Hello everyone, thanks for all your kind words. It's really appreciated.
Fidel, i'm honoured and slightly surprised that you've taken my analysis so to heart. I'm happy that i've found this mod and this thread becaue it's a real pleasure to contribute here.
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I just downloaded the mod and played a handful of games. It feels fanastic so far, but obviously any flaws tend to reveal themselves over time.
- My initial impression is that you initially have longer on the ball but after a few touches the opposition are on you and can break really quickly. At first they were all over me because every time I got the ball I was thinking "huh, this is easy... *tackled* -what?!" Really fun stuff
- Skilled attackers tend to have a little extra time on the ball, which feels realistic. But like I said you can no longer take it for granted.
- I'm not sure what you've done exactly but the computer's attacks seem better balanced and more varied.
- I also noticed that the quality of opposition seemed to matter more. I was able to cut through lesser defences but struggled more against the good ones. Their star players and mine had a much greater individual impact on the game.
- Defending is both easier and more manic and i've had to scramble back and send my goalkeeper running out to cope.
- You seem to have mostly sorted out that very irritating full back problem. I suspect it will never be entirely erased but it's much less noticiable.
- What's really terrific is no longer feels like defenders have a magic advantage when defending in their box. For both sides there was quite a bit of panicky last-ditch scrambling around in the box which felt very realistic.
> Man marking with central defenders seems to be off. I'm not sure why but they just don't seem to get as tight as they previously did. I think a few other posters have hinted at the same thing. I was able to make a few passes off the shoulder of the last defender that felt a slightly too easy (although interestingly it seemed harder to put those chances away) Maybe this is a side-effect of some of the tweaks - or maybe it is just my imagination? I'll obviously have to play it a bit more before i'm certain.
What does everyone else think?
- My impression is that goalkeepers seem both better in terms of making saves and yet also more mistake prone. I saw some great last-ditch saves but also a pair few mistakes from one particular goalkeeper that had me laughing.
> On the whole though I wonder if goalkeepers reflexive saving ability should be tweaked slighty upwards? It's easier to score now, albiet in different ways.
In both this and the previous version I switched between an 82 and a 74 goalkeeper and frankly the 82's performance was significantly better but also felt more realistic. But the 74 goalkeeper isn't a bad keeper at all and 74 is about the level of goalkeepers on most teams. If their performance was more like the 82 it would have actually felt more realistic on the whole.
But again, what does everyone else think?
- Attacking heading of the ball is much, much, better. I was able to score a header I wouldn't have been able to before and even more importantly I was able to build attacks with flicks ons and nods forward. Really great job on this Fidel!
I'm not entirely sure if you've tweaked long passes too or it's just the improvement in headers - but for the first time in any Fifa game I felt like playing a long ball game might actually be a good way to play sometimes.
- Long shots feel much better. Now I actually feel confident taking them. They don't feel like a risky waste. They aren't blocked so often and even though I failed to score from them (I hit the crossbar twice) I saw a few great saves and interesting ball flights that make me think it's just a matter of time.
Refereeing felt almost perfect for me in terms of giving fouls and dishing out yellow cards.
> My only slight complaint is that the computer is a little too eager to hand out red cards for last-man tackles. I think in real life referees tend to give the benefit of the doubt to players more often. I almost never do last ditch tackles myself but the computer does it all the time. In two of my matches they went down to 10 men (though Sweden still beat me through a late penalty! ). One of those sending off decisions was correct, but the other was very harsh.
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Well, many thanks Fidel as always. Now i'm going back to playing!