FIFA 12 Discussion Thread

Does 'some sort of skill' instantly mean a skill move though? It could just be a poorly worded phrase meaning a certain degree of talent from the player itself? I don't know.
 
I saw a video of rutter and his other gimp side kick playing football, i think Lami posted it a long time ago, he should put those in "crap player mode"
 
Flair passing is what happened to FIFA Street after all these years. Hold L2 and every pass, including those by Accrington Stanley's back line & keeper, is a 360 roulette/double heel flick/Ronaldinho fake look pass. There is no additional error from passing like this, or using it for lobbed passes (rabonas on demand).

bravo_hydrogen_bomb_15_megaton-wl.jpeg

All of us were laughing at it. I can only hope something went wrong with the code that limits who can pull off these tricks, but that anyone (let alone everyone) can do these tricks on demand in the first place is utterly ridiculous. Instant online apocalypse - every pass will be a trick pass. That is obvious to anyone.

Mucking about with the sliders (which have some potential but have some glaring issues - the shot accuracy slider does not affect finesse shots, passing error is bounciness as well as direction and basically feels random rather than kicking in when a pass should go more astray) something became very clear to me and to Xaor - ramping the pass speed up to inhuman speeds (think three times as fast as shots in WC2010), the recipient of the pass trapped the ball as if it was casually rolled to him. The same casual control-and-turn, leading to the same ability to take any pass in any direction.

It makes it clear just how far FIFA is from modelling the sorts of things PES has included as a given for several years.

CM is decent, on the plus side, as is some of the continuity they're bringing in so that campaign flows into matches. We said CM in FIFA 11 was a 3/10, and this year's is just about a 7 (from what little we'd managed to test in 5 hours). We've already had one of these CM meets and it was clear that Simon & co are doing a hell of a lot to try and make changes according to what we, as a group, asked for (though there is inevitably some of the 'we can't get that done this year I'm afraid', which there has to be with this sort of timeframe). Simon is genuinely one of the 'good guys' at EA, and where I don't think the gameplay team are on the same page as us at all, I think Mr Humber working on CM is a massive plus and something you kind of wish had happened much sooner. I'm sure Nick will agree with that whenever he's next on.
 
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I've hardly ever managed to do Rabona's........can't wait to do one with Carradonna!

So that herjpshit guy must be going crazy thinking of all the amazing goals he can now do! I won't be doing that crap anyway, so it's nice ot hear the CM actually being somewhat decent. However if the gameplay is along the lines of the flairpass it might be a pointless game anyway.
 
This is mainly because the game now feels a lot more responsive now, making it easier to run past players without the need for feints and fancy footwork. Thanks largely to the new Precision Dribbling, eachand every movement happens straight away. While this was nearly always the case with some of the higher rated players such as Messi and Ronaldo, the lower league teams don’t turn like they’ve stepped in a pit of treacle anymore. In this respect, the game feels a lot less reliant on stats than it did. I even played out an even contest as AFC Bournemouth vs Barcalona against a pretty handy player, something that was very rare on FIFA11 due to the fact that Messi & Co could out sprint every player on the pitch.
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Oh.Dear.God.
 
steveee said:
did I read that right.... FIFA 12 is releasing first in North American sept 27th before Europe? weird... that has never happened before that I can remember and it's very interesting to me EA is releasing FIFA 12 in the same month along with NHL 12 their 2 best sports games... most people who play NHL 12 online in North America also play FIFA 12 so it will be interesting to see how that goes with the release so close together. I myself think I will be going with FIFA this year over NHL.. it seems most of the NHL online community is moving from NHL clubs to FIFA clubs already. NHL 12 looks to be NHL 11.5 with gimmicks like goalie fighting to hype the casuals while FIFA have more of the real gameplay improvements. At least FIFA still has competition to force EA to make more improvements which NHL doesn't have any more. NHL is usually sports game of the year the last recent years but I think thatgo to FIFA 12 next.
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StuartCulli said:
Oh.Dear.God.
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That bolded bit should say, "The game is not reliant on speed."
 
YoungGun_UK said:
were is the skill move their cockface?
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On the flip side, I can imagine someone posting a gameplay video of same sequence and the usual suspects ripping it apart as "sprinting is overpowered", "where is the momentum?", "OMG what are those defenders doing!?!?!" etc, etc, etc.

Skill moves, no skill moves, certain people will never be pleased.
 
_anderson said:
It's seems it's perfectly balanced against other players but against the AI, in a top level of difficulty, the AI will never fall for it, making precision dribbling useless.
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This is what I'm afraid of - no nuances to be had, no making use of the better players' key abilities, rather the use of generic skill special moves that anyone can pull off as the only way past yet another year of rampaging super defenders at full sprint for 90 minutes. Which sucks.


mfmaxpower said:
I read in another preview today pretty much the complete opposite, that for the first time you now will be able beat defenses with more subtle dribbling moves using precision dribbling. The odds are that it'll be an improvement over previous FIFAs but not quite to the degree we'd wish.

Don't forget that most of these previews are simply regurgitated EA marketing talking points and the majority of these guys don't know what they're talking about. Read them for the facts and take all their "impressions" with a huge dose of skepticism.
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If so then that's at least some good news, guess I'll have to just try it myself in the demo to draw any conclusion. How reports can differ so much is bizarre.
 
romagnoli said:
Flair passing is what happened to FIFA Street after all these years. Hold L2 and every pass, including those by Accrington Stanley's back line & keeper, is a 360 roulette/double heel flick/Ronaldinho fake look pass. There is no additional error from passing like this, or using it for lobbed passes (rabonas on demand).

bravo_hydrogen_bomb_15_megaton-wl.jpeg

All of us were laughing at it. I can only hope something went wrong with the code that limits who can pull off these tricks, but that anyone (let alone everyone) can do these tricks on demand in the first place is utterly ridiculous. Instant online apocalypse - every pass will be a trick pass. That is obvious to anyone.

Mucking about with the sliders (which have some potential but have some glaring issues - the shot accuracy slider does not affect finesse shots, passing error is bounciness as well as direction and basically feels random rather than kicking in when a pass should go more astray) something became very clear to me and to Xaor - ramping the pass speed up to inhuman speeds (think three times as fast as shots in WC2010), the recipient of the pass trapped the ball as if it was casually rolled to him. The same casual control-and-turn, leading to the same ability to take any pass in any direction.

It makes it clear just how far FIFA is from modelling the sorts of things PES has included as a given for several years.

CM is decent, on the plus side, as is some of the continuity they're bringing in so that campaign flows into matches. We said CM in FIFA 11 was a 3/10, and this year's is just about a 7 (from what little we'd managed to test in 5 hours). We've already had one of these CM meets and it was clear that Simon & co are doing a hell of a lot to try and make changes according to what we, as a group, asked for (though there is inevitably some of the 'we can't get that done this year I'm afraid', which there has to be with this sort of timeframe). Simon is genuinely one of the 'good guys' at EA, and where I don't think the gameplay team are on the same page as us at all, I think Mr Humber working on CM is a massive plus and something you kind of wish had happened much sooner. I'm sure Nick will agree with that whenever he's next on.
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Ummmm, I secretly had high hopes for this game a while back but it just sounds like a complete mess to me :(
 
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Well I wouldn't freak out just yet - the only thing that sounds a TOTAL mess is this flair feature, and despite what I think of EA, I refuse to believe that allowing flair to be used anytime and by anyone is their intention for the final code. That sounds too ridiculous, even for them. And okay, so the sliders aren't perfect and ramping up passing speed only emphasizes how unrealistic ball control is represented in FIFA, but unrealistically good ball control is nothing new and we weren't expecting it fixed this year based on EA's talking points.

The CM news is fairly promising, though I'm real curious to know just how much some of the features they've announced will actually be meaningful to the experience, and how much may just be filler that provides little value in the end. And while a lot of emphasis has gone into the final transfer day, and it does sound like fun, I'm more concerned with features that matter throughout the season rather than something that will be used twice a season. Also, I've seen no mention of any form of user input in player growth, so I'm assuming that manual growth or a training feature is not in this year? That's disappointing to me and that means they better ensure the player growth system is leaps and bounds better than last year. Great to see morale and form make a return and hopefully they're implemented well. Same with the Youth Academy.

This flair feature fiasco aside, it sounds like FIFA 12's gameplay should be a substantially better game than FIFA 11, just not necessarily better in the ways the hardcore wish it to be.
 
LTFC said:
If so then that's at least some good news, guess I'll have to just try it myself in the demo to draw any conclusion. How reports can differ so much is bizarre.
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Damn, I may have spoken too quickly - it sounds as if dribbling may be great PvP but crap PvCPU. From what some of the guys who played today have said, sounds like the AI still has unrealistic defensive capabilities like last year, and that while the new defensive system serves its purpose for human players it doesn't make the AI play any more realistic. Essentially, it appears that again the game is being designed first with PvP in mind, and again the gameplay mechanics are not balanced well between the AI and human player.

That the game plays so differently in single player than it does in multiplayer might help explain the contrasting impressions. That and that many of the mainstream guys don't know what they're talking about.

As a single player, the way the AI performed was one of the biggest turn-offs of FIFA 11, and by not doing enough with the AI it's as if EA are intentionally pushing me back to PES. I guess Rutter responded to inquiries over the poor AI by saying that much of the AI doesn't get added until the end of the development process, but that's surely a backward way to do things and a great example of what's wrong with FIFA.

With EA and FIFA, it's like with one hand they giveth and with the other they take away.
 
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Bugger - the reason I traded in FIFA 11 for PES 11 was that I couldn't play a good game OFFLINE vs the CPU. I had to wait for once a fortnight when I caught up with friends to play or online, who were mostly knobs. If they can tune FIFA 12 to be as offline friendly as the World Cup game, I'd consider buying it but otherwise they can stick it.

Dribbling against human opponents is far from perfect now but it's a lot easier than against the CPU - if the latter isn't fixed still in FIFA 12, there's not much incentive to play offline. For all the things PES doesn't do well, they do really nail the feeling of being able to beat a player WITHOUT tricks and just using body feints or subtle changes in direction, which leave the defender for dead. How often have you been able to beat a player on FIFA by sending him the wrong way? Never. You can only do it by sprinting or by a roulette. Fix the friggen defensive side EA and you will have a great game!
 
The problem is the whole AI, if you can't beat the AI with precision dribbling, or razor's edge dribbling or whatever it's called now, what is the point. And less reliant on stats? Why have them? Just put 22 Messi's out there and call it a day. Skill moves already have NO error on them. I don't know, I'm gonna get the demo, then wait a few weeks or til the first patch of the game to see if they do the ol switcheroo like last time.
 
Agreed. To be honest - I think part of the problem comes down to the number of licenses EA has. If they have that many players, surely they can't make ALL of them feel like individual players. Not unless they make the stats more relevant. If I can't get time to hit a shot outside the box or dribble past at least 1 player, then offline A.I. is where they need to spend time, not on making collisions look pretty.
 
For those who have played against the AI at these meet-ups,

At kick off do they still just run like headless chicken towards your goal?
 
If stats worked properly and there was enough of a difference between them players would feel individual. What's the difference between 65 and 70? Not much in game. The only way you notice a difference is in the skill moves a player can use. Everything else is so close it's not worth mentioning. But also just because a player has 65 or 70 speed does not mean he should be made worthless, maybe he's strong on the ball, or has amazing vision. Things like that need to actually work in game, not just being the fastest while having a good balance rating (or is it strength in FIFA?). Look at online play, it's all 5'4" midgets with white, yellow or red afros. You know why? Speed kills in this game. Occasionally they're knocked off the ball, but usually they do that hand on the ground, I'm not going down animation which gives them a step on you.
 
If you've ever played PES master league or master league online, you will know the importance of player individuality. You may have a cheap player on the transfer market who has low ratings but for the position in which you will use him, he has a couple of stats or player cards that make him just right for that role.

I agree about your points saying that speed and skill move levels are a main way to distinguish players. Sure, the top few players have distinctive looks or feels to them and that works great but they seriously need to re-visit how the stats work.

Yes - it's a video game and you should be able to score goals that you can't score as easily in real life, otherwise the game won't always be fun, but I don't think they have the balance right yet.
 
Not sure if this was posted or slipped under the radar, in depth interview with Martin Tyler and Alan Smith about the commentary process: http://www.computerandvideogames.co...fifa-commentary-box-has-no-history-of-sexism/

Found it really interesting and one thing that grabbed me was a page of the script they showed, which I grabbed:

awwwpoorbabyissleepy.jpg


Could make the commentary much more enjoyable if they've added a bunch of stuff like that :)

Edit: Some more behind the scenes videos about the commentary, really liking the sound of it (pun intended!)

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/309752/fifa-12-behind-the-scenes/

Video one is about small teams bidding for players well outside their pulling power and Tyler/Smith keep taking the piss!
Video two is about a really bad tackle as well as pre match summaries
Video three is a player trying a "stutter" shot and missing, then keeper trying to save a penno but can't
 
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Nick, have you tried the game against the CPU or was it just human v human? If so, how did you find the defensive AI? Did it use any of the defensive changes to the game or was it the same old story?

Like Mfmax and Calcio say above, FIFA 11 wasn't very playable against the CPU, and it was this that made me sell the game and just play PES instead. If the CPU defending is still as bionic and unrealistic as it was in 11, with it's charging down, sprinting in groups all day long, and bionic muscle-men defenders, then I'm avoiding this game for sure.

Why introduce defending mechanics then have the AI completely unaffected when playing offline? EA have to cater for offline players, it's still the bread and butter of the game. I've got no interest in playing FIFA online, 99% of all players you come across are not enjoyable to play against because they'll use every exploit possible. Online football games to me are nothing like football itself.

The only saving grace with the finesse pass thingy is that, playing offline, I can choose not to use it. Though it wouldn't surprise me to see the top teams in offline mode doing it a lot. EA seem more and more determined to make the AI play like the most annoying, exploit ridden online players possible.

As for the dribbling thing, if the game will allow more realistic dribbling without the use of skill moves against human opponents, but not against the CPU then that's a farce. Again, if there's no way to dribble in this game without using skill moves because the AI defender will automatically get in a perfect tackle regardless of what you do, then bye bye FIFA again.
 
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LTFC said:
Nick, have you tried the game against the CPU or was it just human v human? If so, how did you find the defensive AI? Did it use any of the defensive changes to the game or was it the same old story?

Like Mfmax and Calcio say above, FIFA 11 wasn't very playable against the CPU, and it was this that made me sell the game and just play PES instead. If the CPU defending is still as bionic and unrealistic as it was in 11, with it's charging down, sprinting in groups all day long, and bionic muscle-men defenders, then I'm avoiding this game for sure.

Why introduce defending mechanics then have the AI completely unaffected when playing offline? EA have to cater for offline players, it's still the bread and butter of the game. I've got no interest in playing FIFA online, 99% of all players you come across are not enjoyable to play against because they'll use every exploit possible. Online football games to me are nothing like football itself.

The only saving grace with the finesse pass thingy is that, playing offline, I can choose not to use it. Though it wouldn't surprise me to see the top teams in offline mode doing it a lot. EA seem more and more determined to make the AI play like the most annoying, exploit ridden online players possible.

As for the dribbling thing, if the game will allow more realistic dribbling without the use of skill moves against human opponents, but not against the CPU then that's a farce. Again, if there's no way to dribble in this game without using skill moves because the AI defender will automatically get in a perfect tackle regardless of what you do, then bye bye FIFA again.
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To be honest I tried to get as much time in the CM as I could, I did play a few games with Burton Albion but I didn't notice massive changes though..
It was three weeks old when we got our hands on it and there were some clear issues, though EA said they were aware of them.. After that I tried messing with the sliders in games... :P
 
Ah bugger. If there really isn't any difference in the way the AI defends in single player, I'm out for this year almost for certain. Can't take another edition of the game where you have 70% of the ball and constantly get bowled over by yeti-like defenders with laser sights attached to their foreheads!

Cheers for the reply though :)
 
Thats hypesth guy said in a argument he dosen't give EA any advice for upcoming FIFA

Yet now i hear of this 'flair pass' function now in the game?



Call of FIFA 12? ;)

I tell you FIFA is unfortunatley doing nothing to disprove me that they want to be the Call of Duty for football games!
 
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