Fifa 11 Xbox 360/PS3

If it's true that Pro Passing can be turned off then, on the face of it, this does seem a strange decision by EA, but one that has probably been made to appease not necessarily the kids/casuals, but those who like Fifa just the way it is. Which is probably a sizeable proportion of the Fifa fanbase, those that don't want anything too challenging. As others have said EA should stand by their convictions and force it through but then the powers that be don't want to do anything to alienate a section of their customer base.

It's just one more thing that could further fragment an already fragmented online experience. I think there are too many control configs in Fifa (manual/semi/assisted, now possibly pro passing) and they should really look towards an all encompassing one-size-fits-all control scheme which is a trade-off between manual and assisted. I like what PES is doing this year by making the default experience on a par with Fifa's semi-assisted controls and then offering a manual modifier button for those that want further control. It keeps everyone singing from the same hymn sheet.
 
romagnoli said:
Disagree with the bold - what they'd implemented in my playtest does exactly that.

I honestly can't see a way to keep 10 million buyers AND keep us happy moving into the future. In an ideal world I fully agree with you, but realistically I can't see how it can be done without compromising further down the line. It's why that comment from Gary about FIFA 12 having sliders (or similar) was made.

If they're going to do something like this, then (a) the inaccuracy of the passing had better be increased if anything, and (b) they simply must take every step to stop the arcadiness from bleeding into my experience. If it does then I'll be absolutely livid.
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Thing is how are the sliders affecting online. Are they simple slider where you just have a choice between sim and arcade or are they complex like what Madden has or had? (haven't played Madden since 04 I think)
 
I'm sure EA would be happy to do the same if their fanbase was small enough, but, the double edged sword of licensing forces their hand.

We still have to see what the actual plan is. It's fun to go apeshit, but I've had my fun with that now. I just want to know what's happening and whether I need to go ape again.

Edit: ant0n - dunno. It's not in yet! They're talking about how to go about things. It might not even be sliders - they might just have a sim, ultrasim and arcade mode or something.
 
romagnoli said:
I'm sure EA would be happy to do the same if their fanbase was small enough, but, the double edged sword of licensing forces their hand.

We still have to see what the actual plan is. It's fun to go apeshit, but I've had my fun with that now. I just want to know what's happening and whether I need to go ape again.

Edit: ant0n - dunno. It's not in yet! They're talking about how to go about things. It might not even be sliders - they might just have a sim, ultrasim and arcade mode or something.
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Offline sliders work for a truly custom experience. Online they would have to be just separate game types like FPS. Core and Hardcore.
 
romagnoli said:
Disagree with the bold - what they'd implemented in my playtest does exactly that.

I honestly can't see a way to keep 10 million buyers AND keep us happy moving into the future. In an ideal world I fully agree with you, but realistically I can't see how it can be done without compromising further down the line. It's why that comment from Gary about FIFA 12 having sliders (or similar) was made.
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I think it's questionable just how necessary -this- is. I mean, none of us worried about the population coping with Pro Passing, did we? None of us. Not because we're blind to what these people feel like - but because we know the truth: that VERY few people ACTUALLY need the levels of assistance provided, or even close - and if they DO need it, they can have it with the super-easy two-buttons system.

This is something more, this is an outright belief that EA holds that people WANT the game to be unrealistic, not easy per se, but outright unrealistic.

Like with your example of people getting used to semi-passing very easily - they'd get used to this. They wouldn't have a remote problem with it. EA assume, wrongly, how their community actually feel, and more than that, they continually fail to be willing to change the game in any substantial way.

If EA are never going to make changes which change the way people play we are never going to get to our destination. Sliders.. well. I'm not that convinced. It didn't work well for Tiger Woods (they don't have sliders but something almost identical in terms of being able to change how realistic the game is) - where none of the settings are that realistic.

EA need to make the game realistic first, and add the sliders in for the arcade wanters if anything - I'm not exactly confident in them getting this the right way round. EA's response needs to be pretty good here.
 
BobbyBox said:
the thing is what is the proportion of these ping pong players that actually buy and play the game?

It is probably a very high percentage? so they are a business and they will want to make ridiculous amounts of sales/money like last year, so they need to still cater for these people.
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That still doesn't really explain why they made this switch in the first place after firing Joe Booth. This may be rehashing a bit but when did the suits at EA look at FIFA's massive sales and say, even though we're the top selling footy game in the world, making the game even EASIER to play and less realistic will certainly net us tons of cash in America. Instead of you know, international competitions and soccer's growth in popularity maybe driving sales as it certainly has with the Euro, the World Football Challenge in the States last year, the CL final, and the WC?

People will buy FIFA (and have been buying FIFA) by the truckload, regardless. Who looked at FIFA 08, which sold a ton, and said, we need to tone down fatigue, ratchet up the speed, make passing super easy, etc.?

I guess that what I'm saying is I don't think that FIFA had issues selling before these changes. And I don't necessarily believe that the easier play style has led directly to the increase in sales. EA, since Peter Moore took over, have gone into marketing overdrive mode.
 
Murkurial said:
That still doesn't really explain why they made this switch in the first place after firing Joe Booth. This may be rehashing a bit but when did the suits at EA look at FIFA's massive sales and say, even though we're the top selling footy game in the world, making the game even EASIER to play and less realistic will certainly net us tons of cash in America. Instead of you know, international competitions and soccer's growth in popularity maybe driving sales as it certainly has with the Euro, the World Football Challenge in the States last year, the CL final, and the WC?

People will buy FIFA (and have been buying FIFA) by the truckload, regardless. Who looked at FIFA 08, which sold a ton, and said, we need to tone down fatigue, ratchet up the speed, make passing super easy, etc.?

I guess that what I'm saying is I don't think that FIFA had issues selling before these changes. And I don't necessarily believe that the easier play style has led directly to the increase in sales. EA, since Peter Moore took over, have gone into marketing overdrive mode.
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Moore contradicted himself this year by saying EA's goal with 11 is not Metacritc anymore. So I thought this meant we were getting a sim this year. But now we don't know for certain.
 
But actually most of the elements which cause the problems exist in FIFA 08 too. Passing was no harder. The AI is bloody awful. The assists still exist. FIFA 08 came up with a more realistic solution from worse mechanics and technology - but FIFA 08 wasn't realistic. It lacked a lot of what football is actually about - it actually lacked excitement. The physics were ridiculous, and you couldn't pass a man for shit. FIFA 08 was a ticking time bomb.
 
Rodelero said:
I think it's questionable just how necessary -this- is. I mean, none of us worried about the population coping with Pro Passing, did we? None of us. Not because we're blind to what these people feel like - but because we know the truth: that VERY few people ACTUALLY need the levels of assistance provided, or even close - and if they DO need it, they can have it with the super-easy two-buttons system.

This is something more, this is an outright belief that EA holds that people WANT the game to be unrealistic, not easy per se, but outright unrealistic.

Like with your example of people getting used to semi-passing very easily - they'd get used to this. They wouldn't have a remote problem with it. EA assume, wrongly, how their community actually feel, and more than that, they continually fail to be willing to change the game in any substantial way.

If EA are never going to make changes which change the way people play we are never going to get to our destination. Sliders.. well. I'm not that convinced. It didn't work well for Tiger Woods (they don't have sliders but something almost identical in terms of being able to change how realistic the game is) - where none of the settings are that realistic.

EA need to make the game realistic first, and add the sliders in for the arcade wanters if anything - I'm not exactly confident in them getting this the right way round. EA's response needs to be pretty good here.
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It's hard to say what they really should do, because I don't know what they're actually planning to do! I'm convinced Pro Passing is going to be on by default. It's been such a big part of their spiel this year, and it was THE big change, combined with inaccuracy of passing (I'm isolating these as I don't think that's what they mean), that made me feel like I was playing a proper challenger for best ever footy game.

It's agonising not knowing. Bloody weekends...

Wilkmyster said:
on a lighter note, check the cover art used in this story

Random Article

:P
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Print that out NOW!
 
4.jpg


Best FIFA news of the day. Which isn't saying much.
 
It makes me laugh how the two main features i've heard about (Personality+ and Pro Passing) are, when not coated in their fancy name, just player individuality and innaccuracy in the assists - fundamental basics of any good football game that should have been in the FIFA series from the very beginning... It's not really an achievement them implementing this, it's just that they've fucked up every time in the past. It's like congratulating someone who used to be a fat fuck for losing weight.

I bet this time next year (probably a few months earlier) we'll be fed up with FIFA 11 and have a massive list of exploits/bugs/unrealistic stuff from it which we'll hope EA will look at...
 
There's a lot more to Pro Passing than that Rob. I appreciate you're behind with the news - there's loads of it around and no News Only thread. One of the key points with pro passing in particular is the 90% manual power bar for semi and assisted passing. Makes a hell of a difference.
 
It will be interesting to know that when you turn off the "pro passing" if it affects both the human and CPU controller in case you're playing alone.
I hope "pro passing" concerns both the human and CPU
 
romagnoli said:
There's a lot more to Pro Passing than that Rob. I appreciate you're behind with the news - there's loads of it around and no News Only thread. One of the key points with pro passing in particular is the 90% manual power bar for semi and assisted passing. Makes a hell of a difference.
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That sounds good and something like it has been badly needed for years, it should make the matches more realistic and help give the advantage to the players who think about what they are doing.

Despite this, it's still not something i'd congratulate EA on - why wasn't this in FIFA 09 or 10? (or earlier?). I can't imagine it being extremely complex to code, and how did most the people developing/testing the game not say "Hang on a minute, isn't it way too easy to just knock the ball around first time on assisted?" and do something about it?... They also ignored all the feedback they got about FIFA 09's ping-pong passing and if anything, made it worse for 10...
 
Man, Konami has out-EA'd EA in regards to marketing so far. Congrats to them.
 
I came back home expecting a statement from Rutter on Twitter or something. Guess we'll have to wait again.

The thing is, i know we're complaining now, but when EA release footage of the game with the new faces and bodies et al we'll all worship them again :lol you just know it.

I'd like a few issues cleared up before i get on my knee though.

BTW I do feel for EA a bit. They are now at a stage in which they can only iterate on what they have. They cannot change things wildly or risk losing sales . Sales dictate their budget so it's a kind of catch 22. They just have to be brave and trust their fanbase to learn new things. That's why PES became popular. Every PES had a new learning curve, even for pro's.

/rant (i'm a bit tipsey!!)
 
I think they imagine the catch 22. They just lack guts. Their fan base is stupid, but it's not as stupid as they seem to imply by their actions. FIFA has RISEN in popularity since its become more realistic, PES has FALLEN in popularity since it became less realistic. It's not hard to understand. Your fanbase will GROW if you improve the games faithfulness to realism, and if you want to keep the casual market you need to give it the assistance to play GOOD realistic football. What you don't do is make it easier by just breaking the bounds of realism. The whole idea of the 'assists' is logical - having an optional pro passing is ridiculous.

Sometimes I really do wonder about EA. I play on Clubs and I'm just bewildered by how stupid some of the design decisions are. Even if EA intend to make Pro Passing optional online I'm going to raise all hell.

Still, if I had to bet, this will be offline only, and forced on for online.
 
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*** NEWS FLASH ***
EA_GaryPaterson said:
- The USER SKILL part of pro passing (that is the power bar part) will be an option that is defaulted to On. It will be hardcoded to ON for all online games
- The CONTEXTUAL ERROR is not a setting and so is ALWAYS ON

The reason that we did this is to soften the blow for the casual guys - they like playing the game the way it is so why should I try to antagonise them (although I am with contextual error :)).

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Gary
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So it's offline only and it's only the power bar charging - the contextual error will still be there in all modes. If they want to play online then they'll have to build up to using the power bar. I'm fine with that. Essentially turning the power bar off is like another layer of assistance.
 
He worries far too much about 'casual gamers'. What I'd like to ask Gary, is why he feels it acceptable to have an assistance setting online as ridiculous as the assists but feels this shouldn't be online? And yes I know that FIFA 11's assists are 'not a fucking disgrace' in your opinion Romagnoli.. I dunno. Either EA have learnt their lesson or we're still on a merry roundabout of the influence 'casuals' have ruining the game.

But in any case, thank God. It's pointless, like the hand balls, but fine. I do wish they were this careful when they implemented the assist system for the last 7 games.
 
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