NEW: NK FOOTBALL © FIFA™ World Evolution 2 - DOWNLOAD NOW!!!!!

[jackbauer]

The process to get this gameplay to where we would like it takes to long because no one wants to share. I have the utmost respect for NK and the testers, but with one person doing all of the work and not willing to share info and insight we'll be at FIFA 09 (maybe) before this gameplay gets to the point where we like it.

This is the only community/forum/game that I've ever been a part of where the people that make patches/stadiums/faces whatever get this God like complex and feel that if anyone uses their work they should be sued for stealing intellectual property.

The best communities are the ones where EVERYONE does the work. Just take a look at the PES community. If you can't find a patch or option file that works for you it's your own problem. Everyone is making updates.

I'd like to see something similar with these gameplay updates. If everyone can do some sort of tweaking we'd be alot further along. Right now, we get the update and wait a few weeks for the next one.

This is NOT stealing folks. NK deserves ALL of the credit for putting these updates together. Without his work I wouldn't have played the last three editions of FIFA with EA's horrid default gameplay. If you take his work and try to pawn it off as your own that's your problem.

With all that being said, and NK in Greece for 3 months, I think we should take it upon ourselves to use FileMaster and edit some of the values in the ini file. I started tweaking it last night and the gameplay is now much better for me. I'm still not sure what alot of the variables actually do, but, this is where the community can help, I think we can figure this out together and create an update that is stellar.

The more people that work with the different variables, the better chance we'll have at getting the gameplay where we want it.

Some of the issues that need to be fixed with WEII:

Wide open wing play--Too easy to get down the wings.

Midfield is wide open as well-The back lines almost need to be moved forward. Too much free space to run.

Shooting-Way too accurate IMO.

Ball Physics-I'd like to see the ball bounce higher.

Trapping-Too easy to trap balls right now. I think if the ball bounced higher it would solve this problem.

Time release to shoot- The CPU crossing and header shots are just ridiculous. I'm tired of seeing the CPU score on low headers from the top of the 18yd. box. The shooting is like a one timer in hockey. Way too fast.

Perfect CPU play- I've adjusted CPU Bad Passing and Bad Markball rate from 0 to 3. The CPU should not be perfect.

Goalies-I changed both CPU and Human Goalies to 162

Fouls-I'd like to see more fouls in the game.

That's a start. I'm curious to hear everyone's feedback. Let's get this game playing like we want it to play.

Speed-I slowed the speed of the game down to 5

 

[walpurgisng]

Personally, what ruined this gameplay for me was the endless updates and fixes. Just make the shooting fun and the gameplay hard. I dont really notice that the ball bounced 2 feet instead of 2.121343253243 feet. If the gameplay is so fun then no one really notices the mistakes. I applaud NK for what he is doing but its like hes turning water into wine. Its just a gameplay patch.

 

[joflizn]

I totally agree with you two guys! IMO making it open source is the best way to make it fit our needs. Personally, I'm a NK gameplay fan but during the X-PRO release, I tried other GPs (Inter Football and Total Soccer patch) which are good in terms of difficulty but totally different compared to NK's GP. So let's make a dedicated thread to that and see what happens.
Back to WEII, I think it's for addicted gamers. Shoot mechanic is too accurate (I used Default). And the others aspects are the same you guys had reviewed here. So I get back to WEI.

NOTE: I think taking NK GP as template for this open source GP will get his back on us again so let's take a good start with your home-cooked one

 

[Dudecrash]

Reading everyone's reviews of WE1 and WE2, i have decided to stick to X-R. I am tired of switching gameplays every two weeks even b4 i get used to them. I really like x-r because the games are so diverse and challenging. I think i'll come back to the forum to download WE5. Adios amigos

 

[[FIN]Hande89]

I just played an interesting match by WE1 (10 min halves). ManU (me) vs. Birmingham and I lost it by 0 - 1. Two CPU's players were sent off and I got some good situations and one freekick which even forced the keeper to save the ball. Very good match!

Events: http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/5590/eventshj4.jpg
Statistics: http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/3915/statsvc8.jpg

 

[jackbauer]

I just played an interesting match by WE1 (10 min halves). ManU (me) vs. Birmingham and I lost it by 0 - 1. Two CPU's players were sent off and I got some good situations and one freekick which even forced the keeper to save the ball. Very good match!

Events: http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/5590/eventshj4.jpg
Statistics: http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/3915/statsvc8.jpg

I'm back to WEI as well. I've made some changes to the file and have the game right about where I need it for my liking.

I beat ManU with Chelsea 1-0 and had a great game as Totenham with Arsenal. I scored first with Berbatov in the 4th minute and tied the game with Berbatov in stoppage time. 2-2 final.

 

[nebulachapin]

I love you Zefilio - do you want to marry me? :funny: ...but seriously, i remember some words Steve Pitts mentioned a few months ago when he said that most of the variables are completely ignored by the game, those have just been added in testing or in earlier versions and never been erased, maybe they have even been added to make the player feel like he could actually improve things like aggressivity of the cpu or the difference between players' abilities though i guess that those players' abilities are also not read by the game.

I am sure that you can change some things, i've also edited my own gameplay and it did change some things but it seems impossible to get where you really want to get to.

What we'd need is someone who actuallyv really knows about how the fifa engine works and what it does with the ini-files and every other file that can be edited. Every time i drop Steve Pitt's name in that context he writes that
he's overestimated and only found out few things, most by trial-and-error.
What do you know about that topic, Zefilio? (You mentioned "hidden" inis for example)

This is true. I have done a thorough editing of the FIFA.exe file and found that indeed many many parameters are not used, and also that there are many parameters that are not listed in any of the *.ini files.

Its very curious. There are some mystery categories as well. There seem to be a lot of inconsitencies, and above all my feeling is the EA people are lazy about variable definitions and usage. Its possible that player attributes for example are accessed and manipulated in a different way than a simple variable definition.

 

[elhelmiey]

This is true. I have done a thorough editing of the FIFA.exe file and found that indeed many many parameters are not used, and also that there are many parameters that are not listed in any of the *.ini files.

Its very curious. There are some mystery categories as well. There seem to be a lot of inconsitencies, and above all my feeling is the EA people are lazy about variable definitions and usage. Its possible that player attributes for example are accessed and manipulated in a different way than a simple variable definition.

what software that u use to do the thorough editing of the FIFA.exe file? can u give me the link so that i can download it? thanks in advance

 

[nebulachapin]

what software that u use to do the thorough editing of the FIFA.exe file? can u give me the link so that i can download it? thanks in advance

Any hex editor should work.

 

[StevePitts]

my feeling is the EA people are lazy about variable definitions and usage

I think that may be a little harsh. My suspicion is that the INI files are used primarily for testing variations without the need to keep rebuilding the code. Some of what finds its way into those files is experimental, or maybe the team settles on a particular set of values in an area, and the parameters then get expunged from the code without being removed from the INIs

 

[nebulachapin]

I think that may be a little harsh. My suspicion is that the INI files are used primarily for testing variations without the need to keep rebuilding the code. Some of what finds its way into those files is experimental, or maybe the team settles on a particular set of values in an area, and the parameters then get expunged from the code without being removed from the INIs

Steve -

I think my lazy comment comes more from a historical persepective. That is, EA has been pretty lazy in fixing various problems in each version of EA allowing many problems to propogate from one version to the next. Looking at the variable definitions, so many with spelling mistakes, that also adds to it.

I am sure you would agree that there are many seemingly important variables defined in the .ini files that are not accessed in the code (apparently not). Also there are variable defnitions that are not in the .ini files anywhere.

My interest in this study has stemmed from my frustration that in career mode, when one looks at the league-wide stats for each team, the MR rating (I assume its match rating but to me this translates to form) for the players on my team versus the league is severely disparate. My players regularly have MR values > 80 while you'll be lucky to find any player on another AI controlled squad with a value > 70, and then never >75. If these are meaningless parameters, then what a waste. But they change game to game, therefore they must be accessed somehow by the code. Then one has to ask if this will have any effect on the AI performance even if I do find how they are accessed and change it accordingly.

One effect that it definitely has is with the "team of the month". Because my players are regularly > 80, I always have 3 players (presumably the max) on the team of the month, every month. This gives me the extra money if indeed this is part of my sponsor constract. But its no competition because the AI will never have players
doing better than any of my squad.

Then there are these "MORALE_EFFECTS_X" and
"FATIGUE_EFFECTS_y" parameters in the .ini files that
are not accessed at all in the .exe code. Now the range seems to be 0 for no and 1 for yes, but I see NO EVIDENCE that this is has any effect on players one way or the other. Certainly, when I have a player that is severely fatigued, he still seems to perform the same. I would expect to be able to see a "red attribute" (i.e., lower than normal, as you often see "green" highlighted attributes when comparing players) in the team management screen during a match that might indicate how your players attributes are suffering, but this is not the case. They are the same regardless of the team "phase" and of fatigue.

 

[walpurgisng]

I agree with you nebulachapin, it is not being "harsh" to demand that a high profile company fix their games and listen to their players. For instance, EA has to know that their is graphical corruption on the pitch (notice how parts of the pitch seems to blend nicely and others look like a straight line). Also, EA has to know that the game runs choppy and has for several years now. For a small company without much staff, maybe these are growing pains, but this is EA--the Walmart of publishers--or video game makers. My father once told me, "When you do something, do it right, because your name or mark is on it." Well, EA, your name is on your games, and lately they seem to be ignoring their fan base. When people are nice and lets things go, nothing is ever fixed, so are EA lazy? Maybe, or maybe they just don't care or are stretched too thin. But its high time that someone stood up and said something about "half-ass" games.
Also, a little off topic, but it kills me that game makers won't release patches or fixes because "the publisher needs to pay" for their time. Listen, you made the game, it is buggy etc, you fix it--for free. If someone comes into my house and paints a room, then when they are done they dent the wall and ruin the paint job. Should I repay them for their shoddy work? No, they are either sued or fix it. EA has a reputation for ignoring bugs . . . is this a good reputation? If someone said, EA often has several bugs in their games, but after a month they patch the game, and then maybe patch it again to fix the bugs . . . I would say, hey, at least if I buy a game from EA they will patch it. Businesses that take care of their problems and are good to their customers strive and are loved. . . and the rest become Troika, opps I mean out of business.

 

[StevePitts]

EA has been pretty lazy in fixing various problems in each version of EA allowing many problems to propogate from one version to the next

I don't think that it is laziness per se, rather it is a business model. If any given version of FIFA were bug free and pretty much the perfect football game for the current technology then how would the punters be persuaded into buying the next annual release?? They made the mistake with the Tiger Woods franchise of employing a third party developer with considerable golf game experience, who after a couple of iterations produced a pretty decent game that then had nowhere to go but down (or into ever more bizarre features). The secret lies in making each version just good enough, and full of promise, to encourage you to buy the next iteration to see if they've finally got it right.

I am sure you would agree that there are many seemingly important variables defined in the .ini files that are not accessed in the code (apparently not)

I'd say definitely not accessed rather than apparently. Why obfuscate parameter access in a handful of cases when the rest are so obvious, it would make no sense. The orphans are simply little bits of history left lying around.

Also there are variable defnitions that are not in the .ini files anywhere

Which is no great surprise. All of the variables must have a hard-coded default value and the likelihood is that an INI parameter was added to the code, values only ever entered into some developers private versions of the INI file(s) and then the chosen value entered as the hard-coded default. The difficult ones to deal with are those INI parameters whose names still exist in the executable code but which are not actually read or used.

the MR rating (I assume its match rating but to me this translates to form) for the players on my team versus the league is severely disparate

It is still called Form under the covers and the discrepancy almost certainly stems from the fact that you play matches rather than simulating them. I bet if you quick-simmed a string of matches then the values for your team and the computer controlled teams (whose games are always simmed unless they are against your team) would converge. I've also found that match ratings are generally lower when playing two minute halves, especially for defenders.

Then one has to ask if this will have any effect on the AI performance even if I do find how they are accessed and change it accordingly

My best guess is that the MR has an immediate impact on the match XP system (which has no effect on the AI controlled players - only the manager's team's players get a growth_xp table entry) and also has an impact on morale (possibly for both user and AI controlled players).

Then there are these "MORALE_EFFECTS_X" and
"FATIGUE_EFFECTS_y" parameters in the .ini files that are not accessed at all in the .exe code

And weren't by FIFA 06 either.

when I have a player that is severely fatigued, he still seems to perform the same

It is difficult to tell for sure. I feel that a fatigued player tends to miss free kicks more readily, but I've not noticed any other detriment to their game (they don't even stop being able to sprint like they did in an earlier version). Of course, fatigue does play a huge part in morale, which has a direct effect on team chemistry, which may or may not show itself on the pitch (sometimes I feel that my players make fewer mistakes - bad passes especially - when team chemistry is high (75+) and other times I feel that it makes no difference whatsoever)

Anyway, the bottom line to all this is that we'll never know unless we get access to the full source code to the game, or to a member of the development team that can tell us what is really going on under the covers - neither of which is particularly likely. It is a fun exercise figuring out how things work, especially when there is something concrete to match up against (player development would be a good example in this version, I really enjoyed deciphering that) but ultimately frustrating when it comes down to what happens on the pitch, because there are so many variables involved that it can be difficult to see what has an effect and what does not.

 

[pfk505]

They made the mistake with the Tiger Woods franchise of employing a third party developer with considerable golf game experience, who after a couple of iterations produced a pretty decent game that then had nowhere to go but down (or into ever more bizarre features).

LOL!

History golf and Scottish Castle cartoon courses anyone? You are absolutely spot on about that and Tiger Woods 05' is as good as anythign they've done since. Or was it 04' ?

 

[walpurgisng]

They made the mistake with the Tiger Woods franchise of employing a third party developer with considerable golf game experience, who after a couple of iterations produced a pretty decent game that then had nowhere to go but down (or into ever more bizarre features).

This is where EA has made a mistake and was brilliant with Tiger Woods. Now you make the game graphically superior and add new features and details. HOWEVER, the core of the game is perfect and runs well. Why should I buy a Fifa 20XX that is just a little bit better and has problems that are through out the series? I'll just stick with Fifa 2007 per say and use mods and user updates to fix the game and enjoy it. OR, Fifa 2008 comes out and runs perfectly, the core game is solid (shooting, etc), the pitch is perfect, and the game is a blast to play. DAMN, I cant wait to see what they do with Fifa 2009 because they finally got the core and gameplay down, I wonder if they will add new leagues, new crowd chants, new etc.? For instance, should I buy another Chevy or Buick POS for 20-30 thousand when I can buy a Toyota that is cheaper and runs better? Quality keeps people coming back, not crapola. I will not buy another Fifa until I find out if it runs correctly and has updated graphics and good gameplay.
On another note, I love NK, but I really got sick off all his "this new update is so amazing it will blow you away". WTF how? I changed so and so from 5.6 to 5.5 . . . woooooooo. I told him over and over, stop changing the shooting, make the game harder, the passing needs to be faster, this isnt working, the defense isnt closing down on the player. Every time he realeased a new version, I sent him more on what needed to be changed. Version X to X.1 fixed all the problems. Then when it went to version XX1dafadkjk super blow u away II superior x shooter defense a mazing version he changed everything back. Personally, I washed my hands of helping him since every time he changed it back. Moreover, right now, and this changes my view from before, id rather see someone take this gameplay and edit it so that its BS free and works well. Im for a community effort rather than a single god-like person that adds tons of ads and bs to blow up his poorly made patch. Likewise, I change my stance to this, the gameplay is EA's not NKs; therefore, anyone can take this mod and use it how they like and edit it and call it their own because its only a bunch of numbers being edited.

 

[pfk505]

Well if Champions League 06/07 is any indication they are at least sort of trying to make the gameplay better. World Class in that game resembles an NK update more than it does the original FIFA07 gameplay.

 

[elhelmiey]

They made the mistake with the Tiger Woods franchise of employing a third party developer with considerable golf game experience, who after a couple of iterations produced a pretty decent game that then had nowhere to go but down (or into ever more bizarre features).

This is where EA has made a mistake and was brilliant with Tiger Woods. Now you make the game graphically superior and add new features and details. HOWEVER, the core of the game is perfect and runs well. Why should I buy a Fifa 20XX that is just a little bit better and has problems that are through out the series? I'll just stick with Fifa 2007 per say and use mods and user updates to fix the game and enjoy it. OR, Fifa 2008 comes out and runs perfectly, the core game is solid (shooting, etc), the pitch is perfect, and the game is a blast to play. DAMN, I cant wait to see what they do with Fifa 2009 because they finally got the core and gameplay down, I wonder if they will add new leagues, new crowd chants, new etc.? For instance, should I buy another Chevy or Buick POS for 20-30 thousand when I can buy a Toyota that is cheaper and runs better? Quality keeps people coming back, not crapola. I will not buy another Fifa until I find out if it runs correctly and has updated graphics and good gameplay.
On another note, I love NK, but I really got sick off all his "this new update is so amazing it will blow you away". WTF how? I changed so and so from 5.6 to 5.5 . . . woooooooo. I told him over and over, stop changing the shooting, make the game harder, the passing needs to be faster, this isnt working, the defense isnt closing down on the player. Every time he realeased a new version, I sent him more on what needed to be changed. Version X to X.1 fixed all the problems. Then when it went to version XX1dafadkjk super blow u away II superior x shooter defense a mazing version he changed everything back. Personally, I washed my hands of helping him since every time he changed it back. Moreover, right now, and this changes my view from before, id rather see someone take this gameplay and edit it so that its BS free and works well. Im for a community effort rather than a single god-like person that adds tons of ads and bs to blow up his poorly made patch. Likewise, I change my stance to this, the gameplay is EA's not NKs; therefore, anyone can take this mod and use it how they like and edit it and call it their own because its only a bunch of numbers being edited.

yeah... that's right!

 

[NK FOOTBALL ©]

hey guys just checking up on you all.

Sad you find it too easy.

I'm going to metaphorically kick you all in the balls when i get back and make it incredibly difficult with low scores. I didn't have time with WE2, what like 2 weeks? A real update (like the 1st world evo) took over a month of nothing but development time. WE2 was difficult, I was planning greece and everything else, just didnt have the time.

Forget WE2, the update will take an advanced approach for gamers that are brilliant at the game. So from now on, no more user friendly gaming.


Much harder, nasty.......EVIL! And I know 100% most of you will bitch...but tough titties!!

NK.

 

[walpurgisng]

Somehow I doubt that.

 

[pfk505]

Well, back to WE for me.. perhaps I think I'll even stick with the beta I was testing, as it was the most favorable so far. With WE2 I was averaging 25+ goal attempts per game with 6 minute halfs. A definate step backwards unfortunately. Lets not be too hard on NK though since his updates are really the only thing that makes this game playable, after all.