Legendary is awesome - Game Difficulty Discussion

Placebo said:
I tried a LS 2.0 match, Wigan me v Wolves, was 0-3 to them at half time, every pass they tried was completed perfectly, no fun, quit at half time.
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My padova lost to torino 5-0....0-0 first half...i had fun though, just i could not defend at all. But i do still stink in fifa.

But i agree there seems to be more space and a better variety of things in legendary.
 
Tried 3 friendlies on Legendary. I've adjusted the custom tactics for all SPL teams, and that definitely affects how the AI teams play. I set St Mirren long ball, fast attack, deep defending and Rangers to short passing, slow-build up, high pressing.

1st - Hibs (me) v St Mirren. I won 1-0.

2nd - Hibs (me) v Rangers. I lost 2-0.

3rd - Rangers (me) v St Mirren. I won 2-0, was surprisingly easy.

Was reasonably impressed, particularly the 2-0 win, in that St Mirren didn't play like Barcelona throughout. They made mistakes and were inept at times. They won every single header but just didn't create much.

Cpu cheats were certainly evident in the 2-0 loss (and is clearly the only reason I lost :) ), where the cpu would regularly interfere to change the speed and direction of my guys to ensure cpu guy got to the ball first, etc. In the end, I stop trying to fight it. I was also clean through on their keeper and got scythed down from behind. Was a clear red card and penatly, but no.....play on. Wouldn't mind so much if they scripted it so the ref sometimes "got it wrong" on purpose in your favour. Reminiscent of the unpleasant PES.

Custom tactics definitely helped making the AI teams play in a variety of ways and the settings I had for St Mirren definitely made them quite easy to play against. I suspect if I'd set St Mirren to press me all over the pitch, and play a short passing game, they would have kicked my ass. I suspect you can use the custom tactics as a means of increasing/decreasing the diffculty of any given team in a way that is more specific than the 5 main difficulty settings. It's pleasing that Legendary doesn't automatically mean that every team plays utterly and implausibly perfect football.

To be honest, I haven't tried single-player enough on any level to know how this compares, but it was more reasonable than I'd expected. Then again, these were friendlies and it may well be a different story in any of the career modes.
 
No offense, but I really think those of you who think that EA has somehow programmed the game engine to conspire against you with the CPU in order to help it "cheat" to victory are crazy.
 
Why not, KONAMI did it with PES5. People who know PES know of the infamous turbo mode that granted the CPU some oh-so awesome footballing abilities.
 
EatonTJ said:
No offense, but I really think those of you who think that EA has somehow programmed the game engine to conspire against you with the CPU in order to help it "cheat" to victory are crazy.
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You've obviously never played a cup match against minnow opposition in Fifa manager mode......
 
charlievolano said:
But i agree there seems to be more space and a better variety of things in legendary.
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Admittedly I only played the one match to test but this wasn't my experience, funnily enough I then played a manager mode match forgetting I was on legendary, was a nightmare as I struggled to make any ground and had to fight off a lot of constant attacks, played most of the match with the defensive setting and was 0-0 until about the 75th minute when out of nowhere I scored this: YouTube - Fifa10 Etienne Easly Esajas Scissor Kick Volley Sheffield Wednesday sadly they equalised, would have been my best winning goal so far.

One thing I did notice on Legendary the AI try tricks and riskier shots (AI tried a scissor kick which he messed up completely with his timing, made me laugh) :)
 
tc811 said:
Why not, KONAMI did it with PES5. People who know PES know of the infamous turbo mode that granted the CPU some oh-so awesome footballing abilities.
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The worst CPU cheating was in PES5 when they were losing by 1 goal after 80 minutes... any free kick within 30m no matter who was taking it would fly straight in 9/10.

I havn't played enough FIFA against the CPU to know if it starts cheating like this, but really it seems to "cheat" all the time because their players never play to their attributes and all do things they shouldn't be able to do...
 
EatonTJ said:
No offense, but I really think those of you who think that EA has somehow programmed the game engine to conspire against you with the CPU in order to help it "cheat" to victory are crazy.
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You haven't played manager mode to the same extent as me. Cheats are so obvious that the only question left is if you were one of those that negated the existence of cheats in PES.

Just to make it clear:

- CPU can have speed boosts to catch your players. A player with speed and acceleration BELOW 70 can catch my fast striker (above85 speed and acceleration) who happened to be 10 yards away from him.

- The slightest touch will disposses your player and probably send him to the ground. Your players will usually have the "stumbling" animation during which you loose control of them. CPU players can even regain possession while being dispossessed, so they can tackle you while you're tackling them. Great.

- Absolute perfect reaction times from the cpu players. I could live with this if my teammates had the same light-speed response times but... nope! Your teammates are simply idiots who have 0 awareness of the situation most of the times. They will mark 4 meters away from the strikers, they won't go for the ball even if it's simply one yard away, etc... Unless you do something, nothing is done. You can check it easily by playing only with the striker and not switching and the cpu will go through all your team everytime effortlessly. Defense other than you running around and charging people is unexistant.

- Biased refs. That's so irritating and obvious that it doesn't deserve further comment.

Maybe you haven't played MM and you don't know how these cheats work. I've completed 3 seasons. I play manual controls with semi shooting against CPU in Professional level (will try this legendary to see how it is, though I don't trust much in it).

So, the cheats are always there to an extent, and depending on the match, they ramp up or down. When the cheats are "down" I can win by 2 or even 3 goals. When cheats are "average" i dominate and have more than 15 shots on goal, but will win by a narrow margin or draw. Generally, CPU has 2 or 3 shots, but suddenly they do the perfect cross from 40 yards and score or they get 4 or 5 consecutive rebounds and dribble past 3 man in the area in less than a second to score. It's rare, but it happens and if you're playing 8 minutes halves like me, it happens every one or two matches. You can't stop it.

Then, there's those matches that have "god" mode. The worst of it is that it doesn't involve the "better" teams, but it seems (as it was with PES) that cheating level is directly proportional to your position in the table or the cup round. So, after winning the 3 best teams in my league, suddenly I played the 16th team and lost 1-0 in a game that I was unable to move, pass or shoot. The CPU was everywhere, played perfect everything al lthe time and every time my players were less than 2 yards of the opposition, they were automatically dispossessed / fall down / slowed down.

It is irritating because it's such an old pattern of cheating, it's just the same as pes 5 and I don't want to play against those stupid cheats 5 years later AGAIN.

Being as it is, yesterday I decided to stop playing MM because there's no sense at all and it's not designed to have fun, but to even things no matter what. And I specifically HATE this.
 
drekkard said:
Being as it is, yesterday I decided to stop playing MM because there's no sense at all and it's not designed to have fun, but to even things no matter what. And I specifically HATE this.
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That's just how I think it's been handled and I can't help but think it's the trying to please the on liners that's a big cause of it...
They have definitely tried to make it so both sides are as even as possible at times, until the AI goes into Messi mode and speed and acceleration are almost removed for you...
 
Hmm can't say I've felt like that to be honest, enjoying it, despite the massive flaws, I WANT A FUCKING LONG TERM INJURY ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!111111111111111111111 ;)
 
Cheats are not all the time interfering that much. It's ocasionally, and often in the unexpected matches. You'll see if you play manager mode for long. Some can accept playing against cheats, but I can't cope with it, it's something I've done for several years for now.

For example, Nba 2k10 can have the same problem now and then, but at least there you can change the sliders and make the game more realistic. In fifa, the cheats can make the worst team play like a dream team at your stadium by no reason, making their players faster and stronger, exceeding the values of their real stats.

I play Nantes in my manager mode, and I lead the secondth division of France currently, I'm playing great football most of the times but suddenly tou're unable to play the most elemental plays by no reason and you're owned all over the pitch.

The worst problems, though is not cheating itself. I could live with that anyway if it weren't because my teammate AI is pathetic, there are lots of bugs and there is no midfield unless you manually change all styles of all teams in the game. Sum all the things (lame teammates AI, bugs, cheats, no midfield and counterfest) and the game fails.
 
I normally play on Pro and they were certainly better on Legendary. In saying that I got a couple of 1-on-1's in BAP:S and the keeper smothered those but that could be due to me being crap :LOL:

I did score a 20yd shot with Torres as well.

Playing BAP:S on Legendary is resulting in much tighter games, with most of them finishing 0-0 or 1-0 compared to Pro where they were upwards of 3 or 4 goals per game.
 
Pro difficulty is as shite as shite can be

Far to easy to win the ball and to score plus they cant attack or score for shit. Its a waste of a setting :)
 
drekkard said:
You haven't played manager mode to the same extent as me. Cheats are so obvious that the only question left is if you were one of those that negated the existence of cheats in PES.
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In Fifa 09 (since Fifa 10 isn't out here yet), I've played 3 full seasons with Liverpool and 4.5 seasons with Chesterfield in MM mode. Both on legendary difficulty, both without simulating any games... full seasons are played. So I think I've played plenty of games to spot any "cheats".

Maybe playing on legendary is the difference, but here are my responses to your experiences:

- CPU can have speed boosts to catch your players. A player with speed and acceleration BELOW 70 can catch my fast striker (above85 speed and acceleration) who happened to be 10 yards away from him.
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This does not happen to me with any memorable regularity. Faster players (whether it is for the CPU or me) do not get caught from behind by slower players assuming the faster player is running in a straight line. This is something I enjoy about the game, which is why it is surprising to hear people complain about it.

- The slightest touch will disposses your player and probably send him to the ground. Your players will usually have the "stumbling" animation during which you loose control of them. CPU players can even regain possession while being dispossessed, so they can tackle you while you're tackling them. Great.
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The tackling goes both ways. I shield off players all the time with my stronger players, just as the CPU does to me. I constantly knock the CPU players off the ball with jostling just as the CPU does to me. Tackling is extremely even in my opinion.

- Absolute perfect reaction times from the cpu players. I could live with this if my teammates had the same light-speed response times but... nope! Your teammates are simply idiots who have 0 awareness of the situation most of the times. They will mark 4 meters away from the strikers, they won't go for the ball even if it's simply one yard away, etc... Unless you do something, nothing is done. You can check it easily by playing only with the striker and not switching and the cpu will go through all your team everytime effortlessly. Defense other than you running around and charging people is unexistant.
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Well, I do switch players defensively when playing MM, so I really can't accurately respond to your defensive AI complaints for that mode specifically... BUT I assume it's the same defensive AI used in the BAP mode and if so I would have to mostly agree with you. My only addition to your complaint is that NEITHER your teammate's AI defense NOR the CPU defense show the proper aggression/urgency on the defensive side of things. So I wouldn't categorize it as a "cheat" since it's equal to both teams (human v CPU).

- Biased refs. That's so irritating and obvious that it doesn't deserve further comment.
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We must play completely different styles of play because the biggest gripe I have with the CPU play is how many bad tackles they make. The way I play I pick up a yellow card every other game, whereas the CPU frequently has games picking up 5-6 yellow cards for just making stupid and late tackles which many times end up in multiple CPU players being sent off.

In short, saying the referees are biased is completely laughable to me. Offside is called the same, cards are given out for the same late slide tackles, and fouls are called for the exact same tackles.

So, the cheats are always there to an extent, and depending on the match, they ramp up or down. When the cheats are "down" I can win by 2 or even 3 goals. When cheats are "average" i dominate and have more than 15 shots on goal, but will win by a narrow margin or draw. Generally, CPU has 2 or 3 shots, but suddenly they do the perfect cross from 40 yards and score or they get 4 or 5 consecutive rebounds and dribble past 3 man in the area in less than a second to score. It's rare, but it happens and if you're playing 8 minutes halves like me, it happens every one or two matches. You can't stop it.
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Well, we definitely have different experiences playing MM. I've played as a top team for multiple seasons and as a minnow for multiple seasons, all on 10 min halves, and I've never had a complaint about a CPU goal scored against me. When the CPU scores against me, I can always identify the mistake that I made that led to the goal. If the CPU dribbles past me, it typically because I was either faked out, muscled out, or missed a tackle. If the CPU scores off a cross it's because I failed to prevent the cross in the first place. Most of the CPU goals scored against me are for failed clearances, usually resulting from me trying to pass it out of a bad situation instead of clearing the ball.

Seems plenty fair to me.

Then, there's those matches that have "god" mode. The worst of it is that it doesn't involve the "better" teams, but it seems (as it was with PES) that cheating level is directly proportional to your position in the table or the cup round. So, after winning the 3 best teams in my league, suddenly I played the 16th team and lost 1-0 in a game that I was unable to move, pass or shoot. The CPU was everywhere, played perfect everything al lthe time and every time my players were less than 2 yards of the opposition, they were automatically dispossessed / fall down / slowed down.
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I have noticed that cup games are far more challenging than seasonal games... but that's the same in real life. Smaller teams knock off big teams all the time in single elimination tourneys in real life, because the smaller teams play up for the game. When this happens in FIFA 09 I consider this a "feature" and not a "cheat". They absolutely play better in cups, but that isn't cheating.

As for your problems with lower table teams in league play, it can be explained by lots of things other than "the CPU is cheating me"... my guess, is that after you play several top teams (top team tactics are typically more attacking leaving you with more opportunities to counter in space) you get caught off guard by playing a lesser team with far more conservative tactics (11 men behind the ball, counter attacking against you, long balls into the box, etc) and you don't adjust properly.

I play MM as if I'm actually managing the team, because that's the most fun way for me to play. That means that I look through my opponent's team before each game and change my tactics accordingly. I have home and away tactics, cup tactics, and multiple styles I adapt to depending on the opponent. I win/lose games differently all the time, that's why FIFA 09 is so enjoyable to me. I played a lot of MM a lot of different ways, and there is no cheating... just some areas with buggy animation or glitches, but this applies equally to the CPU.

It is irritating because it's such an old pattern of cheating, it's just the same as pes 5 and I don't want to play against those stupid cheats 5 years later AGAIN.

Being as it is, yesterday I decided to stop playing MM because there's no sense at all and it's not designed to have fun, but to even things no matter what. And I specifically HATE this.
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Some versions of PES certainly had some noticeable "cheating" by the CPU. Mainly, that on harder difficulties the CPU players were simply given a form/speed boost to artificially increase the difficulty. However, never did I think that Konami had programmed any version of PES to "make" the human team lose by artificial means (i.e. force a human goalie to miss a save to let CPU win).

I don't know if there is some giant gulf in skill between myself and the "CPU Cheatz!" group which might explain their difficulties (and my lack thereof) with MM play. But I find it hard to believe that EA spends any amount of time programming any sort of "scripts" that suddenly make the human player suck at FIFA. To me, that's crazy talk.
 
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playing on legendary with broadcast cam is so good.
needless to say, I don't see myself reverting to the lower difficulties.
I do feel that the cpu will only score if you make mistakes. :)
 
drekkard said:
- CPU can have speed boosts to catch your players. A player with speed and acceleration BELOW 70 can catch my fast striker (above85 speed and acceleration) who happened to be 10 yards away from him.

- The slightest touch will disposses your player and probably send him to the ground. Your players will usually have the "stumbling" animation during which you loose control of them. CPU players can even regain possession while being dispossessed, so they can tackle you while you're tackling them. Great.

- Absolute perfect reaction times from the cpu players. I could live with this if my teammates had the same light-speed response times but... nope! Your teammates are simply idiots who have 0 awareness of the situation most of the times. They will mark 4 meters away from the strikers, they won't go for the ball even if it's simply one yard away, etc... Unless you do something, nothing is done. You can check it easily by playing only with the striker and not switching and the cpu will go through all your team everytime effortlessly. Defense other than you running around and charging people is unexistant.

- Biased refs. That's so irritating and obvious that it doesn't deserve further comment.
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Well, I've always been a PES fanboy, and I'm not proud of it. I still play PES6 because of the editing freedom of the game (thanks to Juce and Robbie for making Kitserver). But there's no question that the AI in PES6 is nothing better than questionable, by today's standards. The 4 main "problems" cited by drekkard are present even in lower difficulty settings of PES6. And are present in 2008, 2009 and probably on PES 2010... this is what has killed the PES series, at least for me.

The last FIFA game that I enjoyed was FIFA '96 (seriously). Even 09 didn't appealed to me, although you could say that it was much better than previous FIFA games. But after playing a demo of FIFA 10 for a few minutes, I can say I really enjoyed it, and thought I could give it a serious try on my Xbox 360 (The PC version probably sucks, as all EA Sports games that are released for both consoles and PC), but after reading drekkard's remarks that the same problems that plagued the PES games are plaguing FIFA's new installment... it just made me wanna quit sports games all of the sudden, not only football games, but any and all sports games... it just seems that developers can't make the AI in sports games to feel gradually less artificial , without the use cheating...
 
crustcyb said:
Well, I've always been a PES fanboy, and I'm not proud of it. I still play PES6 because of the editing freedom of the game (thanks to Juce and Robbie for making Kitserver). But there's no question that the AI in PES6 is nothing better than questionable, by today's standards. The 4 main "problems" cited by drekkard are present even in lower difficulty settings of PES6. And are present in 2008, 2009 and probably on PES 2010... this is what has killed the PES series, at least for me.

The last FIFA game that I enjoyed was FIFA '96 (seriously). Even 09 didn't appealed to me, although you could say that it was much better than previous FIFA games. But after playing a demo of FIFA 10 for a few minutes, I can say I really enjoyed it, and thought I could give it a serious try on my Xbox 360 (The PC version probably sucks, as all EA Sports games that are released for both consoles and PC), but after reading drekkard's remarks that the same problems that plagued the PES games are plaguing FIFA's new installment... it just made me wanna quit sports games all of the sudden, not only football games, but any and all sports games... it just seems that developers can't make the AI in sports games to feel gradually less artificial , without the use cheating...
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Not everyone agrees with the idea that the CPU "cheats" in the FIFA series. Try it for yourself (on Legendary if you are a veteran footy gamer) several games and see if you feel cheated. If you like the demo, and don't feel it "cheats" against you, you may... like myself, think the gameplay is fair.
 
EatonTJ said:
Not everyone agrees with the idea that the CPU "cheats" in the FIFA series. Try it for yourself (on Legendary if you are a veteran footy gamer) several games and see if you feel cheated. If you like the demo, and don't feel it "cheats" against you, you may... like myself, think the gameplay is fair.
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I wouldn't say the cpu cheats as such, but it certainly bends the rules in it's favor.

The slowing down of my players reactions compared to the cpu's is one, and certain tackles the cpu makes which for me would be a free kick or yellow card goes unpunished by the ref, the other is that annoying stumble that takes my player ages to recover, whilst the cpu's is almost instant.


It's basically all down to the AI sliders under custom tactics for each team, if EA gave us global control over the AI with those we'd be lauging as you could set it yourself.
 
I've played over 25 full 15 year seasons on 09 and 1 full season so far on 10, granted they are 2vAI but I can't believe anyone can say the AI does not bend the rules as NACK calls it, it's slap in your face obvious at times.

If I didn't see them then I guess I would be calling it the greatest game ever but every football game I have played on the PS from 1-3 has had them to some extent, as NACK points out the subtle slowing of your player is a classic...
 
Nick Cave said:
I've played over 25 full 15 year seasons on 09 and 1 full season so far on 10, granted they are 2vAI but I can't believe anyone can say the AI does not bend the rules as NACK calls it, it's slap in your face obvious at times.

If I didn't see them then I guess I would be calling it the greatest game ever but every football game I have played on the PS from 1-3 has had them to some extent, as NACK points out the subtle slowing of your player is a classic...
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Agree with all your points Nick.

I can accept if the AI is ramped up the CPU will play decent football and do allot more closing down, but I can't accept how putting it on a higher level also impacts on your players stats.

Leave the stats alone and lets just have who plays the best wins! I honestly don't know why thay have to penalize us on top of making the CPU play better.
 
Because if they don't it would be a very easy game that becomes boring soon. AI can't keep up with human ability with things like intuition, creativity, spontaneity, general understanding of this sport. As a human you will adapt to the way AI is playing, but AI can't do it the other way. Because sometimes human don't even know what he will doing next until he suddenly do it.

Even brilliant AI like the AI in NBA2k8,9, 10 need to cheat in some ways to give human a decent game. Maybe in a few years you can compare AI to human ability but not to date. Until then we need to life with some cheats i guess.

But hey, see how far sport games have come. The future is even brighter.
 
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Robbery said:
Because if they don't it would be a very easy game that becomes boring soon. AI can't keep up with human ability with things like intuition, creativity, spontaneity, general understanding of this sport. As a human you will adapt to the way AI is playing, but AI can't do it the other way. Because sometimes human don't even know what he will doing next until he suddenly do it.

Even brilliant AI like the AI in NBA2k8,9, 10 need to cheat in some ways to give human a decent game. Maybe in a few years you can compare AI to human ability but not to date. Until then we need to life with some cheats i guess.

But hey, see how far sport games have come. The future is even brighter.
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The only thing that needs addressing is the balancing of the harder difficulty levels.

Just ease off on the pressure or make it come in certain situations, but not over the course of a full match.

Otherwise it's a case of making custom tactics and knocking the pressure, aggression element down on those sides, but how long does that take?

Be better if we had sliders to tweak it ourselves
 
NACK22 said:
The only thing that needs addressing is the balancing of the harder difficulty levels.

Just ease off on the pressure or make it come in certain situations, but not over the course of a full match.

Otherwise it's a case of making custom tactics and knocking the pressure, aggression element down on those sides, but how long does that take?

Be better if we had sliders to tweak it ourselves
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Id wait for that... i have a hint that this might be fixed in the pacth. ;)
We well finnaly the correct custom tatics for every team.
 
Nick Cave said:
I've played over 25 full 15 year seasons on 09 and 1 full season so far on 10, granted they are 2vAI but I can't believe anyone can say the AI does not bend the rules as NACK calls it, it's slap in your face obvious at times.

If I didn't see them then I guess I would be calling it the greatest game ever but every football game I have played on the PS from 1-3 has had them to some extent, as NACK points out the subtle slowing of your player is a classic...
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Could someone point me to some video of some obvious "cheating" in Fifa 09?
 
My 3rd pre-season friendly was home to Valencia, so I decided to bite the bullet and changed to legendary, semi/manual controls, was 3-1 up and coasting including this beauty http://www.easportsfootball.co.uk/media/play/video/11578366 they started off playing quite safe, not pressing me in my own half, gave me lots of space to pass it around (probably with them being a Spanish club) but once I went 3-1 up they started to fight back and pressed me much higher up the pitch, I couldn't contain them and they score their 2nd and 3rd goals within minutes of each other :(

Strange that the best two goals I've scored so far have been on legendary, this free kick and the Esajas scissors kick :)
 
Placebo said:
My 3rd pre-season friendly was home to Valencia, so I decided to bite the bullet and changed to legendary, semi/manual controls, was 3-1 up and coasting including this beauty http://www.easportsfootball.co.uk/media/play/video/11578366 they started off playing quite safe, not pressing me in my own half, gave me lots of space to pass it around (probably with them being a Spanish club) but once I went 3-1 up they started to fight back and pressed me much higher up the pitch, I couldn't contain them and they score their 2nd and 3rd goals within minutes of each other :(

Strange that the best two goals I've scored so far have been on legendary, this free kick and the Esajas scissors kick :)
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Nice.

Love how it dips into the bottom corner.

Legendary is the best setting over all but it still needs a overhaul as it aint perfect by a long stretch.
 
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