Re: Fifa 11
Someone on the official forums suggested the Tiger Woods golf swing system! Would be pretty weird to say the least. I wonder if anything can be done with that though, to make it more like a free kick. Probably not!
Hey Romagnoli, I am kind of humbled someone actively wants my opinion on this.
I have given this alot of thought in the past when I was most active with thinking of ways to improve PES.
The Tiger Woods system I have considered, and it was basically used in PES3 for the Xbox (which was the last game from KCEO if I recall correctly). I don't like it for some reason, I think it is too much with the gauges and such visible on the screen (if you do a literal translation from golf games).
Some of my prefered systems would be something like this:
System 1 (less agile). I would like some type of indicator visible on the screen where you determine the intended height of the shot. Preferably this would look something like the system from ISS98 etc on the N64.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiVgP7yO82A#t=0m40s
The reason I like this approach is that I would prefer to let you, the player, as clearly as possible get your intentions across to the game. If you have some type of arrow (not necessarily as long and "visible" as in the above clip), you will be able to clearly intend a certain height on the shot. Unlike the ISS clip, FIFA locks the camera to the aim when you have a player waiting to take a free kick, so the arrow is more just to define the general initial angle of the trajectory as the ball leaves the boot.
Once the Powerbar has been filled, I would like to use the same system of using the left stick to define curl. I think it works well and you can intend to get a lot of curl, or just a more subtle bend.
System 2
After doing alot of typing and thinking as I write this post, I have also "come up" with
System 2, which right now I feel is the ultimate in terms of agility and fluidity. It would necessitate the use of the analog stick for defining the initial angle of the ball trajectory and also some other aiming. This would alienate the digital pad users, but at this point I feel it is time to design the game with only the stick in mind.
Variation 1:
Basically, like in current FIFA and PES, you have the camera behind the players as he takes the freekick. Moving stick left and right shifts the aiming left and right, moving the camera along with it.
When you have defined the general direction of aim, what you do is lean the analog stick more or less forwards to define a high or low initial trajectory. Basically think of it as still having an invisible arrow like the ISS clip above, but having it linked in real time to the angle of the stick tilt. So when the stick is not tilted forwards at all, the arrow is flat against the ground for an intended ground shot, and then as you tilt the stick more and more forward, the arrow will raise more and more off the ground.
As soon as you have defined your initial angle with tilting the stick, you then power up the shot with a traditional power bar, essentially locking the takeoff angle in place. The left stick then instead works as a curl definer up until the moment the ball is struck.
So the
workflow for this version of the system would be:
1. Stick LEFT/RIGHT to define aim direction.
2. Tilt stick forwards more or less for higher or lower trajectory
3. While holding stick forwards, press shot button to power up power bar
4. Stick then automatically becomes curl definer.
Variation 2 (superior in my opinion):
An alternative to this could be that you need to hold Left Trigger to enable curl definition. This way if for some reason you wanted to alter the height fluidly (let's say you change your mind and might want to put it low under the wall instead), you could release LT before the strike of the ball to re-define the height using the stick, then again press LT to define curl. You could also at this point change the ball strike power fluidly. This would alter the workflow slightly.
So for example:
1. You use Stick LEFT/RIGHT to define aim direction in the unguarded corner of the goal.
2. You press shot button to power up power bar.
3. You tilt stick to define initial angle. You then press LT to lock the height control.
4. Holding LT now defines curl. Player starts his run-up to shoot.
5. You then instead want to change to a high trajectory, softer strike over the wall. Quickly you click shot button to define a new, softer power, release LT while re-tuning the stick tilt to a higher tilt angle for an over-the-wall shot, then hold LT for the final curl definition.
This system is very fluid and allows you to do changes like these. I would like some way of doing changes in aim direction aswell, possibly using RB/LB (these would be free and no longer be used as modifiers for controlled or hard Free kick anymore since the height and power applied will determine that dynamically (for example crossing a threshold on the power bar will move shot from instep to laces strike).
And, there is an easy way to change the aim dynamically mid-runup to a large extent.
In the above
workflow description for
Variation 2, when you first define the aiming direction using LEFT/RIGHT stick input, when you press the shot/lob/pass button this locks the camera from moving from that point onwards.
So:
1. You use Stick LEFT/RIGHT to move the camera aim to define general aim direction in the unguarded corner of the goal.
2. You press shot button to power up power bar to desired height.
3. You tilt stick to define initial angle. At this point the stick also works as a secondary aiming device, just like you would aim any manual pass in the game. So with the camera locked in place, you can tilt stick in any direction and with any stick tilt to let you do last minute changes to both height, aim and curl.
For example, as the player runs up to shoot, you could just use Y/Triangle to instead power up a throughball and aim it, like in the game, to a specific player. You could also change from a shot to instead mid-runup power up a longpass and instantly define a new aim and initial strike trajectory and Left Trigger-Curl for the longpass.
The only change that would be needed is to pull back the camera a bit from the player taking the freekick, so that you can get an overview.
AND, there would be a button that lets you
shift between striker view and Normal In-game Camera. This system is designed so that it can actually be used with the normal in-game camera, since you can use the stick to aim just like any other manual shot or pass in-game. The difference being the stick-tilt and the LT-curl control.
So, with this system, there is basically no limits to what you cannot do. You use only any shot or pass button, the left analog stick, and LT. It also works as intuitively as the normal passing and shooting methods, you can change mid-runup to instead just pass back to a defender, or switch from a shot to a cross instead, and someone who is used to the system could probably do it in less than a second, simultaneously powering up a new powerbar to change type of strike, aiming and defining height, then LT for curl).
Downsides would be no digital pad compatibility. Also it would take some getting used to (however the new penalty system does aswell so I feel it is the right direction to go in).
Any error would be added based on player attributes, and I would like to see an improved error system to make sure that for example trying alot of topspin, like Rom mentioned before, will have more variation of error since certain types of shots and curls are harder than others. Hopefully a dynamic system can be created where they can develop a sliding scale where only the most skilled freekickers can do the most extreme curls or striked consistently.
(I say I thought of this, but to be fair this is how ISS98 etc also did it. In those games you could use the Blue arrow as in the video, but you could also with a button remove the arrow and shoot freely defining power with shot button and height with stick tilt).
Excuse the layout of this post, I spent alot of time writing lots of stuff so I am glad if it just makes any sense at all to anyone but me at this point.
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