Re: EA SPORTS FC™ 24: Pros and Cons - Share your thoughts

Guys, I just hopped on FIFA 23 for a couple games, and as much as I didn't like that game during it's life cycle, it feels like a much better game than 24. I then got on 22 and it felt even better than both 23 and 24. This is coming from someone who had the highest win% in 23 (90+ in both FUT and Online Seasons) out of all his FIFAs. 22 was objectively better. I feel like they're just gonna continue this pattern of making games more random, and 25 is gonna be the worst yet, even though it's hard to imagine a game being worse than 24.

@akashk8This is probably the biggest problem. Offense and passing is to easy. The problem is offense isn’t manual and passing is to easy. Then they always nerf defense and buff offense.

This has been the meta all year bait in pressure pass it around the back then pass it cross field as it’s almost impossible to stop.  I think I saw the video you are referring to breaking down anders last tournament. While he is a pro everyone is doing that on offense. His defense controlling that many players at once is obviously difficult but that’s why he is a pro too. 

People like scoring goals and easy offense though.

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@RadioShaqs wrote:

@akashk8This is probably the biggest problem. Offense and passing is to easy. The problem is offense isn’t manual and passing is to easy. Then they always nerf defense and buff offense.

This has been the meta all year bait in pressure pass it around the back then pass it cross field as it’s almost impossible to stop.  I think I saw the video you are referring to breaking down anders last tournament. While he is a pro everyone is doing that on offense. His defense controlling that many players at once is obviously difficult but that’s why he is a pro too. 

People like scoring goals and easy offense though.

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I think as long as both offense and defense feel intuitive to play (i.e, actually based on reading the other player and reacting specifically to what they are doing), the meta and general feel of the game will rely on the mechanics more than anything else. When two players play against each other and actually put their minds into the game, and they both are constantly reacting to what the other player is actively reading and reacting to, that is when FIFA has been at its peak of fun. This is for the majority of players, as the majority don't seek to learn mechanics to abuse, and even the ones that do want to play and get better, prefer to do it by actually playing the game with their own instinct and intuition and go from there.

FC24 has been the furthest from the formula I described above compared to any other previously released title. This is the biggest problem and it will never be addressed because they love this new direction of automated play and the main 'content' of the game being randomised rewards through packs, SBCs, game mode rewards, etc.

The less we tolerate, the more likely they are to gravitate to a gamer-friendly structure. 

@akashk8While the forum is a smaller percent it’s still one of the most common complaints. Even the youtubers want offense always buffed and arcade gameplay as that’s what makes better videos. Not realism and low scoring games. Ea is listening to the community on this one.

They have the master switch and can make offense manual but they don’t. Very few ask for that and to nerf passing to stop the meta.

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@RadioShaqs wrote:

@akashk8While the forum is a smaller percent it’s still one of the most common complaints. Even the youtubers want offense always buffed and arcade gameplay as that’s what makes better videos. Not realism and low scoring games. Ea is listening to the community on this one.

They have the master switch and can make offense manual but they don’t. Very few ask for that and to nerf passing to stop the meta.

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@RadioShaqs Interesting observation.

EA did a survey not that long time ago (like a month ago).

Just out of curiosity, are there any publicly available statistics regarding plays/satisfaction/etc?

Look, it might not all be EA's fault. FC 24 is a popular game, and there is a whole economy around it, which can entice some players to play "dirty" and cheat.

Cross console play, makes it hard to create a list of friends that one can text and play with/against them.

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@RadioShaqs wrote:
@Boy_SystematicsNothing that I’ve seen publicly posted by ea. it’s just my opinion of being on the forum and a part of the community since 12.

Do you see many ask for passing or just offense in general to be nerfed? Very few ask for that or offense to be manual.

Do you see many youtube videos of amazing defense and swapping between 4-5 defenders and locking someone down?

I see people posting more offense and scoring goals. Even ea offers best goal contests.

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Offense seems like it's too easy because of what the defensive AI does when it comes to marking runs in the final 3rd, which it basically doesn't. If you watch your own defensive AI's behaviour in slow-motion you can spot each player making a brain-dead decision every 2-3 seconds (such as, the last man running back towards the goal, extending the offside line for the attackers to fill in the gaps with, or straight up leaving the man closest to them, that, logically they should be marking by standing in between them and the goal). These brain-dead behaviours from the defensive AI simply did not exist in FIFAs as old as FIFA 12. But for some reason, they've become so common since I don't remember which FIFA, that we don't even bat an eye at it anymore, it's just expected.

The same way, when you are attacking, your AI almost never makes runs into space either. When I play rivals in elite division, I swear that my opponent has 3 players marking my player controlling the ball almost at all times, yet, I seldom have an immediate open pass to play. This is just POOR game design. It's made to cater to the most casual of players, who cannot think for themselves and break a defense down organically, by fighting the player they are playing against and not the AI.

The attacking seems easy because you tend to find space when the defenders' AI messes up, which is basically a constant.

The game has ended up becoming a give and take, with you and the opponents' AI; and much less of a 1v1 between you and them.

While I understand your point with the community not exactly asking for more manual gameplay all around, I also think EA went WAY overboard with the dominance of AI in terms of how much it influences the gameplay flow. It's truly not at all a 1v1 game when you play vs an opponent. It's you vs the opponent + his AI and maybe even yours, if you don't like to abuse the meta and like to play your own way and like to play real football.

I believe with the 5v5 game mode they announced for FC 25 they are trying to maybe fix AI for the next instalment, while giving players something less broken to play (this is the most optimistic scenario, mind you)

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@RadioShaqs wrote:
@akashk8Defensive ai was so much worse in the older fifas. That’s not to see it’s great now either. Defense needs a lot of help tracking.

The old fifas were notorious for defenders stepping up and allowing the through ball to go through. Lby was basically every pass.

Even looking back in this thread do you see many asking for offense and passing to be nerfed and manual?

The last couple threads I’ve seen people have said they can’t even make a single pass. I am not sure how that’s possible considering you can no look ping pong pass pretty easy.

I think ea is just listening to the community. Even if I disagree with it and would prefer manual offense and passing to take skill.

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When you say 'older', which FIFA are you talking about? Just so I understand 

Also, I don't think any one side of the game needs to be nerfed or buffed. It's the base mechanics that need to be reworked, how the AI influences the game, and how each action is influenced by AI actions, and not player input.

@RadioShaqsI mean I never thought the high pressure in itself was the problem; the reason I don't dismiss what they're saying is because the game feels inorganic to play when the AI has so much influence on it rather than it just being you vs the player...
Also yes, now that you say it, I think fifa 14 and 15 were the prime years of LB Y abuse.
Although I played 15 religiously and could easily shut the through ball abuse down, all I had to do was predict and put my defender in the right spot...which is something that's a lot less rewarding in today's game. That being said there were situations where the LB Y was inevitable and unstoppable too if it was on a counter or something so I understand your view. I just miss when the defense held its line until I made a mistake to give my opponent a gap. They are all over the place for no reason in 24.

@RadioShaqsOh and I forgot to talk about another aspect of the high pressure. You see, if I can predict my opponent to tackle at a certain time, I should be able to get around him with the left stick dribbling given the right player and circumstance. Another thing that high pressure brings, is these defenders mistiming their tackles, and somehow causing the player on the ball to fumble or take bad touches with extra emphasis. This error is added to shooting and passing too (least noticable for the passing, but it definitely exists)

And the point where you mentioned the coop camera, see this is the thing, if an opponent is blindly pressing and doesn't actually know how to play any good defense, I shouldn't have to only react in one way to punish him. I should be able to left stick around his mistimed tackles. I should be able to play on tele (not that I want to or would, I switched to coop min. zoom years ago and genuinely prefer this view regardless of the gameplay) and punish him when he tackles badly. But for someone who is new to this game, it's quite difficult to punish that playstyle. I win 80% of my games now and I barely even notice when they press because it's almost every other game, but I struggled against this in the beginning too. And not being able to play freely simply because your opponent is blindly using a tactic, whether it's appropriate to the situation or not, is a very frustrating feeling.

@RadioShaqsI see where you're coming from and that would make sense hypothetically but I don't think it's possible for them to simply flip a switch and make this happen, even if the community were to want it as I strongly believe the core mechanics of the game are extremely flawed.

Oh well...

@RadioShaqsCompletely agree, although I think both sides should be manual and have minimal AI assistance. And yeah, the fact that they call this game competitive in the state it's in is a complete joke to me

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@RadioShaqs wrote:
@akashk8Defense is about as manual as you can get it. In the 5v5 mode there won’t be any ai defenders correct? I would guess offense still won’t be manual but haven’t read through all the deep dives yet. Like I said I think the community likes it that way so don’t see why ea would change it.

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No it's not as manual as you can get it. There's far too much AI assistance.

@akashk8 IMHO, when I am playing against players who just play based on some tactics they saw/read and don't understand what they are doing, manual defense is punished in FC 24. It is like something else is in the play to favor those type players. Playing manual defense and trying to tackle - good luck with that.

Also, I started to record segments of the game when I felt something fishy is going on, and it is not only during online play.

Example:

• Goalkeeper is kicking the ball
• AI switched to my defender for that air ball and I don't like the selection.
• All most of the time, the next closes player had that empty triangle above it's head, so I automatically pressed L1 (LB) button.
• Nothing happens, so I used right stick to switch to that player.
• Nothing happens, no switch.
• My opponent gets the ball.
• Also, during all that time none of my players had that empty triangle above their heads.

I do have recordings of that and controller did registered my input.

Above is an example of many inconsistencies all of the players are facing every day. IMHO, due all of inconsistencies that exist, players who solely rely on AI and play like headless chickens have unfair advantage in this game.

Even though as @akashk8 said, it is possible to win against those players (majority of times), the experience is horrible.

It feels like playing against:

1. other player,
2. their AI, and
3. your own AI. 

One of my pet peeves is when you play against all odds, you finally score after a few chances that were saved by superhuman goalkeeper, only to receive the the goal after kick off then you were not able to do anything to stop it.

@Boy_SystematicsYeah there's many small bugs with switching and defense that I haven't even touched on. Players just completely ignoring the ball, etc.
Also, for switching, for someone who only wants to play manual defense like me, let me share some settings that helped me out a tiny bit.
There is a setting under the switching category, I forget what the name of it is, but it determines which side the player you L1(LB) switch to. Set goal side for this, as this switches you to a player in between the attacker and the goal (again, only most of the times). Also, set your stick sensitivity relatively high (Mine is 8) and use Icon Switching if you can get used to it. This helped me mitigate some of those problems but they do still exist and occur (just less often)