FIFA 21 Discussion (Console Versions)

Tried Matt's beta sliders. This was the first game.

rRC0Nxw.png


Ridiculous.

I switched to all-out defence after taking the lead in stoppage time, and having spoken to some other beta guys, I KNEW what would happen.



Defending is so fundamentally broken that you put yourself at a HUGE disadvantage by putting yourself on a defensive strategy, or even switching to a formation with more defenders.

Switching to defence means switching more players into "defence mode", which translates as "lobotomy mode". All standing still, watching, doing nothing. Except for the one guy activated by the 1v1 trigger (when a striker is in his area), who... Just stands 20ft away from him, and can't get CLOSE to him at any point. Not even when you switch to him.

Attackers have such a huge advantage that you're better off attacking to hold your lead, keeping hold of the ball by just running around in circles with it (see video below).

Now there's a saying, "attack is the best form of defence" - but if you put all your players behind the ball and ask them to defend, THEY SHOULD DEFEND. Defending is a waste of time. Defending is not an option.

THINK ABOUT HOW INSANE THAT IS. If Football Manager did that, you wouldn't buy it again.

This is what defending looks like in FIFA 21. Just running back and forth, back and forth, never getting near. How STUPID does this look?



I hate it.

I'm the guy who has had fun with the last 5-6 FIFAs and is accused of being FIFA-biased all the time... But this, I can't lie. I hate it.
 
Chris Davies said:
I think (hope) you might be pleasantly surprised by 1 & 2, but disappointed by 3. From what I've seen/heard of the beta.

I don't think the goalfest thing will be too much of an issue offline, especially not with sliders. My bigger worry is Legendary being too easy without turning on "playing a 12-year-old savant" mode, i.e. Competitor Mode.

My other worry is, has the beta been completely trashed. Again.
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Just if you could write your impressions on player ID and team ID used by the cpu that would be great.
Chris Davies said:
Tried Matt's beta sliders. This was the first game.

rRC0Nxw.png


Ridiculous.

I switched to all-out defence after taking the lead in stoppage time, and having spoken to some other beta guys, I KNEW what would happen.



Defending is so fundamentally broken that you put yourself at a HUGE disadvantage by putting yourself on a defensive strategy, or even switching to a formation with more defenders.

Switching to defence means switching more players into "defence mode", which translates as "lobotomy mode". All standing still, watching, doing nothing. Except for the one guy activated by the 1v1 trigger (when a striker is in his area), who... Just stands 20ft away from him, and can't get CLOSE to him at any point. Not even when you switch to him.

Attackers have such a huge advantage that you're better off attacking to hold your lead, keeping hold of the ball by just running around in circles with it (see video below).

Now there's a saying, "attack is the best form of defence" - but if you put all your players behind the ball and ask them to defend, THEY SHOULD DEFEND. Defending is a waste of time. Defending is not an option.

THINK ABOUT HOW INSANE THAT IS. If Football Manager did that, you wouldn't buy it again. A very, very basic part of football, completely and entirely wrong.

This is what defending looks like in FIFA 21. Just running back and forth, back and forth, never getting near. How STUPID does this look?



I hate it.

I'm the guy who has had fun with the last 5-6 FIFAs and is accused of being FIFA-biased all the time... But this, I can't lie. I hate it.
Click to expand...

Is this with legacy or tactical defending?
 
gabe.paul.logan said:
Just if you could write your impressions on player ID and team ID used by the cpu that would be great.
Click to expand...
Player ID: Barely any that I've seen from the AI. Worse when you control them.

Team ID: Much more than before. Long ball teams play long balls, tiki-taka doesn't happen anywhere near as often as before unless it's Man City or Barca. I get murdered by Man City. But, when playing Fulham on Legendary, although they don't hammer me, they still have a 90% pass accuracy.

gabe.paul.logan said:
Is this with legacy or tactical defending?
Click to expand...
Tactical. Legacy always feels like a cheat to me, being "hold X to win ball".

With Tactical, you can track a striker etc. and I think that's great. But when that striker then stands still, and you just keep running past them while they stand there (because of the invisible barriers)... That's when you realise it's fundamentally broken.
 
Feeling a bit better reading some of these impressions that I'm not going mad.

It's amazing that a company can get away with bringing out a game where defending is broken/nerfed.

The beauty of football is how rare a goal is, funny thing is in real life it's going the same way with that new handball rule. To the guys in power goal = excitement = viewers/customers.

I think FIFA is less catering to the FUT crowd and more to society in general where everything is about instant gratification etc. Modern gamers can't see the fun in grinding out a 1-0 win with average players against Barcelona. Imagine any of the professional players playing Master League with default players on Superstar difficulty.
 
Chris Davies said:
Tried Matt's beta sliders. This was the first game.

rRC0Nxw.png


Ridiculous.

I switched to all-out defence after taking the lead in stoppage time, and having spoken to some other beta guys, I KNEW what would happen.



Defending is so fundamentally broken that you put yourself at a HUGE disadvantage by putting yourself on a defensive strategy, or even switching to a formation with more defenders.

Switching to defence means switching more players into "defence mode", which translates as "lobotomy mode". All standing still, watching, doing nothing. Except for the one guy activated by the 1v1 trigger (when a striker is in his area), who... Just stands 20ft away from him, and can't get CLOSE to him at any point. Not even when you switch to him.

Attackers have such a huge advantage that you're better off attacking to hold your lead, keeping hold of the ball by just running around in circles with it (see video below).

Now there's a saying, "attack is the best form of defence" - but if you put all your players behind the ball and ask them to defend, THEY SHOULD DEFEND. Defending is a waste of time. Defending is not an option.

THINK ABOUT HOW INSANE THAT IS. If Football Manager did that, you wouldn't buy it again. A very, very basic part of football, completely and entirely wrong.

This is what defending looks like in FIFA 21. Just running back and forth, back and forth, never getting near. How STUPID does this look?



I hate it.

I'm the guy who has had fun with the last 5-6 FIFAs and is accused of being FIFA-biased all the time... But this, I can't lie. I hate it.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the detailed impressions @Chris Davies
I also appreciate the effort you put into your 1,5 hour first impressions video! Answering the community questions, testing stuff... AND going into replay mode to check on things in detail!! :LOVE:
And i love that you can handle the replay mode!!

What I got out of it in topic: its still fifa and nothing for me as a fuma only player?!
Better the same... right?! :)
 
Chris Davies said:
Tried Matt's beta sliders. This was the first game.

rRC0Nxw.png


Ridiculous.

I switched to all-out defence after taking the lead in stoppage time, and having spoken to some other beta guys, I KNEW what would happen.



Defending is so fundamentally broken that you put yourself at a HUGE disadvantage by putting yourself on a defensive strategy, or even switching to a formation with more defenders.

Switching to defence means switching more players into "defence mode", which translates as "lobotomy mode". All standing still, watching, doing nothing. Except for the one guy activated by the 1v1 trigger (when a striker is in his area), who... Just stands 20ft away from him, and can't get CLOSE to him at any point. Not even when you switch to him.

Attackers have such a huge advantage that you're better off attacking to hold your lead, keeping hold of the ball by just running around in circles with it (see video below).

Now there's a saying, "attack is the best form of defence" - but if you put all your players behind the ball and ask them to defend, THEY SHOULD DEFEND. Defending is a waste of time. Defending is not an option.

THINK ABOUT HOW INSANE THAT IS. If Football Manager did that, you wouldn't buy it again. A very, very basic part of football, completely and entirely wrong.

This is what defending looks like in FIFA 21. Just running back and forth, back and forth, never getting near. How STUPID does this look?



I hate it.

I'm the guy who has had fun with the last 5-6 FIFAs and is accused of being FIFA-biased all the time... But this, I can't lie. I hate it.
Click to expand...
That looks/sounds SO bad. Thanks for the feedback you've made my mind up for me.

One question: I noticed you say it's more difficult this year - is that in Ultimate? And did you try out Competitior Mode or whatever it's called?
 
fernadez said:
Feeling a bit better reading some of these impressions that I'm not going mad.

It's amazing that a company can get away with bringing out a game where defending is broken/nerfed.
Click to expand...

In a couple of hours playing, I've scored maybe 10 goals and conceded maybe 7.

Not one of them elicited any form of reaction/feeling. No frustration conceding, no joy when scoring. It was just a thing that happened because of the defending. For 90% of the goals I concede I blame the defending system (and for maybe 80% of those I would be right but I don't bother with the replays) and for 100% of the goals I score I don't feel I've done anything worth mentioning to earn it.

I don't/can't hold myself accountable for anything that happens in a match. It's the underlying systems, the stats and some luck. I may as well sim it. That is the very definition of a soulless, joyless game. Everything else, from shooting, to physics, to passing, to how easy or challenging it is, is just unimportant minor detail. This is not 11v11 football, simple as.

Spotting the one run the cpu won't track and then passing it and picking a corner is not fun, trying to wake up all your players one by one with constant player switching is not fun. The game is not fun.
 
Chris Davies said:
Player ID: Barely any that I've seen from the AI. Worse when you control them.

Team ID: Much more than before. Long ball teams play long balls, tiki-taka doesn't happen anywhere near as often as before unless it's Man City or Barca. I get murdered by Man City. But, when playing Fulham on Legendary, although they don't hammer me, they still have a 90% pass accuracy.


Tactical. Legacy always feels like a cheat to me, being "hold X to win ball".

With Tactical, you can track a striker etc. and I think that's great. But when that striker then stands still, and you just keep running past them while they stand there (because of the invisible barriers)... That's when you realise it's fundamentally broken.
Click to expand...
tenor.gif
 
Mikhail said:
One question: I noticed you say it's more difficult this year - is that in Ultimate? And did you try out Competitior Mode or whatever it's called?
Click to expand...
No, Legendary seems much more difficult. Check out that live stream video I posted and you can see me getting destroyed by the AI. But the reason they do, is because defending is just impossible. I'm going to try putting "legacy defending" on later and see if it helps, but even if it does, it will still result in 3 out of 4 defenders stood watching and being no use whatsoever.

I wouldn't try Ultimate because I'm not interested in playing against a team with 99 for every attribute, which is what it does - and as for Competitor Mode... Anyone like that career mode streamer who says it's more realistic, has spent 3,000hrs playing FIFA and 3hrs watching football. It turns Burnley into Bantsalona, throwing stepovers and dragbacks into every second of possession.

As I said the other day, the scariest part of all this is what they've put into the game and what they've turned on by default. So in Career Mode you can't switch attributes to "classic" (i.e. no "chemistry boosts", and the game feels better and more varied with them off). But also, competitor mode is on by default. What happens if, in a year's time, there's no switch and it's just an integral part of the next-gen game?

manmachine said:
Spotting the one run the cpu won't track and then passing it and picking a corner is not fun, trying to wake up all your players one by one with constant player switching is not fun. The game is not fun.
Click to expand...
Absolutely 100% this. The game doesn't feel like a football game. It's something else. Like some kind of "toddler manager simulator" where you constantly have to cycle through the selected player to stop them falling off a cliff. It's a dead game to me, and I'm so gutted about that.
 
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Chris Davies said:
Tried Matt's beta sliders. This was the first game.

rRC0Nxw.png


Ridiculous.

I switched to all-out defence after taking the lead in stoppage time, and having spoken to some other beta guys, I KNEW what would happen.



Defending is so fundamentally broken that you put yourself at a HUGE disadvantage by putting yourself on a defensive strategy, or even switching to a formation with more defenders.

Switching to defence means switching more players into "defence mode", which translates as "lobotomy mode". All standing still, watching, doing nothing. Except for the one guy activated by the 1v1 trigger (when a striker is in his area), who... Just stands 20ft away from him, and can't get CLOSE to him at any point. Not even when you switch to him.

Attackers have such a huge advantage that you're better off attacking to hold your lead, keeping hold of the ball by just running around in circles with it (see video below).

Now there's a saying, "attack is the best form of defence" - but if you put all your players behind the ball and ask them to defend, THEY SHOULD DEFEND. Defending is a waste of time. Defending is not an option.

THINK ABOUT HOW INSANE THAT IS. If Football Manager did that, you wouldn't buy it again. A very, very basic part of football, completely and entirely wrong.

This is what defending looks like in FIFA 21. Just running back and forth, back and forth, never getting near. How STUPID does this look?



I hate it.

I'm the guy who has had fun with the last 5-6 FIFAs and is accused of being FIFA-biased all the time... But this, I can't lie. I hate it.
Click to expand...

Im not a Fifa player but I really do feel for you and the guys that look forward to an improved and better experience each year. To get this tekka skill based game is a shambles. I can’t profess to know the feeling of it because I’ve not played it, however the videos are utterly awful, movement, combined biomechanics, ball pace, the whole thing is off.

Im really concerned about future titles because it’s becoming clear that the cash cow audience is the way forward. Regardless of new engines, power and development time....the whole football game genre is governed by the maximised profit at the lowest cost based objective, thus producing a poor experience for those that are not interested in spending the money on FUT et al.

Im really sorry to say, but I can’t see things changing and I know you are keeping fingers crossed for next gen stuff Chris but I can only see a graphics upgrade based on my theory above...” copy and paste” but give them better lighting, faces in the crowd, better cloth and net physics and voila......it’s a next gen game!
 
Chris Davies said:
Tried Matt's beta sliders. This was the first game.


Ridiculous.

I switched to all-out defence after taking the lead in stoppage time, and having spoken to some other beta guys, I KNEW what would happen.
Click to expand...

At least in this example you can trace it back to your failed tackle. You then panic switch to a player further back and the cpu passes it and scores. There is *some* user accountability for this goal. I can live with that.

I conceded an incredibly similar goal but without overcommitting at any point. I was perfectly containing the cpu player at the edge of the box and he made the exact same lightning fast forward pass inside the box to a player who made the run but he was marked. Of course marking/having a player nearby alone won't make a difference, you have to be the active player to put in a challenge and I couldn't switch fast enough to do anything about his 1st time shot. In the end it doesn't matter as your job is to outscore your opponent as defending just sucks for both.
 
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manmachine said:
At least in this example you can trace it back to your failed tackle. You then panic switch to a player further back and the cpu passes it and scores. There is *some* user accountability for this goal. I can live with that.
Click to expand...
I knew that would be pointed out...! It's just the fact that A) it was the second stoppage time goal, B) to make it 4-4, and C) I knew it was coming. There are much better examples, as you say, but it doesn't change the fact that the game is - at best - horribly imbalanced.

Successfully beating a man, creating a good chance, and putting the ball in the net, should all be things that you work hard towards. They should be achievements. Instead, you hit a couple of passes to bypass the midfield, speed past a defender who can't get near you because of the barriers, and slam it in. (4-4 FFS!)

Marking a man who's of equal ability to you shouldn't be practically impossible. There were some great examples in the live stream last night where a striker was directly in-front of my defender, who sped past him, NOT EVEN LOOKING at him (there was no other danger), and then suddenly turns around and goes "oh yeah, we're playing football"... Only to run alongside him, then past him (and the ball), and away again.
 
The game is unplayable. Tried it for an hour, thank you, good bye.

A few things I would love to see in PES taken from FIFA :

Players/kits models - look really decent.
Faces - definitely better than in PES.
Penalty kick animations - it's so satisfying to take penalties (look at Lewandowski's animation for instance ).

And of course the atmosphere (chants) + overlays, and that's it.

:NO:For the first time since 1997 I'm not gonna buy it.
 
VuZet said:
The game is unplayable. Tried it for an hour, thank you, good bye.

A few things I would love to see in PES taken from FIFA :

Players/kits models - look really decent.
Faces - definitely better than in PES.
Penalty kick animations - it's so satisfying to take penalties (look at Lewandowski's animation for instance ).

And of course the atmosphere (chants) + overlays, and that's it.

:NO:For the first time since 1997 I'm not gonna buy it.
Click to expand...
So fifa 20 more playable ?
 
Played two games so far and saw 14 goals. I didn't expect much, but this is really ridiculous.
Will buy it anyway, because sooner or later I want a "current gen" footy game on the PS5.

Having fun with the other game at the moment and probably will go back to FIFA, when the other game is ruined with an upcoming patch.
 
So glad that people i trust and have the same preferences regarding football games is testing this one out.
I don't feel the need to do so myself reading up on it.

But,I remember how much I hated FIFA 20 last year,I said to myself "ain't buying this crap" after 2-3 hours of my trial
Ended up buying it November/December anyway,heavily discounted,still hated it,but started playing it a few months back and I'm really enjoying it,even if it's a pretty bad game Vs my favourite FIFA games (16-17-18) I still get a lot of fun out of it.

Who knows,it might be the same this year,unless it's even more ping pongy/fut oriented.

Anyone remember how broken FIFA 20 was on release?
Brighton winning the league on 70pts and city relegated?
Tons of issues that they acctually fixed.

The only thing I take as a positive from reading your notes on this,is it's harder!
But that's (pretty much ) down to the shitty defending,like on 20.
It's a no buy for me for a very long time,I won't even DL the trial at this point
 
rockstrongo said:
Anyone remember how broken FIFA 20 was on release?
Brighton winning the league on 70pts and city relegated?
Tons of issues that they acctually fixed.
Click to expand...

The league tables were broken till the end in FIFA 20. After they "fixed" it, it just was the other way round. Some of the champions nearly didn't lose one single game. For example Ajax won the league with one or two draws and no losses, shot more than 100 goals and conceded less than 5 in a whole season. I saw this everytime I finished a season.
 
shumway said:
The league tables were broken till the end in FIFA 20. After they "fixed" it, it just was the other way round. Some of the champions nearly didn't lose one single game. For example Ajax won the league with one or two draws and no losses, shot more than 100 goals and conceded less than 5 in a whole season. I saw this everytime I finished a season.
Click to expand...
You're right,I've played 4 seasons of Bundesliga,and I've won two of those,last season I was 2pts clear of BVB (me 30-3-1 them 29-4-1)
Insane table!
Plus the bottom of the table read.
13 22pts
14 22pts
15 20pts
16 19pts (relegation match)
17 15pts (relegated)
18 10pts (relegated)

Not getting relegated on 22 and 20 PTS is very weird and bad
 
I'm kinda on the same league of Rocky. Reading you guys it seems it's unplayable in it's current state, as it more or less was 20 on release.. will probably wait to see if things improve later in the year by reading whoever gets it here. It's a true shame we live in an era with every possible mean to give us a fantastic football game, but we totally lack the producers will for this to happen.
 
Madmac79 said:
I'm kinda on the same league of Rocky. Reading you guys it seems it's unplayable in it's current state, as it more or less was 20 on release.. will probably wait to see if things improve later in the year by reading whoever gets it here. It's a true shame we live in an era with every possible mean to give us a fantastic football game, but we totally lack the producers will for this to happen.
Click to expand...
Just wish they'd extend the nr of sliders to get a decent game going,what we got now slider wise isn't enough to make the game represent proper football.
I mean they will never release two separate game plays.
Other games has pretty much the same arcade game play,but tons of sliders to make it very realistic.
What we have slider wise Vs NHL is probably 1/10 and Vs 2k 1/50 (low balling that one since you also are able to set tendencies for every player)
 
rockstrongo said:
So glad that people i trust and have the same preferences regarding football games is testing this one out.
I don't feel the need to do so myself reading up on it.

But,I remember how much I hated FIFA 20 last year,I said to myself "ain't buying this crap" after 2-3 hours of my trial
Ended up buying it November/December anyway,heavily discounted,still hated it,but started playing it a few months back and I'm really enjoying it,even if it's a pretty bad game Vs my favourite FIFA games (16-17-18) I still get a lot of fun out of it.

Who knows,it might be the same this year,unless it's even more ping pongy/fut oriented.

Anyone remember how broken FIFA 20 was on release?
Brighton winning the league on 70pts and city relegated?
Tons of issues that they acctually fixed.

The only thing I take as a positive from reading your notes on this,is it's harder!
But that's (pretty much ) down to the shitty defending,like on 20.
It's a no buy for me for a very long time,I won't even DL the trial at this point
Click to expand...
Its a great strategy from EA, knowing that they will probably make a mint globally on people who spend a fiver on the trial and then not buy rather than a free demo and not buy it
 
I played a couple of games at lunch.

What has happened to the keepers? They are now all David De Gea on a bad day.

Defending is terrible, with no tracking and no collusion detection.

The full release or PC Beta as I call it this time of year, is terrible and much worse than the PS4 Beta.

The animations are always really weird when passing the ball quickly, it is not humanly possible to do passing that quick, so I don't know what I can call it they do, it is just weird.
 
hitmanuk said:
Its a great strategy from EA, knowing that they will probably make a mint globally on people who spend a fiver on the trial and then not buy rather than a free demo and not buy it
Click to expand...
Might be a smart move mate.
Though I think a lot of the 10 hrs trial people (like me) already has EA play.
Still weird that none of the games had demos this year
 
Redhat said:
At least my matches are giving me good shit post material.


Alderweireld catchin' some waves with this gnarly turbo slide. What on earth...

Click to expand...
Well,that's me grinding curbs with my skateboard.
+For him bending his knees, actually better skate physics than Skate 3.
Hats off EA.

Ps stole your video and posted it on twitter,hope that's ok?
Just awaiting FUT fans reactions
 
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Chris Davies said:
No, Legendary seems much more difficult. Check out that live stream video I posted and you can see me getting destroyed by the AI. But the reason they do, is because defending is just impossible. I'm going to try putting "legacy defending" on later and see if it helps, but even if it does, it will still result in 3 out of 4 defenders stood watching and being no use whatsoever.

I wouldn't try Ultimate because I'm not interested in playing against a team with 99 for every attribute, which is what it does - and as for Competitor Mode... Anyone like that career mode streamer who says it's more realistic, has spent 3,000hrs playing FIFA and 3hrs watching football. It turns Burnley into Bantsalona, throwing stepovers and dragbacks into every second of possession.

As I said the other day, the scariest part of all this is what they've put into the game and what they've turned on by default. So in Career Mode you can't switch attributes to "classic" (i.e. no "chemistry boosts", and the game feels better and more varied with them off). But also, competitor mode is on by default. What happens if, in a year's time, there's no switch and it's just an integral part of the next-gen game?


Absolutely 100% this. The game doesn't feel like a football game. It's something else. Like some kind of "toddler manager simulator" where you constantly have to cycle through the selected player to stop them falling off a cliff. It's a dead game to me, and I'm so gutted about that.
Click to expand...
Thanks Chris. I’ll be giving this a miss for sure.
 
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