I run several experiments with difficulty levels and assistance levels.
On pass assistance set to 1 and difficulty level set to Professional, I always win games by the 2 or 3 goals – often more. My last game I won 6-1.
On pass assistance set to 0 and difficulty level set to Professional, I lose games by 2 or 3 goals, often not being able to score a single goal (this is on 20 minutes games btw).
If I keep the pass assistance at 1 and bump up the difficulty level to Top Player or even higher, the scores become more even. But (and it is a big BUT), the gameplay experience suffers, because 1) The CPU is basically unstoppable and 2) my way of playing becomes very repetitive – ball to the striker, first time pass to the winger, a couple of one-two passes, leading to a one-on-one with the keeper and goal. I don’t have to even think.
In my mind, in order to recreate the best level of realism, the game MUST be played with passing assistance set to 0. On Professional difficulty with 0 assistance, the game recreates the flaws of real football very realistically. I like that sometimes I make bad passes because that’s a part of the game and it also forces me to think more, to make better choices how and when to pass. But to play like that it has to be a fair contest and as such the AI’s passing ability needs to be toned down too. In essence, the game needs sliders to reduce the AI’s pin-point passing ability.
If I play with assisted controls, it’s basically a brain dead experience as all I need to do is a tap the pass button and voila – it’s a perfect pin-point pass (even on assistance set at 0), which just ain’t fun.
On pass assistance set to 1 and difficulty level set to Professional, I always win games by the 2 or 3 goals – often more. My last game I won 6-1.
On pass assistance set to 0 and difficulty level set to Professional, I lose games by 2 or 3 goals, often not being able to score a single goal (this is on 20 minutes games btw).
If I keep the pass assistance at 1 and bump up the difficulty level to Top Player or even higher, the scores become more even. But (and it is a big BUT), the gameplay experience suffers, because 1) The CPU is basically unstoppable and 2) my way of playing becomes very repetitive – ball to the striker, first time pass to the winger, a couple of one-two passes, leading to a one-on-one with the keeper and goal. I don’t have to even think.
In my mind, in order to recreate the best level of realism, the game MUST be played with passing assistance set to 0. On Professional difficulty with 0 assistance, the game recreates the flaws of real football very realistically. I like that sometimes I make bad passes because that’s a part of the game and it also forces me to think more, to make better choices how and when to pass. But to play like that it has to be a fair contest and as such the AI’s passing ability needs to be toned down too. In essence, the game needs sliders to reduce the AI’s pin-point passing ability.
If I play with assisted controls, it’s basically a brain dead experience as all I need to do is a tap the pass button and voila – it’s a perfect pin-point pass (even on assistance set at 0), which just ain’t fun.