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]

Re: My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

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]

Re: My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

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]

Re: My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

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]

Re: My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

Sounds like I need to switch back to legacy.

[BL8001]

Re: My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

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]

Re: My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

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]

Re: My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

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?

[UnderDogg003]

Re: My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

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?

I think the main difference is with Legacy you can be more aggressive and go to the ball. If I recall, with tactical you can't chase the ball as aggressively and everybody sits back.

[mfp]

Re: My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

With Legacy defending can I still pull and tug a player?

[iaxy]

Re: My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

With Legacy defending can I still pull and tug a player?

This is a very good point. I don't think you can. The animations are somewhat different. Your controlled player still chases the ball carrier, but the animation of the hand pulling and tugging is not the same and as a result the effectiveness is reduced.

[iaxy]

Re: My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

I get and appreciate all the suggestions, but I still feel Tactical represents football more authentically somehow. In real life you never see defenders lunging and thrusting forward as legacy defending makes you play. With Tactical you can still manually switch and take controls of an AI teammate and perform a lunge when the timing is right. It feels more organic to do this. If you factor in a higher pass error by increasing the CPU slider, you get some good results because the CPU will not find an easy passing lane and will eventually attempt a pass, which has a lower chance of success due to the solid shape of your defense. This in combination with your manually controlled player applying pressure is a good balance.

I don't know legacy just feels cheap to me.

[Geefiasco]

My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

I've never got to grips with Tactical since its release.

I have always given it a go every year but it doesn't suit me whatsoever. I can stomach it somewhat against human players, but against the AI it's a challenge when they go into 'cheat-mode'.

I don't like the fact that if you don't time your tackle perfectly, the AI will blitz past you and probably score.

It's a lot more realistic and takes more patience and honestly, if I was good at Tactical, I'd prefer to use it. But because I play agains the AI 95% of the time, I'd rather stick to what I'm good at because the AI already have many advantages over me.

[DrGunjah]

Re: My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

@iaxy: there are 2 main issues with tactical defending that kill all the realism.
1) physical play and "lunge" (don't know exactly how to call this...) both on the circle button. They should put physical play on X and keep the "lunge" on circle. Seriously, no one needs auto-contain. It's so annoying when you are slightly out of position and then perform a completely unwanted tackle.
2) teammate contain is useless 90% of the time. If you say legacy defending is cheap, because you can get an AI teammate to do the work for you, that's somewhat true. But then your teammates should be useful enough to cover enemy attackers or passing lanes but they don't. So basically, when you go for the ball, no one covers and when you cover, no one attacks the ball carrier. This is not how it works in real life.
Also, if you watch the cpu defending, it looks exactly like legacy defending, only that the cpu does it even better. They can attack the ball carrier with 3 players while you with tactical defending can't even attack with 2. Imho tactical defending is a gameplay mechanic to make defending harder, not to make the gameplay more authentic.

[BL8001]

Re: My personal observations on Tactical vs. Legacy defending

Imho tactical defending is a gameplay mechanic to make defending harder, not to make the gameplay more authentic.

Perfectly written observation.

That sums it right up.