Huge issue with EA's difficulty levels

[NinthFall]

I've now witnessed the same exact effect both in Fifa and NHL. Once you turn the difficulty level up from normal (professional) your AI's intelligence goes down. And that's the difficulty. It's really impossible to enjoy the game when your AI teammates make so many bad decisions and mistakes, regardless their overall rating and experience.

You want a challenge, because professional is way too easy and on World Class the game feels like you need to think about passes and all, but then it turns out you not only need to think about the passes and fixtures, but you have to guess which one of your teammates won't start running away or slipping and tripping and flipping like a bugged piece of garbage who knows nothing about football. It's quite simply just not fun.

Also, it seems like some players whom are supposed to be super fast are just as slow as the defenders of the opposite team.

What also bothers me is how it doesn't matter do you play vs Barcelona or Southampton, it's just as hard.

Also, has anyone scored more than 3 goals ever vs World Class? It seems like once you score 3 all the next attempts hit the post or miss, several times. Again, with world class rated players.

[Chrisx]

Re: Huge issue with EA's difficulty levels

Can only speak for Fifa. I have scored more than 3 goals in many matches vs World Class. Sometimes even 6 but it's rare like it should be. Making your team-mates play with a lower AI awareness level on higher difficulty settings is not a terrible idea either. Otherwise you would get great defending/attacking and most of the time an easy draw, just by staying out of the way. You are supposed to get in there and make the good plays that count.

But I agree with you for the most part. Having my AI team-mates actively ignore the ball or run away from an opponent striker with the ball at the edge of my box, as if the ball is a grenade with the pin taken out is just frustrating and the game feels broken.

I feel like the real problem is that there are not enough options to customise our difficulty level, the levels already present are wonky already, and that I need to be given more tools by the game (when defending) in order to reduce the feeling of helplessness when any random team enters their 'barca in the zone' mode. Or tone down the impossible to defend "tiki taka -> amazing one touch pass, faster than a free kick -> amazing control, shot, goal while not even looking".

I've mentioned once before that I think EA must get rid of the legacy difficulty settings, present since god knows when, and give us a 1-10 range cpu strength option, preferably a separate option for cpu attack/defence.

Also features that where cool additions in fifa 15 (park the bus, all out attack) are a huge factor in making most games feel the same, again I think because of careless implementation. Now I love the feeling of losing a game and having to break down the defence of an opponent who's parked the bus. But I know the exact minute when they will do that in every single match regardless of context and that sucks. Also wasting time by the corner flag in the 90th minute when I need to score TWO or more goals, is kinda stupid. There needs to be more context and randomness put into it, and team stats should come into play. It feels overdone like any new feature begging for attention.

[DaSmerg]

Re: Huge issue with EA's difficulty levels

I've now witnessed the same exact effect both in Fifa and NHL. Once you turn the difficulty level up from normal (professional) your AI's intelligence goes down. And that's the difficulty...

It's not just FIFA and NHL friend.

EA Sports titles as a whole, since I have been playing their games (which has been since their first releases) struggles to convey difficulty. Most commonly, EAS (and really most sports games period) end up lowering one side's ability level while raising the opponents ability level.

And as you indicated, it really just gets frustrating when not only is the game doing things (most especially, combinations of moves) that really aren't humanly possible and giving you the double bird of your AI team mates running about with a bad case of the stoopids. I mean go get the ball...its in space...in front of you...nobody is around...oh but of course...retreat to your position...who wouldn't? GAH!

But this is a larger issue that we really don't get much back and forth from the devs on...how exactly do you convey "difficulty"? I'd say especially so with the FIFA community who likes their CPU vs difficulty traditionally pretty steep. Mind you, this has been through a period where EA Sports has been really guilty of something which is building and catering their game build to wam-bam 5 or 10 minute action packed arcadey style play.

Anyways, agree with you, its been this way for a while now but really the larger question is in a sports game, how exactly do you convey "difficulty" level? Tough question but if we are moving to the new messiah of game engines in Frostbite and we are getting a true ground up build of our games, maybe something we should be discussing is difficulty level and how it could be conveyed way less bs'E. I'm for way, way more realism myself. If it's in the game right?

/dos mas centavos