Synyster Graves

7 Things that EA still haven’t fixed in FIFA

by on Dec.08, 2017, under Gamer Rages, The Top 7 of Everything

FIFA has been around a long time. I remember playing the original FIFA ’94 (Or FIFA International Soccer I think it was called) with my dad on the Mega Drive, albeit he was just holding a controller and I was trying to score. Anyways yes, I am one of those mugs who does buy the new FIFA every time a new one resurfaces every September and doing so, certainly in the last six or seven iterations of the game have noticed the same old, hideously irritating bollocks which seems to plague the Career Mode. Yes again, I am of the age where I am not interested in FUT because it’s boring and I’m not spending real money to play the game properly. I do however play on Legendary difficulty so perhaps the difficultly is factor. But then again by-proxy EA have recognised that the game balance against a CPU is about as well balanced as a walrus on unicycle so they put the sliders in the options.

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FIFA always say they listen to the fans but the following seven examples of bullshit have not been addressed in so many previous versions of the game:

7. Inhuman Goalkeepers with mutant reflexes

08While I recognise that this may symptomatic of playing on a harder difficulty, have you even noticed how the CPU opposition goalkeeper is either a) having the game of his life, or b) was born on Krypton? While I accept coming up against a goalkeeper like David De Gea or Manuel Neuer, they’re going to be pretty amazing between the sticks. But every ‘keeper? Even the 16 year-old apprentice from Dagenham & Redbridge who has an overall of 56? They dive all over the goal and yet are back on their feet before your eyes have acknowledged that you’ve taken a shot and manage to gather the ball with the 2m radius of the phenomenon I like to refer to as “hoover hands”. Now that in FIFA18 they’ve hashed up the penalties so you may as well have a neon Las Vegas sign pointing vehemently towards the corner you’re aiming at but even so, no human being on the planet has the reactions of a FIFA goalie. Now this wouldn’t be such a gripe if your own goalie wasn’t so inept. My career mode goalie is overall 84 at present but I’ve watching him idly gander at a daisy cutter trickling into the back of the net with not so much as a strongly worded cuss in the general direction of the ball, yet the CPU keeper will Hollywood dive onto an 80mph piledriver, which has taken a deflection off a defender, changing direction by 40 degrees, yet still makes a solid save. As I’m always ranting online about games, it’s all down to a level playing field.

6. The CPU will ALWAYS score with their first shot on target

04This fact really pisses me off. While this may seem more like a visual representation of the one-shot one-goal bullshit Championship Manager had a fetish for, but in my experience the CPU team will always find the back of the net once it’s on target, which ties in quite nicely with the previous rant about my goalie being handicapped for the CPU’s gain. No matter the circumstance (except for maybe free kicks), a goalward shot will always result in a conceded goal no matter how well you’re defending, quite often in off the post leaving the goalie no chance whatsoever. To make it worse, Martin Tyler and Alan Smith usually rub it by saying what a wonderful strike it was and you can never skip the celebration to get on with the game quicker. The amount of times you will have 9 shots on target to their 1, and yet be locked at 1-1, happens with far too much consistency.

5. The magical drag-back tackle and tactical obstructions

06I’ve always found defending tricky in FIFA games. When you’re not desperately holding the “pressing” button to close down a CPU player with the ball, only to find yourself conga-lining behind the ball carrier looking more like a gentle request for a spot of buggery. But the CPU have this frustrating ability to to behave like they’ve had the ball the whole time even though you’ve skipped past them at speed yet miraculously they now have complete control of the ball and have cleared. I have watched this numerous times in the instant replay section only to watch the ball magnetically gravitate towards the CPU defender for an easy clearance. No matter how skilled you are with the right-thumbstick skills, the magical drag-back will always defeat you when realistically, that defender would be left for dead. Coupled with the other wall of bullshit CPU defenders can do…the tactical obstruction. Their players off the ball and quite often nowhere near the play will manage to block off one of your players with impunity. Purposely standing in front of someone to impede them even when not near the play is a foul even in Rugby Union. It’s called “crossing”. You never get a foul because it can’t register as an infringement but it happens all the time. And that’s not even starting on the teleporting block tackle the CPU defenders can do. Not only is their ability to intercept 75% of all forward passes done with unerring accuracy, the ability to pretty much materialise in front of you when you’re in position is nothing short of cheating.

4. Unjustified Player and Board complaints 01

This isn’t so much a gameplay irritation but more a foible in the Career Mode. And that is players whinging. When they’re not telling you how to pick the team because a 16-year old academy graduate is clearly more in the know that you, they whining about not having enough game time. But tell me, how can you have a player who has played 50 games in a season, in all competitions too, can justifiably complain about lack of game time. This is a stupid mechanic that has plagued career mode for YEARS now and doesn’t seem to be abating. Similarly, the board always seem to hit you with ridiculously unreasonable criteria to quantify as a successful season. Mainly the youth development criterion. The amount of times I’ve been told “We’re not on track with the youth development”, even though they’ve watched a starting XI all from the youth academy win the EFL and FA Cup, all playing about 12 games a piece does not justify essentially accusing me of neglecting the youth players. It’s a game mechanic put in to try and simulate the pressures of being a football manager, but fall flat in merit when you’ve just watch your group of 19 year old’s perpetually lift silverware. Are they not watching the matches from their Ivory tower?

3. Imbalanced stamina depletion

10Have you ever noticed that the CPU team never gets half as tired as you do? I mean they’re on the pitch for the same amount of time and yet they never seem to have the blue stamina bar go down at the same rate. Are they running? Of course they are, but then again the teleporting tackle they can do obviously doesn’t drain stamina. When you have a team full of the world elite, and they are being out run but a seemingly lesser team, doesn’t seem slightly wrong to you? This becomes most apparent if you manage to get a break when defending a corner. You’ll be yards ahead of the rest of their team when they frantically track back to try and stop you, but a) you watch the active stamina bar between your player and theirs, as yours zaps down faster than a Volkswagen Golf on AA batteries, and yet their stamina bar is miraculously unscathed, not to mention that the only way they could get back so fast was if they utilised a fucking Stargate halfway up the pitch.

2. Offsides are usually really wrong

09Now I don’t know if these are done wrong on purpose to try and simulate some semblance of realism. Not only is the linesman who is supposed to be in line never caught up with the play, but the offside calls are consistently wrong. It gets even worse when they show the slowed down replay and your play is clearly onside. In later versions of the game, they’ve blacked out the “offside” area, but I’ve always found the line to be really wrong, such as taking it from the last defender’s front foot. This is not the rule of offside FIFA. Showing a replay which is pretty much admitting it’s wrong is just a trolling tactic. Half the time they don’t even show the replay, suggesting they know it’s incorrect but a blatant “fuck you” to the player. Now this would not be such an annoyance if the CPU was consistently penalised incorrectly.

1. The referee fucking hates you 

07To say the refereeing decisions against you are “rough justice” would be putting it very lightly. Now with the Frostbite Engine, the physics in the game are great, albeit giving away fouls is much easier to do. Now normally I would like that because of the refreshed sense of realism. However, the referee is seriously against you at all times. The amount of times you’ve just run into another player, not even pressed one of the tackle buttons, only for the ref to stop play and shove a yellow card in your face and then show you the replay of the innocuous collision between two players of a physical sport is laughable, but the amount of times a CPU defender has slid through the back of you with studs up, which is a clear red card, won’t even merit a free kick. I think I’ve seen it twice maybe, where the CPU has had a player sent off. Me however, it’s once every four matches, and I run out of substitutions trying to get the players on a yellow card off the pitch to avoid the inevitable dismissal. But the thing is this is SO UNBALANCED it’s bordering on being funny now. It’s mainly the “denial of a goal scoring opportunity” which even at schoolboy level is recognised as a red card offence, in FIFA, the letter of that law is only ever applied to the player, never the CPU. Every match the referee will dish out more cards to your team than a firesale at Clintons, and you’re searching all over the settings menu wondering if you can turn “Man Utd mode” off just for five minutes of respite.

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