Holy good God the CPU defense is ridiculously overpowered
 

I think the game is solid right out the box but the CPU defense seems to block everything and overhead kick every dangerous ball in the box. It's incredibly unrealistic and annoying. Is there a slider to adjust this? Because it's a bit overwhelming.

Re: Holy good God the CPU defense is ridiculously overpowered
 

What difficulty?

Re: Holy good God the CPU defense is ridiculously overpowered
 

I just posted to the other thread where we're noting this issue and yeah, in particular within my Career Mode, the CPU defense is pretty unbelievable.

There seems to be very little I can do so far to create separation and my AI teammates are not geniuses at the moment. I'm able to string together one or two passes before I invariably shass it to the other team or get dispossessed from behind. It's super challenging, but I'm a bit bored by the CPU's inability to score goals, too! I'm definitely good at defending in FIFA, but my lord, FIVE combined shots in a 20 minute match, only two of them on target? It was like watching somebody watch paint dry!

Re: Holy good God the CPU defense is ridiculously overpowered
 

Love the game, but so many times it feels like the CPU defense doesn't get tired and has the ability to swarm like bees on you.

Re: Holy good God the CPU defense is ridiculously overpowered
 

I was saying this in the impressions thread but I made the "mistake" of calling this cheating.

Has anyone seen the amazing saves the CPU will make?

I had one that was astonishing and I so wish I had recorded it. I crossed it in from a corner. My forward rose majestically and headed it down. As the keeper was trying to collect it, it bounced, went past his outstretched arms and was going in. Except a CPU defender flew in from nowhere and karate kicked it out with this crazy side volley.

It was clear to me that the CPU was not going to allow me to score because I have never seen one of my defenders move that quickly and that assuredly to do anything for me anywhere on the pitch.

The CPU is vicious this year in the lengths they will go to keep the ball out of the net. I just wish this kind of play was reciprocal so that there was a balance to the game.

I will say after playing about 40 games on all skill levels that this mostly occurs on WC. Last year I loved WC because the only "cheating" I felt was happening were the 50/50 balls always bounced to the CPU.

This year they have a whole new bag of tricks.

Re: Holy good God the CPU defense is ridiculously overpowered
 

This is my biggest problem. In previous years the game was hard, but you knew, eventually with hard work and maybe some slider adjust if necessary, you could beat it.

Problem is this year that your AI teammates are also genius defenders. So the CPU can't score either. So you just end up with a lot of low scores with no shots for EITHER team. And this is even worse if you are playing player career mode, because your AI teammates are horrible on offense, so you are just watching them turn the ball over or get blocked again and again.

Re: Holy good God the CPU defense is ridiculously overpowered
 

The terrible crime here is if you play this on semi-pro your players are smarter and make runs and the game flows great for your squad and you can orchestrate some truly breath taking goals. But the CPU won't harm you at all.

So as far as this is built for goal simulating I would give it a thumbs up.

But then you go up to pro and your team gets a little dumber but not bad, I mean they will still win challenges without you controlling them and they will make runs and supporting runs (not as much as on semi) and the cpu gets just a touch smarter but still can barely get to your goal.

Then you move to WC and suddenly your squad becomes idiots and they stand around. Don't make runs. Never win the ball, they just dance around on defense and retreat, even around your box they don't elevate their play to defend. The CPU becomes lethal in certain games and just overwhelm you with passing that the greatest brazil teams in history would be envious of.

In the impressions thread I posted 2 photographs showing team spacing on Pro vs WC.

On pro your players stand closer to the ball handler and move towards you.

On WC they spread farther apart, stand by defenders, and generally make their runs away from you.

It's terrible coding.

If in these overwhelming games my team played like they did on semi pro this game would be epic.

Re: Holy good God the CPU defense is ridiculously overpowered
 

And the legacy code defending that allows things like this to happen

2 beauties.

http://youtu.be/bSKbYwhOtac

http://youtu.be/iTIMgJ4NIWc

It's just amazing how the CPU can turn pressure and chaos deep in their end into instant counter attack scenarios.

If your shot is deflected by the keeper or hits the post it literally goes from your boot to their forward within 2 seconds.

WHY? WHY MUST THIS HAPPEN?

Why can't the defender knock it out for a corner? Or to touch? Or just blast it to space, or perhaps oh my...perhaps miss kick it? Wow that would be something.