Yesterday I talked about scoring chances in FIFA 15, and today I'm here to change things up and talk about the jostle mechanic in FIFA 15.

First off, I have to explain how jostling/jockeying works in this year's game. The jostling mechanic, at its core, is a simple and smart gameplay mechanic that you can use on both offense and defense. On offense, you'll jostle/jockey for position by using L2 (on PS4) or LT (on Xbox One). On defense, you'll mostly use the B button (on Xbox One) or Circle button (on PS4) to "lock on" and fight for position against the ball carrier. (Take note: from here on out if I mention controls I'll be mentioning just PS4 controls for simplicity's sake). At its core, it's a mechanic that allows some push and pull to go on between two players as they fight for position and the ball.

Still with me so far? Cool, then after the jump I'll show off the jostling mechanic in GIF form as we get in to the meat of this breakdown.
 

Above you can see the push and pull going on between two players fighting for the ball. I mentioned at the top of this article that I thought that jostling was a "simple and smart" mechanic. And I say that because it's easy to understand, yet there's an underlying layer to master. In addition, the mechanic is smooth enough to transition between different visual phases when needed on the defensive end, which means the mechanic rarely feels clunky in practice.

What this means is that on offense you know you should press L2 to jostle, but you learn that the mechanic seems to work even better when you press and release L2 a couple of times in quick succession. On top of that, you quickly learn that big, strong players are generally the best at holding on to the ball and winning the one-on-one battles, which makes sense.

On defense, the mechanic is mostly driven via the Circle button, and that's good because it means the barrier to entry when it comes to learning the mechanic is the same on both sides of the ball. When jostling for position on defense, you'll reach for the ball carrier when you're too far away. If you run up behind a ball carrier, you'll grab his jersey. And if you can get alongside the ball carrier, then you'll simply fight for position.

Let's take another look now at a defender who quickly wins the ball via jostling -- take notice of how much bigger the defender is than the ball carrier.



The example above is a very quick and subtle interaction, but it's good stuff. It's the jostle quickly playing out as it should.

At its best, jostling and jockeying for the ball provide moments of unrest and excitement of the unknown. If you succeed on defense and win the ball, you're ecstatic because, hey, you have the ball and playing offense is better than playing defense. If you succeed on offense, you're fired up because you should be able to create some space and make your next important decision.

However, jostling doesn't always lead to quality outcomes...

There's really two main reasons why jostling fails at times:

1. Players forget how to use their legs and simply fall down at random times.
2. Obvious fouls are ignored too much of the time.

Here is an example of a defender falling down while trying to jostle:



It's funny when you watch it, but it's obviously frustrating when you have to deal with it playing out on the field. My theory is that the physics at play sort of go out of whack at times, which leads to players falling down during these interactions. On top of that, I would guess the defender falling down is a "win condition" of sorts where it's there to allow the attacking player some breathing room. Whatever the case may be, it's hardly an ideal outcome for the situation.

Moving on, here's an example of a rather blatant foul that doesn't get called:



In truth, this is sort of just the inverse of the same problem above, but it's even more blatant because it's the ball carrier who does a signature barrel roll and doesn't get the call here after being hip checked. I don't mean to say there should be foul call every time a ball carrier falls to the ground, but the dramatic nature of most of these falls and the impact of the jostle at these moments makes the fouls seem sort of obvious.

If the intent isn't for this to be so, then the visual nature of the falls and jostle need to be tightened up because right now the visual feedback loop isn't very consistent. Perhaps some might even want to see a dive mechanic come in to play to allow users to try and sell these interactions, but I think cleaning it up from a visual/animation standpoint makes more sense than adding another mechanic on top to make "excuses" for why the crazy falls occur.
 

There are two big things I would like to see tweaked with this mechanic:

1. Get a handle on when players are falling when engaged in this mechanic and clean it up as much as possible. This will clear up a lot of the confusion in terms of why fouls are not called on offense, and it will negate a lot of the strange moments when defenders just dive to the ground.
2. Allow players to more easily take a foul if they want to slow down a player or stop a counter.

I've really already touched on the "falling player" issue in the previous section, but again here it is:



The ball carrier did a somersault that time! Players need to lose the ball and stay on their feet more often, or the ref has to call more fouls.

As for being allowed to more easily take a foul, here is an example of what I'm talking about:



I love this. I love it, love it, love it. This is part of soccer. Sometimes you're just outmatched and you have to take a player down to stop him from getting in to a dangerous area. However, the issue is you can't consistently force somebody to the ground.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:



I'm grabbing and shoving, but it's not doing any good. The caveat here is it is Mandzukic who is a workhorse so maybe you don't want to completely negate his ability to get through these grab attempts. However, if yellow cards mattered more or were more prevalent, then there's more incentive not to do this in every situation. But since grabbing somebody and taking them down rarely leads to a card right now, it's a no-risk move.

In short, there would need to be more yellow cards if there were an easier way to turn the jostle mechanic into a way to intentionally foul somebody to stop a counter.

Wrapping Up

So that does it for today's piece. I will be back tomorrow with a look at standing tackles. In the meantime, leave any feedback you might have, and perhaps even chat about what you like and dislike about the jostling mechanic in this year's game.


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