Fifa 11 Xbox 360/PS3

This is because the edit player menu appears to be entirely based off the Virtual Pro, in which there's no such thing as work-rate. Same goes for the messed-up Position options, which means if I change Fabian Delph's shirt to untucked, he suddenly becomes a CAM and no longer a CM. It's lazy garbage. Traits are also missing.

Ah, I see. Although that brings up another question - your VP is listed as having Med/Med work rate attributes in your team management screen, so once again I ask how important the work-rate attributes are if we can adjust them in the formations screen. Is there a positive or negative that comes with a player that has a low or high setting for one or both of his settings if we can manipulate them with custom formations?

I'm not sure there's a good answer at the end of this rainbow: if the answer is yes, formation work-rates override personal attributes, then it's a knock against P+; if the answer is no, then it's still a knock against P+ because their are so many teams consisting of starting elevens with all Med/Med settings. Not to mention our VP is Med/Med and can't be changed.

With two more videos than we started with, backing up the claims of magic tackling.

Why should the game "consistently reward a certain style of play or strategy"? Football is nothing if not unpredictable. Sometimes defenders do muscle a forward off the ball.

Not that it is my intention to suggest that all is hunky-dorey in the world of AI reactions/phsyics/etc. I was merely highlighting some of the techniques and combinations I like to try to use vs the cpu. I enjoy the part of this game that involves manipulating the ball.

No you're right, and good for you for pointing out the positives. When it works, completing moves like you posted feels awesome. For me it's an issue of frustration - I struggle to replicate successes, so when a tactic doesn't work, like shielding or close dribbling, I'm never quite sure what I did wrong, and my immediate reaction is to cry bullshit. You know, "damn you cheating CPU!"

Am I doing something wrong when sometimes I hold RT and my player shields the ball but he kind of freezes? He'll stand their in his shield position, just staring at the damn ball when I'm trying to move him, allowing a defender to move around and take the ball? Maybe I'm holding the trigger too long or short in these instances?

The other problem I have is sometimes the defender gets the ball in between me trapping the ball and pressing the shield button. Of course often that's my fault or a good player by a defender, but there are times when it feels like the problem was caused by poor reaction/response times.

Then there's my skill with close dribbling - sometimes it's like I can't tell whether it's working or not. Maybe this is due to their being a lesser range between max and min player movement speeds, thus these changes aren't as noticeable? Maybe it's because I'm mostly using players outside the top leagues, so they just kind of suck? Maybe it's a combination of both? Maybe I just can't dribble?

Also, I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but I've found it to be a lot - LOT - easier to dribble on FAST gamespeed. In the past I've always played slow but I've been tinkering with all the settings lately, and while the game was too fast for my liking in general, I was far more successful at dribbling and skill moves on FAST than the slower settings. I don't know what that means or how to learn from that experience.

Another thing I've noticed is both the PS3 and 360 controllers have different advantages, at least for me. I've played quite a bit on both systems, and the PS3 analog stick is far better for dribbling in FIFA than the 360 stick, in my experience of course. Meanwhile, I've found the 360 trigger to be much better at using analog sprint to it's best effect. Don't know if any of you guys have tried them but I'm thinking of buying those ControlFreek analog stick caps to see if they help with my dribbling skills on the the 360. I would stick with the PS3 probably but that controller can cause severe hand cramps because of its smaller size.

It is true that P+ extends only to such disappointingly shallow depths. The feature is already a little bit weak without needing to be further hamstrung by the absence of supporting data. I don't know whether that lies with the devs or the data reviewers, but EA should have made certain that they got the data they needed. It's most uninspiring to look at a Ligue 2 side and find that not a single player in the entire squad has a Trait or Speciality, or that they mostly have the same work-rate, or that they're all about the same speed, with about the same shot power, with about the same tactical awareness, etc.

The theme of FIFA 11 should be "improved, just not enough." They gave us player editing finally but without OFs it's already a big enough task to edit team tactics, editing every player is too tall an order. Plus you don't let us edit work-rates, thanks. Stuff like this only further reinforces the argument that EA doesn't give a shit about offline gamers anymore.
 
Is anybody else having trouble to deal with the through chip pass? Not only is the switching unresponsive during highball/looseball situations, but it seems that EA has favored the attacker in the battle to win a long ball over the top. Sometimes I have 2-3 steps on the attacker, if I choose to clear the ball, even with right timing, my defender doesn't respond and if I run on, the attacker will latch on to the pass with ease even if he was behind and I got between him and the ball. Please don't get me wrong, I am against some of the magic defending from behind that happens and the unpunished violence that happens (in human v human, my friend sometimes manages to take out 3-4 of my players in an attack build-up with late slides and gets 1 or 0 cards, ridiculous) but it seems that almost every online game that I play, my opponent tries the one-two chip through pass 90% the time and gets a high success rate even if defenders where in position. Does anyone else notice this?

Controls:

auto switching: airballs
auto switching players assistance: low
 
Thanks so much for the great suggestion, nerf, I’ll definitely be giving LT a try. :))

I have noticed that a lot of my passes are closed down because the person controlling the ball either takes too long to control it, or takes the ball at the wrong angle etc and plays into the AI’s hands. So I’ll definitely try making space using LT.

I also noticed last night that my passes were often made to players when they were already well into making a run, and I had my midfielders’ mentalities set to high attacking and low defence in a misguided attempt to make them break into the opposition’s penalty area more. All that happened, in retrospect, was that my passes were being played to people in more advanced positions but who were already running towards goal. Their body positions in relation to my passes meant they'd have to stretch for the ball as it would be either a fraction in front or behind them etc.

I did something with the mentality of my midfielders last night that I’d never done before, which was to set attack to high but also defence to high too. It seemed to make a huge difference. The midfielders get a lot more tired but they also pop up in more advanced areas of the pitch. Nani for one keeps popping up all over the place, which is great. And the ‘angles’ that they now receive passes are more in keeping with the direction they’re running etc if that makes any sense at all…..

Also, the fact that the midfield tire out more is great, it forces more tactical substitutions, such as bringing on the likes of Hargreaves when Scholes is knackered. But it also seemed to stretch out the opposition more, last night my CM games were far more open and so, more fun. I started scoring 2, 3 or 4 goals occasionally. One thing I loved was that if you’re in front, the games late on become stretched and the AI abandons defence. On one occasion it worked, they scored a 90th minute equalizer, but on others I’ve scored one or two goals on the breakaway. Nani scored a couple of spectacular goals from way out, too.

Hopefully the games will continue like this, because last night’s CM was a great experience for the first time.

Even when the games were hard, such as Bolton away, it was fun. Davies blasted a shot into the roof of my net from the edge of the box, then I struggled until the 90th minute when a poor Carrick shot deflected off a defender and bobbled a foot over the line :)

Having both attack and defence set to high seems to make my midfielders play in a more dynamic way. They track back enough to have the ball in midfield when you win it back, but then they seem to roam around and break into the box. The increased movement seems to open up more space for the wingers and forwards, who started scoring far more goals too.

But what is most pleasing, is that my midfielders were occasionally breaking through alongside my strikers. I scored one against Wigan where I virtually walked the ball into the net. I worked the ball to the edge of the box, playing very short passes between defenders, and Hargreaves of all people burst through and slotted home from 5 yards out. Nice. Full backs get nice and advanced also.

But whether this is all due to a change in formation tactics, who knows. Maybe the AI is just playing more open and it's nothing to do with my set up.

All in all, last night just 'clicked' in terms of CM. I even got injuries (!). Scholes was out for 3 weeks, I’m scoring more goals, the table is pretty much exactly like real life, I’m currently 2nd, a point behind Chelsea, and my team are spreading the goals around (I hate games where just one or two players score all your goals). Rooney has 10, then a whole bunch of players on 3’s and 2’s etc, that make up more goals than Rooney has scored. Mainly all midfielders, which is great. And Berbatov has only 1 goal from 11 starts (hehe).

Hopefully my tactics will work again tonight, but what I did was keep Man Utd’s 4-4-2, keep their custom tactics. The only things I changed were to remove all arrows. I then altered the mentalities to;

Full Backs (Attacking=high, Defence=high)
All midfielders (Attacking=high, Defence=high)
Strikers (Attacking =high, Defence=low)

When in game, I switch team mentality (using ‘select’ and the R buttons from anywhere from medium to all out attack, but mainly on 'attack', the fourth setting up I think).

The mentalities on paper look odd, but nevertheless it worked like a charm last night. I’ll give it another go tonight, but I'm half expecting the game to revert back to the frustrations I had before I tried the new settings.

On a side note, does anyone actually bother anymore with the 360 skill dribble using LT and RT together? I admit I find it next to useless......
 
Is anybody else having trouble to deal with the through chip pass? Not only is the switching unresponsive during highball/looseball situations, but it seems that EA has favored the attacker in the battle to win a long ball over the top. Sometimes I have 2-3 steps on the attacker, if I choose to clear the ball, even with right timing, my defender doesn't respond and if I run on, the attacker will latch on to the pass with ease even if he was behind and I got between him and the ball. Please don't get me wrong, I am against some of the magic defending from behind that happens and the unpunished violence that happens (in human v human, my friend sometimes manages to take out 3-4 of my players in an attack build-up with late slides and gets 1 or 0 cards, ridiculous) but it seems that almost every online game that I play, my opponent tries the one-two chip through pass 90% the time and gets a high success rate even if defenders where in position. Does anyone else notice this?

Controls:

auto switching: airballs
auto switching players assistance: low



I personally have mine set to;

auto switching: auto
assistance: low

I don't really know what the 'low' and 'high' settings do though.

I recently played PES2011 and oddly found that you have no option other than to play 'assisted' with the cursor settings. Move it to 'manual', and the AI actually plays for you until you can get a cursor over the guy with the ball. You in effect battle to regain control over the players! Very odd.
 
Is anybody else having trouble to deal with the through chip pass? Not only is the switching unresponsive during highball/looseball situations, but it seems that EA has favored the attacker in the battle to win a long ball over the top. Sometimes I have 2-3 steps on the attacker, if I choose to clear the ball, even with right timing, my defender doesn't respond and if I run on, the attacker will latch on to the pass with ease even if he was behind and I got between him and the ball. Please don't get me wrong, I am against some of the magic defending from behind that happens and the unpunished violence that happens (in human v human, my friend sometimes manages to take out 3-4 of my players in an attack build-up with late slides and gets 1 or 0 cards, ridiculous) but it seems that almost every online game that I play, my opponent tries the one-two chip through pass 90% the time and gets a high success rate even if defenders where in position. Does anyone else notice this?

Controls:

auto switching: airballs
auto switching players assistance: low

Lobbed through balls are getting a lot of attention right now, so you're not alone with struggling to defend against them. Seems to be one of the bigger gameplay complaints so far this year on the official forums. I don't play online much, and personally I suck at lobbed through balls with manual controls, so I haven't noticed a problem myself where I'm finding it too easy. If you're not already doing so, maybe play against manual players only? That usually eliminates the worst of these cheap exploits.


On a side note, does anyone actually bother anymore with the 360 skill dribble using LT and RT together? I admit I find it next to useless......

Don't know if you noticed this but in the FIFA 11 manual, LT + RT is now called "Free Move." I'm pretty sure it was still called "skilled dribble" last year, but in any case it certainly seems to have changed, and personally I haven't quite mastered when it's best used. Basically I still use it like before, though frequently I'll go through spurts where I completely forget about it.

Interesting about the player workrate arrows, I'm going to play around with them like you did - never really thought about going Hi-Hi. It might not be as effective in my CM with a Bundesliga 2 side because of fitness. Something I'm trying to pay attention to at the moment is how the workrate arrows in custom formations interact with player workrate attribute stats.

I recently played PES2011 and oddly found that you have no option other than to play 'assisted' with the cursor settings. Move it to 'manual', and the AI actually plays for you until you can get a cursor over the guy with the ball. You in effect battle to regain control over the players! Very odd.

PES has three options and the one in the middle is semi-assist, which is what you would've wanted to use. Still, player switching is one of the biggest issues people seem to be having this year with the game. Personally, after you get used to it you don't have anymore issues in at critical times than in FIFA.
 
For the nets freaks (I also am). In these stadiums, with triangle nets, if you put in the menu rectangular net, they appear deeper than usual.

-Arena D´Oro
-Akaaroa
-Latino
-O Dromo
-Kokoto
-23 Maj
-Aloha

In Football Ground, when it rains, the net is black.
 
Does anyone know the exact number of teams that had this new 8-photo tech used for player's faces(including squad players)?

So far I've seen Arsenal, Chelsea, Lyon, Bordeaux, Juve(some players). Any other teams?
 
Great game but I prefer PES...
Cheers

At least say why you prefer pes, or what you do not like about fifa.
Its a discussion thread. I like both games. Both have things going for them, and both need improvement too.

Currently playing a bit more pes offline against the cpu.
But yesterday my buddy came over and we played fifa and had a blast.
I love the smooth fifa gameplay, love the shooting and passing.
I do have difficulties creating chances against the CPU.
All in all i'm pretty happy with both games this year.
 
I play mainly PES for single players (seems Fifa is doing everything they can to make single player boring and shallow), even though PES is plagued by technical shortcomings.

For multiplayer, I play Fifa and when you play fair people it can be a great game (a little flat on the tactical department, though...).

So, 2 games for 2 purposes for me.
 
Has FIFA had some secret patch or something because my matches in CM are now far more exciting. I have more time on the ball, midfielders are supporting attackers, and the AI seems to have laid off so much pressing. They don't even seem to be trying to hound me down from goal kicks now.....

Maybe it's the tactics I described in my earlier post, but whatever it is, it's made the game transformed from a dull one to an exciting one :))

Oh, and I tried the advice of using L2 when trapping the ball. It works. Your player controls the ball far more quickly, which gives you time to turn away from the defender or into space. Seems like, much like in real football, your first touch is vital.
 
Has FIFA had some secret patch or something because my matches in CM are now far more exciting. I have more time on the ball, midfielders are supporting attackers, and the AI seems to have laid off so much pressing. They don't even seem to be trying to hound me down from goal kicks now.....

Maybe it's the tactics I described in my earlier post, but whatever it is, it's made the game transformed from a dull one to an exciting one :))

Oh, and I tried the advice of using L2 when trapping the ball. It works. Your player controls the ball far more quickly, which gives you time to turn away from the defender or into space. Seems like, much like in real football, your first touch is vital.

If there was a secret patch, they'd save it for FIFA 12.
 
Yet first touch is almost perfect for every player in any given situation, which is nothing like real football.

I have to disagree here, it's far from perfect given. But when you play with less players the control is alot worse. Controlling longdifficult balls depending on how you take it or what position you are in results in a bad touch.

I played with a 3 star team and alot of the control/first touch there was bad. I had to think about what passes I was doing and where on the pitch.

But I do agree the teams in the top leagues, who have worse players have alot better control/first touches than they should have.

But to say first touch is almost perfect for every player is misleading.
 
I play mainly PES for single players (seems Fifa is doing everything they can to make single player boring and shallow), even though PES is plagued by technical shortcomings.

For multiplayer, I play Fifa and when you play fair people it can be a great game (a little flat on the tactical department, though...).

So, 2 games for 2 purposes for me.

I'm coming to despise playing FIFA against the CPU this year. FIFA's not going to last long at this rate.
 
I have to disagree here, it's far from perfect given. But when you play with less players the control is alot worse. Controlling longdifficult balls depending on how you take it or what position you are in results in a bad touch.

I played with a 3 star team and alot of the control/first touch there was bad. I had to think about what passes I was doing and where on the pitch.

But I do agree the teams in the top leagues, who have worse players have alot better control/first touches than they should have.

But to say first touch is almost perfect for every player is misleading.


I have to agree with you, though most players do have a good first touch the AI seems to be able to take the ball off you if you have players with lesser attacking traits. The speed at which you can change direction etc once you've taken the ball is just as vital, and to me this has been positively changed this year. Ferdinand won't be able to control a quick pass into feet and turn into space like Messi can, for example.

It's not very realistic, but at least it introduces some kind of tactics, in that deciding what you're going to do on the ball can largely depend on which player you'll be controlling.
 
Yet first touch is almost perfect for every player in any given situation, which is nothing like real football.
Only if you're Barcelona or Arsenal or something. I was PNE last night and many of my players first touches knocked the ball about 10 yards in front of them or out of play.
 
I have to disagree here, it's far from perfect given. But when you play with less players the control is alot worse. Controlling longdifficult balls depending on how you take it or what position you are in results in a bad touch.

I played with a 3 star team and alot of the control/first touch there was bad. I had to think about what passes I was doing and where on the pitch.

But I do agree the teams in the top leagues, who have worse players have alot better control/first touches than they should have.

But to say first touch is almost perfect for every player is misleading.

I've played a season and a half with Nantes, who has not top players. In fact, the overall of players is less than 70, which is just average.

I can perfectly control the ball 90% of the times no matter which player I control. Really. I play short passing and L" to trap the ball. There are bad first touches here and there, but seem to be quite random and not based on the player controlling the ball. My best players are Cheyrou and Capoue and they don't differ noticeably in first touch from my CBs. They are faster and you can dribble slightly better with them, specially with close controls and skilled dribles. And all of them are equally skilled at tackling and barging off the ball.

That said, in the side of CPU AI, it doesn't matter who I'm playing. The CPU has always the same perfect first touches, psychic abbilities to drible you here and there (other times they are just numb), they always play forward passes and can tackle your player in the final third with the same succeed ratings, no matter who I control, and it doesn't matter much the positioning. Overall, "errors" right now seem to me a matter of randomness and not something I can use as valuable information, or something I can transform in patterns of behaviour.

And while CPU AI is almost perfect in defending (even top teams will play 10 men inside the box, it's ridiculous), your teammates AI is absurdly bad and you know you can't do the same the CPU does in terms of defending. I won the second french division and was promoted to first division and while opponents are stronger and faster, they play exactly the same primitive football of their secondth division counterparts.

To me all in all is quite messy and doesn't give me the illusion of personality. Nor for the individuals, nor for the teams.
 
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I've played a season and a half with Nantes, who has not top players. In fact, the overall of players is less than 70, which is just average.

I can perfectly control the ball 90% of the times no matter which player I control. Really. I play short passing and L" to trap the ball. There are bad first touches here and there, but seem to be quite random and not based on the player controlling the ball. My best players are Cheyrou and Capoue and they don't differ noticeably in first touch from my CBs. They are faster and you can dribble slightly better with them, specially with close controls and skilled dribles. And all of them are equally skilled at tackling and barging off the ball.

That said, in the side of CPU AI, it doesn't matter who I'm playing. The CPU has always the same perfect first touches, psychic abbilities to drible you here and there (other times they are just numb), they always play forward passes and can tackle your player in the final third with the same succeed ratings, no matter who I control, and it doesn't matter much the positioning. Overall, "errors" right now seem to me a matter of randomness and not something I can use as valuable information, or something I can transform in patterns of behaviour.

And while CPU AI is almost perfect in defending (even top teams will play 10 men inside the box, it's ridiculous), your teammates AI is absurdly bad and you know you can't do the same the CPU does in terms of defending. I won the second french division and was promoted to first division and while opponents are stronger and faster, they play exactly the same primitive football of their secondth division counterparts.

To me all in all is quite messy and doesn't give me the illusion of personality. Nor for the individuals, nor for the teams.

Fair enough.

But if you are playing short passes to players without pressure on them, most professional players first touch and control would be good. It's when pressure and receiving long balls and using their prefered foot to take the ball etc I find in these situations, especially with lower teams, that first touch and control does get effected quite a bit.

As I said alot more work needs to be done on first touch adn control, but I still think it has an effect on the game and does work.

All the other stuff you have mentioned is true aswell...although I don't experience it as bad as you do.
 
For the nets freaks (I also am). In these stadiums, with triangle nets, if you put in the menu rectangular net, they appear deeper than usual.

-Arena D´Oro
-Akaaroa
-Latino
-O Dromo
-Kokoto
-23 Maj
-Aloha

In Football Ground, when it rains, the net is black.

The rectangular nets are also deeper in these stadiums, they look great!
 
Been away for a week or so, come back to FIFA 11 feels like a new game now. I think I still had FIFA 10 inside me somewhere. I still enjoy PES too, but FIFA has something over it, i'm not sure what it is. Had a great session on clubs last night too.

It's not pissing me off now paying £30 for it. When clubs works it's the best mode out there.
 
Been playing manual online today.

After loving it so much, I came across pressure whores galore today.

Really spoils the game. Not only that, the tactic of running full pelt at the player with the ball and knocking them over to get the ball is becoming a great trick. Then your player falls to the floor and because they have the reactions of a baby trying to scramble up off of the floor, it provides an easy chance for the opposition.

When I first played this I though the reactions of players getting up from challenges had improved...I don't know what has happened but they take their time again now.

It is very rare for a player just to fall over, just because a bigger player goes into a challenge with them. Yet on fifa if you have a small player and a bigger player comes in for the challenge, your player will be flat out on the floor and take an age to get up again. It is very frustrating.

It is a shame as I was enjoying online alot, but it seems like some fools have gone over to manual.

Little things like having a referee in black, whil my team is playing in navy blue is also shit. Also online when you are playing on an icy/snowy pitch the ball isn't orange?! small details like this can totally ruin a game.

Anyway, just a bad day for me today, hopefully I can play some good players later.

PS I played another super player today. Beat me 8-1 :SHOCK: if he wasn't cheating, then he was superb! his finishing was amazing and his passing out of this world. I don't know how people do it?!
 
PS I played another super player today. Beat me 8-1 :SHOCK: if he wasn't cheating, then he was superb! his finishing was amazing and his passing out of this world. I don't know how people do it?!

The away player can change their settings even in a manual game so he probably had it all set to assisted! EA fixing supposedly.

Just saying that incase you weren't aware already. Ignore me if you were. Cheers.
 
I'm getting tired of clubs, or maybe tired of clubs while not in a club? The only positions I 'race' to are in midfield (VP is a CAM). Most of what I have seen so far is defenders trying to trick their way to the opposing goal (with success sometimes). Wingers and forwards all making a mad dash towards the ball, loose or not, and/or players just not even trying to pass the ball. Has a CF one game not attempt one headed pass (from clearances, goal kicks, etc) instead he tried to chest every ball down and turn the defender.

Several games my teammates would quit (10 other people, gone just likw that) if we got scored on first.

Occasionally it's fun, biut rarely. There's far too much pressuring/sprinting with no negative side to it. The game rewards the white afro'd, yellow taped, 6'8" striker who just sprints about all game. Or the right back that makes forward runs while doing step-overs only to lose the ball and not get anywhere near the defensive third. My last three games I had a comibined three touches, playing CM/CLM, CAM, and LW. THREE TOUCHES.

I'm going club hunting this weekend, in the hopes that I'll start liking the mode more.
 
The away player can change their settings even in a manual game so he probably had it all set to assisted! EA fixing supposedly.

Just saying that incase you weren't aware already. Ignore me if you were. Cheers.

I tried to see if that worked the other day when I was the away player, but the option was greyed out?
 
I tried to see if that worked the other day when I was the away player, but the option was greyed out?

I think that they may have already fixed it. I tested it out myself when I first heard about the glitch and it was definitely there (I only play manual anyway so I wasn't gonna do anything) but I think I tried a couple of days ago and the option wasn't there anymore.

Anyone else who plays online feel like they've definitely tweaked fatigue? It still doesn't seem to do anything about the defender catch up as I don't sprint a lot with my players anyway and I still can't beat my opponents CBs (100% pressure and aggression I guess) and in one situation where my opponent (with City) was sprinting from the opening whistle with Tevez and Adebayor, they still had more than enough energy to beat my CBs for pace in extra time.
 
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Most of what I have seen so far is defenders trying to trick their way to the opposing goal (with success sometimes). Wingers and forwards all making a mad dash towards the ball, loose or not, and/or players just not even trying to pass the ball. Has a CF one game not attempt one headed pass (from clearances, goal kicks, etc) instead he tried to chest every ball down and turn the defender.

Several games my teammates would quit (10 other people, gone just likw that) if we got scored on first.
Online gamers spoiling online game mode shocker. That's how people want to play, it seems, and I think we're stuck with it. Sure, EA could change a few things, balance stamina better, put tighter controls on physique creation... but can you really imagine any scenario where people wouldn't still try to do the same things you described? I can't.

It's a group of anonymous people, 90%+ of whom are solely interested in the glory of skill dribbling, scoring a goal and only being on the winning side. I don't know how the game could change that mindset.

That's the worst thing about online gaming. People :P
 
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