I've played about 30 or so games since I last posted, playing at a very low level (Bury FC) and a very high level (England). Here are my general conclusions:
Overall Balance
At the moment the game is far too cautious with moments of brilliance and spectacular goals. It seems to be based around the idea that only the best players can pull off beautiful football, which if you've actually ever watched lower league football is complete
nonsense.
I'd say that lower league football generally has more spectacular goals simply because there is quite a bit more time and space. People forget how good even the lesser players are at their jobs. What makes the best players the best is their ability to pull off the same stuff against much faster, stronger, clever opponents when they have much less time and space.
Personally I think that the game should be very much re-oriented to make higher defenders much better at their jobs than their lower level opponents whilst making the range of what players can do attacking-wise at all levels potentially much greater, yet also more vulnerable to being put under pressure.
Heading
> Heading is still very messed up. It's very easy to score far-post headers from crosses but straight-on headers from corners, free kicks and long balls are far too difficult to score. I can upload a number of clips I recorded if you like, but suffice to say that they show players missing chances that they should always bury when I KNOW for a fact i've pressed the right buttons.
My take on why it's so bad is that the game seems to favour tussing and timing over height and positioning, when in reality the latter two are more important. It also seems slightly too easy to put players off heading. The way it plays out makes me suspect there is a specific value for this.
> The Heading power bar lights up too quickly. When you go to make a header it fills up in matter of microseconds, which is a problem especially since the computer's preferred setting is so low and headers are already fairly fiddly moves because usually you are having to switch players, get into position, jostle and THEN correctly time the power up the header. If you could make the bar move slower it would be a great help.
Defending / Tackling
> Your own players are nowhere near 'sticky' enough in their marking. I've played lots of different versions of FIFA but in this one your players barely move towards the player standing in the box at all. This is actually something I wish the computer would hold your hand in more because I can't count the number of times they simply pass to someone in space and blast it in and I can't even select the right guy in time.
I know how to defend perfectly well but my defenders are simply often too slow to automatically cut out what should be defending 101. The computer meanwhile doesn't have this problem, not the least because they can control multiple defenders at the same time. I think there is too much onus on the player to move their player into the right defensive position, which is sometimes pretty damn hard to judge from a single camera angle.
I don't mind the computer scoring goals and sometimes even clap when they score good one. But too many goals are ones that make me tear my hair out in frustation because I was defending perfectly well and my players weren't responding in the same way that computer player's can. If the computer was able to be completely cynical and just keep passing to their strikers along the floor in the middle of the box, the scores might end up something like 5-4 to the computer and I would be very tempted to take out the disc and break it in half.
> At higher levels, how hard it is to tackle players who are comparatively good at dribbling feels almost perfect. However at lower levels it is completely screwed up. Poorer players lose the ball almost literally if they even show the slightest flash of the ball. Often they'll tackle perfectly well through the back of players legs. This brings me to another point:
> Tackling is fine, except that the computer is too quick to do it. There is generally too little delay before they pull off a good tackle. If you watch in RL it is perfectly possible to hold the ball facing your opponent for a little time if you have enough distance. If you stay like this for much time at all you'll lose it, but those extra moments are often enough to whip in a cross or line up a shot. In this game they are on you in a flash. So what happens is you spend a lot of your time with your back to goal or making diagonal runs to draw away defenders.
> The computer is still FAR too quick at blocking shots.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88JJ2dBmY5E
If you actually watch this video in slow motion you'll see that the player in red starts his movement from instaneously after the players starts to shoot i.e. the same instant I pressed the button because it was a very random decision. You do very ocasionally see blocks of this calibre (i'm thinking of Leon Osman's recent block against Wolves) but currently there can be several of these
in a single game.
Goalkeepers
> Goalkeepers can generally catch incoming balls at too awkward an angle. I'm not saying that I want them to start dropping every incoming shot when fired from the left or right of the goal, but the allowance on their catching animations are a little too wide.
> Actually in general it is too hard to shoot simply to draw the save. The keeper too frequently either catches it or bats it away for a corner... which of course are pretty useless.
Attacking / Shooting
> Lower level strikers almost never make runs. I appreciate there is a significant difference in their game intelligence, but at the moment that gap is too big. They simply don't move like they should to the point where it looks silly.
> There seems to be a wierd microsecond delay before attackers move onto balls, especially if there balls are played to them rather than in front of them. Often this slight delay gives enough time for defenders to get in close to them. It just seems really bizarre when you notice it, because they sort of stutter and hesistate when they should have anticipated (and the defenders already have).
> There isn't enough curl and dip on shots. Almost all shots simply seems to rise up in a more or less straight line, which results in a lot of them striking the crossbar.
> I remember there was a value in 09 that said something like IDEAL_TARGET_HEIGHT which controlled at which height is ideal to hit the ball with your foot. I think it was set at 4.0. When I reduced it by .5 to 3.5 the therest of the shooting physics fell into place and the ball started doing interesting things because the computer didn't think that the shooting players was always hitting the ball in the wrong way.
Passing
> Through balls aren't quick enough and don't go far enough. This is particularily noticable in the lower leagues, but affects all levels.
> The maximum range on long balls isn't far enough. If you power the bar all the way to the maximum you can rarely cover half the pitch, when you should be able to cover the majority of it if you're in enough space and not under pressure. It's not that I think this should always happen, but that at the moment it never does.
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It's a great game, but I still think there's a long way to go