fifa's off the ball control

[CANADIAN.10]

Originally posted by valioso
thats the same concern I have.. but I hope if it has some bugs EA doesnt drop it on the next version but keep making it better.. is the first time in a while that EA is actually trying to concentrate on making the game play better.. so lets hope they adopt this position from now on..

Yeah hopefully it will be a bug free feature which it will not piss us off, well even it does, you have the option to turn it off. I am looking forward for fifa2004 cause I only play soccer games, I want as much soccer games out there as possible so I can enjoy diff styles of soccer games from all these diff companies. And sorry for spelling your name incorrectly.

 

[theCRO]

I'm still skeptical, this feature is both unrealistic and can make the game even more scripted. And seeing as FIFA is already scripted to the max, it will be yet another idiotic implement that makes you thank heaven for WE7

 

[jumbo]

EA's trying too damn hard. They should work on "off the foot control" first...

 

[MasterM]

whats so scripted about OTB. It's YOU that control the passing man and it's YOU that controls the receiving man.

I think this will be a good implementation. In we6fe I always got annoyed to the wing players who don't walk into space properly, or to players who don't even sprint forward during a counter attack.

With OTB you can control where the players go, and it will be tricky yes, but thats what i like, a challenge. If you score with a great manual pass, the more feeling you got you achieved something, that feeling is what ive been missing in fifa for years.
The only think im scared of is that they will script the passes so you don't have to actually aim during OTB.

And yes I also agree that the AI should make smart moves into space by itself at times.

 

[theCRO]

so what if it's "ME"??? Like it makes a difference. Pressing a button to controll more than one player is just unrealistic to me.

I have seldom seen players call plays in football, its a basketball move where you have time and slow the pace down to a standstill.


In football its dynamic, people should make runs where they feel is best, not where the guy with the ball tells 'em to go. What if the player refuses to there? What if he has a better idea?

Not to mention the implementation of it, which will be extremely difficult at best. Wouldn't it be better if players made intelligent runs of their own free will as opposed to a prescripted direction decided by someone else?

I think its unrealistic...

 

[hchu]

Remember CRO?

You've said the same exact thing when WE6:i came out.



http://www.soccergaming.tv/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64852&highlight=hchu

 

[akvelocity365]

I understand the OTB function and its great to hear EA attempting to rectify <sp?> it's lack of gameplay issue BUT is it really that realistic? None of us can really comment on OTB until we find out exactly how it works and exactly how much control you have of the second player. The way it sounds though, you are dictating two things at exactly the same time, the player with possession and how and where another teammate is making a run. That's completely unrealistic. The ball handler can only control how they will deliver the pass to their teammate; how that teammate will make their run, or if they will even do so is completely out of the ball handlers control.

This topic also touches on another old subject. Varying playing styles between clubs. The way it is, due to FIFA's lack of depth in stats per individual player, makes for very monatenous <sp?> gameplay. Every team you play with or against, will play with the same style, regardless if its Fiorentina or Real Madrid! So what's the point? The fact that you will be controlling the ball handler and the teammates makes the stats for your team, once again, very meaningless! No longer will you be depending on the skill of your teammate to make the "smart" run or any kind of decision on their own since you can now have control over that! Some results of this: You will never have to change your playing style in respect to the team you choose since the stats won't matter; you will train yourself to play very linearly since you don't have to adapt to your teammates; you will get bored with this game within a month (hopefully not of course)!

Their heart is set in the right direction, but it seems like a "lazy" solution in respect to their lack of depth in gameplay AI and meaningful stats! I am assuming it is much more difficult to implement smart AI than throwing in some new possible button functions, hence why I feel it's EA laziness!

Just to reiterate and state anew. This is just from what I percieve OTB to be exactly. The point of it is to obviously improve upon their gameplay engine. Regretfully I could only comment on the offensive side of this topic since I have no idea how OTB will be used defensively (assuming I read correctly that it can be used for that as well).

Just as a quick note, for anyone that is into making good runs as well as being a proficient passer and attacker (or defender if you prefer), playing as a single player through a whole game in WE7 is perfect for that. It's a great new feature that makes playing a football simulation that more real! Since that's what football is, you and your team!

Great topic though, can't wait to see what more people will have to say. Hopefully we can all try this feature out so that we can have a more accurate discussion. Cheers peeps!

 

[theCRO]

Originally posted by hchu
Remember CRO?

You've said the same exact thing when WE6:i came out.

heh see, I don't change my story

 

[theCRO]

good post akvel....

 

[valioso]

yes but in fifa.. you dont only control 1 player.. you control the whole team.. you play defence, you play mid, you score the goals.. so I dont think is that un-realistic on a game in which 1 person is controlling as much as possible of 11 players to give you more control... now if you were 1 player only then yes.. it would be way out of place

 

[Tom Green]

One of the things that most annoyed me about WE6:I is that when I had the ball, and I was going forward, sometimes my fellow teammates would go back instead of going upfront with me to help with the attack.

This seems like a good idea, however, I'm not sure if the implementation is correct, controlling many people at once will probably be too messy, I'd rather just have them move by themselves, smartly of course, but knowing EA, this couldn't be done. BTW, wasn't a feature like this hyped up for FIFA2002? Where lines would be traced infront of the players and they would do their runs and stuff in that direction.

 

[valioso]

yes the run system was also in fifa 2003.. but without the visible runs.. but you could still send the players on runs.. but you had to hit the run button a few times until you got the correct run.. and you only had like 2-3 choices... this way you get to choose from 3 players and then make him go on 8 possible directions

 

[TristanAbbott7]

Still sounds unrealistic to me. In what game of real soccer does the player with the ball actually get to communicate to a player the exact run from 8 choices he wants him to make?

Like I said before, more like American football by the sounds of it. The AI of the CPU should be good enough where the players make intelligent runs.

I would have thought that EA had more BASIC problems with the gameplay to sort out than this. Looking at the videos so far the other supporting players still run around like headless chickens. This whole thing just smacks of more scriptedness to me. Like they can't program the AI to make intelligent runs so suddenly the we have to tell everybody where to run instead.

 

[theCRO]

my sentiments exactly Trist

 

[gozila18]

god i think EA should really take the fifa project to a third side company,cuz the guys over there simply dont know what soccer is all about.instead of consentrating on improving the basic gameplay,every year the come up with some idiotic(sorry didn`t find any other suitable word) gameplay "tweaks" that not only makes the game more and more arcadish it also comes up with a good deal of bugs.if only they let konami deal with the gameplay ,what a masterpiece that whould be..

 

[MasterM]

Originally posted by TristanAbbott7
Still sounds unrealistic to me. In what game of real soccer does the player with the ball actually get to communicate to a player the exact run from 8 choices he wants him to make?

Like I said before, more like American football by the sounds of it. The AI of the CPU should be good enough where the players make intelligent runs.

yes. but lets just pretend that fifa04 will have intellegent AI and only critizise OTB.
In some situations there are more than one option in which direction the player can run into space.

theres a 3vs1 situation
Lets say the right wing is free but the middle is also free, but a defender is closing in from the middle. So which direction is the smartes move??

i say both, so lets say in this case player runs to the right, thats a intellegent move, but you want him to go to the middle. So you call OTB, run to the middle, pass the ball, defender closes in leaves the other striker unmarked, you pass the ball to the unmarked striker and are 1on1 with the keeper, you fake shoot an pass the keeper, at the last moment you make the zidane spin and tap the ball in with you heel.

the last bit is a little bit dreaming from me, but with OTB control i think the plays will be more different and less scripted like in 2003, where there was the same situation over and over.

I only say its a good idea, but the implementation is a second thing, maybe ea will srew up and make it scripted and automated.

 

[akvelocity365]

Originally posted by valioso
so I dont think is that un-realistic on a game in which 1 person is controlling as much as possible of 11 players to give you more control... now if you were 1 player only then yes.. it would be way out of place

I had a feeling this point would come up! heh.

Yes, technically, when you play ANY football game, you have the control of all your 11 players on the pitch. Controlling exactly what two players on the pitch will do at the same time is still unrealistic though. Simulated soccer games put you in control of the ball handler in respect to time. You should be able to have FULL control over that person at that given time, the AI players should be programmed well enough to make their runs to the best of their "abilities" ala individual stats, then it's all up to you to deliver the pass to the best of your abilities in respect to the given situation. Once that ball is out of your reach and the pass is going to your desired player, THEN control should switch and you can have FULL control over that player. From there, the process is repeated and so on and so forth.

My prior post still stands though. Since the gameplay AI is seriously lacking, EA implements an unrealistic action that has to be activated by the player to make up for its lack of attention at gameplay AI! Why give unrealistic control to the player and call that simulated football. You no longer will be playing with Man. United, just some zombified squad labeled Man. U. playing in every aspect you will them to! You will be Giggs, making his patented run down the left, open field, one defender (lets assume the DF is REALLY lousy) on Nistelrooy, easy shakin' to make the run, okay, now STOP! Shouldn't the AI be able to position and make a smart run? BUT wait, he doesn't for whatever reason, hence you suddenly play God, controlling two players at the same time and tell Nistelrooy what to do and where to go! What happens to the authenticity of football at this time? It seems the more licensed teams EA aquires, playing styles become less and less existant! Overall, you technically aren't playing as whatever team you desire, regardless what squad name EA has slapped on it! You will be directing everything that goes on the pitch, hence, once again, individual stats become non-existant and the squad you play with is meaningless!

You know what though, we all will have our own feelings on this topic. If you truely think this OTB is the answer or a step in the right direction for EA, far be it from me to ruin your experience, I just hope you feel it will be worth that 50 bucks! Just like I stated and others have, it is just an unrealistic function pasted onto the game as EA's lazy answer to their lacking gameplay AI!

 

[Edmundo22]

Originally posted by TristanAbbott7
Still sounds unrealistic to me. In what game of real soccer does the player with the ball actually get to communicate to a player the exact run from 8 choices he wants him to make?

Like I said before, more like American football by the sounds of it. The AI of the CPU should be good enough where the players make intelligent runs.

I would have thought that EA had more BASIC problems with the gameplay to sort out than this. Looking at the videos so far the other supporting players still run around like headless chickens. This whole thing just smacks of more scriptedness to me. Like they can't program the AI to make intelligent runs so suddenly the we have to tell everybody where to run instead.

lol spot on !

 

[JohnCCFC]

Here's how OTB SHOULD work. And PES needs it too.

It should be a "same wavelength between two players" button

A button combo (i.e.) L1 + X triggers the receivers run, then the following X or O would pass to that player.

It's a simple, more practical, extra feature that allows user intervention beyond the AI without getting complex or silly about it.

It could even trigger runs from two forwards, and then pick one of the players. This would enable the user to dictate the timing of his runs and passes.

There, sorted. Come on PES3, plenty of time to get it in. Fifa, come on, you had half of this in FIFA99 with "through ball run".

 

[shyne09]

through ball run was very good i thought