- Staff
- #961
I know @Matt10 did in the beta. I saw some videos of career guys (not YouTubers, people like us) playing the beta and enjoying the changes, with all of the shit turned off (looking at you, "Competitive Mode"). They made it look pretty good - slower, more deliberate, with the AI trying a few more things on the way to goal (slightly worried that poor teams spam long balls to the channels, though).I suppose we are going to see teams in lower leagues/with lower stats not having the first clue about defending. But of course everyone is using Barca and teams like that so far so we can't tell. I wonder if anyone who played the beta with lower rated teams can confirm.
The best thing, which @fernadez mentioned, was seeing AI teams genuinely play in the way that the tactics dictate. His clip of Man City's pressing shows this pretty well - it adds a whole new layer to the gameplay because you just can't find a pass when you come up against such an aggressive press (and importantly, NOT EVERY TEAM DOES IT, which makes for a career mode with some variety).
Add to that the changes they've made with attributes adding individuality - i.e. if defenders have a high "defensive awareness" they'll track runs, or double-mark a danger man - and it seems like an improved game.
It's much closer to real football than the other game, IMO - being able to burst past defenders with the right players, defending not being "hold X to win ball" but involving you tracking the man and deciding when to make your tackle instead, shots being much more varied, lots more error (in all things - passing, shooting, you name it)... and in the career mode (where you just see a top-down view of the match), I think tactically the game looks pretty solid. The way the game flows, defensive reaction etc.
Add to that the added depth to career mode, which is pretty exciting - check out Firmino collapsing because he's been "overtrained":
...and I'm in.
Except...
All of this will be pointless if Legendary is still a piece of piss, and if Ultimate is still "99 attributes for all AI players". So maybe I'm not.
Add to that, you've still got the core engine issues. Skatey players... Jelly legs... Players hitting absolute bullet passes with zero backlift (for the sake of responsiveness)... 1v1 defending... Barely any fouls... (Basically, Frostbite.)
I can live with that, but not the game being far too easy. You can't fix that. Making the AI faster than you via sliders isn't a fix.
So you think the awereness thing will just be an online thing then? Because in the few videos out there are only top teams indeed and I haven't noticed anything of the sort.
So... As far as I know, this is part of the new attributes settings, and they're available offline (in-fact, they're on by default). It's called something like "New Attributes" in the settings, and it boosts all the areas that are required to make these changes more noticeable. (Basically, giving teams "chemistry boosts".)It's my guess for now. We'll find out. The game is already perfectly set up for that though. Ratings in fifa are exponential. This means that a player rated 99 is not just 1% better than someone rated 98. On an exponential curve he could be twice as good.
You can switch this off by changing it to "Classic Attributes".
In EA's defence, it does seem like they know offline players don't want half the new stuff, and everything comes with a "switch". So you can turn off "agile dribbling", "competitive mode", etc...
But - the flip-side of that is, all the gameplay add-ons will always be for the online guys. I don't see there ever being a day where a new gameplay feature is added for career mode guys...