Fifa 11 Xbox 360/PS3

Didn't know Rutter more or less have promised quick throw ins for FIFA 12 back in January, that's nice, hopefully PES will have to follow their lead and do the same.

This is probably already known to you lot, but for the non FIFA heads he said this:
"Set-pieces are still a bit lame," he candidly admitted. "I get frustrated by not being able to do quick throw-ins, not being able to quickly select my free-kick takers, on the fly stuff. We're somewhat last-gen in the way the game cuts [before those things]."

I doubt he would say something like that and not have quick throw ins already implemented already in their FIFA 12 code. It would make him look like a clown if they don't fix stuff that even he himself thinks is annoying.

He also said this about the AI:
"I think we did a great job with the Personality Plus feature [in] FIFA 11," he said, "but the teams [AI] doesn't support that quite as much as it should.

"As an example, a team doesn't spot that if Peter Crouch in the area, they can lay a load of high balls onto his head."

Last paragraph sound good (kind of lame that the AI doesn't get this now though, seems like basic stuff).

So if they do implement sliders so that you can make the game more realistic (more accuracy errors, bad touches and so on) it might turn out an OK game maybe? Or did I just buy in to Rutter's usual BS :SMUG:

Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/284890/news/fifa-12-ea-details-improved-ai-set-pieces/
 
My information is that they haven't/aren't.

Can't hear you LALALALALALALALALALAAA










:(

Any possibilities that you can snoop around and get an answer to why? Since sliders mostly should modify attribute values, it should be pretty simple to implement. Like say they currently have an x multiplier on accuracy errors on shots based on the players shot accuracy, you would only tweak that value with sliders.

If not you, then don't we have these Übermenschen called Game Changers registered here? Surely they can get an answer with their high influence on the end product.
 
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Why? Probably because they decided that even though they pretty much promised to implement them they hold those of us who actually want such things (ie the hardcore not arcade gaming masses) in utter contempt...
 
I'd rather slow down Fifa's gameplay than speed it up but quick throws are a decent enough idea and probably no detriment. I still hate how quick all set-pieces end up being in Fifa, you hardly have to wait for the whistle at all and for freekicks the camera barely finishes panning before somebody (a real person) ends up taking the freekick.

Sucks about sliders.
 
They seem to have adjusted the AI into a bunch of headless chickens that do nothing but run towards you're goal as fast as possible and only adjust their "play" based on user imput. It would be an interesting (read: depressing) experiment to "anti-defend". Meaning when the AI has possesion, actually make your players move out of the way and give them a free run. I wonder if they would actually pass the ball to their teammates or just run in a straight line towards your goal...

What is interesting about that point, is it's very similar to the online ranked players "style" of play.

Makes me wonder about the way they "learned" the AI to skill moves in the game as it was something to do with recording real players using them etc. Maybe it wasn't just skill moves that they learned, but also the general style of play?
 
Could be, they have definitly adjusted the AI to represent the worst part of online gaming imo.

Another example is how the AI striker will nearly always mark your last defender when taking a goalkick. Again an example that wasn't present in the previous games, yet is very like what you see online.
 
They won´t put sliders because all they care now is online players that can spent a lot of $$$$ on stupid DLC and UT packges, they are only going to bring new ideas of how take more money out of players in future games and don´t give a shit about the offline simulation players.
 
Good point Glen, I've wondered that in the past too - whether EA genuinely want the AI to play like football teams or like people online. Look at the striker pressuring on goal kicks for example.

All we can hope is that, with presumably unlimited access access to Opta data on every single pass every single player makes and the differences between each and every team, they can try and use that as the 'teacher' for the AI rather than gamers.
 
They won´t put sliders because all they care now is online players that can spent a lot of $$$$ on stupid DLC and UT packges, they are only going to bring new ideas of how take more money out of players in future games and don´t give a shit about the offline simulation players.

This is the sad truth.
 
If they don't put sliders in it would be pretty mindblowing at this stage, a nail in the coffin more or less. But then that is the case with quite a few things this year.

If they don't basically rewrite the defensive part of the game, it's a nail in the coffin

If they don't make massive strides forwards with AI, it's a nail in the coffin

If they don't completely redesign the way that virtual pro clubs works so that it doesn't turn into a cesspit, it's a nail in the coffin

and so on.

I have this tiny, tiny part of me which is hopeful - but part of me thinks that within a few short weeks that hope could be gone. No sliders is a massive, massive blow if true Placebo. Not because it means it will be a disaster, there is no need for sliders, there is only a need for sliders if EA is to continue with this fallacy that the hardcore cannot be appeased with the same game as the casual bollocks.
 
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Who knows - I believe it's usually around this time (April) that the Canada stuff happens if it happens at all - but we usually don't hear about its occurence (or anything from it) for a fair while longer... certainly though by the time OXM publishes we will have information - but you never know, maybe stuff will come out before that.
 
It would be an interesting (read: depressing) experiment to "anti-defend". Meaning when the AI has possesion, actually make your players move out of the way and give them a free run. I wonder if they would actually pass the ball to their teammates or just run in a straight line towards your goal...


That's just it. Your teammates move out of the way often and do almost nothing to block passing lanes, intercept passes, and often do other illogical things. Like nerf said, if there is a way forward, why move back? And like Rom said, the DM and every other player ought to attempt to play their role properly with minimal input on the user's part, but that's not the case. All of these things are intertwined and to me it seems deliberate as opposed to just poor programming. The AI offense is capable of playing possession but the AI defense doesn't give them a reason too.

While I personally find pleasure in the struggling to make team defense work to some degree (and infact I see quite a bit of possession play from the AI), it really shouldn’t be a struggle at all.
 
Yeah, you can sometimes force the AI to pass sideways on the rare occasion that you somehow manage to block off their forward options. It all ties into a feedback thread I made about how team pressing is not being implemented correctly, about how the away-from-the-ball teammates only really seem respond to an opponent when the ball arrives, not before. So the next man up the pitch is usually left (relatively) alone. The game thus degenerates into a repetition of forward diagonal pass, turn, forward diagonal pass, turn, forward diagonal pass, turn, forward diagonal pass... until you reach the penalty area.

When they attempted to address ping-pong passing, they only made changes to address the passing part and not the fact that the next forward option is open 90% of the time. This goes for both the human team and the AI team. We've often pointed out how the nature of the game facilitates the fast-paced style of football that FIFA always seems to revert to, and this is one of the many causes.

Moving the ball should be more about timing a pass with the movement of the receiver. Waiting for (or anticipating) a teammate to make a change of direction/position to find space between opponents, rather than him just already being in space anyway because no opponent bothered to pick him up. That's why the ball gets moved so quickly towards goal so often. I don't think you could code much more of a possession-orientated without fixing this first - they pass forward because the forward pass is almost always on.

...and then when defences have been taught to press/mark more intelligently off the ball, you'd also have to a) improve the variation of off-the-ball movement by attacking teammates, and b) balance shielding and tackling so the receiver can better protect the ball when it arrives (or delay and hold on to it while you wait for a teammate to get free). Then we might have something a little closer to football than ice hockey.
 
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One of the issues with FIFA is the expectancy on the player. In some places it's minimal. Like passing, shooting, crossing, tackling - most of the things you have to do with the selected player.

But at other points you have to more or less do EVERYTHING, even though you have no tools to do it. Like attacking runs, like defensive movement, like defensive positioning, pressure, moving for headers, player selection, interceptions.

In most cases, it's the wrong way round. Stuff you should be expected to take a degree of control in you have no control. Stuff you really can't be expected to do, you absolutely have to. I've been calling for years for players on your team to actually actively attempt to position themselves for interceptions, to jockey even when they aren't selected, and so on. Yet year after year they do none of these things.

Nothing makes me laugh more when I consider this whole game than the absurd philosophy which underpins the assists and the AI. The AI does nothing to help you and the assists more or less do it for you. Why is it that way round? Why? Bleh. Toxic.
 
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I did it for my 1st CM in 11 (pre-patch), and tested it quite a lot before starting it up. However with a total lack of football intelligence from the AI it was pretty pointless. Even placing the settings at extremes didn't do much for the actual football being served up.

For some reason they have just removed any resemblance of possesion football (which was still somewhat present in 10) and made it a counterattack-fest. AI KickOff is one of the biggest most obvious examples of how shitty they have made the AI. Every-bloody-time they just run at goal straight from kickoff!

Yeah this is totally spot on. The AI can almost never see to pass anywhere other than forwards or sideways. Rarely will it pass backwards, and when it does, it's so it can launch one of those trademark 30 yard lofted passes to the wing.

What strikes me is the lack of variation of pace the AI shows. There are all these nuances with the introduction of the analogue stick, and analogue sprinting, and the AI seems to totally ignore it. Instead, it just sprints about like it's the last minute of the game for 90 minutes. No slow/fast tempo, just rush, rush, shove, win the ball, launch it up the pitch.

It's true, FIFA09 in particular never struck me as having any kind of an AI that played like this. I'm sure that the highest difficulties made it really hard to win the ball off the AI.
 
Didn't know Rutter more or less have promised quick throw ins for FIFA 12 back in January, that's nice, hopefully PES will have to follow their lead and do the same.

This is probably already known to you lot, but for the non FIFA heads he said this:


I doubt he would say something like that and not have quick throw ins already implemented already in their FIFA 12 code. It would make him look like a clown if they don't fix stuff that even he himself thinks is annoying.

He also said this about the AI:


Last paragraph sound good (kind of lame that the AI doesn't get this now though, seems like basic stuff).

So if they do implement sliders so that you can make the game more realistic (more accuracy errors, bad touches and so on) it might turn out an OK game maybe? Or did I just buy in to Rutter's usual BS :SMUG:

Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/284890/news/fifa-12-ea-details-improved-ai-set-pieces/

The problem with Rutter's comments, as with every year, is that EA seem to take all of the less important stuff and try to develop that, like set pieces, when the other 99% of the game has massive flaws. Set pieces? That's the last thing I'd be looking at right now as a 'major' improvement.

Also, with the personality plus, all this means is that the AI will use it annoyingly too often to be realistic, and will be some kind of cheap tactic. What would happen with players such as Crouch, or other big strikers, is the AI will constantly use them and they'll be totally overpowered. EA never seem to be able to get a balance, it's all or nothing. Just look at skill moves. Everyone complained that we never see the AI perform them, so this year EA add them, now we have to put up with the AI pulling off that arsehole roulette move literally every time I play the game. I mean of all the skill moves, that? I think I've only ever seen Ronaldinho and Zidane pull it off in a real match, yet in FIFA11 Macclesfield Town's finest are rouletting like the best of them. It's another case of all or nothing. Rather than seeing only the top players pull off skill moves, and be able to perform a varied bunch from the plethora available, we get EVERYONE doing the same one skill move over and over.

However from Rutter's comments, I guess we can expect Crouch to be the best striker in the game next year then. :SHOCK:
 
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The question with EA is still "do they get it?". If quick throw ins are where they feel the natural next step is, the answer is a clear now. Guess we'll now soon enough.
 
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Well he never says that their next big thing is quick throw ins, he just says that it's something that is annoying and he wants fixed.

And set pieces to me is actually pretty important. It's a huge part of football, so that corner kicks and free kicks are more realistic is very good. The movement/fighting for space in the box is not in current FIFA, everyone just stands around.

But if he said this is the main things and gameplay (individuality, accuracy errors etc) is all good, then sure he could go fuck himself.
 
In some ways though what is more wrong with the setpieces isn't the set pieces themselves but the AI. Set pieces are important, yes, but quick-throwins is the kind of thing which I suspect is fairly high-cost for extremely low-reward, not the kind of thing EA should be doing if they are trying to renovate the game most of us think is broken.
 
Yeah this is totally spot on. The AI can almost never see to pass anywhere other than forwards or sideways. Rarely will it pass backwards, and when it does, it's so it can launch one of those trademark 30 yard lofted passes to the wing.

What strikes me is the lack of variation of pace the AI shows. There are all these nuances with the introduction of the analogue stick, and analogue sprinting, and the AI seems to totally ignore it. Instead, it just sprints about like it's the last minute of the game for 90 minutes. No slow/fast tempo, just rush, rush, shove, win the ball, launch it up the pitch.

It's true, FIFA09 in particular never struck me as having any kind of an AI that played like this. I'm sure that the highest difficulties made it really hard to win the ball off the AI.

Nevermind the fact that they don't pass back, what irks me is how the AI seems to think the only available option to get past an oncoming defender is through the use of that silly Mcgeady spin trick... that alone was reason enough for me to give up on playing offline, and while playing against humans doesn't change the limited types of goals you can score in the game, at least I can find some semblance of variety when it comes to offensive plays online, especially in Clubs.

In other news, EA actually bothered to put up a video announcement for next week's reveal of the first FIFA12 screenshot! YouTube - FIFA 12 | First Screenshot
 
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