FIFA 12 Demo Available Now, Post Impressions Here (360, PS3, PC)

[Qb]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bahnzo

Man, I just can't get used to the new defending. I changed the buttons around to make it a bit more comfortable, but I really think EA has swung to far. What FIFA has now would be great, if your AI teammates played good defense as well. But they don't. They sit back, lay off and loosely contain. There's no tight marking, no defending passes, no tackles, nothing. Because of this the CPU can pass around pretty much at will. I tried even using the "High Pressure" Quick Tactic, and it really changes nothing.

I hear you. I love how defending feels for my user controlled player and I think the changes will really help in the long run, especially in head-to-head and OTP. However, the off the ball defending by my teammates feels too lax. I don't think it's far off from being a good balance, so perhaps the final build will address this. Plus, the man marking slider may help with this for offline play.

I don't put a ton of stock into demo gameplay, especially EA's super-short ones. I've seen enough to know tactical defending is a fundamental change in the way the game is played, but I have no idea if EA can find the sweet spot 'out of the box' or if the sliders will help dial it in.

[Qb]

Almost forgot something... Can we please keep this to FIFA impressions, please? I know the discussion is quite civil and we appreciate that, but let's do our best to stick with the topic.

For those who want to talk PES, I know a great place to do that...

[TheArsenologist]

Quote: Originally Posted by woody2goody

CPU clearances nearly ALWAYS go to one of their players, which is ridiculous.

This has always been one of my main gripes about FIFA on this generation of consoles. I'll have the opposition goal under siege and they'll manage to hoof out a clearance that somehow finds the only one of their guys not behind the ball while the four defenders I have back simply watch. Just kills me.

I am enjoying the Demo so far, but there are a couple of things that seem off to me. I agree with everyone who says the CPU passing is way too accurate. It had become almost standard to me until I played PES and saw passes go astray. Now, I expect that from FIFA, and to not get it is frustrating.

Defending is definitely a step up from last years, and I love the patience required. For some reason, though, the way they have the buttons mapped does not work for me and I keep hitting the wrong button. I like some of the suggestions for re-mapping on here and I'll definitely have to give those a try.

Fouls seem to be called on soft collisions yet ignored on hard ones. Consistency in that area could be improved.

I'm also in the same boat as everyone else, I think. I'm always a "World Class" difficulty guy, but I've had to drop down to Pro for this demo. I guess that's a good sign.

There's a really good game to be had here, but I just keep wanting that little more that I don't think FIFA can offer to make this really good game a great game.

[JBlaze420]

having alot of trouble embedding the video but heres my volley with alexis sanchez from an overhead pass... played on world class

[Matt10]

The main issue here is the defensive pressure on both CPU and HUM. When a ball is passed to your striker, he should be INSTANTLY pressured, physically - sometimes even double teamed. This is not the case, you see all the videos that people post, and it is so easy to pass to the players, they get open way to easily. Watch real footie, and notice how hard it is to gather a ball in the defensive third - sometimes even higher than that.

This is why it seems the game plays so fast and "fluid" for all the wrong reasons. There is no sense of pressure. EA have to get into the mind of the defender, because no matter what - the defender does not want the ball to even reach the foot of the attacker if he (the defender) has more than a 20% chance of getting near the ball.

[woody2goody]

I put the difficulty down to semi-pro so see what it was like and I have to say it was better, but the CPU defenders went from sprinting all over the place to not sprinting until I was already 5 yards in front of them.

This is a much better level for CPU passing realism, as in my Barcelona vs Milan game, I had only my second possession advantage so far, and the CPU's passing accuracy was down to 75%.

EA have never been able to get difficulty curves right and again it seems that Semi-Pro will be too easy and Pro will be too hard.

I'm still getting the game on release day but they really need to sort some things out otherwise I won't play a great deal of single player.

[JBlaze420]

I think once you really adjust to how the tactical defensive scheme works, it will become much more of a fluid game. When i first played the demo i was scrambling around trying to get the ball, but i learned to be patient and really wait for the right opportunity.


On a side note..can someone tell me how the embed is supposed to work, when i copied the code and pasted it, it came up as an adobe flash icon, and wouldnt load the video when i previewed the post.

[Matt10]

Quote: Originally Posted by Matt10

The main issue here is the defensive pressure on both CPU and HUM. When a ball is passed to your striker, he should be INSTANTLY pressured, physically - sometimes even double teamed. This is not the case, you see all the videos that people post, and it is so easy to pass to the players, they get open way to easily. Watch real footie, and notice how hard it is to gather a ball in the defensive third - sometimes even higher than that. This is why it seems the game plays so fast and "fluid" for all the wrong reasons. There is no sense of pressure. EA have to get into the mind of the defender, because no matter what - the defender does not want the ball to even reach the foot of the attacker if he (the defender) has more than a 20% chance of getting near the ball.

I made a quick comparison video here. It should illustrate what I"m talking about. notice the stop and start in the first video, and see how the defensive pressure casues this despite having a low defensive line by Brazil. It took real creativity to somewhat break them down.

Second video is FIFA, look how much space the receiver gets, still has time to dribble without going backwards. It's too easy to pass into the lanes, the defenders don't cover well enough - and this is against Man City.

Notice the speed of the matches as well, the ball is not glued to players IRL, in FIFA it's a thread from ball to man.

It's the little things that EA needs to look at, there has to be a sense of nervousness when someone a player is dribbling, because any wrong touch could mean a mishap - that's how it is for even the professionals; same goes with the passing. It needs to stop being so mindless passing - there needs to be strategy.

Why EA can't figure this out is beyond me, it took me 2 mins to find a clip that represents the game IRL, what is hard about matching it?



I love FIFA though, I always will. I think it's the right direction, I look forward to using sliders - and I hope that saves the game for me. Till then, it's just not matching the real life counterpart.