HERE IS A QUICK GUIDE TO EDITING THE GAME FOR THOSE THAT WANT TO DO IT THEMSELVES FROM NON UK AND FOR THOSE WANTING TO KNOW WHAT I HAVE CHANGED -
The following is a guide to editing players so that they play life like, but more importantly their teams and the game plays realistically. In all cases, although I have given guides to what these levels should be, care should be taken to keep player and team individuality.
One of the major problems with game play the default Konami stats, is that 4/5th of all players in the game have terrible stats which are far too low and the famous players have stats which are way too high. In 2012, this creates a game which seems very fast and weightless with the big teams and dull with a lot of the rest of the teams. If you play with one set against the other you will have them pinned in their half the entire game, which is no fun at all.
Konami also uses physical attributes to differentiate between how good a player is with players at small teams being made slow, weak and unable to kick a ball hard, which isn’t very realistic. Most teams in this game are taken from the top division of each nation, it’s not like they are amateur plodders, so giving all players in a team stats which mean they can barely outpace any defender or cannot shoot or turn around or react quicker than an oil tanker is ludicrous.
Skill should be the biggest factor in how good a player is and by making the game tighter, players who can control the ball and pass the best become the stars.
Teamwork
This dictates how well a team can pass the ball around and retain possession when you are play against them and how well you can pass the ball around when using them. If this is low for the com team they are likely to attack in poor patterns, loose the ball under pressure and then be pinned in their half. Top teams should have this stats for most players in the high 80’s and this should then gradually reduce down to 80 as teams reduce in quality down to the weakest teams in the game.
Tenacity
This dictates how much of a challenge and effort the opposition makes to get the ball from you. Having players high in this stat will have them doing things like tackling more often and blocking players from crossing. This combined with teamwork creates very realistic game play as like in professional football a player will not run alongside someone not making a challenge or blocking a cross. Last years “bug” where defenders didn’t block crosses was fixed by simply increasing this stat
This should be used for each team in the same way that Teamwork is, with the better teams having higher tenacity in the high 80’s and gradually going down to 80 for lesser teams. In addition, teams that aren’t necessarily brilliant, but play a physical game like Stoke, should have this stats high.
If you edit only the teamwork and tenacity of any team in the game as detailed above and then play them you will notice a bit difference in the games realism
Short Passing Speed
This along with Explosive power plays more of a role in setting the pace of a game than any other stats.
One of the changes I do is to reduce the short passing speed of a lot of players. This massively effects the pace of the game, much more than changing top speed.
World class central midfielders in the game have this set in the high 80's or even 90's. This on speed 0, is a large part of why people cannot get a speed they are comfortable with as some teams will have a lot of players with these high stats, but most others have them set ok
Reduce this down to 81 or 82 for only the very best midfielders in the game and reduce defenders to 77 to 78 tops and the game starts feeling more naturally paced
It also plays a major part in how much space the players receiving the ball is in as a slower pass will give more time for him to be closed down
Explosive Power
This is what used to be acceleration and is responsible along with short passing speed for the game feeling too fast. It has been set in a great deal of players far too high. This is especially true with central midfielders and defenders. If these players accelerate too fast it completely unbalances the game. Forwards and wingers need this stats to being mostly how it is in the game, but any midfielder with this set to over 80 – 84 is going to make the game look too fast and unrealistic, fortunately this is only true for a number of players at top clubs, this should be reduced in these players
Top Speed
How fast a player can run after accelerating. Most professional forwards aren’t lighting fast, but can stay ahead of most defenders if put in front of them. I have edited this for wide players and forwards as unless this is above 80, they are going to struggle to make any impact in the game (there is some who have this stat below this, who can still play well as they are notoriously slow, but gifted in other ways). For a normal paced forward or winger this should be around 80 – 82 and then increasing in cases depending on the speed of the forward in real life. A few very past players in the game should have this stat in the 90’s, as long as it’s not combined with similar movement stats, it should be ok and unrealistically unbalance the game.
Response, Dribbling speed, dribbling accuracy (movement stats)
Having players with these stats that aren’t at least in the mid 70’s will make the game feel clunky and unresponsive. In the same way, having superstars with these stats over 90, will make them feel weightless and able to completely unbalance the game and make it look unrealistic going around everyone. Be very careful with even having Messi or Ronaldo with any movement or speed stats over 90 as combining a few very high stats on movement creates unrealistic players.
Ball Control
Works similar to how Technique did in the past. I have mostly increased this stats in most players and left it in player who already have it in the mid 80’s. Most should have it at least in the mid 70’s, increasing up to mid-eighties for players with higher skill levels and only above that for the highest skilled players in the world. Teams packed with players with high ball control and teamwork will play some very good football, this combined with players will realistically paced short passing makes some teams in this game look and play amazing football that simply isn’t seen on any other football game to date.
Balance
Players with low balance stats in the low 70’s will easily be pushed of the ball. By default Konami normally gives fast players low balance stats so they cannot fly past people and be too effective. This is what I think causes the stutter issue. I raise a lot of players balance up to at least the high 70’s and if they should have it, the mid-eighties.
Shot Power (or whatever it is now called)
I have raised this slightly for some midfielders at top clubs and for a lot of players at smaller clubs who can barely shoot. Most decent players should have this at least in the mid-seventies. Players who can hit decent shots in real life, I have raised to low eighties and players notoriously good at shooting from distance I had put to the high 80’s.
Shot Accuracy
Increased to at least mid-seventies for all forwards in the game, most raised further. With the above changes you will get far less un-pressured shots on goal if playing on top player. If you only get a couple of chances a game, having the majority of forwards with rubbish shooting stats is going to make things difficult and low scoring. Having decent professional football standard forwards at most clubs massively increases the appeal of this game as more teams can score against you and more teams are entertaining to play.
Keepers
Keepers stats increased by about 4 for each specific goal keeping attribute. Also have other stats like Defence and Ball Control increased.
After changing each of these for a couple of teams, try them against each other and then continue to tweak them further and then when your happy with it, move on to other teams. The longer you do this the more of an idea you will get and the faster you will be able to do other teams. Luckily, Konami introduced option file upgrading so I had 2 months-worth of work already done this year and it only took a couple of weeks to get the game right.
