strange investigation about gameplay patches

Hi
With the aid of Frosbite Editor I wanted to understand what are differences between settings for some gameplays.
For comparison I took Fifa 21 gameplay ESim2.0, default ea gameplay and Paulv2k4 gameplay. I exported all gameplay files (gp_cpuai_difficulty_runtime, gp_defense_bounce_runtime and so on) to directories as json and bin and then tried to find differences with the aid of WinMerge tool between all files and guess what I found? There is none any difference between files and I completely don't understand this. I thought that those gameplay patchmakers change settings inside those files and the answer is that not, default ea settings are used. For sure they change settings in locale.ini as it is easy to notice when you open that file with notepad. But the question is which files more they touch if not those ones:



@Tufkar84, Fifer, Paulv2k4, any other guy who deal with gameplay
Could You describe what else file apart from locale.ini you are changing when making gameplay? Or maybe there is bug inside Frosbite Editor you really touches the above files but Frosbite wrongly shows database for gameplay settings? I think this is general question for all fifas since fifa 17 so I placed post inside fifa22 forum. I am very surprised I don't see any difference in settings.

tomekthemessenger said:

I exported all gameplay files (gp_cpuai_difficulty_runtime, gp_defense_bounce_runtime and so on) to directories as json and bin and then tried to find differences with the aid of WinMerge tool between all files and guess what I found? There is none any difference between files and I completely don't understand this.

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Hello im quite interested on how you compare these files by different gameplay, did u just compare the size of each files or the actual values?

With the aid of WinMerge tool you can compare 2 directories with files. If he sees difference it reports something in the style "file are different".
It seems that nobody touches those files, they touched locale.ini values and initfs_Win32 but noboy has modified so far anything in Gameplay section of Frosbite Editor/Fifa Editor probably because it is too complex to understand what parameter to change and how. Probably only undrstandable by ea engineers who created the game - reverse engineering too hard for anyone.

tomekthemessenger said:

With the aid of WinMerge tool you can compare 2 directories with files. If he sees difference it reports something in the style "file are different".
It seems that nobody touches those files, they touched locale.ini values and initfs_Win32 but noboy has modified so far anything in Gameplay section of Frosbite Editor/Fifa Editor probably because it is too complex to understand what parameter to change and how. Probably only undrstandable by ea engineers who created the game - reverse engineering too hard for anyone.

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Well I've tried WinMerge just now and lemme give my opinion.
I think you've got it wrong.
I've tried comparing different versions of my own gameplay mod that edit different files and also different versions between paulv2k4 gameplay mod.

What you see on winmerge are just initfs lines (including locale.ini), hence why it can detect changes in those lines, but the one you should pay attention to are these cryptic lines, it shows which lines are edited, some are removed, etc.

Yes, there are differences for initfs_win32 and locale.ini files. But those files don't include settings: fifa/attribulator/gameplay/database, groups which You can edit when starting Fifa Editor or Frosbite Editor. I don't remember now, but those files are located inside: FIFA 21\Data\Win32\superbundlelayout\fifa_installpackage_0x/cas_0y.cas file. So those settings aren't changed. They are the same in ESIM, Paul and fifa origin gameplay. And this was strange for me that nobody has modified so far those settings. Probably because it is too hard to detect what they mean.

tomekthemessenger said:

Yes, there are differences for initfs_win32 and locale.ini files. But those files don't include settings: fifa/attribulator/gameplay/database, groups which You can edit when starting Fifa Editor or Frosbite Editor. I don't remember now, but those files are located inside: FIFA 21\Data\Win32\superbundlelayout\fifa_installpackage_0x/cas_0y.cas file. So those settings aren't changed. They are the same in ESIM, Paul and fifa origin gameplay. And this was strange for me that nobody has modified so far those settings. Probably because it is too hard to detect what they mean.

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And how were you able to tell that? I mean did u take a look at the project files or smth? Even by seeing the affected files alone in mod manager u can clearly see which files they've edited

tomekthemessenger said:

Yes, there are differences for initfs_win32 and locale.ini files. But those files don't include settings: fifa/attribulator/gameplay/database, groups which You can edit when starting Fifa Editor or Frosbite Editor. I don't remember now, but those files are located inside: FIFA 21\Data\Win32\superbundlelayout\fifa_installpackage_0x/cas_0y.cas file. So those settings aren't changed. They are the same in ESIM, Paul and fifa origin gameplay. And this was strange for me that nobody has modified so far those settings. Probably because it is too hard to detect what they mean.

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Gameplay mod's (like Paul's or FIFER's) do modifiy the fifa/attribulator/gameplay/database files.