I know some do read the official forums, but for those who don't, here's a copy of my impressions.
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So for those who didn't know, on July the 11th a small group got to go to Guildford to playtest FIFA 12's career mode and gameplay. We had opportunity to play the PC, PS3, and 360 games, with almost any team in the game, and were given freedom to alter the assistance and gameplay options. The build we were playing with was a few weeks older than the builds we'd played before (we'd actually played Career mode at the same time as the last test but this was embargoed), so there is a fair amount of new information. I won't go over stuff which hasn't changed unless I feel it is particularly warranted, so my previous gameplay hands on is here: <a href="http://forum.ea.com/uk/posts/list/711510.page">click here.</a>
I'd like to once again thank EA for their hospitality and time. This time around David Rutter (line producer) and Ian Jarvis (PC) were present, so it gave us some opportunity to discuss things directly with people at the head of FIFA. Hopefully then, things we passed on will get listened to. In terms of getting feedback regarding gameplay and career mode passed on, I think we did pretty well. The ball is certainly in EA's court with that one and I feel that we represented this communities' feelings pretty well.
DISCLAIMER: Everything played is from an alpha build from mid June of FIFA 12. There is no certainty that things in the build I played will be in the demo and final build, though will try to estimate how I feel things will turn out in the end, as that is really what matters.
Gameplay
It's safe to say that I wasn't overwhelmed with the gameplay on display last time. Aside from a host of bugs and glitches, I didn't feel that some of the new additions quite hit home, but more importantly far too many things which were problematic in FIFA 11 were still present in all their glory. Unfortunately (and perhaps not surprisingly) not a huge amount has changed since then. Polish has generally improved considerably and there is still a long way to go with that.
Impact Engine
In June I left fearing somewhat that the Impact Engine could well release as a badly buggy addition - there were considerable problems with glitchy interactions, and occasionally shocking refereeing decisions. The improvement over the last couple of weeks (a lot of the glitchiness had been eradicated) renews my confidence and while there were still some odd refereeing decisions it looks well on track. The only major concern with this is that the off the ball collisions are still happening all over the place. The potential exploitability of this in OTP/Clubs is tremendous, so EA really need to come up with a solution to this fast. Ideally we need to move to a situation where players who are off the ball don't try to stand strong against eachother - and rather brush past eachother.
Flair Passing
Unfortunately, the biggest change between June and July was something I cannot praise at all. The new flair passing, activated by the left trigger and the various pass buttons, causes your player to do the same kind of skill type passes that used to happen with only players with the flair trait, in specific contexts, and with not a huge degree of predictability. The new flair passing on the other hand has almost no restrictions whatsoever. Any player, any context, immediate and ridiculous flair passes, with seemingly similar accuracy as normal passes. It sounds like this is caused by a bug - I suspect it's meant to be only for players with the correct traits, but even so, I really don't want to see half the Barcelona team doing this stuff for every pass, and that's what this will turn into. The error needs to be tuned up even for the best players. I should feel that a flair pass is risky, regardless of who it is with - the advantage is one of style, or, one of fooling your opponent, and that needs to be balanced. These are things which happen a few times a match with the creme de le creme - it must not be every pass.
It is not just that it seems to be completely unaffected by error, or the player doing it, there is also something deeply questionable by design. The left trigger is used for far too many things for it to be a modifier like this - for anyone trying to an intricate pass and move game, the left trigger is critical. It acts as the trap/turn button, so that as you get the ball you turn on it without moving, and the slow movement modifier. It's therefore very difficult to be letting go of LT as you pass when you don't want to do a flair pass (which would always be most of the time). I don't see the point of it. It seems to be put in there to please those who want to replicate the antics of Hjerpseth et al. but even if they radically reduce the ability for lesser players to do this, I feel the use of the left trigger button is really naive, especially given that for direct/through passes the RB button is spare. The left trigger button is also used to indicate you want to volley, and that seems fine from the small number of times I tried using it. It's really quite good to finally be able to remove the ambiguity of whether you want to volley or head.
AI, Passing, Movement
The problems I outlined in my original hands on with AI, passing, and movement mechanics remain, so make sure to read/reread as appropriate if interested in those areas. However, David Rutter did enlighten us somewhat in regards to AI. Firstly, we had ample opportunity to make our feelings about the AI's hyper-reaction and almost mind-reading like ability to David Rutter, so hopefully that will get listened to. If it isn't, however much career mode comes on this year, it will be let down entirely by the unrealistic, personalityless and dull AI which simply feels like it's not playing the same game to you.
In terms of the defensive and attacking team AI, David Rutter informed us that this is one of the absolute last things which they dial in, so hopefully it will be improved quite a lot before release. I still think it's a bit concerning that EA aren't doing this at an earlier stage - it's not like the AI has been a strong suit over the last few years (FIFA 12's AI currently is pretty much FIFA 11's afterall), but given that we have a pretty solid promise that there will be considerable change in this area, we just have to trust that and hope.
Vision AI is still more or less invisible, perhaps this is something which isn't properly tooled into the game at this stage, but as one of EA's bigger gameplay announcements it is fairly disappointing to not really sense this on the ball or off it. I am still not entirely sure whether Vision AI is actually intended to have an effect on the controlled player, but I'll hopefully find the answer out to this soon. Certainly, if it doesn't, I'd be fairly disapponted as at the very least I expected this to eradicate some of the 180 degree pass accuracy that still plagues FIFA. So far, I don't sense it, and, I'm not sure I'd notice Vision AI had I not been told to look for it.
Sliders
Sliders are indeed going to make their appearance in the game for FIFA 12, which will please a lot of people. On the face of it a lot of the things which I feel are somewhat wrong with FIFA do have sliders so you can fiddle with them. I suspect that this area of the game may see some quite big shakeups before release and now, as they do feel unfinished to a large extent. I do have some concerns though, first, as a matter of usability, it feels quite clumsy. There are a good 20 or so sliders, from error sliders and speed sliders to power bar charge speeds and acceleration, but none of these have any reference to them. You have a bar with maybe 50 settings on them, with the default stuck directly in the middle. The sliders at the moment have such considerable play in them, and it's difficult to guess what the effect of the sliders will be (with some it's not obvious which direction on the bar will correlate with an increase/decrease in the effect too). You can set each slider differently for the user and the AI - but unfortunately these are done on two seperate menu with no 'mirror' function, so it's awkward to replicate the settings for both you and the CPU.
Unfortunately at this moment, these sliders are not going to realise the dream of allowing one to fix FIFA or make it more realistic. The sliders do not give you enough control over enough areas to affect things in the way you'd want. For example, if I wanted to alter the passing error, I can only increase/decrease the amount of error. I have no way of dictating what is causing the error, or how that error is represented, and thus if I try to increase the directional error on the passes as I believe should happen, what it tends to mean is that passes become more lethargic and more bouncy long before you get the desired directional effect. There are some tweaks and touches you'd be able to improve, but it's minimal so far, and currently I feel that a lot more thought will have to be put into how these sliders work (or, a massive increase in the sliders available) if they are going to supply the potential for a simulation. I'm also slightly worried that there are a few different sliders right now which affect things like defensive AI (line depth, width, full back positioning and so on). These feel like they should not be gameplay sliders so much as tactical settings. At the moment, these will be things you can use to improve FIFA a smidgeon here and a smidgeon there. They will not open up the possibilities some have hoped for in terms of setting trading to perfect a simulation of the game.
Some of what these revealed was also quite worrying. The passing error slider only affects ground passes, and the shooting error slider does not affect finesse shots. This not only means that the two areas which are probably most wrong (lobbed passes and finesse shots) are not slider-alterable, but it perhaps also implies that the way error is handled on these works in a different way to how it is for normal shots/passes. As both finesse shots and long passes/lobbed through balls are far too accurate, that perhaps is reason. The simple question of why 180 degree clearances with the long pass button seem to land at the strikers feet every time may be answered very simply by that: there is (basically) no contextual error on long passes and chipped through balls.
Shooting
Ball physics are generally really good, though finesse shots are still the clear exception, and shooting has a good ping to it. The goalkeepers still having over-the-top reaction times means that far too many unstoppable shots get saved with far too much predictability - and I'd still suggest that AI move to reduce shooting accuracy (in particular for assisted/semi) while at the same time reducing goalkeeper reaction, to keep the goal scoring in balance while hopefully radically increasing the enjoyability and variety of goals (as well as having the nice side effect of balancing the assisted-semi-manual issue).
Heading feels good, but still deeply flawed by the fact that it seems that just one player on each team is allocated to go for the ball, and this could well mean that heading will be overpowered again (and I think crossing is still looking quite over-accurate, there are still remarkably few occasions of crosses going long, and they all too often seem to be perfectly aimed onto the attackers head. It still feels preordained, and out of your control. The winner of the header is usually dictated primarily by the luck of which defensive player is picked to head the ball. A striker surrounded by four defenders seems no less likely to win the header than one who is marked by just one, such is the problem with this one on one system.
Tactical Defending
The new defensive system could still do with a little work in terms of its intuitiveness, but I think people will grasp it within time. I hope that by FIFA 13 they will manage to remove the contain system too, but until they make considerable alterations to the way the CPU AI reactions work and to the player weight/momentum/inertia, it would probably be somewhat disastrous. The system thus far just doesn't quite feel natural, but it's a big step in the right direction, and worlds better than the pressure fest of FIFA 11, even if it is still a long way from being perfected. Frankly, I still think it could feel better if they swapped the buttons around a bit. Having the tackle button as X/A, contain as R1/RB, and secondary contain as B or O, would be an easy way of removing a part of the learning curve. It is a pity, but EA seem to have once again caved to the fear of a casual revolt by putting an assistance option to revert back to the old defending style. Online I suspect this will be forced off, like with pro passing assistance, but it's another sign of EA not having the confidence to push people to try something new which takes time to get used to on the grounds that it's better.
and finally
Tactical and strategic setup is still a real weakpoint, but is patently something which will have to be for FIFA 13 at the earliest - nothing has really changed in this area, so the sluggish and clumsy tactical side of FIFA, which should really be at the heart of the gameplay, still remains one of its weakest areas. Having said that, there is a small but nice addition here where, instead of swapping players on and off the bench by scrolling up and down endlessly, you can press triangle/Y on the player you want to swap out, and then you can press left/right (which brings up a compare) to show alternative players to put in that spot. Really neat, and definitely saves a lot of time.
At the end of my last hands on I listed a bulleted list of what I thought needed to be changed, though the game has improved since last test, the list remains identical to previously, with one big addition, and one small.
Priority Changes which need to be addressed
• Flair passing –
so arcadey
• Defensive AI –
simply gamebreaking
• Attacking AI –
lacks of variety
• CPU AI Psychic Nature –
severely damaging to single player
• Momentum/Inertia/Touch –
key issue in FIFA’s lack of realism
• Passing –
lethargic when it should be simple, still far too possible to make ridiculous passes
Other Issues
• On-the-ball movement penalty needs to be decreased
• Heading needs to be less of a 1 on 1 event
• Shooting accuracy needs to be decreased
• Goalkeeper reaction speeds need to be decreased
• Some work really needs to be done to long pass and finesse shot accuracy
I have some confidence that this flair pass thing will be fixed - certainly toned back heavily. The sense of giddy disbelief though is something I may not forget for a while!
You thought, "Klash would have a field day chopping into this."
