My no.1 request is to remain focussed on contested footy. You can add every bell and whistle in the world but if the core gameplay doesn’t evolve the franchise - or any that comes after - will never meet great heights.
Something I said at the start of the season is probably worth repeating - I was lucky enough to be in Brazil last Christmas and in a country where soccer is religion I had half a dozen gamers preferring to play 23 than FIFA. Not as some quirky ten minute distraction, but as the preferred game on two separate occasions for around two hours each time. Hand on heart, still can’t believe it.
With that amazing experience out of the way, the reality is that once you get the hang of marking in 23 & 26 (plus all the games before) it gets dangerously close to being just two buttons and flick of the right stick at ball ups. Pretty basic.
What’s the answer? I’m not sure. Whatever it is there will need to be a lot of play testing and refinement.
I think contested footy 2.0 needs to increase the feeling of:
- the impact of bodies colliding
- the skills of elite players being more obvious (acknowledge some progress being made)
- a sense that outcomes are skill based
- more natural mannerisms when players are caught in certain scenarios e.g. little things like players putting hands up in the air to show they are not giving away a 50, or running to congratulate a goal scorer.
- coaches being more emotional in the cut scenes, especially if your team is getting smashed
I mean the list is endless really. And I trust that BA are on top of it because they watch the game.
In support of the above in terms of actual gameplay changes I would look at:-
- getting as close to rag doll physics as humanly possible. Some great progress being made with canned animations after a contest but it would be great if more happened on the fly based on the actual physics engine.
- in terms of skill separation and making plays more dynamic, I would lean harder into the player roles that BA has already defined and have something like a ‘special acts’ meter. Bronze players maybe get one a game and elite players maybe have half a dozen. The role would determine what the special act is - one out forwards could buff their marking for a contest, key defenders could use theirs to cancel the buff or if there is none then to guarantee they will spill the next ball. Explosive mids could cash in a successful don’t argue, smooth movers a dodge, hardball mids can handball normally when tackled during their buff and so on. Linking utilities could maybe refill their fatigue meter once a game.
Then you could add some sort of global rule to prevent the spamming of special acts and introduce this element where players are choosing to use an offensive buff of their own (e.g. guaranteed successful tap to own midfielder (ruckman buff)) or fire off a negating one when you see the oppo use theirs (e.g. a star fullback cancels a star forward’s buff).
And then you just keep going. Maybe the captain has an inspiration buff that allows for multiple other player buffs inside of a minute, or there’s a rule that a player returning from injury has 50% fewer special acts and so on. The best part if you don’t need to create the buffs out of thin air, they can be modelled on what the player does in real life.
Two things are critical for such a system:-
- there has to be clear visual communication of what each player is doing
- the other player has to be given the opportunity to use their own neg buff to cancel a move or they roll the dice, let the successful play happen and keep their own in the bank for later use.
If it works, hopefully there is a sense that it is a little bit like rock-paper-scissors with players actively choosing between a negating style or something a little more high scoring and aggressive.
Bit of a ramble, an attempt to introduce a bit of strategy that hopefully makes sense. I’ll review that idea 2m with fresh eyes.
EDIT (comments the next day)- : my goodness I think the special acts / buff concept makes a sense. I guess the only thing I would add is that the idea doesn’t come from other sports games, but rather from ARPGs and RPGs where the class you choose (in this case player type) allows you to do some really cool thing at critical moments. This would also pave the way for adding depth to career mode. If a player levels up do they choose a new special act or do they get an extra cool down instead? Which could build on the idea of there being proficient generalists and one trick ponies. For the system to work though it would need to be real time and very simple to understand - that would take a bit of effort.