Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

[Resurrection403]

There seems to be a very real (in my opinion) change in quality of play by the AI from play now and manager mode (start of a season anyways). I played as man city and i barely beat arsenal game 1, despite being out shot I got a penalty to tie it up and won on penalties. i beat newcastle easily as they stink, then i just get destroyed by liverpool. outshot 3 to 1. 33% possession. then i play chelsea and its just as bad, 36% possession outshot 14 to 4. total domination and they reem me out 3 nill.

so then i hop out of game, and with identical sliders and difficulty on play now im playing chelsea and man city and im up 2-0 15 mins in, 2-0 shots, with possession being equal.

what gives? why is the cpu ai so much harder at the start of a manager mode ?

[Hutton]

Re: Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

There seems to be a very real (in my opinion) change in quality of play by the AI from play now and manager mode (start of a season anyways). I played as man city and i barely beat arsenal game 1, despite being out shot I got a penalty to tie it up and won on penalties. i beat newcastle easily as they stink, then i just get destroyed by liverpool. outshot 3 to 1. 33% possession. then i play chelsea and its just as bad, 36% possession outshot 14 to 4. total domination and they reem me out 3 nill.

so then i hop out of game, and with identical sliders and difficulty on play now im playing chelsea and man city and im up 2-0 15 mins in, 2-0 shots, with possession being equal.

what gives? why is the cpu ai so much harder at the start of a manager mode ?

There are confirmed lines of code which appear to reference "adaptive difficulty" that the PC guys have found (and most certainly exists in the console code set).

There is no doubt in my mind that the gameplay is different within various modes.

PLAY NOW plays totally different from FUT which plays totally different from the weekly HIGHLIGHT matches. Manager Mode is a completely different beast, which is no doubt effected by some type of home & away and form momentum not present in PLAY NOW.

It makes crafting a proper slider set nearly impossible.

[half-fast]

Re: Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

There seems to be a very real (in my opinion) change in quality of play by the AI from play now and manager mode (start of a season anyways). I played as man city and i barely beat arsenal game 1, despite being out shot I got a penalty to tie it up and won on penalties. i beat newcastle easily as they stink, then i just get destroyed by liverpool. outshot 3 to 1. 33% possession. then i play chelsea and its just as bad, 36% possession outshot 14 to 4. total domination and they reem me out 3 nill.

so then i hop out of game, and with identical sliders and difficulty on play now im playing chelsea and man city and im up 2-0 15 mins in, 2-0 shots, with possession being equal.

what gives? why is the cpu ai so much harder at the start of a manager mode ?

Play Now has played differently in recent years, but plays more differently this year than any other I can remember. The answer in my opinion is simply they want to make manager mode more challenging for you. The game manipulates the gameplay far more in manager mode, so much so, that its quite obvious, foolish and unrealistic looking. The action in Play Now looks far better to me. My first four or five games were in Play Now and thats where I fell in love with this game. Manager mode has disgusted me for the time being.

[Resurrection403]

Re: Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

seems the disparity is only for the 1st 3 games or so. once the adaptive ai picks up on the fact you arent going to do well against robotic passing from the cpu it eases it off a bit and back to normal.

so as silly as it seems, here is my protocol for starting a new career manager mode.

1) start in professional
2) play 3 games
3) move up to world class and adjust sliders



oh well. it works and the game is phenomenal.

[kashik]

Re: Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

The difficulty disparity lasts beyond 3 games. It will be there when you play strong teams, weak teams, and important games.

I nearly smashed my controller after this game today. Was playing the 3rd place team. I had so many chances on net that should've been a goal, but the keeper either pulled off inhuman saves or the ball magically found a way to miss the target. Worst miss? Drogba volleys from like 7 yards out, top corner... Keeper dives and tips it over?!

Then to really add salt to the wound, one of my computer controlled defenders runs into the player getting the ball on a corner, the guy I'm controlling is nowhere near them, ref calls PK, game finishes 1-0 for the computer. What a load of s***

I understand the whole giving a team momentum thing when they're in form, or they're playing for something important, or the game is at their home field. But this BS where it actually prevents me from winning is cheating the player. There's no other way to put it.

[Resurrection403]

Re: Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

I wouldnt call Outshooting the ai 23-3 a hard game lol.

[pacers101]

Re: Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

Stick with it, the disparity definitely wears off after several games. Keep a tight rotation of no more than 17-18 players, and eventually they all end up with high morale. I think this makes a huge difference.


It was virtually the same on FIFA 14. However managing morale in FIFA 15 seems harder because I cannot see the morale bar anywhere, just what is available in the 'view squad' screen.


Anyway, now I am finding legendary difficulty on FIFA 15 too easy. I never had this problem on FIFA 14- I played career mode on world class difficulty and it was always a challenge. I am finding it a bit frustrating- the defensive AI is terrible.

[kashik]

Re: Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

I wouldnt call Outshooting the ai 23-3 a hard game lol.

Haha, ya, right? That's what makes it so bad.

Stick with it, the disparity definitely wears off after several games. Keep a tight rotation of no more than 17-18 players, and eventually they all end up with high morale. I think this makes a huge difference.

It doesn't wear off though. It is there to add excitement to the games EA has decided would "benefit" from it. The worst I saw of it in 14 was when I had a champs league game against Milan one year. Think I played that game 4 times before I said **** it and simmed a win out of it.

It's just one of those things we have to live with. It isn't always as brutal as my game that I posted... although they still happen with some disappointing regularity.. I'm thinking Sony asked EA to put it into the game so they could sell more controllers

[pacers101]

Re: Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

Haha, ya, right? That's what makes it so bad.




It doesn't wear off though. It is there to add excitement to the games EA has decided would "benefit" from it. The worst I saw of it in 14 was when I had a champs league game against Milan one year. Think I played that game 4 times before I said **** it and simmed a win out of it.

It's just one of those things we have to live with. It isn't always as brutal as my game that I posted... although they still happen with some disappointing regularity.. I'm thinking Sony asked EA to put it into the game so they could sell more controllers

On FIFA 14 I felt it was ESSENTIAL to lower the GK ability ratings for you and the CPU to 39 or 40 (if you were playing on world class). The CPU seems to be able to shoot away from the keepers much easier, which is why you get the stupid games where you hammer the CPU but lose (like above). At the default rating the CPU would be able to save too many of your shots.



I consider the CPU boosting is where the outfield players all turn into Pele and Maradona! Now that does wear off as the season progresses- however in some games (seems to be cup games) it tended to return.

[kashik]

Re: Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

I'm not sure how much the sliders will do when the "momentum"/boost system is in full swing. I played that game with adjusted sliders, and still the keeper was superman. But I guess that's the nature of sliders: tweak tweak tweak.

And if you look at that picture, you'll notice it was at the end of November. So the mementum/boost isn't always as pronounced, but it is definitely there in some form throughout the season.

ahah, and ya, I remember I stopped playing the cup games against low division teams because of the rage i would get if some unknown guy became maradona.

[pacers101]

Re: Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

Like I say, (IMO) there is a difference between the CPU momentum boosting and the ability of the keepers (which is related to the CPU's finishing ability). Understanding that helped me get the right sliders for FIFA 14.


See my slider thread for FIFA 14- I played around with sliders a ton to try and deal with manager mode:
http://www.operationsports.com/forum...ass-6-min.html


In the end I plumped for world class mode, everything default except reducing the keepers ability to 39 or 40. In my last 3 seasons of manager mode in FIFA 14 my results were:

• Real Madrid: won the treble in my first season (13/14 squad plus Tiago Silva, Matuidi and Reus)
• Man Utd: won the league in my first season (14/15 squad plus Vidal and Shaqiri)
• Athletic Bilbao: third in the league and won the champions league in my third season (average rating of starting XI about 82)

Not necessarily realistic results, but the game was a real challenge but giving me a good chance to win if I played my best, with the right tactics and a squad full of pace.


For FIFA 15 I am really struggling, because once the momentum boosting from the first few games subsides, I am finding it far too easy on legendary mode. Currently top of the league on something like a 15 game winning streak with Athletic Bilbao. De Marcos is unstoppable- not even a great player, but just has loads of pace. So I have gone back to FIFA 14 for now. I'm not messing with sliders until they have patched the game, which I presume will happen some time soon.

[Hutton]

Re: Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

The difficulty disparity lasts beyond 3 games. It will be there when you play strong teams, weak teams, and important games.

I nearly smashed my controller after this game today. Was playing the 3rd place team. I had so many chances on net that should've been a goal, but the keeper either pulled off inhuman saves or the ball magically found a way to miss the target. Worst miss? Drogba volleys from like 7 yards out, top corner... Keeper dives and tips it over?!

Then to really add salt to the wound, one of my computer controlled defenders runs into the player getting the ball on a corner, the guy I'm controlling is nowhere near them, ref calls PK, game finishes 1-0 for the computer. What a load of s***

I understand the whole giving a team momentum thing when they're in form, or they're playing for something important, or the game is at their home field. But this BS where it actually prevents me from winning is cheating the player. There's no other way to put it.

The game is built to give you a challenge. Not every real life club can win every game, week in & week out.

I actually think EA did a somewhat decent job modeling this in CM, because it should be very difficult to win the prem with 90+ points. The ebb & flow of a real season is a difficult thing to replicate I imagine. Player moral/form is a starting point. Tougher road matches is another component. EA tried to do this, to what success is debatable, but I had a boatload of fun with CM in FIFA'14 (crawled to a 4th place finish with Spurs).

I will say, if you are EVER outshooting the CPU 23-3 then you need some serious slider changes and/or a step up in difficulty level mate. That's just not even fair vs a top side like lpool. You claim the CPU unrealistically "cheated" you buy making wonder saves & earning a cheap PK, but you essentially cheated them by playing on a setting that allowed you a massive advantage in attacking.

[BL8001]

Re: Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

Yeah but with 13 shots on frame my guess is the CPU keeper made at least a dozen world class highlight of the year type keeper saves.

I think that is his point, and to that I say cheers, seen it, been there, lived through it, hated it, but nothing will change in FIFA 16, 17, 18, 19, etc, this is somebody at EA's idea of the CPU being competitive, to hide their ineptness behind stellar goal keeping.

They don't think we can see how obvious this is?

[kashik]

Re: Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

Yeah but with 13 shots on frame my guess is the CPU keeper made at least a dozen world class highlight of the year type keeper saves.

I was playing on Professional with slight adjustments to sliders to actually make the cpu keeper less amazing! I think I was in all out attack mode for a lot of the game... You can tell very early if the game is going to be like this, letting you know you're gonna need a **** ton of shots on net to score. I wish I had saved some highlights, you'd guys would be laughing... but then again we've all experienced this.

About upping the difficulty: Some times you just don't want to deal with a cpu that keeps insane possession and doesn't make errors. Am I cheating the cpu by playing on a lower difficulty? Not very well if I still lost 1-0.

[Hutton]

Re: Difficulty disparity from MM and play now

Try lowering the CPU Keeper slider perhaps? I've seen people saying that CPU Keeper=40 helps. Not sure how this effects CM.