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FIFA 18 Demo Impressions

Rodelero

Member
I've played quite a bit more and I'm still not really seeing the substantial differences that get advertised before and after every match. There are some new controls around crossing and moving, but none of them feel particularly useful or necessary in a game where, for the most part, goals derive either from exploitative 180 passes or massive defensive AI lapses.

The game still suffers from a really inconsistent (generally understated) sense of inertia in movement. Players accelerate and decelerate in a way which I find very hard to predict. Sometimes players seem able to go from a dead stop to top speed to a dead stop almost immediately, and at other times they feel quite unresponsive. I'm finding my first touch to be extremely vulnerable due to this, as very often whichever way you choose to take the ball a marking defender or onrushing defender will manage to not just match your pace but beat it and snap the ball away. I can't help but feel this is going force people to either play a very quick passing game to try and get space, or force people to use the protect the ball mechanic, which still doesn't feel reliable or predictable in any way. That's not to say that protect the ball isn't effective, it can be incredibly strong, but I never really understand why it works sometimes and not others.

My biggest bugbear by far though is the prevalence and effectiveness of blind passes. These felt a little less overpowering in FIFA 17 than normal, but this feels back to the way it was before. It's just far too easy to turn an attack that is petering out into one that cuts your opponent in half by exploiting the fact it feels as easy to make a blind pass as a simple forward one, and what's worse is you seem to be able to get away with this not just with grounded passes but also those pesky lobbed through balls.

Aside from that particular passing blight, I still find the assisted passing choice to feel really questionable. The game seems to take the recipient's run far too much into account which makes passes quite predictable and prevents through passes into space. I would love to see the game go back towards having a direct pass that is truly a direct pass and a through pass that is genuinely into space, compared to the situation right now where they all feel like variants on the same theme - passes into the path of the running player, with the direct pass relatively close and the through pass relatively far from him. Manual fixes that problem but has plenty of its own problems, with dodgy recipient choices common and pass weighting that doesn't seem to correlate with the length of press very well.

The defensive AI seems no better than usual meaning that the defensive role is still just as much about baby sitting as it is about organising, pressing or tackling. They seem unwilling to cover basic runs, and it's amazingly common to see this demo's rapid wingers, like Neymar, Ronaldo and Bale ending up with one-on-ones unlocked by the most basic passes. When defending in the box, they seem incredibly passive, unwilling to close gaps, apply pressure or put a foot in. That wouldn't be so bad if the more proactive defensive controls weren't so awkward, but switching to the right player at the right time still seems beyond this game and the modern defending system based around the manual standing tackle and the lock-on pressure button doesn't feel any better a solution to the defensive half of this game than it did when it was first included back in 2011.

I'm intrigued by the new crossing mechanics, I haven't really had enough crossing opportunities yet for a real verdict, but my initial impression is that the wealth of modifiers are unnecessary and a continuation of a recent trend of EA's to add modifiers rather than enhancing user control or improving assistance settings. A few years ago there were only really six ways to pass: Direct pass, through pass, lobbed through pass, long pass, cross, drilled cross. Now there are a ton of additions: hard pass, threaded through ball, driven long pass, scooped lob pass, high lob pass, high cross, and driven cross. Do we really need all of these options? I don't think so. A lot of this stuff should derive contextually from the angle of the stick and the length of button press. Instead we end up with almost no control over pass weight and almost no control over pass direction, and in short a passing system that feels in no way organic, but full of constraint. They may have added options, but in reality all they're doing is entrenching a bad system of heavy handed assistance. I can't for the life of me understand why EA can't see that somewhere between assisted and manual lies something infinitely better than either.

My first impression was that PES was streets ahead this year, and further playing hasn't altered that one bit. I don't know whether PES is good enough for me to buy it, but I know for sure that I won't be buying FIFA this year.
 
Preferred the FIFA demo over PES. I liked the lighting in PES though.

FIFA was just more fun and varied to play. I'll try PES again but it got samey quite quickly last time.
 

Lashley

Why does he wear the mask!?
Jose is proper flabby in this

DJnE2ZFXUAM7NcI.jpg:large
 

Bert

Member
Skipped last year, did the Journey bit and played one game of this year's demo.

It looks great, feels OK but defending seems to have changed completely, have I missed a major change or do I just suck after a year out?
 
Said it time and time again, FIFA needs a player cam option like PES, Why have all these stadiums when most people play with the side to side cam like above ^^^^

I only play Pro clubs on FIFA with friends, But it's the same thing every year with no change, PES is at least giving a co-op mode which we'll try out, Thing is PES when going online doesnt allow the play camera option for some reason.

It's like both games need to merge for the ultimate footballing game, Instead of me buying both for different needs.
 
Said it time and time again, FIFA needs a player cam option like PES, Why have all these stadiums when most people play with the side to side cam like above ^^^^

I only play Pro clubs on FIFA with friends, But it's the same thing every year with no change, PES is at least giving a co-op mode which we'll try out, Thing is PES when going online doesnt allow the play camera option for some reason.

It's like both games need to merge for the ultimate footballing game, Instead of me buying both for different needs.
Fifa does have a player cam.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
Default cam is shit. I always use other cams. Tele seems quite good in the demo. I prefer the most the pro clubs/player career cam, but it's not really usable if you play with the whole team.
 

Lashley

Why does he wear the mask!?
Always use tele. Default cam is awful.

I'm enjoying this now, still prefer PES but this game is fun. I'll dabble in FUT and Career Mode but I'll mainly be playing Clubs.

EDIT: How can I tell it's definitely in 4k? I usually get a notification that resolution was changed by the game but here I just get a HDR notification and no notification when HDR is off.
 
Skipped last year, did the Journey bit and played one game of this year's demo.

It looks great, feels OK but defending seems to have changed completely, have I missed a major change or do I just suck after a year out?

I think its the dribbling. It feels smoother/more precise and because of that even without skill moves its easier to outmanuever defenders. I know for certain of atleast 2-3 goals i scored that I wouldnt have been able to in 17.
 

Rodelero

Member
This thread is pessimism city while the Operation Sports thread is optimism city

WHICH ONE IS RIGHT

Well this is FIFA, so pessimism is very likely to be the right line of thinking. If there was ever a demo which the majority weren't liking initially that would be truly alarming, though ironically it might mean that EA had changed enough to actually make a great game for the first time in a number of years.

I'm actually struggling to imagine what someone could point to in this demo as anything more than a subtle improvement, but the real issue is that so few of FIFA's major issues have been addressed. FIFA feels much like Call of Duty, a game which has reached a critical mass where its popularity drives its popularity. FIFA appeals, superficially, with its authenticity. Its licenses, its likenesses, and its visuals are all top notch, but moment to moment I find no thrill in playing, and whenever I try to play football, rather than FIFA, I find nothing but frustration.
 
Alex Hunter to Real Madrid who'd have thought...

Do we get to pick out PL club in 18? I tried the demo and it felt odd being Chelsea vs Man United.

I kinda don't like the idea of going to another club. However I am not sure what else they could have done for a 2nd season at a PL club.
 

Champloo4

Member
Just played a couple matches. (I buy FIFA and PES yearly). It does feel close to 17. But I'll get it day 1 cuz I just love the sport.
Some of the commentary needs to be updated. Heard bits of dialogue from 16. :/
I also love the RT/R2 quick subs.

Safe to assume that World Cup 2018: Russia will be a reskin of 18, then. I am also presuming EA will release a WC game next spring.
 

Lashley

Why does he wear the mask!?
One of the commentators has honestly just said "He's so quick, he catches pigeons for a living"

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
 
Having played both the PES and FIFA demo here are my impressions:

Still love the build-up work you do on PES. It feels a bit more cerebral and kind of old school. If you initiate a 1-2 it's better to defend the runner and let AI handle the player on the ball vs an opponent, same way you can create spaces for your player on the ball. Creating goal scoring opportunities always feel very satisfying in PES. Personally to me PES feels like the same game as last year. With matching flaws to last year: No licenses and the worse offender: The terrible skill dribbling system. I still can't work this crap out. It still feels unintuitve and clumsy to use.

How anybody can say FIFA 18 feels the same is flabbergasting to me. Maybe people stuck too long to Ultimate or Pro Clubs, but the regular "Kick off" matches are much faster and more fluid than 17. The obvious problem now shows itself during defending. I don't quite get the hang of effective defending, especially on harder difficulties (default camera makes it completely impossible to even effectively assess distances between players). Also: What's up with last years new feature "driven pass". They got a completely different feel to them now, as if they automatically target the most far player irregardless of how long you press X. Pace seems more important again, with Bale and Ronaldo feeling near impossible to stop. Finesse shots have rightfully been nerved and are no longer guaranteed goals from near the box.

These are my initial impression after 2-3 games for each game.
 
I like the R2 quick substitutions. Is that new?

This was my favourite bit of the whole demo. CPU had just made a couple of subs and I was thinking "man, I wish the game would make some subs for me because I can never be bothered to in football games but it always feels like I should, for authenticity and that."

Then the R2 prompt came up and I pressed to see what it did. Was so happy.
 

RAIDEN1

Member
When you play Alex Hunter in the demo scenario, talk about staking the odds against you massively...4 nil down and somehow you have to claw that back..
 

MaLDo

Member
PC here. I can not uncap the 30 fps lock in replays and goal kicks even setting the framerate to Unlimited in the launcher. What EA is smoking with this shitty framerate cap on PC? At least previous games allow to disable it.

I was to buy it because my son loves FIFA but not this way. Waiting for a fix.
 

Peterpan

Member
Not feeling FIFA this year. Players feel a bit more sluggish. Ai is better in terms of making runs at least. Shooting is much easier than the previous year.

If Milan didn't get a whole new squad it would be a hard pass from me.
 

lmbotiva

Junior Member
PC here. I can not uncap the 30 fps lock in replays and goal kicks even setting the framerate to Unlimited in the launcher. What EA is smoking with this shitty framerate cap on PC? At least previous games allow to disable it.

I was to buy it because my son loves FIFA but not this way. Waiting for a fix.
You need to buy the framerate unlocker from EA, micro transactions galore.
 
PC here. I can not uncap the 30 fps lock in replays and goal kicks even setting the framerate to Unlimited in the launcher. What EA is smoking with this shitty framerate cap on PC? At least previous games allow to disable it.

I was to buy it because my son loves FIFA but not this way. Waiting for a fix.

The 60fps cap option in the menu has a built in lock to 30fps for menus / replays etc also dx12 seems to have the lock aswell regardless for some reason, if you want 60fps at all times follow these steps

* Use Direct X 11
* Tick unlimited fps in the luancher
* In the nvidia control panel force vsync on for the fifa 18 demo

After that it should run at 60fps at all times or whatever refreshrate you monitor is :)
 
I understand why people say this feels a lot like 17 because by their nature sports games tend to iterate on previous entries rather than drastically change from year to year but, honestly, after playing several games it feels quite a bit different to FIFA 17 to me.

The first thing I noticed is that it looks a lot better (PS4 Pro, 4K, non-HDR), a more substantial increase in graphical quality since the switch from PS3 to PS4 but maybe that's because they had more time to work on Pro improvements though I haven't seen it at 1080p or in HDR to be able to say how that differs. In terms of gameplay, dribbling feels better, especially with the use of body feints that are much improved from 17. I like the new crossing a lot too, being able to do proper lobbed and drilled crosses now with L1/R2 feels good. Also seems to me like players are more physical when fighting for the ball using their strength to win aerial duels or jostle for the ball in a more natural way, both offensively and defensively. I'm also liking some of the new animations, something I always look out for each year.

On a more negative note it seems less responsive than 17 when defending and it seems to take a split second too long to gain control of the player I want when switching players. The opposition AI also doesn't seem much improved from what I've experienced which is somewhere FIFA has fallen short for some time now in my opinion. My biggest concern is going to be how it plays player vs player though because I get tired of people online spamming the same skills that are almost impossible to defend against.
 
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