FIFA 18 (Console Versions)

http://fifa18managercareer.com/

manager-career.png


This guy has been working on a companion app to track your career mode statistics in FIFA 18 (since EA, in their infinite wisdom and finances, refuse to). Very encouraging for those of us who play career! I imagine it's irked all of us at one point or another that we can't track these sort of stats in-game, especially for those careers that span over many years.

Slightly off-topic, but still pertaining to career mode, was anyone else aware that Forest Green Rovers have more or less a full face scan this year? Brilliant.
 
Redhat said:
http://fifa18managercareer.com/

manager-career.png


This guy has been working on a companion app to track your career mode statistics in FIFA 18 (since EA, in their infinite wisdom and finances, refuse to). Very encouraging for those of us who play career! I imagine it's irked all of us at one point or another that we can't track these sort of stats in-game, especially for those careers that span over many years.

Slightly off-topic, but still pertaining to career mode, was anyone else aware that Forest Green Rovers have more or less a full face scan this year? Brilliant.
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How does it work? Do I need to input all the data every day on the app?
 
like the substitutions not stopping play, why hasn't this idea been here for years.
day games look pretty good, sometimes on broadcast camera zoomed in it looks real, because of great animations and shadows casting off the pitch.

and you can defend at a high level, i've figured it out.
 
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This reminds me, team styles.

I played the demo last night and let the full intro cut-scenes run. I tried Man United v Real Madrid on Legendary (I got beat 3-0, they wouldn't attempt actual shots, they insisted on creating tap-ins with their so-instant-you-can't-defend-it passing and I hated it, but let's ignore that for now).

I'm not the first to mention this - someone else spotted it in here a while ago now (when the beta was on I think) - but on the line-ups screen, the description from the commentators give you an idea of what their "team styles" are.

Man United's was "they defend deep and they make life miserable for the opposition, they're very hard to get past" (or words to that effect), and Real Madrid's was "they like to play tiki-taka and keep hold of the ball until they've created the perfect opportunity" (well, I mean, that's certainly what happened).

So I fear that "team styles" are already there in this demo... And in the case of Real Madrid's passing in the final third, I think it's pretty clear evidence when you compare it to the other teams.

Can't shake the feeling that it's going to be a great game wrapped in some terrible AI, which (for me) will render it unplayable.

But there are just no channels to get this message through to EA, without getting a mob together to retweet you 10,000 times - and who buys FIFA to play against AI...

(Outside of this forum.)
 
Is anyone else a bit fed up with the constant pressing of every AI team in the demo? I must admit, as much as it is technically very impressive, there are some things grating my nerves about the FIFA 18 demo, especially comparing it to a fully tweaked FIFA 16.

The positives of FIFA 18
+ new animations and variety of shots
+ improved AI, less collisions between players and beautiful runs into space from attacking AI
+ new dribbling system
+ instant subs
+ presentation and atmosphere
+ teams up to date

Negatives of FIFA 18
- The lighting is really poor. It's either a Fisher Price filter at Stubhub, or a Saving Private Ryan filter at most of the others. It's either wildly over-saturated or under-saturated. Given it goes from one extreme to the other with each stadium, it could be impossible to correct with a global Sweetfx. There also seems to be a subtle blur filter in FIFA 18 demo, much like there once was in PES a few years ago.
- the 90 minutes of uber-pressing AI from every team
- the fact that one touch passes seem both more accurate_and_quicker than taking a touch or two, controlling the ball, and then passing. A first touch power pass seems at least as accurate (possibly more) as controlling the ball and passing too. Combined with the pressing AI, I feel like I am being forced into ping pong football on crack to win against the AI.
- lack of sliders in demo. I hate the one size fits all mentality removing the ability to customize your game. Why on earth would EA remove the sliders in the demo? That ability to customise is a key selling point over PES. Passing and shooting is too fast in the demo for my liking. Why risk upgrading from a modded FIFA 16 when I can't test the game with everything tweaked to my liking?
- pushing and pulling AI players seems to have very little effect. There were so many dimensions to this in FIFA 16. Two years later I am seeing new dynamic stumbles and animation effects in FIFA 16 from nudging, pushing and shirt pulling. In FIFA 18 it's like this important dimension barely exists.

And then the question... Do custom tactics even work in the demo? I am not so sure. Changing to the presets appears to work, but custom tactics, which can be changed, seem to have very little or zero effect.

So overall, I can't say the FIFA 18 demo has completely sold me on the game, when it could and should have. I think I am going to sit and wait to see how many of my concerns are addressed in the full game before pulling the trigger.
 
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tomj said:
How good is your PC?
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I've got a Surface Pro and, when I play Football Manager with the 3D match engine on the basic settings, it takes the skin off my legs.

So, not going to happen...

Just hoping to read a lot of reports that say the AI plays differently, though I fear the worst, obviously!
 
Bendit said:
And then the question... Do custom tactics even work in the demo? I am not so sure. Changing to the presets appears to work, but custom tactics, which can be changed, seem to have very little or zero effect.
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Did some testing yesterday on that and I didn't see major change in the cpu approach despite testing extremes values.
 
I just want to say (it doesn't matter to anyone, and certainly not to EA), but if the lighting in the game won't be changed, I won't buy their product this year. It is a really good game I want to play, but unfortunately day and night lighting is a piece of not funny joke. Even SweetFX/Reshade can't do the job.

It's more than obvious they won't do anything with that.

Why? What is the reason of that horrilble lighting this year? How does it look from more technological aspect? Is there any issue with the game's engine? WHERE IS THE PROBLEM? Anyone?
 
Vadim said:
I just want to say (it doesn't matter to anyone, and certainly not to EA), but if the lighting in the game won't be changed, I won't buy their product this year. It is a really good game I want to play, but unfortunately day and night lighting is a piece of not funny joke. Even SweetFX/Reshade can't do the job.

It's more than obvious they won't do anything with that.

Why? What is the reason of that horrilble lighting this year? How does it look from more technological aspect? Is there any issue with the game's engine? WHERE IS THE PROBLEM? Anyone?
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These are the sorts of design decisions that just boggle my damn mind. People get paid by gigantic companies like EA to make these sort of choices. I mean, what the fuck? They do realize football is a real thing, right? All they have to do is turn on the TV and watch a Champion's League or cup game to get an idea of what a night match should look like from an aesthetic standpoint. How difficult is that? It has to be a conscious choice, which makes the whole thing even more laughable.

The developers probably thought to themselves "This will totally make the game look more immersive and badass if we have cinematic lighting!" Idiots. You know what makes a game based on an actual sport more immersive? If it looks like its real-life counterpart. I tried playing a match in King Fahd Stadium, and I turned it off within 30 seconds. Looks like a 12-year-old who just discovered what desaturation is was in charge of the lighting. Seriously, it almost looks like black and white in that stadium! I've seen quite a few people on Twitter and Reddit claim that they love the new lighting because it looks more "realistic." WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? DO THEY LIVE IN REALITY?
 
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Vadim said:
I just want to say (it doesn't matter to anyone, and certainly not to EA), but if the lighting in the game won't be changed, I won't buy their product this year. It is a really good game I want to play, but unfortunately day and night lighting is a piece of not funny joke. Even SweetFX/Reshade can't do the job.

It's more than obvious they won't do anything with that.

Why? What is the reason of that horrilble lighting this year? How does it look from more technological aspect? Is there any issue with the game's engine? WHERE IS THE PROBLEM? Anyone?
Click to expand...


its a seasonal thing, the bad lighting is on the autumn/winter stadium settings while the stubhub has summer settings, also ive found the HDR on my ps4 pro makes the colours look more faded , ive tried it without HDR on and the colours look more vibrant with a little tweaking on the tv settings
 
FIFA has never given many graphical options, but this is a year where having the in game option to change color filters would be fantastic. Battlefield 1 does it, at least on their cinematic mode. I am sure some people appreciate their crazy filters this year. Just don't forget about the people who strive for realism. Please EA!
 
goalgerd said:
its a seasonal thing, the bad lighting is on the autumn/winter stadium settings while the stubhub has summer settings, also ive found the HDR on my ps4 pro makes the colours look more faded , ive tried it without HDR on and the colours look more vibrant with a little tweaking on the tv settings
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Really?
The only thing,or one of the few things I've been really pissed off about in this game is that night games looks shit.
Otherwise,not my cup of tea,but night games horrible
Compare a night game on this one Vs a Live CL game.
And if the summer settings are ok,great,problem is that during the summer a league (most leagues) play what,4 games in august and 2-3 in may,the rest is winter games.
 
A large reason as to why it upsets me so much is that, with a touch of Reshade, FIFA 16 looks stunning on the PC. The lighting/turf textures are 10x better than a game that's two iterations ahead.
 
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Chris Davies said:
This reminds me, team styles.

I played the demo last night and let the full intro cut-scenes run. I tried Man United v Real Madrid on Legendary (I got beat 3-0, they wouldn't attempt actual shots, they insisted on creating tap-ins with their so-instant-you-can't-defend-it passing and I hated it, but let's ignore that for now).

I'm not the first to mention this - someone else spotted it in here a while ago now (when the beta was on I think) - but on the line-ups screen, the description from the commentators give you an idea of what their "team styles" are.

Man United's was "they defend deep and they make life miserable for the opposition, they're very hard to get past" (or words to that effect), and Real Madrid's was "they like to play tiki-taka and keep hold of the ball until they've created the perfect opportunity" (well, I mean, that's certainly what happened).

So I fear that "team styles" are already there in this demo... And in the case of Real Madrid's passing in the final third, I think it's pretty clear evidence when you compare it to the other teams.

Can't shake the feeling that it's going to be a great game wrapped in some terrible AI, which (for me) will render it unplayable.

But there are just no channels to get this message through to EA, without getting a mob together to retweet you 10,000 times - and who buys FIFA to play against AI...

(Outside of this forum.)
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Chris, your post inspired me to go hammer out a bunch of games against Real Madrid, and then some other teams, trying to pay closer attention to team styles, and I have to respectfully disagree with you. I don't know what it is that makes people see different things, but I feel like I'm having very different experiences from what you're reporting.

I mean, this "terrible" AI that you keep mentioning. I'm not seeing that at all. Quite the opposite. Now I am seeing some serious issues with the defensive AI that is making scoring and creating chances too easy, but hopefully that'll be better balanced for the full release. But otherwise, I like what I'm seeing from the AI. Now, this is all relative - there's way more that I want from the AI but compared to what we've seen in the past, from both games, I'm pretty happy with what the demo is showing. Could it be better? Absolutely? Is it where we wish it to be? Hell no. But terrible? I just don't see that.

To test the team styles I played every match with Man Utd. And first I'd like to give massive props to this game for finally making it feel like you're playing with Man Utd. United is one of my favorite teams but I've NEVER played with them because I've always felt they were horribly represented in FIFA, but now, I couldn't imagine it being better. Lukaku is powerful, fast, and a beast to deal with; Rashford is such a threat but feels so raw; Martial plays like silk; Bailey is so much fun as a CB; Matic is a fantastic, strong CDM; Mata is so lifelike; etc. And like IRL, they are so lethal on the counter-attack.

But as for playing against Real Madrid, there's no way I'd call how they're playing in this demo tiki taka. My first game against them (I'm playing all matches on Legendary) and Ronaldo takes two shots from outside the box within the first minutes. The bulk of their attacking play was either trying to get the ball to Ronaldo or Bale to exploit the wings, or it was more patient buildup ("patient buildup" being a relative term because there's no real slow buildup in this game). I played several games against them and that was their strategy in all of them.

For me, it feels like playing against Real Madrid because in real life what really defines them? It's not so much their style, but it's the individuals - their galacticos. At least when Bale and Ronaldo are in the team, it's about trying to get them in space and brutalize the backline with their speed, power, and skill, and that's what they try for in the demo. Kroos attempted some other long shots; Modric was lethal with his passing in the final third.

Immediately after I played a half dozen matches against Bayern. I wouldn't say the style differences were stark but they were certainly there. Whereas against Madrid, all my matches ended with about 50-50 in possession stats, against Bayern they almost always finished with around 60 percent. They still tried to exploit the wings but Robben and Ribery were quite different in their approach and more likely to pass back. Much more possession play in general, more back passing, and Lewandowski was much more a focal point.

After, I then played a handful against Athletico. Again, subtle differences but the matches all were different than those against Bayern and Real. More fouls, more physicality, and Athletico's defensive aggressive and solidity was much more difficult to play against. Attacking was far more direct of a style, but when Griezmann was on the ball, son of a bitch it was panic time for all my defenders. They tried to exploit pace against my backline, but their wingers were more about power and speed than the previous ones I'd played against.

Overall, not huge differences but I did notice playing against each to have different elements about them.

I kinda wonder if we're all used to PES's AI features that tend to make things obvious to the player almost to a fault? Maybe EA's approach is a much more subtle one than we'd expect or maybe some would hope for?

This post isn't meant to indicate that I'm particularly impressed with what I'm seeing from Team Styles, because while I think I definitely do see differences between how teams play I wouldn't say at all that if feels like a fully realized feature. In the end, there's certainly nothing revolutionary about this demo in terms of the AI or team styles, but personally I think it's pretty damn excellent and just 'feels' wonderful to play.

The impression that you have that the AI is terrible... I just don't see that. At all. Yeah, some softness and poor decision making in the defense, but otherwise... looks pretty good to me. Not perfect - there's definitely some issues and I'll always be the first to wish making the AI a top priority - but I wouldn't say that AI is the massive weakness it once was in FIFA.
 
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I am pretty sure they will fix the lighting in the release build. However I am still waiting to see how they will implement team styles as the demo/beta didn't have it.
 
Topaz said:
I am pretty sure they will fix the lighting in the release build. However I am still waiting to see how they will implement team styles as the demo/beta didn't have it.
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It'll probably be like Player ID, Just 5 or 6 top teams/players with the feature and the rest are generic robots.
 
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