My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

[iaxy]

I have read with interests the observations regarding tactical vs. legacy defending. I can see the merits of both but my personal conclusions are that tactical is better for playing against the CPU and legacy is (probably) better for playing online. The reason is the natural aggressive behavior of human controlled defenders. A human will always strive to tackle when on defence. It’s a natural trait to want to dispossess the ball carrier as soon as possible. The CPU has a way of avoiding the tackles by clever twisting and turning, whilst a human controlled ball carrier panics when under pressure and gives the ball away. Legacy defending is the more aggressive type and makes the AI defender make aggressive runs and lunges, frequently missing the ball carrier and exposing the rest of the team because the shape of the team changes dramatically as a result of these surges. Tactical defending, whilst not that aggressive, addresses that issue by making the AI teammates keep a reasonable shape at all times. Whilst they will not tackle per se, AI teammates will still stay in the passing lanes and mark adequately. The user still needs to make a challenge with his own controlled player, but frequently the good shape of the team will force the CPU to make a mistake (especially with pass error set on the higher settings).

Started my career mode with tactical defending and got reasonable results being 3rd with Napoli after 10 games.
Then switched to legacy for the next 5 games and found it a much more frustrating experience, with defenders going out of position and going on a wild goose chase.
I had to return to tactical defending and I am much happier with the results. That said, I feel EA have done something with patch 2, which makes defending less fun to play. I can’t put my finger on it, put it feels more difficult to tackle and the CPU seems to find lanes which I feel I had properly shut by positioning my defenders in the passing lanes.

[fearwhatnow]

KG, Matt and me have already posted about the tactical defending issues. KG also mentioned it in his review of the game. Tactical defending is unrealistic against the CPU because your cpu teammate won't pressure the ball handler and there's no button assignment to do this which is beyond ridiculous.
While playing off-ball D your cpu teammate should pressure and fight for the ball and not just contain. Legacy is the only way to have realistic D behaviour as it combines both methods. You can still contain with LT button, cpu teammates contain by default and you can send them fight for the ball with the B button. Simple as that.
That said, your conclusion should be vice versa. Legacy for playing against cpu and tactical for online to avoid pressure button abuse because online plays differently.

[BL8001]

Yep. what fear wrote.

Plus when using legacy don't just press and hold it.

A more effective way is to just hold briefly then let go to goose your B controlled player towards the ball, this way you retain shape.

The cpu gets frustrated when you do this because they are expecting a full press and hold they can exploit.

Think of it like this, holding B is man defense, letting go is zone. So if you push them out into what the CPU feels is man on man D then zone them the CPU gets flummoxed.

You can also goose your players towards loose balls and to step into passing lanes.

Only time I would hold it if the CPU had a clear break down the wing for example. I would hold to pressure the ball while clicking over and dragging players back to cut off the wing players target options.

I do agree 100% that your CPU controlled players are dingbats.

It's been that way in FIFA forever it seems. EA wants you to control all of your 10 players 1 at a time while the CPU AI foe controls all 10 at once.

It's just another AI trick to keep us from winning 10-0.

[mfp]

It's been years since I tried it but I might have to give Legacy defending another go. Remind me what the differences are? What are the different button combinations?

[Zac]

Sounds like I need to switch back to legacy.

[BL8001]

Legacy

A-you make a tackle attempt
B-teammate pressure and possible tackle
X-slide tackle
tap X again -quick getup (works so-so)

LT-Jockey
LT+RT-Running Jockey (horribly useless this year as it just adds some stand upright slow down animation to your player as he is chasing the CPU)

Couple of mysterious commands;

Tap A-Fake tackle, why??????
Tap B-if you tap B when chasing a CPU player with the ball you will get some of the push/pull disruption animations from Tactical Defending but with the added plus of not being called for a foul

[UnderDogg003]

Legacy is the way to go. Like it was said before LT allows you to strafe and square up. Much more effective than tactical.

[wordtobigbird]

Quote: Originally Posted by UnderDogg003

Legacy is the way to go. Like it was said before LT allows you to strafe and square up. Much more effective than tactical.

On tactical you can hold LT and strafe and make tackles.

Is the main difference that when you teammate assist they go for tackles and not contain?