FIFA 22 Discussion (Console Versions)

[Chris Davies]

I still haven't tried Competitor Mode - does it actually make the Career more challenging or just 'flashy'?

It makes it more challenging. By making the AI play like psychic disco-dancing robots. It's nothing like football.

It perfectly mimics playing against an eSports player, which is what it's there for - to train you to get yourself into competitive online gaming.

 

[Peter Withe]

It makes it more challenging. By making the AI play like psychic disco-dancing robots. It's nothing like football.

It perfectly mimics playing against an eSports player, which is what it's there for - to train you to get yourself into competitive online gaming.

Jesus. That sounds awful

 

[PRO_TOO]

It makes it more challenging. By making the AI play like psychic disco-dancing robots. It's nothing like football.

It perfectly mimics playing against an eSports player, which is what it's there for - to train you to get yourself into competitive online gaming.

 

[Emroth]

Bang on.

The thing is, they've sort-of added this (see here).... In Competitor Mode. The anti-realism mode. The mode that turns FIFA from "football game" into "Just Dance", with players doing the samba and throwing in cartwheels from defence to attack. Tricks every second, from every player.

WHY WOULD THEY PUT IT THERE? And not make it a separate option?

We're so fucking close. Yet without being able to enable this separately from the rest of Competitor Mode, the game will likely be unplayable, for me and the majority of others here.

To be fair - we dont know if Competitor Mode will be the same as the one on F21. Maybe this mechanism is also evolving. We didint really hear much details about it.

 

[Nacho10]

The really frustrating thing about Competitor Mode is it shows different AI options for offline is possible. Fine, have your esports-alike Competitor mode but ffs give us a 'sim' mode for offline as well!

 

[manmachine]

The really frustrating thing about Competitor Mode is it shows different AI options for offline is possible. Fine, have your esports-alike Competitor mode but ffs give us a 'sim' mode for offline as well!

Yeah, a couple of years ago there was serious debating about whether certain mechanics were "broken" by design or not, in which case people were expecting them to be fixed in a patch, or next year.

That's settled now (at least I hope so), the game is crap on purpose because that's what their FUT "whales" like. If there's a 3rd year in a row of that 1v1 nonsense, with no new sliders to fix things and a 2nd year in a row of competitive mode with no other option to have more realistic AI and gameplay, I think it would be extremely naive to think it's just a question of "time" & "priorities" ... "maybe next year".

The much simpler explanation is that they really just want everyone to play the same crap. Maybe they view the option of better/realistic gameplay as a risk, something that could divert a good number people away from their card collecting.

 

[rockstrongo]

The much simpler explanation is that they really just want everyone to play the same crap. Maybe they view the option of better/realistic gameplay as a risk, something that could divert a good number people away from their card collecting

Wasn't there even a leaked email about "steer people towards FUT" published not long ago?

I'm with you ,it's naive to think it's going in our direction ,that ship has sailed.
19-20-21 has been ok->crap.

 

[Emroth]

19-20-21 has been ok->crap

I agree. It should really be
16>17>18>19>20>21
But I also choose to believe that once they find their sweet spot with FUT crowd - they will start experimenting with offline gameplay.
Either this, or they will get annoyed with their own creation at some stage and split the gameplay.
I choose to believe they value CM players and their constructive feedback. And I choose to believe there are passionate developers among them, who would like to take Fifa gameplay to the next level. And CM is the only place they can do that since they are forced to dumb it all down online.
I might be naive in all this, but as much as with Konami my guts feeling tells me they are in there just for the money, with Fifa my guts tells me they want to recreate football (even if they are forced to take few steps back every year, due to FUT crowd)
I am rarely optimistic when it comes to football games these days, so its very weird for me to even type all this.
But... I am optimistic.
...or mental...

 

[manmachine]

But I also choose to believe that once they find their sweet spot with FUT crowd - they will start experimenting with offline gameplay.

If you're right we'll get a decent game... (one day, hopefully while we can still "game"), so I won't mind it at all if you're right. But they're already experimenting with offline gameplay, and gave us competitor mode. So, I don't know about them having any desire to recreate football. 😅

I just don't see *any* signs.

 

[rockstrongo]

I agree. It should really be
16>17>18>19>20>21
But I also choose to believe that once they find their sweet spot with FUT crowd - they will start experimenting with offline gameplay.
Either this, or they will get annoyed with their own creation at some stage and split the gameplay.
I choose to believe they value CM players and their constructive feedback. And I choose to believe there are passionate developers among them, who would like to take Fifa gameplay to the next level. And CM is the only place they can do that since they are forced to dumb it all down online.
I might be naive in all this, but as much as with Konami my guts feeling tells me they are in there just for the money, with Fifa my guts tells me they want to recreate football (even if they are forced to take few steps back every year, due to FUT crowd)
I am rarely optimistic when it comes to football games these days, so its very weird for me to even type all this.
But... I am optimistic.
...or mental...

Yeah hope your right ,kinda takes optimism away when playing 16/17/18 Vs the garbage that is 21 ,and to me those games (19-20-21) has really hurt the offline crowd gameplay wise.
And me being pretty pessimistic on big business I see no reason for them to kill off the cash cow that is UT ,which generated $1 billion + for FIFA and Madden.

It's a company that is registered on the stock market ,which have the CEO/board having to deal with stock rates/figures and answer to shareholders.
I'm 100 % sure that the dev team is dedicated to creating proper football games ,but big business/stockmarket/shareholders might have other ideas.

Still blows my mind that they won't separate the gameplay ,it's a win win

 

[Emroth]

If you're right we'll get a decent game... (one day, hopefully while we can still "game"), so I won't mind it at all if you're right. But they're already experimenting with offline gameplay, and gave us competitor mode. So, I don't know about them having any desire to recreate football. 😅

I just don't see *any* signs.

What IF, bare with me, what IF competitor mode evolves, not into AI emulating FUT crowd, but AI emulating real players behaviour?
They already said they are placing AI defense tracking back into that mode.
Why would they place it in there? Place which, by default, is supposed to be anything but realistic football?
Thats experimenting.
Then they are bringing this new AI player based difficulty, so that good players are standing out even on lower difficulties.
This is big. This means - I can play regular, or professional difficulty and still be afraid of star players, who will always be a threat.
Why would they add anything like this if they did not give two fucks about us?
To me it really looks like small steps towards the good.
They do see our tweets, they do see Chris, Matt10, their examples.
And all of the above are small winks towards offline players.
I dont remember last time Konami did anything other than fluff for offline players. Hence my optimism.

 

[Emroth]

when playing 16/17/18 Vs the garbage that is 21 ,and to me those games (19-20-21) has really hurt the offline crowd gameplay wise

100%.
But I think they are slowly realising that now.
They do see how UserVsUser gameplay affected offline. And I hope that they are beginning to try to fix it for us, while keeping them happy.

 

[rockstrongo]

100%.
But I think they are slowly realising that now.
They do see how UserVsUser gameplay affected offline. And I hope that they are beginning to try to fix it for us, while keeping them happy.

True ,that's why my hope for FIFA will be two separate modes/gameplays ,instead of same gameplay two different modes.
Fingers crossed etc.
One other thing ,they kinda fixed that on 21 ,but I can't believe that
FIFA 17-18 looks miles better than 19-20?

 

[Emroth]

True ,that's why my hope for FIFA will be two separate modes/gameplays ,instead of same gameplay two different modes.
Fingers crossed etc.
One other thing ,they kinda fixed that on 21 ,but I can't believe that
FIFA 17-18 looks miles better than 19-20?

Yeah, I dont think its our time yet. I dont think F22 will be the answer to our prayers. It might be an improvement tho.
To their defense - you have to fuck something up first to see that you fucked up. And from there you can try to see how you can make it work.
We might get few little tweaks and attempts to keep us happy, but FUT is and will be priority. They also had to port the game to next gen and all the focus went there. Tbh - im surprised we got any offline gameplay tweaks this year.
But I am reasonably optimistic for the future.

 

[manmachine]

What IF, bare with me, what IF competitor mode evolves, not into AI emulating FUT crowd, but AI emulating real players behaviour?
They already said they are placing AI defense tracking back into that mode.
Why would they place it in there? Place which, by default, is supposed to be anything but realistic football?
Thats experimenting.
Then they are bringing this new AI player based difficulty, so that good players are standing out even on lower difficulties.
This is big. This means - I can play regular, or professional difficulty and still be afraid of star players, who will always be a threat.
Why would they add anything like this if they did not give two fucks about us?
To me it really looks like small steps towards the good.
They do see our tweets, they do see Chris, Matt10, their examples.
And all of the above are small winks towards offline players.
I dont remember last time Konami did anything other than fluff for offline players. Hence my optimism.

I guess you could view these additions as signs that they care, so I think it's fair to say there's nothing conclusive until we actually see them in practice. But better AI defending only in competitor mode is not very promising for me and I think they want to address difficulty more than inject realism. It just doesn't mix with the crazy skill moves and they actually state clearly in the pitch notes that it's about increasing difficulty.

The other thing about star players is very confusing for me. The game was increasingly pay 2 win lately. This benefitted us in Fifa 17 as you could actually feel the difference between different teams. But in Fifa 19 the effect was so exaggerated that it now sucked, it was like playing against robots and not humans. So I'm not sure what to make of it. I didn't buy 20/21 so I don't know how ratings played out offline. It could be something good, it could be something that will make Mbappe score 5 bicycle kicks per game and you have to turn it off, lol. I guess we'll know soon, but just like competitor mode my guess is that this will be an option that you'll want to keep turned off!

I do know however that if there's no way to turn off 1v1s and have better defending I'll probably not buy it and competitor mode with better defending is not something that can change my mind. 😅

 

[Emroth]

I guess you could view these additions as signs that they care, so I think it's fair to say there's nothing conclusive until we actually see them in practice. But better AI defending only in competitor mode is not very promising for me and I think they want to address difficulty more than inject realism. It just doesn't mix with the crazy skill moves and they actually state clearly in the pitch notes that it's about increasing difficulty.

The other thing about star players is very confusing for me. The game was increasingly pay 2 win lately. This benefitted us in Fifa 17 as you could actually feel the difference between different teams. But in Fifa 19 the effect was so exaggerated that it now sucked, it was like playing against robots and not humans. So I'm not sure what to make of it. I didn't buy 20/21 so I don't know how ratings played out offline. It could be something good, it could be something that will make Mbappe score 5 bicycle kicks per game and you have to turn it off, lol. I guess we'll know soon, but just like competitor mode my guess is that this will be an option that you'll want to keep turned off!

I do know however that if there's no way to turn off 1v1s and have better defending I'll probably not buy it and competitor mode with better defending is not something that can change my mind. 😅

Oh, Im with you with everything you said.
All Im saying is that there are some attempts from EA to improve offline gameplay, which is something I did not expect at all. I expected more stadiums, maybe more leagues, but never offline gameplay tweaks. I thought it will all be just fluff that you can show in the trailers.
Will these attempts turn out to be for the good or will they make it all worse - we shall see soon enough.
But something is happening, which is always good to see.

 

[Mathgamer]

 

[rojofa]

Ball interactions supposedly physics-based and yet a player can head the ball 50 yards jumping backwards.

Ok this gif was FIFA 20 but it's not like they reinvented the gameplay to become physics based since then ("Hypermotion" is not that);

 

[manmachine]

... And "player-ball-player interaction is not scripted, but actually physics-based and emergent", but for some strange reason the result of said interaction is almost never a foul in recent games.

BTW this is in direct contradiction with what they're saying in their own pitch notes, for example:

"Better ball speed and angle for successful tackles, increasing the likelihood of the ball going towards your teammates".

So, not quite physics based and random, when you want to ensure the ball goes towards a particular player, because that's what people asked for. (Not saying this a bad change, or that the guy is lying about what he's doing, just saying that what we actually end up playing is not truly the result of "true physics", it's blindingly obvious that in fifa user input overrides all laws of physics known to man).

 

[Bravez]

This is precisely why the PS2 PES games were so good and why they have struggled so badly since gaming moved on. They had a brilliant yet limited framework which they understood incredibly well. Once more directions, outcomes etc were added, all the issues with goalkeepers, refs and physics appeared.

It also gives context to how difficult it must be to change/improve these games without causing issues elsewhere. It's a minefield.

 

[hitmanuk]

This is precisely why the PS2 PES games were so good and why they have struggled so badly since gaming moved on. They had a brilliant yet limited framework which they understood incredibly well. Once more directions, outcomes etc were added, all the issues with goalkeepers, refs and physics appeared.

It also gives context to how difficult it must be to change/improve these games without causing issues elsewhere. It's a minefield.

Is it that much of a minefield really , the main current issues are by choice and have been present in past games E.g tracking runs and it's been stated it's deliberate to have more goals, I suspect the lack of fouls is also intentional to keep the flow going

 

[manmachine]

I suspect the lack of fouls is also intentional to keep the flow going

It's more about the trend of decreasing random outcomes in e-sports. Fewer random fouls from collisions, require a bad sliding tackle so that the user can be held accountable in a competitive game and not blame the game / luck. I believe PES lacked penalties in recent years as well, for the same reason.

 

[Bravez]

Is it that much of a minefield really , the main current issues are by choice and have been present in past games E.g tracking runs and it's been stated it's deliberate to have more goals, I suspect the lack of fouls is also intentional to keep the flow going

Depending on how it's been engineered and if/how legacy code has been managed then yes it is. I'm not an engineer but work in tech closely with engineers on complex code. It's not always as simple as "it used to be there" especially if all of the dependant or affected parts have changed or rely specifically on how it now works and future change hasn't been considered.

I'm sure there's somebody here who is more technical and can explain better

It's more about the trend of decreasing random outcomes in e-sports. Fewer random fouls from collisions, require a bad sliding tackle so that the user can be held accountable in a competitive game and not blame the game / luck. I believe PES lacked penalties in recent years as well, for the same reason.

I just don't think this is true. It's far more likely to be a direct result of the complexity it introduces. When a game is having to make that many complex, physics and context based outcomes, i imagine the scope for it to be buggy is huge.

And of course, given eSports they won't want broken mechanics deciding things. I think it's unlikely that eSports is driving less random outcomes but more that the engine is not reliable enough to ensure its truly random rather than broken. It's a skill in itself to ensure you're reducing likelihood of s random event by playing safer.

 

[hitmanuk]

Depending on how it's been engineered and if/how legacy code has been managed then yes it is. I'm not an engineer but work in tech closely with engineers on complex code. It's not always as simple as "it used to be there" especially if all of the dependant or affected parts have changed or rely specifically on how it now works and future change hasn't been considered.

I'm sure there's somebody here who is more technical and can explain better



I just don't think this is true. It's far more likely to be a direct result of the complexity it introduces. When a game is having to make that many complex, physics and context based outcomes, i imagine the scope for it to be buggy is huge.

And of course, given eSports they won't want broken mechanics deciding things. I think it's unlikely that eSports is driving less random outcomes but more that the engine is not reliable enough to ensure its truly random rather than broken. It's a skill in itself to ensure you're reducing likelihood of s random event by playing safer.

Not sure about this , if you look at pes 21, there are free kicks, not as many as there should be , but then enter the box and fouls disappear. When you do get one and they are rare its like there was a bug in the game and it should never have happened

 

[Bravez]

Not sure about this , if you look at pes 21, there are free kicks, not as many as there should be , but then enter the box and fouls disappear. When you do get one and they are rare its like there was a bug in the game and it should never have happened

Nowhere near as many which suggests there is a balance to be struck and probably due to limitation rather than choice (especially given how they specifically addressed it in feedback).

Depending on the conditions for those fouls to happen, it may be they just don't happen in the box, or rarely given proximity of defenders, less sprinting etc (I actually got a pen last game I played)

Anyway I could be wrong but I just think a lot of this stuff is far more complex than the majority of us think. It's good to see this sort of insight from an engineer working directly on the title imo. For all FIFAs faults, a lot of the game (bar team structure/shape/play style) feels very organic.

 

[rojofa]

... And "player-ball-player interaction is not scripted, but actually physics-based and emergent", but for some strange reason the result of said interaction is almost never a foul in recent games.

BTW this is in direct contradiction with what they're saying in their own pitch notes, for example:

"Better ball speed and angle for successful tackles, increasing the likelihood of the ball going towards your teammates".

So, not quite physics based and random, when you want to ensure the ball goes towards a particular player, because that's what people asked for. (Not saying this a bad change, or that the guy is lying about what he's doing, just saying that what we actually end up playing is not truly the result of "true physics", it's blindingly obvious that in fifa user input overrides all laws of physics known to man).

Exactly, there should never be parameters allowing them to change ball speed/angle from a "successful tackle" if the gameplay is physics based. The game should have no concept of what a "successful tackle" even is other than recording it as a match stat when a tackle causes a change in ball possession.

In a proper physics based game, Rocket League for example, the only variables you could change to affect these kinds of outcomes would be ball physics, car physics, hitboxes or something about the controls/mechanics. It would be impossible for the devs of that game to simply change gameplay variables to decide they just want the "successful" player in a tackle to come away with the ball more often or have it rebound to teammates.

Instead of building and balancing the gameplay properly from the ground up, EA just add layers upon layers of artificial bullshit like this to meet their ideas of "esports" football.

More and more animations, controls, mechanics and gimmicks added or changed from year to year on this bloated mess of a gameplay base they have used for almost 15 years by now. There has been Ignite and Frostbite engines since then, but neither of those were a complete rebuild of the gameplay, and with neither "next-gen" edition having done so, we can expect at least another 6-7 years of them recycling this shit. They'll probably keep doing this into the PS6 generation as well.

 

[Bravez]

Exactly, there should never be parameters allowing them to change ball speed/angle from a "successful tackle" if the gameplay is physics based. The game should have no concept of what a "successful tackle" even is other than recording it as a match stat when a tackle causes a change in ball possession.

In a proper physics based game, Rocket League for example, the only variables you could change to affect these kinds of outcomes would be ball physics, car physics, hitboxes or something about the controls/mechanics. It would be impossible for the devs of that game to simply change gameplay variables to decide they just want the "successful" player in a tackle to come away with the ball more often or have it rebound to teammates.

Instead of building and balancing the gameplay properly from the ground up, EA just add layers upon layers of artificial bullshit like this to meet their ideas of "esports" football.

More and more animations, controls, mechanics and gimmicks added or changed from year to year on this bloated mess of a gameplay base they have used for almost 15 years by now. There has been Ignite and Frostbite engines since then, but neither of those were a complete rebuild of the gameplay, and with neither "next-gen" edition having done so, we can expect at least another 6-7 years of them recycling this shit. They'll probably keep doing this into the PS6 generation as well.

Honestly though, let's have some perspective. An inanimate car vs and attempt at recreating an incredibly complex, stats based, infinite (essentially) inputs and outputs, game of football just aren't comparable. When we talk about parameters we're talking about foot angle, speed, balance, ball trajectory, spin, stats. They're less parameters and more calculations.

And to all those points above, have we got any evidence of this or are they just assumptions you've made based on what you see in the final product?

I'll stop banging on about it now, not sure many will agree, especially those with no tech/dev background and I could well be wrong tbf.

 

[rojofa]

Honestly though, let's have some perspective. An inanimate car vs and attempt at recreating an incredibly complex, stats based, infinite (essentially) inputs and outputs, game of football just aren't comparable. When we talk about parameters we're talking about foot angle, speed, balance, ball trajectory, spin, stats. They're less parameters and more calculations.

And to all those points above, have we got any evidence of this or are they just assumptions you've made based on what you see in the final product?

I'll stop banging on about it now, not sure many will agree, especially those with no tech/dev background and I could well be wrong tbf.

I know the complexity is very different between simulating cars and humans, but EA are the ones claiming their game is physics based and emergent while at the same time allowing physically impossible actions (like the distance on the header in the gif above) and making gameplay changes which can just bypass the influence of physics (directly changing the behaviour of the ball on "successful" tackles).

I suppose the evidence is the whole artificial feeling of the gameplay for so many years, patched (often literally) together with counterbalancing gimmicks and tweaks to cover up whichever move or tactic was overpowered the year or even month previously. The way they worded their statement in the "pitch notes", it seems like a bit of a leap and giving EA far too much credit to assume that the kind of variables they were talking about were things like foot angle, momentum etc. I suppose the people investigating gameplay mods on PC may have seen some of the kinds of variables and artificial gameplay balancing under the hood.

With EA's budget and resources, plus the power of next-gen consoles, it shouldn't be unreasonable to expect far more physics directly driving the gameplay. For all this talk of "HyperMotion" and next-gen hype, Backbreaker for PS3/360 from 2009 is still the most technically ambitious sports game I've seen and FIFA isn't doing anything nearly as impressive.

 

[Isslander]

Me slipping into this thread after two decades of PES:

 

[Redhat]

Me slipping into this thread after two decades of PES:
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