FIFA 18 (Console Versions)

[Redhat]

Thing is, there's absolutely nothing inherently more realistic about manual than assisted. Gameplay may ultimately play out more realistic for the user, but all you're doing is increasing passing difficulty by taking away the assistance. It's increased challenge, not increased realism; in other words, someone who is amazing at manual can do the exact same things that you can do with assisted. Obviously no one, or at least not many, are that good, but the point is valid.

In fact, depending upon one's skill level, manual can lead to decreased realism. If I suck at aiming, then the likes of Iniesta and the best passers of the ball are going to be unrealistic to play with in that they won't be near as effective. Yes, stats play a role with manual, but they often become secondary to skill on the stick, especially in tight situations.

And also, not everyone wants the challenge of the game to largely be dictated by how well you can aim with the stick. There's a lot more to a football game than that. Playing manual does nothing for how easy it can be to dribble at times, or exploit space, or pull defenders out of position.

This goes for both games but "playing manual" is a piss poor solution for poor programming.

I changed my initial post awhile ago to replace "realistic" with skill based, as I realized that wasn't a valid descriptor. Also, when I said realistic, I meant mainly (but not entirely) in the decision making aspect. I should have clarified.

"And also, not everyone wants the challenge of the game to largely be dictated by how well you can aim with the stick. There's a lot more to a football game than that."

Of course there is, but what people don't realize is, the control settings have a domino-effect. It affects other factors in the game. You actually have think about where you're passing rather than just spamming the A button. From that perspective, it's more realistic. Deciding whether or not to play a slightly risky ball across the middle of the pitch that could lead to a potential counter-attack if misplaced, but could open up things for you offensively, is more realistic than "hit A and aim in the general vicinity of a player" and forget about it. If I can zip the ball around the back and midfield to easily alleviate pressure, how is that adhering to real football? If the margin for error is so large that I don't have to plan my passes ahead of time, where is the realism in that? At times, you have to slow the pace of the match down because you can't always just 1-2-3-4 tiki-taka your way up the pitch to create a chance on goal.

Granted, from the perspective of replicating real-life counterparts, it's not realistic at all. Obviously the likes of Iniesta and Messi can pick out a pass with their eyes closed in real-life. They'd hardly struggle with a simple pass. You're 100% right and I agree with you. On the contrary, if everyone can zip the ball around with relative ease and every input and action in the game is completely trivialized, how the hell is that more realistic? What then differentiates someone with 60 passing and someone with 90 passing? Not a hell of a lot with assisted controls. If an average midfielder can ping a diagonal as if he were Scholes, again I ask, how is that more realistic? It's just a different end of an extreme, but they're both still extremes. I never meant to imply that manual is perfect or it rectifies all of the issues that plague FIFA, but FIFA is what FIFA is. It's a known quantity. I use these settings as it's best suited for my needs and tastes.

Assisted and manual are both imperfect control schemes. In an ideal world, stats would actual mean a damn thing like they used to in PS2 era PES. Unfortunately they do not. I'm stuck with the shit they serve so for me, it's the lesser of two evils.

 

[StayingPower]

Early days, but I'm absolutely loving this. I was not a huge fan of 15, 16, or 17, but this is the best football game I've played since Fifa 14 or WE9:LE.

I love how pace is a genuine weapon but not overpowered - at least, I haven't found a way to dribble through the Professional AI consistently, yet, and I could reliably do so from kickoff in 15 and 16 on Legendary.

I love how physicality and a long ball game are possibilities both for me and the AI. Speaking of which, no more magic tiki-taka possession from the AI!

My only real quibbles are that sometimes players seem too agile, they're sometimes capable of making lightning fast turns with or without the ball. Shooting also seems too powerful and accurate at times, but I've been pleased to see some awful shots both from my players and the AI. It seems nicely contextual.

As long as there isn't a day one patch that dramatically changes the game or some heretofore undiscovered game breaking bug or exploit, I can see myself loving this for a while.

Edit: I was also completely unimpressed with the demo so if you weren't a fan I urge you to give the full game a go!

 

[shez]

Assisted and manual are both imperfect control schemes. In an ideal world, stats would actual mean a damn thing like they used to in PS2 era PES. Unfortunately they do not. I'm stuck with the shit they serve so for me, it's the lesser of two evils.

This is the bottomline right there, In general I'm highly against ignoring player stats,Physical ability and team tactics in favour of creating a "challenge", At least in offline career modes because without these aspects functioning it's just won't have any longevity. I also don't think that stats and individuality are apparent too much in full manual unless you play with the top players that have Player ID built in.

In my individual case I play full manual and use sliders, I adjust them and difficulty to home and away games using an operation sports sliders chart, This is how hardcore it can be lol

By the way I'm only talking about offline because full manual doesn't exist online!

 

[Matt10]

I think defending is a bit awkward. You can let your defenders defend but the AI can be left to pass the ball around your penalty area casually, maybe if there was some more aggression many of those shots wouldn't even happen I feel. But going for the ball is also risky. Maybe I don't know how to defend well in 18 yet.

With the demo I thought even some passes didn't look good, that is the animation didn't match up with how the ball was supposed to be hit, which can up the tempo a lot. Especially one touch passes-shots. Wish every player on the pitch took an extra touch more often. It's as if the game prefers to react fast to a button press/decision to pass/shoot rather than play an animation that makes sense. I would hate it if it's because of online, where people prefer instant reactions to their input. If this is fixed the game will be near perfect.

I use legacy defending, so my emphasis is using secondary pressure and letting teammate AI do the work. I noticed many times the defenders step into the passing lanes on their own, and also stepping forward to mee the attackers. In years past this was quite the balancing act. I'm not finding myself over-doing the defending to a fault, where I'm the one who's moving the players from the right positions, to be out of position.

looking forward to playing career mode with your new slider set, one of the main reasons why i ordered fifa 18

In a perfect world, we may not need sliders. I think, so far, the slider attention is on the ball values. In particular shot speed and pass speed, but still need more time with the game. Those 10 hours go quick!

Well well well... a positive early impression - who would've thought with all the pessimism and negative early reactions!

Can't wait to hear more Matt. How would you compare the Early Access version to the demo's gameplay?

Yeah, man - it threw me off completely. I also read through each impression, and put off getting the early access because I thought "Oh well, another FIFA 17 maybe...". Pleasantly surprised.

Excellent post! What kind of settings are you using (level of assistance and difficulty)?

15 mins, World Class, Slow speed; I was using full manual but am actually having a challenge. So I switched to Semi...and guess what...it's hard than manual at times, lol. It's like right in between manual and the old semi. Power bar management and direction is super important. I play on broadcast camera so the angles of passes are more pronounced. I found myself missing some easy targets. The best part as well though was the CPU also made some horrendous passes. Again, just unheard of in FIFA.

Awesome post @Matt10 very encouraging to hear, can't wait to play the game properly on Tuesday when the full version unlocks, will start with The Journey as we'll be waiting for the FOW and other stuff to be resolved in CM

Placebo - I know you'll be excited. You'll see how much subtlety there is in this year's version. People will say FIFA 17.5, but honestly this is like 17 + 16 + 12 all mixed into one. The changes in CM are really nice too. The broadcast graphics package in the CM menu is a nice touch.

Thanks for the lengthy and detailed feedback @Matt10

I will buy FIFA on Friday because I need my Premier League and co op seasons fix! You have sold it to me.

Glad to hear it. You will love it. I sure am.

Can someone actually tell me if it's true that all Skybet team play like Real Madrid/Barca on their prime with 95% passing accuracy? I see that on a lot of videos online.

I played a League 1 match today and they finished at 81% pass accuracy, and I absorbed 16 shots. I could not break them down properly. They had so much variety in their passing, man. Long balls, chipped balls, crosses, direct passes, etc.

I will say that the driven pass does what it usually does, and that it negates from the potential possibility of even more variety. I think reducing pass speed should allow less of this, and give the defender more time to come up and get to the forward in a decent amount of time versus being frozen.

 

[Jimi_Zuko]

@Matt10 encouraging post Matt, my concern with the demo was, I didn't feel much individuality with passing, is it more pronounced in the full version and also that long low hard pass has it been toned down to allow only the top passers to more successfully and one more thing is the pace of the game similar to demo which is one of the reasons I'm looking at buying Fifa this year.

 

[Daisuk]

One tiny thing I've been noticing in the demo, that I wish they fix for the full game - the crowd cheer after a ball goes into the net is a bit too delayed. Anyone else think this? Compared to a real football match the crowd just responds a bit too slow, in my opinion. Would love to see something done about that.

 

[Rebsat]

FIFA 18 Standard Edition has already released in gaming stores of United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Iraq since yesterday September 23, and is around $110
Today, I contacted one of the store owner and he told me that it's available in $100 and I'm gonna buy it today as soon as I finished my work Been waiting patiently but it really deserved based on the Demo I played.

 

[TroyDeeneyScoredAPenal!]

Tell your mate he is a god amongst men

I doubt that...

I am playing this on my Xbox One via EA Access and to say I am disappointed is an UNDERSTATEMENT!

1) Its FAR too easy on Legendary Difficulty (Career Mode). Just you try using Tele Broadcast Camera fully zoomed out and Height set to 20. You will waltz through defences and score very easy goals. Something that in recent times I have PANNED PES for... FIFA is every bit as bad as PES in this department with the exception of the fact that PES is actually a challenge in Superstar difficulty.

2) Online... oh good god. Its a GOAL FEST! End to end end to end end to end end to end.... Shoot GOAL! If I wanted to play NBA FUCKING JAM I would get my Super NES out! There is simply NO football being played in this game and its worse online. Its all RUSH RUSH RUSH RUSH RUSH.. Trick trick trick, Finesse. GOAL... Almost every attack results in a goal scoring chance and Defending especially online is HOPELESS... EA said they have balanced the game? Are you SHITTING me EA?! Where is this balance you speak of?

I am so glad I haven't spent out on this game. What a waste of money that would have been! RIP FIFA.... it was good whilst it lasted! I would say avoid guys.... unless you like easy Arcadey Football games like Virtua Stirker!

 

[TroyDeeneyScoredAPenal!]

Yes, that's my answer to the game being too easy. For any seasoned FIFA player, assisted is piss easy and it always has been. Simple as that. I mean, using a more difficult and player-skill driven control scheme to challenge yourself is a reasonable suggestion, no?

And before people interject with (some already have), "stats have no impact on manual," I've found that they still play a significant role. Shit passers still feel like shit passers even on manual. Shooting a bit less so, which is why I'd suggest semi-assisted for that.

Did someone just compare using manual controls to putting an outfield player in goal? Nice leap of logic there, big guy. Not even a remotely apt comparison. If people don't want to take a few hours to get used to a control scheme that isn't completely automated and simplistic, that's fine, but don't complain that it's too easy. Also, you believe it's unacceptable that you mess up a 10-yard pass, but it's perfectly reasonable for every player to 180 LB+Y 50-yard pass it right to your attacker with little effort? Very selective. How is manual any less "individualistic" than a control scheme where every action is trivialized?

Oh, and I haven't adjusted my FIFA 17 sliders in 6 months or so. People act as if we're all in constant search of the "perfect" slider and therefore, it detracts from the overall experience. I found a decent set of sliders many moons ago and I've used them ever since. Not exactly a massive effort on my end.

From an online perspective, I 100% agree. When you can customize the offline aspect to a pretty decent extent, a lot of the difficulty complaints become moot.

Sliders.. meh. I would rather the game developers actually took the time to make a proper BALANCED game... why are we having to piss about with Sliders? Also Online as stated 1 MILLION times isn't affected by Sliders so for those of us who do a lot of FIFA online this won't help.

Manual.. Ok yes it adds an extra challenge I see where you are coming from 100% BUT... Like guru said we have never had to resort to Manual in some of the older FIFA's where Legendary was actually a PROPER challenge.

Also you then end up with stupid bullshit like top class professional players on your team (unless you are Watford) playing the shittiest passes you have EVER seen which just isn't realistic. But I thank you for the suggestion and I am sure a lot of guys will appreciate it too.

Stats and player individuality mean fuck all to EA as per usual. Whats the point in having these stats then?

 

[hitmanuk]

If you don't agree and don5 like it don't play it..for a lot of single players slider introduction is a positive step, I can't understand why you wouldn't want to have options to tailor the game to how you like it..should we get rid of game speed options too? How about force everyone to play 20 minute games ? each to their own i guess but sliders for me are a must reglardless if the game is balanced to begin with , as what's balanced for you might not be for me

 

[Daisuk]

If you don't agree and don5 like it don't play it..for a lot of single players slider introduction is a positive step, I can't understand why you wouldn't want to have options to tailor the game to how you like it..should we get rid of game speed options too? How about force everyone to play 20 minute games ? each to their own i guess but sliders for me are a must reglardless if the game is balanced to begin with , as what's balanced for you might not be for me

Agreed. Of course there's an argument that you can end up spending too much time tinkering with sliders, but in the end, it's up to the player, and basically just an addition that will enhance gameplay. Excellent feature, in my opinion. I wish PES had something similar, tbh.

I agree with Trodydeenyscoredapenalty (haha, excellent username, btw!) about player stats though, they really should mean something. You didn't have to rely on playing on full manual to get a decent game of football out of the older games, just stringing two passes together with the default players in PES Master League was a mighty challenge due to their shitty stats! Oh, well.

 

[guru83]

People use sliders to mask poor programming and essentially a game their not happy with.

I haven't got the time or energy to fix EA's game for them.

I just watched Sampdoria v Milan on BT Sport and it was slow and tactical. FIFA is still a million miles away from a realistic experience, which I guess pleases the Ultimate Team heads but not the grumpy old skool football gamer like myself.

 

[DarthKebab]

Christ if any football game played like Serie A I'd need a Prozac to play it, boring asf

 

[guru83]

Christ if any football game played like Serie A I'd need a Prozac to play it, boring asf

Yeah it's all about Burnley v Huddersfield. Riveting stuff.

 

[DarthKebab]

It's about trying to fit a 90 minute real life game into a 12 minute game which is impossible to do so they have to try and entertain the customer which after 9 hours of play on the full game it absolutely does, there are high scores but rarely in my favour, the scores will come down when I am better at the games and adjust my tactics.

I'd be the first to jump on a game for being poor like I have with the other game this year but EA have done a fantastic job this year, it's not perfect but it's never going to be.

 

[guru83]

It's about trying to fit a 90 minute real life game into a 12 minute game which is impossible to do so they have to try and entertain the customer which after 9 hours of play on the full game it absolutely does, there are high scores but rarely in my favour, the scores will come down when I am better at the games and adjust my tactics.

I'd be the first to jump on a game for being poor like I have with the other game this year but EA have done a fantastic job this year, it's not perfect but it's never going to be.

Which is great, I am glad you're enjoying it.

I just don't buy into the sliders argument.

I will still buy it on Friday for multiplayer and am looking forward to it surprising me

 

[P34SEMM]

People use sliders to mask poor programming and essentially a game their not happy with.

I haven't got the time or energy to fix EA's game for them.

I just watched Sampdoria v Genoa on BT Sport and it was slow and tactical. FIFA is still a million miles away from a realistic experience, which I guess pleases the Ultimate Team heads but not the grumpy old skool football gamer like myself.

But you’re still buying it?
All you’ve done is moan about it yet will buy it....to moan about it.

 

[guru83]

But you’re still buying it?
All you’ve done is moan about it yet will buy it....to moan about it.

I will buy it to form a solid opinion of it and for multiplayer because I don't like PES online.

Pes for single player, FIFA for online. Always.

 

[goalgerd]

People use sliders to mask poor programming and essentially a game their not happy with.

I haven't got the time or energy to fix EA's game for them.

I just watched Sampdoria v Milan on BT Sport and it was slow and tactical. FIFA is still a million miles away from a realistic experience, which I guess pleases the Ultimate Team heads but not the grumpy old skool football gamer like myself.

id rather spend an hour fixing sliders than spending two months fixing everything

 

[Lons]

id rather spend an hour fixing sliders than spending two months fixing everything

I don't need fixing everything because game is great

 

[guru83]

id rather spend an hour fixing sliders than spending two months fixing everything

You are allowed to like more than one football game you know.

 

[hitmanuk]

People use sliders to mask poor programming and essentially a game their not happy with.

I haven't got the time or energy to fix EA's game for them.

I just watched Sampdoria v Milan on BT Sport and it was slow and tactical. FIFA is still a million miles away from a realistic experience, which I guess pleases the Ultimate Team heads but not the grumpy old skool football gamer like myself.

your presuming mate , I'm happy with game as is , sliders are a bonus

 

[Topaz]

Apart from the passing issue and how lenient players are from tackling, shoving, etc. I think the game is pretty good. I use speedhack from cheat engine to slow down the game to realistic speed and will use @Matt10 slider whenever I get the game which will hopefully fix the passing speed and maybe make the player have tighter marking, pressure and close down more. Really good base game and 10 times better than FIFA 17 which is one of the most horrible FIFA along with FIFA 15.

 

[VuZet]

In my opinion ball looks way to small this year. Is it size 4? Looks weird.

 

[Topaz]

In my opinion ball looks way to small this year. Is it size 4? Looks weird.

Since FIFA 16, they had been making the ball look smaller and smaller. By FIFA 20, we will be playing with golf balls.

 

[TroyDeeneyScoredAPenal!]

Since FIFA 16, they had been making the ball look smaller and smaller. By FIFA 20, we will be playing with golf balls.

More like ping pong balls!

 

[TroyDeeneyScoredAPenal!]

If you don't agree and don5 like it don't play it..for a lot of single players slider introduction is a positive step, I can't understand why you wouldn't want to have options to tailor the game to how you like it..should we get rid of game speed options too? How about force everyone to play 20 minute games ? each to their own i guess but sliders for me are a must reglardless if the game is balanced to begin with , as what's balanced for you might not be for me

Was just stating an opinion mate. I personally don’t want to arse myself falsifying the game to please me by messing about with sliders. EA have basically made Legendary difficulty a joke instead of a challenge and for that I salute them!

 

[mfmaxpower]

I changed my initial post awhile ago to replace "realistic" with skill based, as I realized that wasn't a valid descriptor. Also, when I said realistic, I meant mainly (but not entirely) in the decision making aspect. I should have clarified.

"And also, not everyone wants the challenge of the game to largely be dictated by how well you can aim with the stick. There's a lot more to a football game than that."

Of course there is, but what people don't realize is, the control settings have a domino-effect. It affects other factors in the game. You actually have think about where you're passing rather than just spamming the A button. From that perspective, it's more realistic. Deciding whether or not to play a slightly risky ball across the middle of the pitch that could lead to a potential counter-attack if misplaced, but could open up things for you offensively, is more realistic than "hit A and aim in the general vicinity of a player" and forget about it. If I can zip the ball around the back and midfield to easily alleviate pressure, how is that adhering to real football? If the margin for error is so large that I don't have to plan my passes ahead of time, where is the realism in that? At times, you have to slow the pace of the match down because you can't always just 1-2-3-4 tiki-taka your way up the pitch to create a chance on goal.

Granted, from the perspective of replicating real-life counterparts, it's not realistic at all. Obviously the likes of Iniesta and Messi can pick out a pass with their eyes closed in real-life. They'd hardly struggle with a simple pass. You're 100% right and I agree with you. On the contrary, if everyone can zip the ball around with relative ease and every input and action in the game is completely trivialized, how the hell is that more realistic? What then differentiates someone with 60 passing and someone with 90 passing? Not a hell of a lot with assisted controls. If an average midfielder can ping a diagonal as if he were Scholes, again I ask, how is that more realistic? It's just a different end of an extreme, but they're both still extremes. I never meant to imply that manual is perfect or it rectifies all of the issues that plague FIFA, but FIFA is what FIFA is. It's a known quantity. I use these settings as it's best suited for my needs and tastes.

Assisted and manual are both imperfect control schemes. In an ideal world, stats would actual mean a damn thing like they used to in PS2 era PES. Unfortunately they do not. I'm stuck with the shit they serve so for me, it's the lesser of two evils.

"Of course there is, but what people don't realize is, the control settings have a domino-effect. It affects other factors in the game. You actually have think about where you're passing rather than just spamming the A button. From that perspective, it's more realistic."

I hear ya, but there's a flip side to that: just as assisted may encourage someone to attempt difficult/unrealistic passes that wouldn't be attempted in a real game, manual can have the opposite effect by discouraging the pass that a real life player would make. That's equally unrealistic. So the domino-effect goes both ways.

At times, you have to slow the pace of the match down because you can't always just 1-2-3-4 tiki-taka your way up the pitch to create a chance on goal.

The other huge part of this is that it's massively influenced by our own skill levels and how we play the game. You keep making blanket assumptions that playing assisted makes the game too easy (I think you're exact words were "assisted is piss easy and it always has been") but that's inaccurate, unfair, and a rather arrogant assumption. I've been playing FIFA for ages and I've always found that Legendary ends up being just about the right challenge for me - on default assistance settings.

You say you dominate Legendary when not playing manual, so maybe I'm a poor player in comparison but, regardless, the idea that assisted pass settings make the game too easy for everyone is just not true. Maybe you're that good, but I certainly can't "always just 1-2-3-4 tiki-taka" my way up the pitch.

With the demo, I probably averaged in the mid-80s for pass completion % with Man Utd. I'd say that sounds fairly realistic to me.

On the contrary, if everyone can zip the ball around with relative ease and every input and action in the game is completely trivialized, how the hell is that more realistic? What then differentiates someone with 60 passing and someone with 90 passing? Not a hell of a lot with assisted controls. If an average midfielder can ping a diagonal as if he were Scholes, again I ask, how is that more realistic?

I haven't played the full release but in the demo I found this simply not to be true. I played mostly with Man Utd, for example, and I noticed a clear difference when attempting difficult passes with Pogba and Matic, for example. While Matic is a defensive beast, I wasn't nearly as successful passing with him. Again, with default assistance.

Yes it's FIFA (and a video game), so sometimes players pull things off that they probably shouldn't be able to, but as I've said before, there's nothing built into the game or manual settings that prevent you from making the same type of Scholes pass with manual if you're good enough.

Ultimately though, you don't know how I play the game, and this is also why it's all so individual. Yes I play with assistance but I don't play to exploit it. Maybe it's, again, because I'm not good enough to do so, but I play in a more measured style, and if you were take two videos - one of me playing manual, one assisted - you'd likely say that the one with assisted looks more realistic because on manual I'll often make the top players in the world look like scrubs!

This is all to say that blanket assumptions like "manual is more realistic" and "assisted settings are too easy" are often inaccurate and really don't get us anywhere. Manual is an excellent option for some, but it's not a guaranteed path to increased realism, and it's not nor should it be the solution for creating a challenging and realistic experience.

 

[goalgerd]

You are allowed to like more than one football game you know.

i used to only love one

 

[goalgerd]

messing around with my tv without the ps4 pro hdr, gone from one extreme to the next!