• Major upgrades completed! Please report any issues you spot in here

Football Games: Your 3 "Must-Haves" & "Can't-Haves"

Chris Davies

Chris Davies

Chief PESsimist
Staff
Joined
14 May 2003
Location
UK
Team
Tranmere Rovers
When discussing football games - FIFA/FC in-particular - we can often see just how good a game is, and how much it's improved year-on-year, but still find it unenjoyable because of just one major bugbear we can't look past.

I thought it would be interesting to post our 3 "must-haves" and 3 "can't-haves", to see if we all have similar thoughts, or if we're all completely different.

I'll try and keep mine gameplay-related, but you don't have to - it's all about whatever's most important to you.

@Emroth has mentioned in the past that if a game doesn't have fouls (which is an entire part of football, including set pieces, that goes missing)... He can't enjoy it. Even though I would rather fouls were in the game, though, fouls wouldn't be in my top three.

In the early 2000s, my PES bugbear was AI cheating, where (after beating the last defender) your player would often knock the ball ahead just far enough that the keeper could claim it easily, and no matter how many 1-on-1s you created, you'd either do that, or your shot would be straight at him.

Now, in 2024, it's 1v1 defending (or passive defensive AI) that you can see isn't "allowed" to stop you. It takes all satisfaction away from making chances, let alone scoring. Isn't it weird how football games have gone from cheating, to not trying?

So, here's my list...

Must-Haves
  1. Realistic game speed (not pinball)
  2. Varied shot physics (including body-position-based error)
  3. A free ball (loose balls that can deflect into space)

Can't-Haves
  1. 1v1 defending / passive defensive AI
  2. Faked / forced physics for pass accuracy (e.g. FC's headers that ignore physics)
  3. Glue boots

How about you?
 
Must haves...

1. A feeling of weight to players, if I wanted to see things floating about I'd play Fishing Simulator.

2. Unpredictable/Varied AI.

3. Stats instead of overall. If I want a player to excel in a specific role, I ignore their overall & focus on their stats for the role I want them to play. This shines through on PES and I've had several examples on my saves through the years.

Can't haves...

1. Ping Pong, lightspeed passing.

2. Ridiculous physics. Players contorting their feet 360 degrees to make a shot or making impossible turns in a second.

3. Lack of fouls.

The above 3 is why I can't play the FIFA/EAFC games since around FIFA 19.
 
SP83 said:
Must haves...

1. A feeling of weight to players, if I wanted to see things floating about I'd play Fishing Simulator.

2. Unpredictable/Varied AI.

3. Stats instead of overall. If I want a player to excel in a specific role, I ignore their overall & focus on their stats for the role I want them to play. This shines through on PES and I've had several examples on my saves through the years.

Can't haves...

1. Ping Pong, lightspeed passing.

2. Ridiculous physics. Players contorting their feet 360 degrees to make a shot or making impossible turns in a second.

3. Lack of fouls.

The above 3 is why I can't play the FIFA/EAFC games since around FIFA 19.
Click to expand...
Good call on the varied AI, I should have gone with that. In fairness, I think FC25 is there on that front - difficulty level plays a part though.

How do you balance a difficulty level and make it play realistic football, when - if it does - the game becomes easy as a result (forcing itself to make short passes instead of simply exploiting the engine's weak spots)?

Physics is interesting - you know what, I've been waiting so long to love a football game, I can actually look past the level of skating that's in FC25 now, personally. I'd rather it was footplanting-first, but, I can live with it. It's the impossible ball physics that dumb down passing (to ensure a high enough accuracy that games have plenty of shots) that I can't deal with - particularly on headers.
 
Must Haves:-
1. Accurate footplanting.
2. Body position and angle when passing shooting should make a difference.
3. Free ball so there is no glue to passes.
4. Stats that matter - an Exeter City player can't do a pinpoint crossfield pass.
5. Varied AI when playing against CPU - not every team plays tika-taka (gameplay should also allow varied approaches).
6. Full mod support so the community can add old teams and players.

Career mode should also be realistic and not fantasy football manager.
Sorry this list could be huge - which shows the massive failing of recent games.

Can't Haves:-
1. Skill moves should be removed.
2. AI should position itself correctly not run away because the attackers need to through ball.
3. Keepers being absolute shite - they are allowed to save the ball now and again.
 
Must have

1/ Real nice animations : inertia, footplating
2/ Nice CPU variations
3/ Different styles of goals for me and the CPU

Can't have :
1/ CPU didn't have team spirit with only skills moves
2/ Crazy overall speed
3/Lack of fouls
 
Just the first things on top of my head.
Must have:

- First touch control, and ball control in general. EA completely forgot about it when they implemented the Hypermotion thing, but having players perfectly controlling the ball and turning with it at the speed of light it's such a huge turn off, both visually but mostly as a gameplay thing, as having the ball not always being perfectly glued to the feet leeds to a lot more interesting situations arising in literally every imaginable play. If you look at the highest, real life professional play, good or bad touches can make or break games. It's a shame cause I think we had it down to an at least decent level until the latest frostbites.

- Stats based. Stats need to matter. There needs to be a very good difference and sense of progression when you go from bad, to medium, to good players.

- Good defenses. In an ideal world, I'd love to have tactical variety. If it's not possible, I'll somewhat settle for good defenses. If a game doesn't make me feel I earn most of the goals I score, I can't find joy in playing it.

Can't have:


Bad Keepers. Tying with the defenses, I'd rather have a keeper a bit too much on the stronger side than the opposite, since the latter totally deprives me of satisfaction.

No Variety. I need the game to produce different situations on the field and have me scoring/taking varied goals (at the very least the scoring part) in a natural way.. sameness is the death of a football game, to me.

Bad AI. I need the teams in the field to look as humans in movements, positions and so on, at least to some degree. Seeing them making robot movements/stops is such an immense immersion breaking, to me.
 
Chris Davies said:
@Emroth has mentioned in the past that if a game doesn't have fouls (which is an entire part of football, including set pieces, that goes missing)... He can't enjoy it
Click to expand...
It's not even fouls.. it's more about physicality. Let's take EAFC25 for example. I'm happy with the way it is there. Obviously - I would like AI to be more clever and have tactical fouls, but Im still happy.
I'm getting free kicks and collisions are one of the best I have seen in years. I constantly see players colliding and being taken down on various ways with various animations.
When a game is soft, nobody falls and I don't see people being taken down - that's when I can't stand it (PES2018, Fifa19)

So I suppose that would be one of my top 3 must have's.

Disclaimer: I won't mention AI. That it has to be challenging and varied. It's common sense really. Without good AI there is nothing to discuss, so I won't state the obvious.

1. Physicality. See above.

2. Randomness - by randomness I mean free ball, deflections, miss kicks, chaos.
If after 100 hours I can still score new goals and see new situations - great. If the goals are samey and AI plays samey - not great.

3. Good defending. And I'm not only talking about AI positioning, team mates being smart and all that jazz. I mainly mean that I need to have tools and feel like I have power to defend.
If I can time my sliding tackle and take somebody out without this being a foul, or block their shot with last second lounge - this feels so satisfying!!! Probably more than having a good shot on goal for me.
EAFC is quite good on this department. We have a lot of tools, but unfortunately our team mates are ruining it. You can't possibly do everything and at the moment you have to.
Also - skating and glitchy twitchy dribbling making defending difficult.
It should be more grounded and more physical, where I can feel the weight of my tackles.

Can't have:

1. Ping pong passing from AI. If they don't play football, if they don't hold the ball, or play to the back, just ping pong forward - I'm out.

2. Unnatural fast gameplay speed. Self explanatory.

3. High scores / easy goals. Goals have to be rewarding, scoring goals have to be challenging. I'd rather have most matches ending up 0:0, while punching the air with every goal, then have matches ending with 6:4.
Few of those and the entire experience becomes meaningless.
 
Emroth said:
It's not even fouls.. it's more about physicality. Let's take EAFC25 for example. I'm happy with the way it is there. Obviously - I would like AI to be more clever and have tactical fouls, but Im still happy.
I'm getting free kicks and collisions are one of the best I have seen in years. I constantly see players colliding and being taken down on various ways with various animations.
When a game is soft, nobody falls and I don't see people being taken down - that's when I can't stand it (PES2018, Fifa19)

So I suppose that would be one of my top 3 must have's.

Disclaimer: I won't mention AI. That it has to be challenging and varied. It's common sense really. Without good AI there is nothing to discuss, so I won't state the obvious.

1. Physicality. See above.

2. Randomness - by randomness I mean free ball, deflections, miss kicks, chaos.
If after 100 hours I can still score new goals and see new situations - great. If the goals are samey and AI plays samey - not great.

3. Good defending. And I'm not only talking about AI positioning, team mates being smart and all that jazz. I mainly mean that I need to have tools and feel like I have power to defend.
If I can time my sliding tackle and take somebody out without this being a foul, or block their shot with last second lounge - this feels so satisfying!!! Probably more than having a good shot on goal for me.
EAFC is quite good on this department. We have a lot of tools, but unfortunately our team mates are ruining it. You can't possibly do everything and at the moment you have to.
Also - skating and glitchy twitchy dribbling making defending difficult.
It should be more grounded and more physical, where I can feel the weight of my tackles.

Can't have:

1. Ping pong passing from AI. If they don't play football, if they don't hold the ball, or play to the back, just ping pong forward - I'm out.

2. Unnatural fast gameplay speed. Self explanatory.

3. High scores / easy goals. Goals have to be rewarding, scoring goals have to be challenging. I'd rather have most matches ending up 0:0, while punching the air with every goal, then have matches ending with 6:4.
Few of those and the entire experience becomes meaningless.
Click to expand...


I am really totally with you.
From my must have i want to add "players individuality" : stats have to matters. I like when you feel and you have to play different because the players you are controlling.
Old PS2 Pes were amazing at this .
 
Last edited:
Some very simple things to kick-off from me, as I can see myself re-visiting this thread!

Must-Haves (No particular order)
  1. *FULLY* adjustable turf colour. ALL THE TIME. It should be considered an accessability option now. Don't you just hate how these games are becomming SLAVE to authentic 'as captured' lighting? I don't care how accurate they have captured the light in a real life stadium, as if the turf colour is too bright as a result it makes *so many* stadiums in these games unplayable. I don't ever want to but if I did go mad and wanted to play on pitch black turf, then what any business is it of yours EA/Konami?

  2. Simply a different set of demands from these games. Yeah, keep the basic face button actions (and the modifoers) if you want but I am tired of how the art of dribbling is realised in these games. Do we really need a sprint button in an analogue stick age? Keep it in online modes if you want, but elsewhere allow the user to opt for a more precision based dribbling/movement speed system exclusively via the left stick. I'd also like a simple button prompt that allows me to change foot. I'd like Super-Cancel to be a thing no longer necessary. Maybe all this makes the ball feel free-er?

  3. eFootball (for all it's flaws) has a REALLY good variance in game tempo, second to second, and the AI on Legendary can properly get in your grill to the point you sort of don't see/sense how bloody frantic it can be, but you *can* reach a wee zen-like status and start bossing. However, eFootball has big flaws (mostly animation/physics/final third based). A greater sense of urgency/threat/variance that doesn't feel scripted but just *demanding* and requires focus, regardless of opposition, would be great regards difficulty curve.

Can't-Haves
  1. A game that ignores what a single player gamer wants (Kudos to EA has to be given for FC25 this year) as for all as you can have what eFootball *can* offer v. AI, whats the bloody point if there is nothing to do? EA don't get away lightly here, though. They have opened the door a wee bit with simulation sliders - now they need design a bespoke single player gameplay experience, that involves my 'must haves' as they have the resources and apparently some among the development team who want to make that happen. You can't have no single player modes of depth!

  2. A lack of fouls. In both titles available currently you *can win* fouls, once you learn a few nuances of control, but this needs addrerssing, BIG TIME. It needs to be so much more organic and just par for the course for any match you play. Should not be locked behind learning controls/little tricks.

  3. Mentioned by others but ping-pong passing friendly gameplay. I'm not a against ease of access to any game, but there has to be not only punishment for trying to play blind passes and the likes, but simple steer novices can learn from. What I would therefore suggest is guidance. Right now, FC25 has wee tactical tips when things are not 'going well' etc. Why not therefore teach users how to play the game, and how body position is important, instead of just going "Oh well! They've picked FULLY ASSISTED, so they can do whatever!". Why not have wee prompts for folks (optional, obviously) to steer them towards the demands of the game? It's weird because other sports titles don't have a problem with gently tutoring newcomers.
 
Madmac79 said:
Just the first things on top of my head.
Must have:

- First touch control, and ball control in general. EA completely forgot about it when they implemented the Hypermotion thing, but having players perfectly controlling the ball and turning with it at the speed of light it's such a huge turn off, both visually but mostly as a gameplay thing, as having the ball not always being perfectly glued to the feet leeds to a lot more interesting situations arising in literally every imaginable play. If you look at the highest, real life professional play, good or bad touches can make or break games. It's a shame cause I think we had it down to an at least decent level until the latest frostbites.

- Stats based. Stats need to matter. There needs to be a very good difference and sense of progression when you go from bad, to medium, to good players.

- Good defenses. In an ideal world, I'd love to have tactical variety. If it's not possible, I'll somewhat settle for good defenses. If a game doesn't make me feel I earn most of the goals I score, I can't find joy in playing it.

Can't have:


Bad Keepers. Tying with the defenses, I'd rather have a keeper a bit too much on the stronger side than the opposite, since the latter totally deprives me of satisfaction.

No Variety. I need the game to produce different situations on the field and have me scoring/taking varied goals (at the very least the scoring part) in a natural way.. sameness is the death of a football game, to me.

Bad AI. I need the teams in the field to look as humans in movements, positions and so on, at least to some degree. Seeing them making robot movements/stops is such an immense immersion breaking, to me.
Click to expand...

Exactly the same as him plus i would like to add "difficulty" into the mix. At the end of the day, it's a video game and video games needs to be challenging to keep my interest. I find PES 5 checking all of my boxes but it's a bit too easy.
 
I try my best to writing down my 3 things twice.

Must-haves
  1. All gameplay facts that are posted yet in here.
  2. A nice varied and realistic SP carreer ML/CM (or which name it could have) mode.
  3. A live broadcast package with original scoreboards with team line-up with interviews and talking (not only texts like in Fifa/EA FC) about the up to date situation in your SP carrer or (when you play other SP modes about real life storys) commentary with mananger and/or players from home and away teams pre match & after match like it is in NBA 2K***.
  4. and full licensed or full mod able.
Can't-haves

  1. Arcade rocket speed passes with 100% accuracy, animations and movements.
  2. No fakking scripting/momentum in SP matches
  3. Lack of fouls, 1v1 no player and CPU AI.
  4. MP online only FUT or MyClub or other card collecting wanna be football modes.
Ah sorry a bit more than just 3 things for both.

But If there would be a Football game with my Must-haves and not the can't-haves, I would pre-order and pray the devs for sure! :PRAY:
 
Nice thread! Let's try and keep it short, focusing on what happens on the pitch (where it matters).

Must-haves:
  • Credible physics (proper footplanting and player interactions for example, as well as ball deflections)
    They don't have to be ultra-realistic, but at least credible. I mean, if I wanted my players to skate all over the place I'd fire up NHL and have a career with the Anaheim Ducks.
  • Stats that matter
    I'd love to feel the difference when I switch from the dull 67-rated winger with the stats of a coupboard that got given to me at the start of the career to that 75-rated player that I finally managed to sign during the latest transfer window.
  • Variety in matches
    Opponents must feel different from each other to play against. Take FIFA 14 for example: the Timbers would cross it in time after time after time, while Dortmund would gegenpress the entire hell out of you and then try to LB+Y it upfront to Lewandowski for a goalscoring opportunity.

Can't-haves:
  • Braindead teammates and opponents
    I don't want to see defenders switching their brains off wneh they're not engaged in a 1-on-1 battle. Football is a team sport, it's not a "tag team" fighting tournament where contenders are only allowed to face each other separately. Where did that "defend as a unit" claim go?
  • Too many skill moves
    I have a friend (we play Teams in the same club and we played co-op together in the past) that is a skill moves black belt. Really, he is almost unplayable (and has been so for years) when he's having a good day. Yet, seeing him pay doesn't look like football anymore. I'm not again skill moves and I've never been, but they shouldn't become the main way to win a match.
  • Unrealistic scorelines
    Really, would you actually want every match of your career mode to end 6-2, 3-3 or 5-4? Every single one? Ever?
    Not against the odd 7-2 beating (either received or given out) but it must be a very rare occasion (or a match between two very, very unbalanced teams, you know: stats should still matter).
 
Finally caught up on this thread and really enjoyed reading everyone's input. There's nothing about gameplay and features I can add that hasn't been said already, but for me it's general quality of life and user experience things that I think is sorely missing.

OPTIONS, OPTIONS AND OPTIONS!

FC 25 is pretty deep when it comes to customizable settings for many aspects such as turning off (most) indicators, assistance settings and finally giving us a simple choice of full, quick or no intros (which was unforgivably removed in 24 for no good reason). But I can't help but feel there's some more simple QoL ones that can further reduce frustration.

1. Disable all cutscenes and transitional cutaways. Yes sure, sometimes I want to feel like I'm playing an immersive, match day experience but often times, I just want to play pure interrupted football, and something FC 25 has been egregious in is every time the play stops or the ball goes out of play, there must be a transitional cutaway to the fans, a player reaction, a replay or I must watch the player stroll up the by line to pick up the ball in real time for a fucking throw in. I miss how in the PS2 PES games, there was none of this and it just gets you right back to the action in a flash. PES 2021 is torturous for replays after every single foul. Give me the option for either immersive match experience or streamlined that cuts out all the filler.

2. More pre match customisation. Pretty self explanatory, but let me manually choose the referee's kit colour & goalkeeper kits. Sure, modded games often kit you the power to change kit variations and keeper kits but out of the box, the game should give you this, it's maddening how many times the game can't be trusted to ensure kits don't clash, especially online where bizarrely you can't choose both yours and your opponents kits only to have to either suffer through a headache enduing match or forfeit because it's unplayable due to auto selected kit clashes. Even eFootball gets it right in this regard.

3. Simpler Menus. This doesn't just apply to football games, most modern games in general seem to have obnoxious menus where navigating them takes twice as long because their creators assume gamers will sneer at a barebones looking menu, so they must shoe horn 3D rendered models and environments everywhere adding to the load time of a menu screen, slow transitions or just convoluted systems which means trying to change one setting requires several clicks to do so.
 
Must have:
1. Middlefield play and physical battle - most of real life matches takes place in the middle of the pitch, goal situations result from winning actions in the central zone. Often, the advantage of one of the teams results from controlling the middle of the pitch
2. Ball freedom and random moments - i want to send a pass or a shot wherever I want. I don't want rigid ball trajectories. I want to be surprised by situations on the pitch, even after playing my 300th match
3. Challenging level of difficulty but without the feeling of cheating. CPU who creates chances, takes shots and scores goals. AI that defends smart and attacks smart.Good goalkeepers.
 
Since playing FIFA25, I have thought one other thing which should be implemented.

I have changed from Auto to Full Manual and the passing on Full Manual is giving me misplaced passes.

But I personally think which most won't agree with.
If your playing on Simulation mode then there shouldn't be a Auto, Semi and Manual and just not have an option.
As Premier League clubs or most of them can do Auto passing where L2 can't the passing is sometime worse than full manual.

So I thought would be that there is no option so that stats actually matter and the sliders take effect based on the player ability.
Kind of Scholes, Beckham would have auto as everything they do is pin point and then someone who plays in the Championship should be Semi and so on - Although this does cause other issues, but the sliders for passing accuracy should do something.
With shooting Haaland should be able to bang it in quite often where a L2 player would miss quite regularly from 12 yards.

Just a thought - But after playing Tika Taka on full auto and stats don't matter at all to Full Manual where passing is pretty inaccurate you use through ball quite a lot more to compensate for bad passing, there surely is a way to implement this kind of thing.

Also Exeter is not North - It is as far South as you can go in England so why am I playing in the Northern Section of a tournament.
Surely this is quite easy to fix.
 
bsmaff said:
Just a thought - But after playing Tika Taka on full auto and stats don't matter at all to Full Manual where passing is pretty inaccurate you use through ball quite a lot more to compensate for bad passing, there surely is a way to implement this kind of thing.
Click to expand...
It's a good point on FUMA, in theory a game that has 'perfect' FUMA should not have player passing / shooting stats for individuals. As a bit of history, I moved to FUMA when playing either FIFA 13 or 14, and then switched from FIFA back to PES in 2016. I've got to a point where it's pretty much natural to me, and I find auto / semi passing bloody awful - I always look to play passes slightly ahead of where the player is running to rather than to feet like auto / semi passing. With this in mind, what are any passing / shooting stats that are less than 100% meant to do? Are they actually restricting the skill of the player, and introducing error where they may not be any? Not really sure how this would every balance properly, certainly playing with Bradford on old FIFA's I'd be smashing pinpoint passes everywhere which is definitely not realistic! :D
 
- Can't have kit clashes
- AFK tactical optimization (in-match instructions genie)
- VAR surely

+ On the fly man marking
+ Variety in "META", i.e. input literacy, manual/precision, Player ID.
+ Rewards towards choice of preferred mode or meta. Would we like a "guess the next META play" as an addendum to Skill Up missions? For example, actual gameplay highlights could be shown in a setting at random with the clip paused just before the end to invite the viewer to guess best move choices. To me that could be a plus outside being in a match where I would have some guidance ahead of predicting the new meta.

Sorry no mention of the single player perspective, which is nearly forgotten at this point.
 
Must have
  • Good graphics, photorealistic if possible. I can't stand Fortnite skins in football games in 2024.
  • Customizable camera angles
  • Actual offline gameplay. I don't even need to be connected to the internet to play a football game.
Can't Have

Basically same as you but I'll add that I want to be focused to play football.
If I play Dark Souls, I need to keep looking at how enemies move to learn something and beat them. Well, in football that's the same thing. I'd even say stressed, constant urgency. Because this is how football is played.
 
Must haves:
- A good variety of leagues, or the ability to mod the game adequately to add several crash-free leagues in Master League/Career Mode. Love to have South American/Asian representation, as well as lesser known European Leagues and second divisions. I still believe the European Expansion Mod for the older FIFAS to be one of the best mods of all time (it has ALL European Leagues, ALL South American Leagues, and many Asian/CONCACAF Leagues).
- Player differentiation in stats, especially in passing, speed, and physicality, without being OP. As a PA1/Semi player, i love to have the weight of stats matter and have the players feel like the actual players.
- This is not a must-have, but it's a HUGE plus: A solid edit mode, with a good internal face editor and the ability to create teams and kits without too much of a hassle. This is something I absolutely love about PES 2017-21.. The complete ease and convenience of editing.

Can't haves:
- Like @Madmac79 mentions, bad keepers.. Horrible keepers ruined PES 2016, and no amount of modding seems to be able to fix this. I believe this feature has the potential to 100% ruin an otherwise solid game.
- Every game being a counterattacking, offensive carnival with 20+ shots. I've found some games, such as FC 24, to have this issue.
- Over-complicated training modes. I love ML/Career mode, but having way too many training options detracts from the flow, and makes the game too micro-management based (which is fine by itself if you are playing football manager, but in PES/FIFA, I believe it to be highly unnecessary).
 
Last edited:
Everything you said but I would add authentic colors. EAFC25 has terrible colors, kits, boots, pitch, it all looks terrible.
 
Must haves:
All stadiums
Realistic atmosphere for each league
Realistc game speed

Can't haves:
Scripted gameplay
Scripted gameplay
Scripted gameplay
 
must haves:
realistic net depths for each stadium
GOOD NET PHYSICS
decent and understandable hexagon chart

cant haves:
nets like a wall
same nets for every stadium
scripts
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom