With a plethora of slider options at your disposal in FIFA 15, the task to create a realistic experience can be quite daunting. Thankfully, Operation Sports has two of the best slider-makers in the business in Matt10 & Orion523, and they have recently joined forces in their quest for OS Community Sliders. They took time out from their busy schedules to answer a few questions for us:

Operations Sports - What are you looking to achieve when you out to create your slider set?

Matt10 - I want to see exactly what we see on TV. That is my aim for any game when it comes to sliders. I know the chances of this being exact are minimal, but I have to aim high and not settle to deliver the best set-up for myself and others.

Orion523 - Out of the box, FIFA is more of an arcade game than a football sim geared towards the online crowd and the masses. My goal is to mold it into more of a sim, something more akin to what we watch each weekend.

OS - Out of the box, FIFA 15 can be somewhat unbalanced. Has it been a challenge finding the right balance for FIFA 15?

Matt10 - It has a bit. I came into FIFA 15 as a last-gen player, so I did not play FIFA 14 for the next-gen consoles. At first, I assumed I could use my FIFA 14 sliders approach and all would be well, this hasn’t been the case at all with FIFA 15.

Orion523 - Ugh. Has it ever. The dev team's choice to focus more on the 1v1 defense rather than zonal marking and the overpowered (OP) dribbling has made balancing the game an utter nightmare. Thanks to the work of this community its gotten better, but in all reality a skilled offensive player still has the advantage over an equally skilled defensive player, and that just shouldn't be.

OS - What individual sliders would you say are the most crucial when creating a solid slider set?

Matt10 - The line settings (Line Height, Line Length and Line Width) are absolutely crucial. It's what dictates how players will play on the pitch. By default, FIFA has the game too spread out because the defensive line drops back much too far. This is why most encounters with a defense are the attackers and midfielders versus the back four right away – completely bypassing the midfield and their responsibilities on defense. With line settings as the priority, you “force” the players out of their programmed position, and what results can be pretty interesting. From there it is a matter of tweaking the other values to compliment the line settings.

Orion523 - This year, the line settings (mainly Height, Length, and Width) combined with marking make or break any set. The over-reliance on man marking makes molding these particular settings very tricky and six weeks in there's still a lot of contention amongst community members about which direction is best to take. Matt10 has championed a high line height from nearly the beginning and although at first I disagreed, I have since fallen in line so to speak, a high line height (60-65) is critical. As for width, I prefer a more compact feel, and 41 IMO is perfect. Length is another finicky beast, and I go back and forth all the time. Right now I'm leaning towards a value between 45-55. For marking, I want pressure on the ball so I've been using a value slightly above default.

OS - How much of an impact do individual play styles affect creating a slider set?

Matt10 - This year, the user’s play style on defense is almost more important than their offense. The reason being is that the tendency to secondary pressure throughout the field can be exploited by the CPU much easier than before. I would not tell anyone to play this way, but we are all guilty of it on occasion. The CPU is designed to pass the ball when it feels pressure, as it should, but the issue defensively is that the user’s AI teammates are succumbed to poor programming where the defensive scheme is more man marking, than it is zonal. As a result, the players are pulled out of position so much easier, because they have no regard for where the ball is. This is what I’ve coined the term “ADD” – Attention Deficit Defending. You can jump on a replay, on default sliders, and just switch around to players and see where they are looking – most of the time they will not be looking at the ball.

Orion523 - No slider set, not a single one, works for everyone. Play style, skill, and personal preference all play a part. The best slider sets create a solid foundation for someone to mold to their own personal tastes. More often than not the slider set that I have posted is not the one that I personally use when I play, its just the one I feel best offers a solid base for everyone.

OS - Once you've settled on a set, is it frustrating when a gameplay patch is released which could potentially throw-off some of your values?

Matt10 - My personality is one that tends to see potential setbacks as greater opportunities. I see EA’s mentality to cater to the arcade crowd, but the fundamentals of what the game represent usually stay intact. There is always going to be programming issues, but take it from someone who has been part of the FIFA PC scene since 2000: the core programming (AI behaviors, scripting, etc.) is usually hidden under the newest engine.

Orion523 - If a patch impacts gameplay for the better than I'm all for it 100 percent, regardless of how much more work it takes for me to adjust the set.

OS - Are you actually able to just sit back and enjoy a game without thinking about "tweaking" a slider?

Matt10 - I’m someone who will obsess over something until it is perfect. I want my cake, and eat it too, I’ve made that pretty clear. It’s hard to sit back and enjoy after you’ve put in hours upon hours into studying the game. EA provides us slider creators with 1-click values, unlike 2K where you get 5-clicks, so the Marking value could be a big difference as “49” compared to “50.” I had to actually give myself a deadline (long overdue) this year to finalize my sliders because I too want to play the game. It’s getting there, and just recently I feel that I do not have to make any sacrifices in order to get the game playing the right way, how I see it on TV.

Orion523 - Believe it or not, once I'm settled, I'm settled and I move on. I'm not one for "slideritis" as they say. That said, each game I play in my Career Mode (CM) I record the score, shots, on-target (OT) shots, passing percentage, tackles, and fouls for each and every game. Once I get 20-25 games into a CM I'll stop, go back into my notebook, and add up the numbers to check for balance, save percentage, goals per games, shots per game, OT shots per game, and goals per shots on target. If there's a huge discrepancy, I'll adjust.

OS - [i]Lastly, how do you know when done with a set or are you ever done?"/I]

Matt10 - I write a list of issues for the game out of the box and check them off one-by-one if I’ve been able to lessen, or remove the issue. With that being said, I always like to challenge those who speak so matter-of-fact of their thoughts regarding the game. It is interesting because I know they haven’t put as many hours as I have into the game, and I also know they haven’t explored every single value with an open mind. The reason I know this is because I’m known as the “extreme” settings guy, because I take the game, look at certain areas, and tweak far from default values, so it can be built back up.

Orion523 - Well, I know when I'm done when I'm not thinking about adjustments as I play. When I'm playing FIFA and just enjoying it for what it is, than I'm happy. Let's face it no sports game will EVER be perfect, and FIFA is no exception but I love the sport, over the last few years it's become an obsession of mine, and right now FIFA 15 is the best video game representation of my obsession.


On behalf of the FIFA community, I'd like to say "Thank You" for all of the hard work you two have done and are currently doing to enhance the gaming experience in FIFA 15. With that being said, be sure to head over to the FIFA 15 OS Community Sliders thread for the latest slider set from Matt10 & Orion523.