FIFA 18 (Console Versions)

from the videos I have seen, this looks very good

the shooting is so realistic looking

Pitch textures are wow

slower looking

apparently players feel 'heavier'

Please ea surprise me
 
talucchesi said:
If you all have any questions, let me know. I have off today so you all know what I'm spending my time doing :BYE:
Click to expand...
Thanks so much for all the info man, really appreciate all of it and can't wait to play the game.

My only two questions are - is shielding the ball still ridiculously overpowered, and finally, bit of a weird one... Before you play against the AI, can you see their formation yet? Any details about them whatsoever? Or do you still set your team up without having a clue what system you'll be playing against?

EDIT: One more actually... Going back to PES 2017 after the beta is truly painful from a gameplay point of view. How does it feel going back to FIFA 17? Is the gameplay noticeably worse? Or not to a great degree?
 
Last edited:
Things I forgot
Chris Davies said:
Thanks so much for all the info man, really appreciate all of it and can't wait to play the game.

My only two questions are - is shielding the ball still ridiculously overpowered, and finally, bit of a weird one... Before you play against the AI, can you see their formation yet? Any details about them whatsoever? Or do you still set your team up without having a clue what system you'll be playing against?
Click to expand...

No problem bro, happy to help out.

I know people have felt shielding is Op. Ive never fully shared the same opinion although I can kind of see where people are coming from. It's also hard to say because I don't know anyone on Barca that doesn't shield the ball really well. Maybe Alba and he's ironically the one I got caught in possession with while trying to shield the most. Trying to take the ball off the cpu seems a bit harder when they shield but that may just be due to me being used to their style of play last year. They don't use it all the time though if that's what you mean. Did seem some great fouls from behind when I was shielding early in the game.

And no unfortunately, you can't. Same as last year. I use a second controller to edit the teams beforehand
 
Fantastic new features this year


c7nKiLb.jpg
 
I've dread bringing negative news but my last game against Valencia wasn't pretty. Here's what I saw:

Barca v Valencia (World Class, 20 min halves, width 50/35, length 35/25)

Pros:
-Good news for you all as default width seemed to fix the fullbacks, they seemed more wide. However, this sucks for me if I want a good defensive shape.
-Another great Fk with Neymar. Had Diego Alves beat. Hit the top of the bar this time.
-Saw some early fouls due to proper shielding.
-Some fantastic head controls, especially on the run. There's still some scenarios where there doesnt seem to be an animation to control the ball and instead, you get this awkward handball.
-Saw Jordi Alba completely miss the ball when trying to control a lob pass. His body position was awkward and it was on his right foot. And it's not like there wasnt an animation for it he just completely missed it. Really cool to see.

Cons:
-Valencia averaged 89% passing in the first half. 95%
-Valencia were running around like madmen. It seems like there was no chill. Especially when I had the ball. They went too fast offensively too. This was discouraging because I had their tactical speed at 50 and aggression at only 20. This would happen as well last year. So hopefully they'll still work on the tactics this year because they're pretty meh still. Still like them more than Pes' ironically though.
-Defending is so frantic ughhh, definitely giving the nod to pes here although, we haven't played Pes vs the AI yet.
-One of the most concerning this is I think I found a bit of an exploit. When you have the ball with your fullbacks, defenders seem to rush at you with poor angles. This combination makes it very easy to simply explode past on your strong foot. Defenders seem to always force you outside. It's not crazy obvious, but obvious enough that it began feeling repetitive by the second half. A large portion of this is due to the crazy pressure Valencia kept trying to put on me.
-Not sure why footy developers recently seem to have no idea how players position themselves, especially defensively. I guess it's for arcade purpose of trying to open up the midfield.
-Huge con for me personally but wingers never seem to cut in offball during buildup play. Saw Neymar, and even Messi (Who I set as a RF to try and get him more centrally) making runs to the outside. This can be especially problematic when fullbacks overlap. Just watch how Arsenal are setting up today. Ozil and Welbeck both come in very centrally.

I've gotta go play actual football now. I'll try and come up with even more info and I'll even mess with sliders and tactics even more to see if I can get a better result:TU:
 
Last edited:
Need to know if the opposition AI actually present a challenge on World Class level? In 16 they hardly scored against me.
 
talucchesi said:
I've dread bringing negative news but my last game against Valencia wasn't pretty. Here's what I saw:

Barca v Valencia (World Class, 20 min halves, width 50/35, length 35/25)

Pros:
-Good news for you all as default width seemed to fix the fullbacks, they seemed more wide. However, this sucks for me if I want a good defensive shape.
-Another great Fk with Neymar. Had Diego Alves beat. Hit the top of the bar this time.
-Saw some early fouls due to proper shielding.
-Some fantastic head controls, especially on the run. There's still some scenarios where there doesnt seem to be an animation to control the ball and instead, you get this awkward handball.
-Saw Jordi Alba completely miss the ball when trying to control a lob pass. His body position was awkward and it was on his right foot. And it's not like there wasnt an animation for it he just completely missed it. Really cool to see.

Cons:
-Valencia averaged 89% passing in the first half. 95%
-Valencia were running around like madmen. It seems like there was no chill. Especially when I had the ball. They went too fast offensively too. This was discouraging because I had their tactical speed at 50 and aggression at only 20. This would happen as well last year. So hopefully they'll still work on the tactics this year because they're pretty meh still. Still like them more than Pes' ironically though.
-Defending is so frantic ughhh, definitely giving the nod to pes here although, we haven't played Pes vs the AI yet.
-One of the most concerning this is I think I found a bit of an exploit. When you have the ball with your fullbacks, defenders seem to rush at you with poor angles. This combination makes it very easy to simply explode past on your strong foot. Defenders seem to always force you outside. It's not crazy obvious, but obvious enough that it began feeling repetitive by the second half. A large portion of this is due to the crazy pressure Valencia kept trying to put on me.
-Not sure why footy developments recently seem to have no idea how players position themselves, especially defensively. I guess it's for arcade purpose of trying to open up the midfield.
-Huge con for me personally but wingers never seem to cut in offball during buildup play. Saw Neymar, and ever Messi (Who I set as a RF to try and get him more centrally) making runs to the outside. This can be especially problematic when fullbacks overlap. Just watch how Arsenal are setting up today. Ozil and Welbeck both come in very centrally.

I've gotta go play actual football now. I'll try and come up with even more info and I'll even mess with sliders and tactics even more to see if I can get a better result:TU:
Click to expand...

Thanks for your honest and detailed review again. I doubt they even changed the CPU passing code at all. It's probably the same since FIFA 15 aka lazer-guided.
 
Redhat said:
I chuckled when I saw the "new" feature as well. They're banking on the fact that a large portion of their audience wasn't even alive when FIFA 2003 was released.
Click to expand...

Next year they will introduce Fouls as a new feature lol
 
Hang on a minute, I've just realised something.

Teams don't appear to have the new "team styles" (they don't appear in the team management menus anyway), and not only that, but - does everyone remember the previews that all said triangle (PS4) / Y (XB1) was a new kind of tackle button?

That's not in this beta, either.

What is the purpose of this beta? Gameplay feedback, or just a server thing?

It's all a bit fishy - almost like they're retracting features...
 
To answer your edit Davies I haven't gone back to Fifa 17 yet. The pes beta did make me delete the Pes 17 application entirely so I agree with you fully lol. I assume I'll have the same opinion of Fifa 17 although I don't expect to play it until after the beta's over if even that. It does seem like a pretty big improvement. Just maybe not at the level I want or would expect in 2017/18. However, we still have a lot of time until release and we don't even have team styles yet.

Edit: I do remember about the new tackle button, Ill try it out during my next game. The control guide in the menus isn't updated, still says notouch is Left bumper
 
Also forgot a couple of pros I didn't mention.

The game ended 1-1. To the person asking if it is harder, it definitely feels that way. I've given up a solid amount a chances in every game I played and I played on Legendary last year.

-My goal was a classic memory of the past dink over the top to Neymar with Messi. He climbed the RB's back and I used the downward header to hit it into the ground. Alves got a hand on it but it wasnt enough. Was really cool to seem. Not really Ney's strong point but it didn't seem too impossible and it was a goal ive seldom if ever scored.

-Ai's play near the box is greatly improved. Very varied but still a small sample size. Saw their winger get past two and tip toe the touch line to send in a pass to the feet of an incoming midfielder. ter Stegan read the situation perfectly and guess the right way almost before the strike was even taken. Make a fantastic save. It all looked like a opportunity Barca would give up in real life. Then later in the game, a similar situation but this time, a finesse shot curled right past the outstretched arm of ter stegan. Can't remember any chances like this against Espanyol or United so hopefully, it's either team or situation specific occurrences.

If I think of more, Ill edit this post
 
Hey @talucchesi
First of all let me thank you for sharing all your thoughts about this beta, detailedly too!

Now, I know this is just a matter of tastes but, since you were among the few chaps in here who were lucky enough to play both the PES beta and the FIFA beta, which one did you like the most? Which game are you looking forward the most?. And also, in order to understand where you're coming from... which one of the two titles did you enjoy more last year?.
 
the players height in the new match intros is an accurate reflection of how they feel when controlling them in the game

RKNBFup.jpg
 
Man this game is a nightmare. I had moments in my last match that made me yell out loud, louder than I wanted to. And then I found it extremely difficult to get both teams positionally correct. I find that things can get very strange and I try to ignore it but I know I won't be able to if I ever purchase this game. Very frustrating because the times I had fun, I was having a shitload of fun. And the negative stuff is so easily fixable and such legacy issues that I want to be like "Do you all actually play the game yourselves EA"

Barca v Las Palmas (WC, 20 min, Width 50/20, Length 35/25, Height 55/55, Fullbacks 60/60, Pass error 60/55, Pass speed 47/47)

Pros:
-Fullback slider adjustment really helped get them forward with well timed runs. I previously was only making Alba and Vidal Wingbacks but this made things much more realistic.
Chipped through balls are sooooo much better. About on par with Pes if not better. Had Iniest play one with the outside of his foot in the perfect situation.
-Had a FANTASTIC run in behind by Aleix Vidal that I hit with an over the top ball with Rak. Low crossed it to Neymar and the Keeper made an amazing kick save after a first time shot.
-I won 6-1, and the great thing was none of the goals were due to Blitzkreig or any other bs reasons. They were legitimatly beautiful goals. I felt excited about each one of them that you sometimes don't get with Pes.
-My first goal. My Lord my first goal. Got going with Neymar on a long run. Cut middle and Leo made a fantastic run in behind the Cb and RB. Dinked one over the top. Messi with a sliding finish. Thing of beauty.
-Second goal-MSN. Messi slipped a through ball to Suarez. Suarez (being Suarez) fluffed a goal chance by using the outside of the foot only to hit the post, crazy realistic, only for the rebound to fall right into Neymars path. Looked crazy good on the replay
-My third goal was almost better than the 1st. This time, a dink with Busi to a streaking Alba. PERRRRFECT ball. Alba crosses it back post to Messi who buryies it after a solid first touch. Textbook Barca.
-Got 5 goals before half. They were all very Barca-like. You could probably find identical ones by watching highlights of last season. Las Palmas got 1 right before half ended. I got my six in the 79th with a looping cross to the top of the box with Alba to Dennis Suarez. Low shot, bottom corner.
-The commentators had a great moment after Messi got dispossessed by a slide tackle in the box. Crowd reaction was a nice touch and Martin Tyler made a point to highlight how good the refs positioning was.
-I haven't scored two identical goals yet
-AI slide tackles are really good without being OP.
-Crossing is beautiful.
-Moving Neymar in on the gameplan screen seemed to help a tad
-Saw a close, first time finesse shot almost hit the corner flag because body shape was all wrong. Glorious especially on default shot error. I wanted to save it and show you all

Cons:
-Pass error was clearly in my head because Las Palmas played perfect passes almost all game. They finished with 90%. This is likely due to tactics because I moved their speed to 25 and their pass distance to 40. It definitely slowed them down which is the real good news. Things weren't nearly as frantic for them offensively as they were for Valencia. The problem is if you want the ball back from the CPU, you're usually going to have to tackle it off of them. I finished with 93 with is a bit too high for even Barca. But I was playing very safe passes to just try and watch how the AI was setting up defensively.
-Wingers were wayyyy to wide defensively, even with width at 20 for the CPU. Man marking the fullbacks. I wanted to stick my head through my TV, seeing this. PES and Fifa get this was when having 5 players in the midfield. Pes is even worse here but it was still so frustrating to see because changing the width in last years Fifa would fix this issue. It's hard for me to enjoy the game whenever I see this. It changes every pass you play. Defensive shape is SO vital.
-Line was still too deep. Will try increasing to maybe 60.
-You have to keep in mind using no touch dribbling because itll also make someone show for you offball if you're not careful, the opposite of last year. I don't know what brainiac at EA can't figure out how to make these two different buttons so this isnt a problem
-Width that low makes CPU fullbacks not stay wide which will ruin the realism a bit. Trying to figure out how to have my cake and eat it too.
-Fouls have been pretty low in every game. Same as last year. This will surely upset some people. Been to occupied for it to bug me quite yet.
-Pass speed needs to be decreased a bit more.
-Definitely getting hawked down from behind in some situations that I shouldnt be. Much better than last year though.
-Oh something I keep forgetting. Lefties still fake shot with their right foots. Small and stupid I know. But it really irks me cutting in with Leo, and he fakes shots with the wrong foot and I'm then dispossessed. :BLEH:

Ill try upping pass error even more this next game. Only saw one horrible cross. Pray for me and my journey :PRAY:
 
Last edited:
Topaz said:
Most people are saying that it's harder to beat lower rated teams than higher rated teams in >Superstar. What do you think about that? @talucchesi
Click to expand...
Based off my last match, didn't have that experience lol. Especially since before, I was losing with City vs. United and tied Valencia with Barca.

Chuny said:
Hey @talucchesi
First of all let me thank you for sharing all your thoughts about this beta, detailedly too!

Now, I know this is just a matter of tastes but, since you were among the few chaps in here who were lucky enough to play both the PES beta and the FIFA beta, which one did you like the most? Which game are you looking forward the most?. And also, in order to understand where you're coming from... which one of the two titles did you enjoy more last year?.
Click to expand...

Pes. I definitely liked the PES beta more. The last 2-3 years I've liked Fifa more than Pes. But there's always this feeling passing the ball around in Pes that is unmatched that keeps me hoping for a huge stepup this year with their CPU's Ai. I'll fight people :LOL: that Fifa 17 is better gameplay wise with the correct sliders. I'm always shocked to see that people feel otherwise over in the Pes thread and I've always wanted to do a detailed comparison in the fifa v pes thread with video evidence and clear examples of how flawed Pes is, despite how good it was last year. Just haven't had the energy to do so. Really, I don't think it's even that close. But both out of the box without sliders, I can see people giving the nod to Pes. Pes 14 i think? (One with Gotze) was about even if not slightly ahead of Fifa regardless of sliders. It's tough too because I only recently got into football with my entire childhood being basketball american football and baseball. I've only watched "soccer" for about 4-5 years now, but it's about as detailed watching as you could ever imagine. My point is, I never got to live in the glory days of Pes 5 era.

If you had to ask me right now I'd say Im a bit more excited for Pes, but I'm very cautious about how the AI will play because it's SOO robotic and automatic with no look perfect through balls, perfectly struct volleys, and a guaranteed goal conceded after going up one. The scripting is even worse with that game and I don't know how people think otherwise. And there's no doubt you feel it in Fifa from time to time as well.

It's tough though because we didn't get to play the AI in the Pes beta, but if there was one game I'd play online in previous years, no doubt it was Fifa so the Beta was a huge surprise for me.
 
Great news indeed! The community was making incredible strides with memory manipulation using cheat engine to adjust settings and/or inject modded files etc so this should finish things of properly :)
 
I hate how EA SPORTS communicates with FANs. Or... doesn't.
I would love to ask them what build the Beta is. Or whether or not some of the new features have been left out on purpose.

We gotta hand it to Adam. KONAMI interacts a helluva lot better.
 
This beta makes me feel bipolar. The best moments are moments I want to capture and share with all of you guys. My goals were absolutely fantastic. I was in awe of some of the moments that transpired. The worst, cant find a way around fixing the worst. This is how I've felt about Pes the past few years.

Final verdict: Don't play against Valencia. Set them to 10 aggression, still ran around like they were on PCP. Slowed down their speed, still played too directly. Game ended 4-3 after they got one late that felt scripted. It's like this game isn't even listening to the tactics I set for them. Something's wrong...

(WC, 20 min) [Significant changes from last slider test, height 60, pass error 60/70, pass speed 45/45]

Pros:
-I celebrated with the fans for the first time. Man, it's incredible. Shouldve done that a long time ago.
-Night lighting def seems improved, although, im always a bad judge of stuff like this
-They have the exact same 360 camera that Bein Sports uses for La Liga, pretty freakin sweet.
-Caught Diego Alves leaning one way during a slotted finish with Leo
-Don't know if I already mentioned this but Pens are basically the same as last year. Not sure if this is a good thing or not. My main gripe with the system is you can't start close to the ball given the choice and you can't strike it hard and low. They do have seemed to make it more possible to hit it hard and low this year though. Wish they'd just make it double tap b like in game. You also start your run up by pressing the shoot button, rather than the left stick. Aside from that, basically the same. Bit easier it seems this way though.
-The AI really seem to go with your body feints, like they actually believe you might be going that way, really cool.
-Used this to score a beauty with Neymar curling into the far post after cutting in.
-There's new animations for fouls and injuries, with players exaggerating and players trying to console an injured player and the ref calling the trainers over. Looked great.
-Valencia only averaged 84% this time around.
-Didn't see any ridiculous crosses, however, can't really remember Valencia crossing. High pass error couldve cause this. Let's hope not.

Cons:
-Aside from what I already stated...
-No more Mestalla
-When set up offensively in your own half, it's almost impossible to win the ball back deep. Your Midfielder and fullback retreat back too quickly and your CB's are at the halfway line. You shouldn't have to have gegen press activated for your team to try and win the ball back high up the freakin pitch. Especially when you have your pressing tactic at 90 and offside trap:ROLL:
-You have to make almost every tackle still, either by yourself or playing with legacy defending and using the teammate pressure button. Everyone else is basically useless unlike the Pes beta.
-Had another "slight tug on the shirt" penalty given using Neymar. Once in a coincidence, twice is a problem

I felt pretty defeated after that last one. Made me want to quit before I even got to halftime. I keep reminding myself this is just a Beta. Please EA, all im asking for at this point is Fifa 17 with this beta's dribbling, lob passes, chipped through balls, and for team styles to work properly and for you all to fix blitzkrieg pop pressing, passing accuracy and the defensive shape of teams. Just get the fundamentals right, and I'm totally on board with Fifa 18
 
talucchesi said:
This beta makes me feel bipolar. The best moments are moments I want to capture and share with all of you guys. My goals were absolutely fantastic. I was in awe of some of the moments that transpired. The worst, cant find a way around fixing the worst. This is how I've felt about Pes the past few years.
Click to expand...

Already noticed that. :D You really should try to just enjoy it. When the beta will be over you will understand if you liked what you played or not. It's way too early to have a definitive opinion, you just played a couple of days.
 
Okay, a friend of mine got onto the beta and I've played for a few hours last night, a few hours this morning, and a lot of hours this evening. Don't want to get him in trouble, so I'm not posting videos etc. publicly. But.

I've got to be blunt - I'm not seeing any major differences at all. I'm hard-pressed to see ANY difference (other than graphically). I've played a few games with lower league teams, knowing how ridiculous the pass accuracy is in 17 (smaller teams do shorter passes and therefore have the best pass accuracy) - I was hoping it'd change, but...

tUv67pB.jpg


kxIuly4.jpg


My only hope is that this beta isn't anywhere close to the final code - and there's a case to be made for that. The "hard tackle" button mentioned in all of the previews isn't there - the "team personalities" mentioned in all of the previews isn't there - the new crossing system they've made videos of isn't there (not for me, anyway)...

It feels almost fishy, to me - how are we this close to release, and those KEY new features aren't there?

Either way, the PES 2018 beta absolutely crushed this on the pitch (and honestly, I'm devastated, because it'll be a month before PES is ready to play from an option file point of view, and the Master League will bore me to death again, and the graphics - WOW I'll miss FIFA's graphics).

The midfield, across every difficulty (Pro to Legendary), doesn't exist. More than ever, the AI passes straight to strikers, who dribble around you like you're not there.

Even defending - my most hated part of 17 - is terrible, if not worse. As @talucchesi has said - if you don't get the ball with a slide tackle, you're not getting the ball. Your player seems to be guided around the striker. In the PES beta, if you needed to shut the opponents out, you could change to a defensive set-up, keep positioning tight and GRIND out a clean sheet through sheer concentration. In this FIFA beta, that's impossible. Players wander out of position, including CBs who I've had sprinting to the sides of a box for no reason, and when you try to pressure someone, you cannot force them into the opponent - you can't control them, they refuse to go head-on with the opponent and slip to the side of them instead, letting the guy through your defence like a greased pig.

The graphics are incredible - scoring a goal and seeing the crowd run towards you is really special. Oh, and World Class / Legendary is way harder now (though it feels to me like that's just because you have no control over your defenders). That's honestly all the good I can say about it...

No bipolar thoughts here - don't like it at all. I'm hoping that this beta - considering all the missing features - is some weird mistake. (Why release a beta without all the stuff your PR talks about?)
 
Are those screens from the second half? Fouls are way too low, same as i'm seeing in these videos.

Two football games with little to no fouls? Please, no.
 
Ameppe said:
Are those screens from the second half? Fouls are way too low, same as i'm seeing in these videos.

Two football games with little to no fouls? Please, no.
Click to expand...
No, first halves.

I've the AI completely mistime tackles and get cards - I've not noticed a problem with the foul count, but then it's not something I've been looking for.

My priorities were "does every team still play the same" and "is defending still horribly underpowered compared to attacking". Huge yes and huge yes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom