Video games need better difficulty

[half-fast]

As the title states, this post is about difficulty level. Difficulty level is a very personal thing - everyone has a different playing style, and their own strengths + weaknesses. One thing that is missing from almost every sports game I've ever played is a better progression of difficulty.

See, take FIFA for example. If teams in FIFA played as they do in real life, their play would vary greatly, and really, difficulty would be easier to manage because of the varied attacks and defenses, you'd probably have a better time. Since FIFA does not employ realistic and varied play styles, they need to make the ai cheat more. This can make difficulty levels something of a mystery to work out.

Take for example, me playing FIFA. I play on Legendary(as World Class is too easy) on full manual. I dominated hard on World Class, but the lift to Legendary has been difficult. I can defend really well, but cannot score. Part of the problem is player switching. Player switching problems on defence are well-documented throughout this forum, but one reason I realized I'm having more problems scoring on Legendary is *offensive* player switching. It definitely got worse.

On World Class, I felt on offense, that generally when I switched to a player during an attack, I would get the proper player, or something close; something easy to fix quickly. Now, I find myself breaking up the wing with the ball(as I did tonight), and I have, count, *three* players racing up the pitch with me to my left, with only one defender technically in the way and a couple far enough back to not be an immediate problem. I send a through ball around the defender marking my winger to the nearest player racing up the pitch with me ... the next player I control is, yes, the 3rd and furthest player from the play, and the ball didnt have enough juice to get there - no problem right? The player I intended to pass the ball to should get it on his own - but he doesnt. He sadly is almost unaware of the attack and just jogs past and away from the ball.

This highlights another problem with more sports games, EA games in particular. The game does too much to make it easy for the user. I believe almost any adult should be able to practice and learn a game. It wouldnt be that hard, but not ea makes everything easy - one button push away from a bicycle kick goal in your first game ... so it's exciting for us. Unfortunately, a terrible side effect of the game controlling so much of what we do on the pitch(ice, field or where ever) is that the game often guesses wrong, and also, sadly, makes the wrong move for us to make it more difficult.

This is a sad truth I'm having to grasp as I get older. Graphics get so much better, it seems you cant sell a game with bad graphics, of course we know thats not true. We need a soccer game that has 16 bit or n64 quality graphics, but also spends that saved processing time on AI and physics, to make things more dynamic, realistic, intelligent and not so stupidly scripted and insulting.

I'm almost down to playing just MLB The Show, because it is truly the only respectable sports game I own.

[KG]

The issues you bring are definitely valid complaints but they don't really pertain to difficulty as much as they do with core fundamentals of the game needing attention.

For example, your issue with the 3v1 through ball scenario. That isn't a problem specific to a difficulty level, it's an issue with lack of player/AI awareness. Both FIFA & PES (much more so in this case) still have remnants of "locking onto passes/players". It goes even deeper into the ADD that occurs on 50/50 balls, clearances, or scrums inside the box. User reactions seem to always be a half-second slower than the CPU's. Maybe difficulty level comes into play here where you can see that on lower levels the CPU will be almost brain-dead.

A universal difficulty level where say a Barcelona would play like themselves would be very intriguing but probably discouraging to a lot of people. I can't imagine too many young kids who are just getting into the sport and video games would like to suffer through 10-20 minutes of Barca just whipping it around and dominating 75% of the possession.

I'm of the belief that gaming companies can do both, produce a game with good/great graphics and make it challenging with intelligent AI. Sadly, or not sadly, graphics are game/system sellers. AI, much to my dismay doesn't move units.

Good post though half. I know we, and a lot of others, are all on the same page.

[half-fast]

Thanks for the well-thought out reply! I agree with much of your post, I just feel that while the issue is, what you say as bad player awareness, because it is, the other issue is that the devs do this on purpose to make it more difficult. Strangely enough I went back and played a few games on World Class, and the issues didn't seem as prominent. I'll have to do more testing to see if it was placebo or not, but I really don't think it is.

All in all, more scalable difficulty with better AI/player awareness is the ultimate fix. I'd love a system of difficulty like mlbs where it auto adjusts based on your performance.

[BL8001]

The difficulty problem involves a FIFA dev disconnect from reality and what people most likely want.

EA knows 90% of the people use Real Madrid or Barca. So they test this game using those teams hum v hum.

At the same time even though a colchester fan knows his team will never ever ever beat Barca, EA wants to make the colchester fan happy by pumping up his team with boosts that make colchester on equal footing. Rubbish.

The colchester fan would expect to, and have no issue with it happening, lose to Barca.

Now for who knows what reason, they also make colchester cpu controlled play quite well vs human Barca.

Bottom line is this game and most fifa's before it share all the markings of a game never tested Human vs. AI.

The game is riddled with issues but the simple fact that the ball must always go to someone is still present in this game is the most astonishing thing to me.

People didnt like the World Cup game that just missed being on next gen at the time, but that game had the best most realistic loose ball and ball behavior in any EA footy game made.

So EA can do it, but likely that was just an accident and they "corrected" it for FIFA 14.

16 is just carrying forward all the legacy issues and adding its own problems (fast pass added, so they also have to add high pressure, so now games are a fast pass mess) while ignoring all human vs ai issues, focusing solely on FUT human vs human AI.

If ever a game should be split into an offline and online version developed by two different teams, this is the one.

But people keep buying fut packs and EA keep putting out these versions of fifa that keep losing single player modes, it is a miracle cm mode still exists.

I would not be shocked if EA distance themselves from the FIFA brand and just put out FUT 19 in the future.

[Velocityy]

If someone made a game like Football Manager but make it with FIFA graphics and the ability to actually play the games...that would be a great start. The level of detail in that game would give us the best CM.

But I do agree that the higher you go difficulty wise in most sports games, the less variety you get with teams, and the more blatant cheating you see.

I remember specifically with a game like NCAA Football, on harder difficulties you would have the opposing LB's just float across the field (like be standing at the 45 on the left hash and then somehow be at the 40/right hash) for INTS or your own guy fumble like 6 times. You knew no matter what you weren't winning that game.

I feel that way w/ FIFA, especially when you're a good team playing a lower team or vice versa...I took Portsmouth from League 2 to the PL, but still made it to the FA cup quarters beating Chelsea and Man City when I was in League 2 w/ Portsmouth. In the PL, I'd lose to a League 1 side in the FA cup, or lose to the worst team in the Prem and KNOW from the 1st 10 min of the game that no matter what I did I had no shot.

Sliders help with this a little, in terms of trying to cheat the game into making the opponent more varied, but nothing helps when the game decides the outcome when you click 'start'.

[half-fast]

I guess it bothers me more than other common video game problems because sports games are trying to mimic real life. If I play Civilization 5, I know the AI cheats on difficulties above Prince, and it doesnt bother me too much, because it doesnt copy exactly the way things are run in real life. Sports game are meant to mimic, and when they look as good as they do now, it makes the poor aspects like bad AI stick out even worse.