Playing Fifa 2006 daily more than 1 hour every day during the last 8 months I think I finally understood which is the great limitation of its gameplay that makes the game too easy even with cheating modifications of the gameplay. The problem stand in how the players are disposed on the field during the game: EA tried to implement the modern style of playing football with extremely high defenses and very compressed lines (defenders, midfielders and forwarders): the objective was indeed to generate a more tactical and maybe realistical style of game: in the modern football the defence plays very far from the goal area trying to trap in offside the forwarder.
This could be extremely cool and realistic only if the players can move at a realistic speed: modern football is a game of athletism based a lot on running and physical strenght, and here comes the limitation of fifa 2006: the players movements are not fast enough and they take a lot of time to reach the goal area: figure how many times the CPU forwarder receive the ball near the very high line of the defence: he tries to elude the defender, and maybe he is able to do (but the trapping ability with contrast is very easy, this has to be noticed), but then he points to the area and is ALWAYS possible to reach him with another defender and trap the ball: in the real football the sprint of the forwarder is decisive and usually he is able to reach the area without the possibility of intervention by another defender. To explain better this concept I will use these images:
This is the way in which in Fifa 2006 the teams are disposed, the reds are attacking and this is the way in which they do it on the field:
the teams are extremely compressed between the Defense Lines (blue and red): they play in a very narrow section on the field. So one of the red fw will receive the ball very far from the goal, maybe he will win the contrast/dribbling against the central defender but the time that the fw need to cover the yellow distance is too high for the maximum speed reachable in the game and the other central or one of the the wing back will surely reach him.
All this is more understandable if we see how the gameplay works on Fifa 2005: the main difference is the section of the field covered by the formations, and is as follows:
The section of the field on which the teams play are much wider and so the defense lines are nearer to the goal area: this means more possibility for the forwarders to see the goal, to try to shoot with results at the net, means more game on the midfield and less contrasts and, most important, proper distances to run for the players on the field considering the engine that moves the game.
This does not mean that the 2005 style is more realistical, the 2006 is more, but the 2005 style has greater results in terms of gameplay, variability of game, skill by the computer. This is why to feel an entertaining gameplay with balanced game in which the CPU shoots at goal as the human player does, I tried (with an advice from Fifaccitiu) to play with reduced size of the field in fifa 2006: you can't edit the way in which the team are disposed on the field for what I know, you can just edited how much defenders, midfielders etc. are in the formations with Formation master, so the solution I tried was this reduction of the field size: in this way the defense lines are again as they were in Fifa 2005 and the gameplay is again entertaining and hard as it was and you are not always able to stop the forwarder who is trying to reach your goal.
Of course the ideal solution would be to change the disposition of the players on the field, making wider the area of the game, the part of the field on which the teams effectively play, but for what I know this is not possible. Actually the limitation of reducing the field size is the wrong position of the players on free kicks because they act as the size of the field was the original, for the ones interested anyway in making Fifa 2006 an harder and more difficult and balanced game I suggest to do this experiment and to see how better the gameplay of fifa 2005 is in comparation with fifa 2006.
This could be extremely cool and realistic only if the players can move at a realistic speed: modern football is a game of athletism based a lot on running and physical strenght, and here comes the limitation of fifa 2006: the players movements are not fast enough and they take a lot of time to reach the goal area: figure how many times the CPU forwarder receive the ball near the very high line of the defence: he tries to elude the defender, and maybe he is able to do (but the trapping ability with contrast is very easy, this has to be noticed), but then he points to the area and is ALWAYS possible to reach him with another defender and trap the ball: in the real football the sprint of the forwarder is decisive and usually he is able to reach the area without the possibility of intervention by another defender. To explain better this concept I will use these images:
This is the way in which in Fifa 2006 the teams are disposed, the reds are attacking and this is the way in which they do it on the field:
the teams are extremely compressed between the Defense Lines (blue and red): they play in a very narrow section on the field. So one of the red fw will receive the ball very far from the goal, maybe he will win the contrast/dribbling against the central defender but the time that the fw need to cover the yellow distance is too high for the maximum speed reachable in the game and the other central or one of the the wing back will surely reach him.
All this is more understandable if we see how the gameplay works on Fifa 2005: the main difference is the section of the field covered by the formations, and is as follows:
The section of the field on which the teams play are much wider and so the defense lines are nearer to the goal area: this means more possibility for the forwarders to see the goal, to try to shoot with results at the net, means more game on the midfield and less contrasts and, most important, proper distances to run for the players on the field considering the engine that moves the game.
This does not mean that the 2005 style is more realistical, the 2006 is more, but the 2005 style has greater results in terms of gameplay, variability of game, skill by the computer. This is why to feel an entertaining gameplay with balanced game in which the CPU shoots at goal as the human player does, I tried (with an advice from Fifaccitiu) to play with reduced size of the field in fifa 2006: you can't edit the way in which the team are disposed on the field for what I know, you can just edited how much defenders, midfielders etc. are in the formations with Formation master, so the solution I tried was this reduction of the field size: in this way the defense lines are again as they were in Fifa 2005 and the gameplay is again entertaining and hard as it was and you are not always able to stop the forwarder who is trying to reach your goal.
Of course the ideal solution would be to change the disposition of the players on the field, making wider the area of the game, the part of the field on which the teams effectively play, but for what I know this is not possible. Actually the limitation of reducing the field size is the wrong position of the players on free kicks because they act as the size of the field was the original, for the ones interested anyway in making Fifa 2006 an harder and more difficult and balanced game I suggest to do this experiment and to see how better the gameplay of fifa 2005 is in comparation with fifa 2006.
