Why has FIFA dissapointed you in the past?

[khengoolman]

in a brief summary, FIFA2004 was dissapointing because of
CC, Transfer system, stupid menues, super accurate off the ball, crap shooting system
for these reasons and many more unrealisticity issues, i gave up on FIFA 2004, and migrated to PES3, and unless EA come up with something REALLY special, there is no way in hell that i buy FIFA 2005 or EURO 2004
i think EA should either A) watch at least one game of soccer or Play PES or WE7 and learn, hell, PES3's DVD version is the sweetest thing!

 

[zetapsi92]

Here's my VERY comprehensive wish-list of improvements for FIFA 2005. Some of the stuff has been said before, but its stuff that matters to me too.


LIST
====

1) Add Holland national team.

2) Add the Saudi Arabian national team. Yes, I know, they're not a force to be reckoned with on the world stage, but they're a major force in Asia that has stayed at the top for the last 20 years. If winning 3 out 5 Asian Cup titles and playing in each of those finals is not an accomplishment, I don't know what is. And I don't think they would charge an arm and a leg like the KNVB either...

3) Oh, please don't get rid of the Turkish national team. I usually notice that as soon as I start getting too happy about something, its gone. And please bring back the Turkish League, or at least two of the other big Turkish Clubs, Fenerbahce SK (current Turkish league champs) and Besiktas JK.

4) Add more national teams in general- there's not enough in Fifa 2004. If EA Sports can't get licenses to authentically represent / recreate some of those teams, put in generic teams with fake names and generic kits. Not the best scenario, but at least that way, all we have to do is remake the kits and retouch the stats, instead of having to replace one national team to add another (like the patch with Holland replacing Urugauy).

5) Speaking of retouching stats, please bring back the in-game creation center where we can fix faces, change numbers and change stats, change kits (or at least colors, in case of generic kits).

6) Ability to buy players from any team / league.

7) Ability to set up custom tournament / league - international or club, group/elimination or elimination, one-or-two leg games, etc. This can still be done in Fifa 2004, with clubs, but I don't want to have to edit the teams in the FA Cup to play a best-of-europe tourney. I like to have the ability to make my own league with all my favorite world clubs.

8) I don't know why, but sometimes, I could have my player facing one direction and i hit pass and instead of passing to the player straight in that direction, it will pass the ball to someone who's standing 25 degrees off that direction. That's very frustrating. And maybe it's just me, but the throughpass in Fifa 2004 seems pointless and completely ineffective.

9) Please make it not as easy to score from 30 yards out. It's good once in a while, but it gets really boring quick, and I get pissed at people who don't even make the effort to build a good attack and just take shots from way out hoping to get lucky (and then they do, like 3 times in a game!)


11) A lot of the stuff in FIFA 2004 is locked into the career mode. I'd like to be able to do all that stuff outside that mode too.

12) When I start a career mode with a big team like AC Milan, I'd like to be playing in a European tournament instead of having to wait one season to earn that right.

13) Add Penalties to practice mode. I know penalty kick techniques haven't changed much over the years in the game, but I'd like to be able to get a feel for it.

14) Also, something is very wrong with team ratings, when 15 weeks into the season, Modena is second in Serie A and Juventus is lying in a lowly 15th. It gets further frustrating that my 4th placed AC Milan beat Modena 3-1 with ease, while Juventus schooled me 5-1. A team in 15th place can't possibly be playing that good. In all fairness to EA Sports, my opponents usually play as well as they should in real life when I have a match with them, but the simulated match results for the computer controlled teams are just too weird. A shock every once in a while is fine.

15) I don't want to have to play 2 other Italian clubs in my Champions League group besides AC Milan. It doesn't happen that way.

16) Okay, here's what else doesn't happen in real leagues, or especially Serie A. You don't play the same team back to back in league match-ups (not talking about two leg playoff games). Usually in a league, you play each team once before you go around and face them again. Back to back matches with the same team may happen in the NBA regular season, but not in European soccer.

17) I'm curious if Football Fusion is just on the PS/2 version, or if it's on the PC version too. I'm in the US, and I bought FIFA Soccer 2004 (which I expect would be the exact same product as FIFA Football 2004, just titled differently for marketing purposes), and I don't have Football Fusion (or even Soccer Fusion) for that matter. Why not?

18) Along the same lines, this one's for the folks at EASports.com who run the US Fifa Soccer website- STOP TREATING AMERICAN CUSTOMERS LIKE THE BASTARD STEPCHILD! We deserve a comprehensive website too. The UK website is filled with news, helpful stuff and better graphics, while the American website is just a drab, near static webpage. I pay just as much money to EA Sports to buy their games, so be fair to us.

19) When my winger / midfielder is going down the wing (running or sprinting, say down the right wing) and I try to cross the ball or lob it in the box with 'A', I hate it when he lobs it straight out of the pitch, instead of crossing left into the box. I mean STRAIGHT!

20) Right after the corner animation stops (when the taker places the ball), I'd like to be brought back to my camera mode. It sucks when the corner is played and the ball is deflected and I am hitting buttons blindly because I don't know where to clear the ball because I can't see the rest of my players.

21) How about some flags on the corners?

22) Some animated substitutions please. I'd like to see one guy come on and the other guy leave.

23) A lot of the music in the game is stuff that people in the US have never heard. How about having music that the average american listens to for Fifa SOCCER 2005?

24) Like someone else said, I'd like to be able to see my entire squad on one screen when I'm selecting my team, instead of only being able to see 8 of them at a time. Also, I'd like to be able to position my players when I choose a formation. Like move them around a little if I choose 4-2-4 so two of my forwards are spread really wide.

25) In career mode, the way the stats section is organized is RETARDED! I can see who my team's top scorers are, but there's no LEAGUE TOP SCORERS / BOOKINGS section. That stuff matters more than what my shooting average is. Again, this is soccer, not basketball. And by default, how about sorting by goals scored? All this stuff used to be in your older games, so it's frustrating cuz it feels like you guys took a step backwards!

26) When I'm seeing the league standings / table, I'd like to be able to see at least the following on one screen (P-W-D-L-Pts). Its nice that you have it further broken down into home games and away games and all, and I don't mind scrolling for it, but the basic stuff needs to be on one screen.

27) I like to be able to go back and see my results from previous games in a list, instead of having to scroll back and forth on a calendar, and also be able to see how the other teams did in their respective matches. In other words, have a RESULTS section.


28) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, make the menus better. Take your pick from any of your older games, I've never had a problem with the menus until this year.A lot of the above can be summed up with: BAD BAD MENUS! MAKE THEM BETTER, MAKE THEM LIKE YOU USED TO!

29) How about DIRECT IP Connect?



THANK YOUS!
==============

That was the bad stuff.. Now, here's some stuff I'd like to thank the makers of FIFA 2004 for. I hope we see more of this again next year:

Thank you for that free season of online game playing!

Thank you for bring Perluigi Collina to the game!! Next year, you guys should add that other famous referee, the tall, skinny (lanky) Dutch dude.. I forget his name.

Thank you for the wonderful graphics and sound! And for superbly recreating the San Siro among other stadiums!

 

[TheCancerMan]

Back in early 2003 I was introduced to the FIFA series with a bootleg copy of FIFA 2002. At that time I liked the game for the amout of teams (specially national teams) and the possibility to edit the kits and stuff. But I got disappointed with the fact that the editing tools were not provided by EA itself, so I had to handle game crashes here and there. But I shouldn't complain since I haven't paid for the game.

So FIFA 2003 came by with a lot of promises, nice screenshots from sites and magazine. Then I decided to buy the game. For my surprise, some of the features I've liked the most in previous edition weren't there, like weather selection, 1-2 passes and, of course, the amout of national teams of FIFA 2002. The lack of control in the gameplay pissed me off so much that I asked myself what did I have in mind when I decided to buy that game.

Then, Creation Centre, the first official FIFA tool was promised. After a considerable amount of time it was released and all I had to say was "Oh, My, is this for real?". It is something that might have been asked before but how did proffessional software developers managed to build a tool like that? I mean, a couple of guys out there that received NO MONEY managed to release Fed2002 or some other Mr. Santarelli's wonders and *GK's? That dissappointed me so much that I decied to NEVER buy a FIFA game again. My copy of FIFA 2003 is still gathering dust on my shelf until today.

Then, FIFA 2004. Some of the anger had been vanished along the months and I had in my mind that EA were professional people and somehow the mess with 2003 was because of a hurry to release the game (do you remember that 2003 demo? Were they being serious expecting that someone could by the game from a demo like that?). Back to 2004. Practice mode, more control of the players, off the ball, minikits (that was the only good thing from 2003. All the promised features seemed to be OK. I decided to give EA another try. Then I bought the game again.

I don't want to be repetitive so for reasons like the previous stated here it took me a couple of weeks more to forget it on my shelf than in the previous year. Some of the mess of 2003 were corrected but I was tired to score from unrealistic out of area shots or Creation Centre, that was as awful as its predecessor.

So why I'm still here on these forums and why I still care about the FIFA series since I am so dissapointed? There are three reasons. I like football. I like to draw and collect the so called football kits. And I do have one of the most fundamental qualities of an human being: HOPE. I hope that somehow people of EA Sports start to care about the community of players providing professional tools for people who want to spend some time to create a more realistic game with authentic kits and player names. And, of course, providing a decent gameplay.

There are people out there who don't want to play with players called NED 1, NED 2, NED 3 wearing a crappy orange kit.

EA has a lot to prove in order to make me buy another of their games in the future.

 

[Duong]

another thing, EA's faces, especially original faces look too much like cartoon, why dont you guys copy and paste them right from the pictures, and make the resolution 256 * 512 ?! Copy and paste from the pic looks much more realistic.
Just kidding : EA ! Hire me to make faces ! I want that !
Remember, I just kidding.

 

[Duong]

and another thing, the width of the body are too unrealistic, make that bigger

 

[pronewbie]

EA SPORTS will try their best to implement some of these grouses in FIFA 2006. Then again, they may lose this list... somehow...

 

[khengoolman]

they manage to do that every year, so don't worry about it

 

[gladdis]

frustrating

Somtimes I wonder who makes this games are. I'm getting more and more shure that they never have tuched a football once. It's frustrating that your oponent meets the ball, when you can't move. Another thing: You can't pass trough to your self (the player who passed is out of control and stops for a few seconds) And it somtimes imposible to switch to the player you want to use. I don't wanna intercept with a player who's not on the screen. I want to use the best plased player I can see!

 

[PSVFOREVER]

In FIFA I always have the idea that every shot from the same position will look exactly the same. The player shoots exactly the same, the keeper reacts exactly the same, the players close to the player will react exactly the same (if they react that is). It doesn't even care if you shoot with, let's say a 3rd division striker with Buffon in goal, and van Nistelrooy shooting with a 3rd division keeper in goal. They will shoot the ball exactly the same, the keeper will react exactly the same.

The game lacks variety

 

[ivancska]

Fifa has disappointed me, because there is never CSKA SOFIA in it!!!

 

[HENRY1234]

Fifa 2005 wishlist:

1) Please have the career mode more realistic in 2005 then 2004. There should be more tournaments during the season, you should be able to trade players and buy players....and the training should be an actual traing session instead of just choosing the option to to train by just clicking on the train icon.
The point is...the career mode should be more realistic.

2) FIFA 2004 had no create a player or create a team, etc. HOW CAN YOU NOT HAVE THESE OPTIONS!?!?!?!

3) Lastly, tell me if you agree which you probably do.....THE ONLINE PLAY IS HORRIBLE.......dont you guys agree??????? I dont think EA spent enough time with the online play. You can never get a tournament started... and you rarely ever get connected witht the other player. The connection almost always fails. Please fix this in FIFA 2005! I dont think EA spent enough time with the online play for FIFA 2004 because they didnt realize how many people like playing soccer games on ps2 and playing soccer games online on ps2.


IF YOU AGREE WITH ME THAT THE ONLINE PLAY IS HORRIBLE AND YOU THE CONNECTION ALMOST ALWAYS FAILS FOR YOU PLEASE TELL ME SO THAT I KNOW I AM NOT ALONE AND IF THIS DOESNT HAPPEN TO YOU....PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO FIX IT.

 

[Mel Brennan]

Re: Why has FIFA dissapointed you in the past?

Originally posted by AhmedK
...Fans of any of the major soccer games can post in this thread to tell EA and the rest of the forum what you didnt like in the past FIFAs, what you dont like about the current FIFA games, and what impressions the screens and videos of FIFA2005 have given you...

http://www.soccergaming.tv/showthread.php?s=&threadid=90690

FIFA 2005? What's disappointing already is not hearing of a totally new gameplay engine. Its more of the same; last year it was "Off-the-Ball Control," all nice and neat with its own little "TM." This year its...what is it? Oh yeah, an "all-new fluid player kinetic system," lol. What was it in 2003? 2002?

Sad, but not for those with gaming PCs and the enjoyment that comes from watching a mod community work (to get around that kit license thing)...PES4 is coming.

Flame away if you want; I would hope you'd read my lengthy diatribe at the link provided above. My odium for both the EA world football game development process, and time-wasters, is legion.

 

[gladdis]

The transfersystem have to change. It's crap. Yesterday I played with Real Madrid, when A Bilbao bid one million, for one of my players. Since I know how unstable the trans.system is I tried to sell for 500 000, but then Bilbao rejected the offer? "I wish the creators could have shown a bit more common sense...somtimes
If we dont talk about graphics, I think the whole 2004 is a step backwards from 2003

 

[HENRY1234]

Is the online play as bad for you as it is for me? I almost never get connected to the other player!???????

 

[zacharias]

Alright, just stumbled on this forum and would like to give my opinion too.

I've played every FIFA game since FIFA 98, each for as long as until the next edition came out, in both single- and multiplayer.

First of all, I don't really have anything negative to say about the atmosphere (created by graphics, sound etc) in the game, except that the chants are sometimes not very well chosen ("Ein Rudi Völler" in Germany games, but no simple "Deutschland"-chant? etc). The stadium selection is good, and I love the new lower leagues with their small stadiums. Only complaint is that there are sometimes clear mistakes in the league design, e.g. in the Swiss league there is a club called FC Wil which plays in a small stadium of around ~5'000 spectators.. in FIFA2004, they play in the huge ~80'000 Olympic stadium... it's not like that would really bother me that much, but I can't believe that noone would notice that. But let's move to the more important stuff..

As the developers probably know, the point of criticism has always been FIFA's gameplay. To me, the game still feels too much like as if it was based on scripted events. If you compare it to PES, a FIFA match is a lot more predictable in a sense that the same situations appear over and over again. After playing a FIFA game for a few weeks, there is hardly ever a situation again where I say "wow, that came unexpected." - which happens lots of time when I watch real football, or play PES. For example the shooting system needs much improvement, after a few matches you know exactly from what angle you must shoot to score, and from what angle it is impossible to score. That is not only very unrealistic, but also makes the game much more boring. Same goes for situations like e.g. the goalkeeper sprinting out of his box to catch the ball in front of an attacker - why can't he ever not succeed and e.g. fumble the ball in the air? Why can't he come too late sometimes? In general I would say the goalkeeper KI needs a lot of improvement, and I do not mainly mean that you need to make them more intelligent, but more realistic. In FIFA2004 goalkeepers are very unrealistically strong in 1-to-1 situations, and terribly weak in freekicks and long range shots. But I guess you know that you need to work on the goalkeepers, since the problem has been there since the very first FIFA I played.
Basically there's so many small things I could talk about here. The tricking system is very bad in FIFA 2004, as are the corners and indirect freekicks - the idea of fighting for the right spot to make a header is very good, but it is not well done.. sometimes the attacker can not push any button at all and end up scoring because one of his teammates goes on the spot, etc.. it's too much based on luck right now to score from a corner. And it's a bit too easy as well. What I like is the off-the-ball idea, but it also needs improvement (although I can use it quite well after some training). Oh, and I almost forgot: PLEASE introduce a good penalty system. Right now it doesn't even matter if I shoot the penalty very weak, or perfectly strong - it's always a chance of 1:3 that the GK will hold it. What also needs to be done better is the ball physics (copy PES there), and the game needs to be slowed down a bit by standard.

But, to say again, the most important thing you need to do is make the game more UNPREDICTABLE, and therefore more REWARDING to the player who spends more than 10 hours with it. If you don't succeed in that some time soon, I'm afraid PES will even win long time FIFA players like me on their side.

Thank you and greetings from Switzerland.

 

[riverhound]

Here are my ideas to improve it for 2005. I have always played the PC version, so it's my point of reference....

I have to lead off with this one - stop shortchanging the PC gamers and put the regular 45 minute half option back in the game. It's a grave, grave sin that it was omitted in 2004, and because of that alone has reduced my desire to play the game....hurts the realism terribly and without it you cant even begin to call the title a simulation. Such a mistake is nearly unforgivable......

More national squads - there should be a way to keep the depth of club selections while adding more national teams. 35 is all too few

Custom leagues and cups were part of the fun and versatility, and maybe increase the control options so it includes more than one team, esp. during a custom tournament....

A wild thought but since EA liscences so well, try acquiring the A- league ones, with logos, in addition to MLS, effectively creating a second US division option

Add the weather back into the game in some reasonably realistic way....

Simple requests but, remember EA, if you cant keep fan interest, you have no one to blame but yourselves

 

[gladdis]

In Fifa 2003, when the season was over the poorest teams were relegated from the division, even in countries with only one league in the game, for instance Norway. The two or three poorest teams in Tippeligaen were changed with some of the best (reallife) teams from the 1. division. This teams had made up players and wrong colors at their shirts, but it was still more realistic.

I've talked about it before but the transfer system sucks. When you are club from a little nation, you can't buy big stars. you can't afford them. For instance, The former Rosenborg player John Carew (playded for Roma last season) costs 13 mil. I'd like to buy him back, but with a transfer budget at 6 mil after 4 seasons it's a bit difficult I have to sell 14-15 players to get so much money.

When a player is injuried, you can see expected return date. Why are they always expected back 3 years before they were hurt? It must be pretty frustrating for a manager in february 2007, to hear that his player is back in december 2003?

EA shuld have used more of fifa 2003 when they make the new game. It had lacs also, but not compared to -04

Hope anyone agree with me

 

[HENRY1234]

Is the online play as bad for you as it is for me?!?!?!? please answer me someone in the next post.... I really need to know if it is just me that can never get connected with the player or if someone else is haveing the same problem!!

Thnx soccer gamers....(PLEASE ANSWER!!!! )

 

[yt23w]

Like zacharias i've followed the FIFA franchise as far back as 97. And it seems to me that along with all the OFF the Ball

changes, its started to go downhill in the enjoyment department. in my opinion FIFA 2002 was the most fun to play and

WC2002 had some great features as well. 2003 & 2004 couldnt quite match up to them. The ball being disconnected from the foot

sounds good but wasnt really neccecary. You've tried to make the game more real but in doing so its now less fun.

The main thing EA needs to do is forget about all the stadiums and better chants[I/] and work more on gamleplay.
The inability for worldclass players like Henry to run past or around a defender is totaly wrong. Henry is known for his

galloping runs down the field, and this is whats missing. Look at the FIFA 2002 game and see what fun soccer really is. watch

qingers like Figo or Ronaldo do step overs to get past a defender or Henry or Raul do shot fakes to trow off the defense or

goal keeper. This is where FIFA2002 had it made yet didnt over do it. I play mainly on XBox and am happy to hear the Xbox

live deal go thru. There are soooo many Little things to change that they add up to quite a large problem. Employ me as a

game tester and i'll tell you whats wrong and what needs to be changed. Here are some suggestions from me EA:

For 2005:
The players need to know (be programed to know)
*who is on their team &
*which direction they are going.
*where they are on the pitch.
Corners/non direct free kicks need to go back to the old 1,2,3 option. (or mabey 1,2,3,shoot)
You need to be able to put your own curve on a pass or shot!!!!
and trick moves need to be like 2002/03 and actually get you around a defender.
(for a full list scan thru 2005 general requests forum an idea)

And a quick question. what was with the 'walk mode'?? who or when do you use that in a game?

The good points to keep are:
the free kicks.
graphics (of course).
crossing system.

but for me fifa 2002 had it all.
Remake that game and you've got gold EA. Pure Gold.

 

[TheDarkKnight87]

This is gonna be long.
I think that the FIFA series has declined after FIFA 99 and inclined a bit with 2002 and 2002 World Cup and then gone straight back down.
First of all, in FIFA 99 and the rest of FIFAs before 2003 you had lots of dribblings....and besides that...they were actually effective.
Granted...in PES 3 you don't have a lot of dribbles, but the ones that exist are effective if used properly.
The players are VERY rigid. They don't have natural movements...it's impossible to get past an opponent just a quick turn...because there's no such thing as a quick turn.
Also...the passes are awful. Players often pass where THEY want, not where you want.
The sprint button is also pretty useless. It's pointless trying to go by a player using speed, even if he's slow as a snail...it's just impossible. And if you try to use the shift key, your player will just run in stupid directions, and if you're near the touchline, he'll probably go out of bounds with it.