move by turning away in a tight circle. I also found it easier to flummox defenders with weaving runs. So space in the middle is still a bit tighter than ideal. I was playing a lot of 2v2 though, so everyone was quite eagerly chasing the ball around. By the end of the day I was much better at finding Modric and getting past the initial challenger to create space for the pass. I also played 2v1 against two assisted guys and I was manual, and I was unlucky not to win after dominating possession.
 
Re: Fifa 11

Make sure you tell EA to reduce the pressure even further, a little more to that should be good.

Sounds good so far :TU:
 
Re: Fifa 11

I've got a non-gameplay request Romagnoli, maybe you could "pass" it through?
I would really love it if they would use real player pictures in the profiles like in Ultimate Team. Will make Manager Mode and such more engaging and fun while offcourse being more realistic.
 
Re: Fifa 11

romagnoli said:
I'm up!

Feel like an empty husk of my former self. Shite England performance, when it got to my round they stopped doing 2 for 1 and I ended up paying £22 for 6 pints (the humanity), 4 hours to make a 2 hour journey home...

Thank the little baby Jesus for FIFA.

I'll start typing it all up after the Holland Japan game. Just to get a couple of the q's out of the way - with the AI jumping for the ball I mean that the AI doesn't proactively go and meet the ball so much (they do but not as much as your pad controlled player would) and as a result you only really get 2 players on the same side jumping at a time, and intermittently. It's still a nice improvement but whereas PES would end up with 5 or 6 players jumping for a ball (which is too much) in FIFA 11 you will get 2v1, or I think I saw a 2v2, but not on as regular a basis as I think it should. So I'll be asking EA to increase the likelihood of additional players jumping.

Re: pressuring. Still a bit too effective IMO. It is better though, you can use the much improved physicality to howls the ball on the move by turning away in a tight circle. I also found it easier to flummox defenders with weaving runs. So space in the middle is still a bit tighter than ideal. I was playing a lot of 2v2 though, so everyone was quite eagerly chasing the ball around. By the end of the day I was much better at finding Modric and getting past the initial challenger to create space for the pass. I also played 2v1 against two assisted guys and I was manual, and I was unlucky not to win after dominating possession.
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Kind of as I expected with pressure. I doubted they'd go far enough. That's part of the problem with where FIFA 10 is at - it's so far out at sea that to change it too quickly is going to make some people very angry with their inability to do what they used to do.

Last year we saw that people complained when you could finally really get blown up for standing tackles where the player charged through the opponent at 100 miles an hour smashing them off the ball and into the ground (and still not nearly enough) - this year I'm sure we'll see a similar backlash.

From everything I've read and heard, with the obviously many-times contradicting feelings and thoughts of the range of people who went - some of whom are manual fans and some of whom aren't, some who are old-PES fans and some aren't, most of whom who are at least realism fans - I'm still fairly sure that they haven't gone far enough. It's sad, but if I had to lay my bets, I'd say England are going out of the WC... no wait... I'd say in four months time 'we' will all be bemoaning almost the exact same problems we are now. Bad balance with the assists/semi/manual situation - still not good enough defensive AI - probably still a fair few fairly awful exploits - still a slightly bizarre lack of midfield and far too much end to end crap - still too much pressuring - still too much ping pong passing - still too much automation in defence.

One of the main issues I see is something T-Mills off the EA Forums picked out - which is that he at least, and I assume this is the case with most of you guys, was playing with like-minded people - because most of you guys are likeminded. Ideally EA need to build a 'Whore Simulator' to mimic how the little bastards online play.

This is why on the forums I tend to be very, very 'vehement' as Aaron McHardy would probably call it - because I want to make sure the debate is centered correctly. Sometimes it's about asking the right questions. It's only a game - but I know for a fact that if a FIFA game is ever got right it would be the only game I'd play for a year - and I have my doubts already. Again thanks for all the time you guys put in to communicating what you felt with us all.

I guess we are all still in the dark in terms of what their 'solution' for manual is?
 
Re: Fifa 11

Scorpio said:
I would really love it if they would use real player pictures in the profiles like in Ultimate Team. Will make Manager Mode and such more engaging and fun while offcourse being more realistic.
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I'd prefer it if they used their in-game appearances in the profiles. That way, every single player (including generated players) would have a face, rather than just a silhouette. Particularly now that the in-game faces are looking so impressive.

I guess the potential issue there might be whether that's feasible without slowing menu navigation down, if there's too much loading of data involved.
 
Re: Fifa 11

I'm doing a write up, but it's a bloody mission! The actual FIFA Dev Team feedback form is potentially even worse.

Anyway, my thoughts so far based on the Q's you all gave me.




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PRO PASSING

Q: How much error is there in attribute based passing? What about Weaker foot error?
A: It's pretty good. I spent a lot of the time using assisted passing to eliminate my own error and isolate any passing inaccuracy as just attribute based, and the error was clearly there. The power bar plays a significant part too, with harder passes being more heavily impacted by error.

Barcelona also have passing error. I think this is a pretty important thing to mention. EA could easily have phoned it in and have left Barca as a FIFA 10 side, but seeing Barca still have to recycle possession is a really big deal IMO. You're encouraged to actually use the ability of the players to wriggle out of tight spaces that loose passes force you into.

Something important to say about ping pong passing. It's not completely gone. However you can't go from one box to another in 5 seconds and 3 passes. The worst thing about ping pong passing compared to, say cutbacks in PES's of old, is that you could defend cutbacks. You could tell that this was the opponent's game plan, and account for that in your own setup, without using a non footballing formation. With ping pong passing, there was nothing you could do. The other guy would have buffered up his button taps before you'd switched to a relevant player. Combined with the dodgy defences there was piss all you could do about him passing to his striker on the penalty spot unchallenged.

With this current passing system, the ball moves a lot slower and less directionally perfectly. The ping pong you get now is generally (but not always) more akin to the pingpong that people would argue exists in real life. It is effective over short distances, but if you try and ping pong from one end of the pitch to another, as was the killer in FIFA 10, then you will more often than not lose the ball. The effective passing distance is a lot shorter now, so the game shifts from being about covering 80 yards in 5 seconds to about half that distance.

Time will tell if this is how it turns out against the cheesers you play online - they will always find new reasons for us to hate them - but the intention with the passing renovations is to try and make sure that the optimal way for gamers to play the game and the optimal way for us to enjoy the game converge, rather than remain two completely alien concepts. For me, the system looks like it will certainly do that. If it doesn't, then at least I won't spend every game against like minded people worrying about whether it is ethical to make a particular pass, or if that is something a cheeser would do.



Q: Is the error for first time passes only?
A: No. It is accentuated for first time passes


Q: Pro Passing for long balls/crosses too?
A: No but these are less accurate to begin with and/or less precisely judged by the players on the ground, and are already impacted by weighting anyway.

Bouncing lob is utterly awesome! You can hit those Scholes/Rooney-esque 60 yard head height scud passes diagonally out wide, but you can also use it to hit what is essentially a much harder ground pass into space. This is an excellent addition to your passing arsenal. It's entirely possible to smack the ball from one fullback to the other more quickly than with standard long passing but at the same time you have to watch you don't hit it out of play.

You'll be able to spread the play very cleverly with this.


Q: Do Accrington differ from Arsenal?
A: Yes. I kind of think the Accrington passing weakness is represented a bit too much in passing speed and bobble rather than directional inaccuracy, and will say as much to EA. The biggest weakness Accrington had by comparison was their ball control. They were terrible at turning with the ball, so trying to outmanouevre Inter Milan was like trying to paint the Mona Lisa with the paintbrush between your arse cheeks.

An interesting point about ball control. I know a lot of you saw that Sol Campbell vid and thought it looked like he was pretty damn good. Maybe for PES 2010, but certainly not for FIFA 11. The difference between Campbell and Messi/Xavi/Modric is huge. Tommy Hud was pretty cumbersome, and if challenged the most I felt I could do is shot fake away from the challenge, use his rump to absorb any pressuring, and lay it off to my defence. Modric however was a cheeky bugger. As I'm sure I've said a few times now, the goal I nearly scored was disgusting.

Another big thing about ball control is that players don't turn in exactly the direction you press unless they're good enough. I remember taking a throw in as Accrington and chucking the ball to a midfielder. I was pressing down (the throw-in was at the far end of the pitch), but he took a fairly big touch sideways and then turned to face downwards with his next touch. I think someone asked about this and I forgot to write it down on my list of Q's, but as soon as I saw this I remembered that it was something you wanted to know.

I also scored with Accrington! I hoofed the ball into the box, there was a 2v1 jump, one of my attackers then stooped to head the ball (completely missing in the process) but I then lumped it in from the other wing and stabbed the ball in. Certainly with Accrington, there was a real sense of rubbishness, and that was quite visible in how scrappy my goal was.


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MANUAL PASSING Q'S

Q: How does swerve work?
A: It doesn't. I'm bringing this up with EA as I can't see why you couldn't press R1+X to hit a sidefooted swerve pass with an amount of curl that is dependent on the player involved.


Q: Is player switching on manual passes better?
A: I only had one manual game, in which I did keep equal with a couple of assisted guys playing on the same side. I've asked T-Mills what he thinks.


Q: Anything else?
A: I really do think you'll be able to get on a par with your typical assisted player if you know what you're doing. The introduction of the power bar is a really big deal, and one that I can't overstress as being a much bigger leveller of the playing field than people who haven't played the game will realise. The weight of a pass is a really important factor, and generally speaking a tap of the pass button for a manual player will move about as fast as it will for an assisted player. I seemed to find in my one game of full manual that in general, once you got past the first quarter of the power bar, the manual passes were actually hit slightly faster than the assisted equivalents. Dunno if this was just me, or if it was because I was used to FIFA 10 where manual passing was nothing like as fast as assisted/semi.

The only thing you need to judge much more precisely than an assisted player is the direction you press. Not only is the power bar passing going to have a big impact on assisted abusers' game plan, but also manual passing seems slightly faster than assisted/semi. I had a couple of issues with the amount of power in the pass being much greater than the power bar implied but this definitely seemed like a bug. I'll be raising it in my feedback form.

I seriously think manual users will be a lot happier once they've had the opportunity to sit down with the game and see how much slower and less ruthlessly accurate the assisted game is.
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CPU/NPC AI


Q: More characterful/more like each team?
A: I didn't really get to play the CPU so I can't say. Dave797 did, as did T Mills.


Q: Is player switching better?
A: It was glitchy and it seemed to use quite different logic. One of the glitches was that you'd press L1 to switch and it wouldn't switch at all!

Other than that, it seemed surprisingly eager to switch players for me despite me only being on one notch from manual (I think). Generally I was ok with who it switched to when it did auto switch! But this area of the game is something that needs a lot more polish. It must be an extremely hard thing to get right, given that neither PES nor FIFA have managed to do so for all this time.
Generally the much slower gameplay makes this aspect of the game more forgiving, so, while I did think the player switching was rough around the edges, I don't remember it costing me a goal.


Q: Does the CPU misdirect passes?
A: Passing inaccuracy is across the board. The CPU plays with the same limitations that we do as far as stats are concerned. Hopefully Dave or Tom will have more to say on this.


Q: Multi challenge for loose balls?
A: The game feels more proactive about this. I hated how in FIFA 10/WC, it felt like, if you weren't controlling a player and a pass went right next to him, there was nothing you could do to intercept the ball, as if only one player on your team was allowed to care about the ball at a time!

FIFA 11 feels a lot more involving by comparison. The NPC players participate a lot more, as indicated when I was trying to test something. I had a 2 player game set up but I put one pad on the floor and played with the other. I noticed that Man Utd were moving very proactively to stop me being able to just waltz through on goal.

Valencia and Fletcher were all up in my face, pretty much jockey pressing by default. I thought that was quite interesting. Is this a new development? Has anyone looked at custom tactics with particular depth? Placebo must have. I imagine they're using the same custom tactics setup as in FIFA 10 since the databases were more or less untouched.


Q: Is Interceptions a trait?
A: Shit, didn't check! Might be reactions dependent.


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BALL PHYSICS


Q: Does the ball seem freer? Such as in assisted/semi?
A: I think so. Maybe the way to describe it is, it feels less like players are automatically in control of the ball, and less like passes follow an invisible wire from one player to the next. Crosses in particular feel like you're humping the ball into the box, rather than putting the ball directly onto someone's head. There's still room for improvement in this regard, but having to chase a loose pass rather than just stand and watch the ball come to you definitely gives this aspect of the game a lift. First touch inaccuracy isn't in yet either, which will only improve this further.

Another point is that shots feel more speculative. You don't get the constant driven shots that you get in WC 2010, but at the same time low shots feel like they carry more menace. It's a fair bit harder to manufacture clear cut chances, which is perhaps why this is the case. R1 finesse shots from long range are fairly ineffective, I found. It might be too ineffective if anything - I'd sooner it was under than overpowered but I'll let EA know.



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KEEPERS


Q: Do keepers feel less scripted/more human?
A: Yup. You don't get true flaps at crosses but i did see a couple of slightly uncertain punches that went to my player 15 yards away. The only shot type that I felt was unlikely to score was the R1 finesse shot from 30 yards, but then again I did shave the far post with one in all manual as Rooney.



to be continued....
 
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Re: Fifa 11

No worries. If anyone has more questions that aren't covered in the above then please strike while the iron's hot!
 
Re: Fifa 11

Thanks Romagnoli! This is what impressions should be like! I'm concerned about player switching because I've been complaining about it since FIFA 09, where the game wouldn't let me change player if the ball was bouncing.

Anyway, about game modes in general, I really hope they will let us edit players... I don't mean full on stat editing (but that would be nice), but more customization.
 
Re: Fifa 11

Lami said:
I have one,

Are sweet spot goals gone?
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Wow, loaded question! Can't really answer that one way or another. We didn't work out an exploit in the short time we were there. Long shots are harder and aren't always driven; the keepers are as in WC2010 and stay on their line unless you call them out. There was an interesting thing with FK's that might just have been a bug, but there wasn't a power bar for free kicks. I'd complained about FK's being too easy while in Vancouver; if they've done this deliberately then it's a very clever idea and I love it.

There will undoubtedly be some goals that are more common than they should be. Such is the world of football games. It seemed a lot more even though. I didn't see any overly common goals.
 
Re: Fifa 11

Don't know if this is has been asked yet.

How do the COM teams attack and are their goals still heavily scripted?

Edit: Apologies I rushed this out a bit when I posted.

In FIFA WC the opposition ai is very limited I find that the way Brazil attacks me is no different than how Korea Republic do. The dificulty seems to be more dependent on where you are in the competition.
As far as goals go they do that cross from anywhere pinpoint cross or that throughball that pushes my defence line up to create an opening.
 
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Re: Fifa 11

As Dave Rutter said, no news is coming out on FIFA 11 PC till July. We haven't been told anything about it, nor would we be.
 
Re: Fifa 11

romagnoli said:
Wow, loaded question! Can't really answer that one way or another. We didn't work out an exploit in the short time we were there. Long shots are harder and aren't always driven; the keepers are as in WC2010 and stay on their line unless you call them out. There was an interesting thing with FK's that might just have been a bug, but there wasn't a power bar for free kicks. I'd complained about FK's being too easy while in Vancouver; if they've done this deliberately then it's a very clever idea and I love it.

There will undoubtedly be some goals that are more common than they should be. Such is the world of football games. It seemed a lot more even though. I didn't see any overly common goals.
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Thank you.
 
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