Okay, just played several matches of the Beta, all kickoff matches in the Champions League. I played all matches with Man Utd, Legendary, with default assists. Here's some impressions with more to come.
First, it's really odd starting the game up in Champions League. It felt like playing PES, since that's the only mode in PES I've played in years.
About gameplay, it's clear this isn't the finished product. There's some wonky shit going on. And some things it's hard to tell if it's indicative of an intentional change or if it's just the build.
But two things stood out immediately: one, the new arrows over the heads of defenders that you'll switch to is confusing as fuck at first (this can be turned off though). The second, defending/tackling is very different, but I expect at least part of that is this build.
With defending, two things are immediately noticeable. First, tackling is way more effective. It's actually OP. But if the final build is anything like the beta - and it's going to be somewhat 'cause you can see the clear changes they've made - feeling totally helpless in defense is a thing of the past. Defenders now "lock-on" a bit better and attackers feel less slippery, if that makes sense.
Defensive mechanics have probably been my biggest criticism of the game in recent years so I'm excited about how defending feels in the beta but we'll see what the final build is like. But from what I'm seeing, defenders feel more capable in their tackling - I was really thrown off at first how easy it was to tackle and get the ball. This is for the user defenders at least; CPU defenders felt a tad weak.
The other thing that's noticeable with defending is teammates help out more and players close down better. With teammates helping, I will say it's inconsistent - sometimes you'll see a teammate close down like they should or track back or follow a dribbler from behind (which they pretty much never would in the past) but other times they still stand still.
Two big negatives stood out: One, there's still no fouls unless you use a skill move. It actually seemed worse than 18 and some of it's gotta be the build 'cause I saw shit that was a foul every day in 18. Usually at least I get called for fouls in 18 (since defending sucked and I'd always get frustrated and make bad tackles at some point), but in the beta I've seen hardly any fouls at all. In one case, I absolutely manhandled an attacker and nothing was called, so I'm pretty sure it's gotta be the build. Regardless, I'm worried that we're looking at another year of way too few fouls (at least by the CPU).
The second negative is the lack of CPU aggressiveness in defense, which I believe is the main reason there's a lack of fouls. They simply didn't close down like they should at times. When I'd get up ahead, the CPU did get aggressive and would close down, but in those times they played like they should at default almost. So the aggressiveness is in the game, it just needs to be turned up at their default settings.
Actually, one other negative: there's still issues with the backline AI. Playing against Man City, it was too easy to create openings and confuse the defenders. I didn't see this problem as much against Liverpool, although I was still able to exploit the space behind the fullbacks too easily like in 18, so I think it's either related to tactics or the formation. But I did see a pretty big difference between how the two attacked - Liverpool liked to play long balls to Salah, and Man City played a more possession based game. Oddly though, Man City's press gave me way more trouble than Liverpool's. I thought Man City played like Man City, or close enough, but Liverpool wasn't quite right.
A couple other thoughts: shooting is way OP in terms of speed, though I thought error was better - there were a few shots that surely would've been on target in 18 that missed in the beta. Still, accuracy is too high (so is first time passing, as usual). But as it is now, you'll probably never need to use the new double-tap shooting feature. That said, I hit some amazing screamers from long distance with the new mechanic, though none went in. I think it could be a really fun addition if they make regular shooting less effective so that there's actually a point in attempting the new mechanic. I've read a lot of press impressions in which they said they couldn't get the hang of it but I think I was successful about one out of three tries.
Last, and maybe this should've been first, the game felt really fast. I'm not someone who ever complained about 18's gameplay speed, and I play on Normal, but the beta felt too hyper at times. Hopefully it's just the build but the speed felt quicker than 18, which is surprising since I'd read a lot of press impressions that said the opposite. I will say though that players felt a little heavier, and while it felt faster, there were fewer chances created (maybe that's just me not being used to the new version of the game).
I gotta run but my main take away is this felt much more balanced between attack and defense due to the improved tackling. All the new touches and animations are great, as you'd expect, but for me, I'm sick of seeing 3-4 scorelines. The only bit that undermined the better balanced gameplay was that shooting felt OP and I scored some easy goals due to backline AI issues.
Still, the game feels more balanced than 18 for sure, and I absolutely loved for the first time in years being able to tackle and dispossess dribblers on the regular if they weren't smart with the ball, but in the end it's going to come down to how the final build plays (duh).
What I played was only kick-off matches, so as we all know CM and other modes can play differently. I'll be banging out tons more games this weekend and up until the end of the beta, so we'll see if my early impressions stick. If you have questions, lemme know.
Cheers. I'm out.
