GOALS - oh good, another eSports soccer game

They're announcing a AAA game without a delevoper team? :D
They even don't have a real idea so they are asking the community on Discord. :D
Do they think developing a good game takes two weeks like building a course on Super Mario Run?
It sound like the biggest april fool i heard in my entire life. Next step has to be a fundraising campaign to get the money out of the little boys even before they have any staff. It's the greatest idea ever. Catch all fifaboys with an announcement and steal their money without a game.
 
How and why would you want to introduce to the world your brand new company/game which supposedly is going to be a AAA Game that's going to compete with FIFA (and... that other new joke by Konami) without showing a single screenshot or video?.

Surely you'd want it to impact beyond mere words.
I was under the impression its only at the stage of hiring and is still on the drawing board.

Have they really said it will be faster than Fifa? Surely not lol.

Who is Kurt and why is he hated?
 
As things stand, there seems little hope for offline play, so perhaps the best hope for offline players is that this new game is a major success and creates serious 3-way competition in online football gaming. This could result in a fragmented market with reduced online revenues for EA and Konami, which could in turn encourage either EA or Konami to rethink/improve their approach to offline gaming. Alternatively, it may pressure them into being more innovative with their online gameplay, focusing even more resource there, which could result in them neglecting their offline games so much that it could encourage a 4th developer to enter and try to fill the offline void.

I've nothing against the idea of a online only esport football game with no AI, provided it's built on a foundation of excellent physics and animations to create something as close to realism as possible. This new game doesn't sound like it'll be attempting that. But I hope it shakes things up.
 
Ahh yes another day, another day dreaming swindler with no portfolio or proof of concept promising to single handedly develop a complex game from scratch to save us all with nothing but a mere twitter account, a self proclamation of a AAA game (which I didn't know you could declare your work as such) and a paid for endorsement from a mumbling minger turned influencer to manipulate his cult of feckless kids.

While it's far from the dark side of social media it's certainly one of the ills of the gaming community in terms of creating an account, preaching how you will bestow something ground-breaking on us starved of the good old days and garner instant unconditional hype and followers.

If I offered to sell you the best car in the world but all I could do was describe it's awesomeness but you wasn't allowed to see pictures, video or even test drive the fucker, would you beg me to tell you more wonderful stories about my magical vehicle or would you laugh in my face walk off and carry on with your day?
 
While we don't have much information on the project yet, besides what's already been talked about here so far, I've found an interesting video on Kurt's YouTube channel, it's one of his most recent, from 3 months back, so GOALS might've already been on his mind at this point, either way the video is about FIFA, most specifically his interpretation of a perfect football game based on his favorite elements from past FIFA titles, so while this isn't a video about GOALS, since it's only been announced now, perhaps this video by Kurt, one of the people behind the game, and the video's comment section, who are probably the main target audience for this new title, can give us some insight regarding what this project might be like when it comes out, or at least what it wants to achieve.

 
While we don't have much information on the project yet, besides what's already been talked about here so far, I've found an interesting video on Kurt's YouTube channel, it's one of his most recent, from 3 months back, so GOALS might've already been on his mind at this point, either way the video is about FIFA, most specifically his interpretation of a perfect football game based on his favorite elements from past FIFA titles, so while this isn't a video about GOALS, since it's only been announced now, perhaps this video by Kurt, one of the people behind the game, and the video's comment section, who are probably the main target audience for this new title, can give us some insight regarding what this project might be like when it comes out, or at least what it wants to achieve.

The problem is, Is this is a normal guy who happens to be good at the game online. That's it, that's his credentials. He's not a football expert, He's not a coach or a former player or someone who can provide valuable analysis into how a football game could be more authentic and immersive. He's not John Madden.

He's no more an observer on what makes an ideal football game then I would be if I was consulted on how to make a more realistic racing game and the only input I could offer is "Car goes vroom vroom and that faster cars are more fun."

Nothing of any value or no true concise point is made in this video. He's just mumbling and giggling about nothing in particular, Yet the comment section is full of impressionable kids who take his words as gospel like he's the leader of a cult. If you gave him the keys to a game developer studio and said, "she's all yours. Now go fulfil your vision" This guy wouldn't even know where to start. I seriously doubt he'd even know how to operate the kettle to make his own cup of tea.
 
The problem is, Is this is a normal guy who happens to be good at the game online. That's it, that's his credentials. He's not a football expert, He's not a coach or a former player or someone who can provide valuable analysis into how a football game could be more authentic and immersive. He's not John Madden.

He's no more an observer on what makes an ideal football game then I would be if I was consulted on how to make a more realistic racing game and the only input I could offer is "Car goes vroom vroom and that faster cars are more fun."

Nothing of any value or no true concise point is made in this video. He's just mumbling and giggling about nothing in particular, Yet the comment section is full of impressionable kids who take his words as gospel like he's the leader of a cult. If you gave him the keys to a game developer studio and said, "she's all yours. Now go fulfil your vision" This guy wouldn't even know where to start. I seriously doubt he'd even know how to operate the kettle to make his own cup of tea.
You're spot on. While I know that the video isn't about GOALS, it still shows us how one of the main people behind the game thinks these types of games should be, the same goes for the comment section, the target audience which they hope to appeal to.

Overall, this video made me have even less hope than before that I might enjoy this game when/if it comes out, for many reasons. The first one is the speed, when he shows clips of FIFA20/FIFA21 and jokes about how he swears it's not slowed down even though they look fine, and then shows the previous FIFAs going at a 100mph as a good thing, which most in the comment section agree on, it makes it clear to me that I probably won't be the target audience for GOALS. Also, this video about his idea of a perfect football game, which he now has a chance of making, has no mention of defensive mechanics, just attack, dribbling, goals, etc. There are other things which I disagreed on, but I'd write an essay if I went into everything.

I'm somewhat disappointed, I still think that if they actually release something it'll be good for the genre regardless of the game's direction, because there'll be more competition which is what drives everything forward, but another reason I wanted a new title was because I wanted another option to play, and this doesn't look like it'll be it considering what has been said so far, the people behind it and the target audience.

Also, I've joined the discord server, apparently the estimate is that the game won't be released before 2023, but I'm not sure if that was said by the developers or if it's just speculation, I really wish they would've given us more information from the get go, that they would've prepared things more before making an official announcement, because until now we have almost nothing, just words, and that doesn't mean much, this gives me vibes that it'll never actually come out, which is worrisome.
 
At one point he says that one player dribbling half the opposite team is realistic...
A smart AI would just foul after you dribble past the 2nd defender, tops.
 
So I watched his clip above.

Interestingly - he claims Fifa16/17 (and 18, to a point) are way above anything that came after.
Which is true.

He also claims that defending/pressing is broken in new Fifas and you cannot get close to anybody in order to get the ball back.
Which is also true.

But he doesnt seems to have a clue on the root cause of all this.

He thinks its the pace of the game. He thinks new Fifas are not fast and dynamic and he cant close anybody down, because the game is too slow!!

Now I hope that someone from their discord is lurking here from the bushes, coz I got a news for you.

New Fifas are not dynamic not because the game is too slow. They are like this, because pro players were whinging about AI defending and EA (from Fifa19 onwards) decided to slowly switch your whole fucking team off.

Fifa16 was fun, dynamic, smooth and balanced in defense/offense, because your team mates had brains!!!

You can make the game as fast as you want, but if you dont include proper AI support, positioning, marking and pressing - you will never get dynamic and smooth game!

And this, ladies and gentlemen - is realistic behaviour. The same that we are fighting for. Its part of the SIM gameplay that you are so happy to turn your backs away from.
 
So I watched his clip above.

Interestingly - he claims Fifa16/17 (and 18, to a point) are way above anything that came after.
Which is true.

He also claims that defending/pressing is broken in new Fifas and you cannot get close to anybody in order to get the ball back.
Which is also true.

But he doesnt seems to have a clue on the root cause of all this.

He thinks its the pace of the game. He thinks new Fifas are not fast and dynamic and he cant close anybody down, because the game is too slow!!

Now I hope that someone from their discord is lurking here from the bushes, coz I got a news for you.

New Fifas are not dynamic not because the game is too slow. They are like this, because pro players were whinging about AI defending and EA (from Fifa19 onwards) decided to slowly switch your whole fucking team off.

Fifa16 was fun, dynamic, smooth and balanced in defense/offense, because your team mates had brains!!!

You can make the game as fast as you want, but if you dont include proper AI support, positioning, marking and pressing - you will never get dynamic and smooth game!

And this, ladies and gentlemen - is realistic behaviour. The same that we are fighting for. Its part of the SIM gameplay that you are so happy to turn your backs away from.


Now. Try getting them to believe that, and not spending the next year or three making a prototype that gets faster, and faster, and faster (with no real-world physics or player attributes - AKA SCRIPTING OMFG BAN IT BAN IT NOW - to speak of).

These guys chase the same feelings they get from CoD and Fortnite, where they win because of their insane reaction times when it comes to aiming and firing. They want that, with a football skin on the top. No responsiveness delay based on body-position or anything like that. There are lots of indie cartoon football games that do that, and everyone laughs at them because the ball just magically flies off before a player's leg has even begun a follow-through motion to touch the ball.

All I can see them making is one of those games, but with "serious" graphics.

Hey, if that's what they want, great. I hope it's the best game ever, for them. Then they won't be complaining about how "realistic and slow and boring" FIFA is, and it might actually get better.
 
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He thinks its the pace of the game. He thinks new Fifas are not fast and dynamic and he cant close anybody down, because the game is too slow!!
Once again, Why would you want to brag that someone who can't even articulate themselves well, is going to publically endorse your new product?

For all the issues people had with Adam & Asim and their performances as community managers/brand ambassadors, At least they weren't anywhere close to being as vapid as this guy.

This is the equivalent of a Football club with with new wealthy investors reaching out to Dave from the pub to advise them on what world class players they should recruit and what tactics to use.
Now. Try getting them to believe that, and not spending the next year or three making a prototype that gets faster, and faster, and faster (with no real-world physics or player attributes - AKA SCRIPTING OMFG BAN IT BAN IT NOW - to speak of).

These guys chase the same feelings they get from CoD and Fortnite, where they win because of their insane reaction times when it comes to aiming and firing. They want that, with a football skin on the top. No responsiveness delay based on body-position or anything like that. There are lots of indie cartoon football games that do that, and everyone laughs at them because the ball just magically flies off before a player's leg has even begun a follow-through motion to touch the ball.

All I can see them making is one of those games, but with "serious" graphics.

Hey, if that's what they want, great. I hope it's the best game ever, for them. Then they won't be complaining about how "realistic and slow and boring" FIFA is, and it might actually get better.
The problem is that if they're just going to make a new game that looks like PES/FIFA and plays like PES/FIFA but is just called something different to PES/FIFA, you may as well just go and play PES/FIFA because at least they're polished, have equity and brand familiarity. It's like opening another burger restaurant to compete with McDonald's and Burger King. Doesn't matter whether your burgers are going to be cooked faster, People will always be loyal to the culturally familiar household product.
 
This is the equivalent of a Football club with with new wealthy investors reaching out to Dave from the pub to advise them on what world class players they should recruit and what tactics to use.
Does Dave has a cult tho? :LOL:

The problem is that if they're just going to make a new game that looks like PES/FIFA and plays like PES/FIFA but is just called something different to PES/FIFA, you may as well just go and play PES/FIFA because at least they're polished, have equity and brand familiarity.
You do have a point here. It should be something different.
Arcade is the laziest and simplest option. We already had few small arcade football games that came out in the last year or two. The fact that I dont even remember their names says a lot.
Arcade football games will come out, entertain for a short while and everyone will forget them. There is no learning curve there, there is no longevity.
Fifa will always be more flashy and full of content to keep people hooked for longer.

I know that its not easy (and seems pointless, judging by what majority of current football games players THINK they want), but I honestly think the only way to get noticed is to create football game that would play like a football match. With physicality, proper AI and a big fucking learning curve, so people would get hooked, grinding and trying to learn it.
 
He also claims that defending/pressing is broken in new Fifas and you cannot get close to anybody in order to get the ball back.
Which is also true.

But he doesnt seems to have a clue on the root cause of all this.

He thinks its the pace of the game. He thinks new Fifas are not fast and dynamic and he cant close anybody down, because the game is too slow!!

He has a really bad grasp of cause & effect.

Just to add to this, passing in 18 went full ping pong for the first time but even a year or two later he said he thought passing was ok and not a problem. This is guy who rambles on about the skill gap but doesn't mind ping pong assisted passing.

Of course this is another reason you can't get near the guy with ball. Duh.

I think he's just the average FUT player. Having knee jerk reactions to things he doesn't enjoy and gets mad like a child but has little idea as to why. This doesn't mean he's not good at the game. Most of the best players at this "football" game are children anyway so he fits right in. :P
 
He has a really bad grasp of cause & effect
Yep, 100%
He keeps repeating "I swear this is not slowed down footage", when switching to his defenders.
"I cant get near them! I swear this is not slowed down!"

You cant get near them, coz they are not in position. Coz they are not tracking, not pressing. Coz they are just standing there, far away from ball carrier.

In Fifa16 defense was snappier, coz when you switched to your defender - he was already close and ready to engage. In new Fifas you have to run towards the ball carrier first, which usually is enough for them to pass the ball.

FUT players are whinging about things not having a clue what causes their issues. Then EA tweaks something completely unrelated to the problem and we are ending up with a steaming pile of shite.

Edit: not to mention that defending tackles were also nerfed to bits, coz (again) FUT players were whinging that players should not fall coz it stops the flow of the game. So even if you get near the player - you can do fuck all, as you have no weapon to fight them.
 
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While we don't have much information on the project yet, besides what's already been talked about here so far, I've found an interesting video on Kurt's YouTube channel, it's one of his most recent, from 3 months back, so GOALS might've already been on his mind at this point, either way the video is about FIFA, most specifically his interpretation of a perfect football game based on his favorite elements from past FIFA titles, so while this isn't a video about GOALS, since it's only been announced now, perhaps this video by Kurt, one of the people behind the game, and the video's comment section, who are probably the main target audience for this new title, can give us some insight regarding what this project might be like when it comes out, or at least what it wants to achieve.

Had to close my browser after 5 minutes talking.
He sounds like a goat getting f**ed.
And his only wish is to run through everything with Gullit and making sexy donkey sounds.

There is no reason to talk about this game i guess. They're just collecting ideas and having nothing.
Developing will take years. And no one of this team have aver made a AAA title. It's just a fart of someones brain and a waste of time to talk about it one more second.
 
Yep, 100%
He keeps repeating "I swear this is not slowed down footage", when switching to his defenders.
"I cant get near them! I swear this is not slowed down!"

You cant get near them, coz they are not in position. Coz they are not tracking, not pressing. Coz they are just standing there, far away from ball carrier.

In Fifa16 defense was snappier, coz when you switched to your defender - he was already close and ready to engage. In new Fifas you have to run towards the ball carrier first, which usually is enough for them to pass the ball.

FUT players are whinging about things not having a clue what causes their issues. Then EA tweaks something completely unrelated to the problem and we are ending up with a steaming pile of shite.

Edit: not to mention that defending tackles were also nerfed to bits, coz (again) FUT players were whinging that players should not fall coz it stops the flow of the game. So even if you get near the player - you can do fuck all, as you have no weapon to fight them.
Yes. To understand why defending isn't functional in these modern games we need to accept they are an intentional design choice. It's to give the attacking player enough time on the ball to do something productive and attractive. If this happens, more player believe they are good at the game and will enjoy it more and are more likely to spend more money and investing in their progress in FUT, If the games are eventful and full of chance creation during streams then people will watch, want to recreate it themselves, and be more motivated to spend money in the game if they feel like they belong playing this game.

They don't want to put those that are less knowledgeable about football and less mature to try to understand it off the game. That's all it comes down to really.
 
Just don't care that it's "Kurt from Fifa" or whoever else helping for making a game to be honest, as long as it's good.
But i just don't thrust on that project, and he will takes from Fifa only (there another game with interesting things to take on don't you know?)... But especially as it will be hyper online based.
It's not that i hate online, but i won't repeat what i said earlier : creating a football game, even with the level from the worst FIFA will be really really hard as it was build on two decades, steps by steps, experiences by experience and features after features, fails, retry, etc.

Before Iss Pro Evolution there was ISS on snes, ISS Deluxe, Goal Storm, Iss Pro (only), ISS 98, ISS pro evolution with some errors and ISS Pro Evolution 2.

Same for Fifa, since the first before the 95 to the 98, then they tried tons of version very different from one to another, and finally found an opening with inspiration from PES with firstly Fifa 07 who were already a bit too much "old Fifa" with the new engine, then the 08 who were completely different as any Fifa direction they tooks before. They stagned a lot to me in terms of balance since 5 years, but well there's features in both actual games we're not aware of how hard it's to replicate, because we followed it year after year.

We would have a completely different view if we discovered some of those currents games versions after 10 years without knowing both existed.

So i don't believe at all at their project, even creating a good game a bit arcade, online only but realistic visually and in terms of overall variety, stats, tactics and all, functionning... It's already super hard for a Tennis game, i don't imagine for Football > the hardest sport to replicate correctly as the time is reduce by 9 (10 minutes) or 7.5 (if 12 minutes)
 
It's going to be fun to see all that big boss talk "we're gonna save you!" and how super basic and limited , but also weird the game will be in every area.
 
A new video has been released by Kurt0411 on his channel, talking about the GOALS project, titled MAKING OUR OWN FOOTBALL GAME!!!!!
Andreas Thorstensson, the CEO, shared the video on the discord server, saying the following:
"Kurt0411 just posted a video where he does a small reveal of what we are thinking in terms of game design. It is still early days, a lot of things can and will change, but hopefully you will get a deeper understanding of our thinking."

Here's the video for anyone who's interested:

 
A new video has been released by Kurt0411 on his channel, talking about the GOALS project, titled MAKING OUR OWN FOOTBALL GAME!!!!!
Andreas Thorstensson, the CEO, shared the video on the discord server, saying the following:
"Kurt0411 just posted a video where he does a small reveal of what we are thinking in terms of game design. It is still early days, a lot of things can and will change, but hopefully you will get a deeper understanding of our thinking."

Here's the video for anyone who's interested:

Groundhog Day (the movie) scenario.
Waking up getting stabbed and die or see this video every day for all eternity ,what's your pick?
I'd take the stabbing!
 
Groundhog Day (the movie) scenario.
Waking up getting stabbed and die or see this video every day for all eternity ,what's your pick?
I'd take the stabbing!
Pretty difficult choice, but I'd probably take the stabbing too, seems more interesting and also less time consuming.

I think this video pretty much settled that, at least for the majority of the users of this forum, this game won't scratch our football gaming itch, which is a shame considering that the overall prospect most here have for FIFA and especially for eFootball is a very pessimistic one, so sticking to retro seems like the best option for the time being. Either way, I hope they can make a succesful game in the end, they've said it'll take about 2 or 3 years from now for it to come out, so it's clearly very early stages and there's always that chance of it never happening, but it'd be good for the market to have more competition, and like others have said here it might push EA or Konami to take another direction with their respective franchises in an attempt to attract players who aren't into the style of football offered by GOALS.

The main problems in this video for me, and with their direction overall, comes from the whole eSports ready, multiplayer first approach, mostly because I don't think football is suited for the competitive eSports environment, because unless we're talking about an 11v11 mode then AI is crucial in replicating the sport, therefore there will always be an important component that is outside of the players' control, there's also the randomness aspect which is part of the real sport aswell. In the words of Mike Bassett: "You've got to get some luck. Yeah, if the ball hits the post and goes one way you're the winner, if it goes the other way..."

When Kurt0411 mentions that "We can take the best parts of the real football, and we can remove the bad parts." I'm left to wonder what those bad parts of football are. Perhaps the 90min duration? Well, pretty much all football games ever usually have matches around 10min, so that's to be expected. Is it the timewasting and the fact that many minutes are spent without open play? Football games have always taken care of that too. Maybe the randomness and the fact that in football sometimes the team who played better actually loses? I wouldn't call that a bad thing, but I guess it's bad in the competitive context. Either way, I'm not sure what are these bad parts of football that need to be changed so much.

The last quote which sums up what they're going for is "This will be a barbaric, sadistic, ruthless football game. Defensive AI will be at a complete an utter minimum, if you don't select the player closest to the ball... Goodbye. Finito. You're done for." I've mostly played as a defender in real life, either at school, or with friends nowadays in the weekends, so nowhere near the level of professional football, and even then defense never worked like this, it baffles me that people really think defensive AI is a bad thing, most times in real life where I was able to do a tackle or interception is either due to my teammates blocking the passing lanes or pressuring, if I try to do anything against an attacker while my teammates at the back do nothing, they can just pass to someone who's free or get past me more easily since I'm doing everything by myself. Why is it that attacking AI doing runs and positioning itself well automatically is ok, but when the defense does it it's bad?
 
There will never ever be a solid, realistic, next-gen football game, ever again.

As long as companies have to cater for online, we're forever stuck in a loop. And I don't see online competitive gaming dying. It's here to stay.
No matter if microtransactions ever get banned or regulated, they'll find another way to make money out of it in some other legal way we may not foresee now. I'm sure companies like EA have huge "Plan B" strategies already in place, in case new laws forbid making money out of game modes like FUT, in the way they do now.

And even if other companies decided to show interest in football, why would they take a different approach when they know where the real money is?. Why would they focus on offline game modes when there's not much to gain from that?.

And, on top of that, there's the whole licensing issue. So it's a lose-lose situation for offline whichever way you want to look at it:
  • Can't put out a AAA football game without any huge licenses that would lure people and draw them in.
  • Can't put out a AAA football game if you don't have a competitive online game mode. And sure as hell can't have that if you don't have any BIG licenses.
  • Can't put out a AAA football game with just offline game modes, because then you'd be splitting your customer base in half (or worse). Not to mention the fact that sooner or later the game would be cracked and pirated, and the company would face even less revenue after all the hard work and resources they destined to make the game. So again, allocating a lot of the budget to create a realistic football experience with Offline as priority does't look very appealing, does it?.

The only way there could ever be hope, would be if somehow new regulations forced companies to share licenses and prevented one company to hold the monopoly of licenses. Only then I could see other companies wanting to invest in creating a AAA football game.
But then again, Online would be their first and most important game mode and where their main focus will be directed because it's where they can get most revenue from.

We're done guys, let's face it.
 
The last quote which sums up what they're going for is "This will be a barbaric, sadistic, ruthless football game. Defensive AI will be at a complete an utter minimum,
Yeah that's truly sad and stupid approach.

I gave up NHL online (Chel) this year simply because the insane game speed and everything was geared to offensive stuff ,I play as a defence man in an online league ,but I was shocked how bad the game got from 20 -21.

It's all about offensive trickery nowadays.
Hopefully the next generation of kids will appreciate real football/hockey and demands something else than this
 
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The last quote which sums up what they're going for is "This will be a barbaric, sadistic, ruthless football game. Defensive AI will be at a complete an utter minimum, if you don't select the player closest to the ball... Goodbye. Finito. You're done for".
These word reminded me of Red Card Soccer, a game that is remarkably decent, and probably miles ahead of whatever these dudes are trying to make.
 
I've mostly played as a defender in real life, either at school, or with friends nowadays in the weekends, so nowhere near the level of professional football, and even then defense never worked like this, it baffles me that people really think defensive AI is a bad thing, most times in real life where I was able to do a tackle or interception is either due to my teammates blocking the passing lanes or pressuring, if I try to do anything against an attacker while my teammates at the back do nothing, they can just pass to someone who's free or get past me more easily since I'm doing everything by myself. Why is it that attacking AI doing runs and positioning itself well automatically is ok, but when the defense does it it's bad?

I was automatically going to the guy in possession or blocked him to make a pass. Instinctively. Defending to me was a bit more, how should i say, "organic" and "natural" regarding reflexes than attacking, dribbling, makes choices in fact. I founded it more obvious and i wasn't even a defender. An LMF who participated to the center a lot, but could've also play CMF as i was pressing more than the others just because i hated to leave the opposite team doing what they wanted lol.
Well the only thing that was really "organic" in terms of attack to me was shooting, from any distance, and playing back to the goal/protect my ball. If think that's more or less everyone case as amateurs regarding shoots : shooting doesn't mean "on the goal", but clearing too.

I don't know, i'm not in the head of everyone, but i remind when PES 2008 was out, we complained about one thing : it was hard to defend. The logic in football games at the time was "we got easy to attack, so it should be easy to defend too, to keep the balance for everyone who's playing and not having too high scores" (If i remember well an ITW, Seabass just wanted to decrease just a bit the defensive assistance. Just a bit, not too much, because PES 5-6 where a bit too assisted for him, but he was wrong as attacker gotted a bigger panel of weapons...)

But it seems that people now wants the total opposite. I sincerely don't get why. Make defending fun why not, but not harder on purpose.
 
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I was automatically going to the guy in possession or blocked him to make a pass. Instinctively. Defending to me was a bit more, how should i say, "organic" and "natural" regarding reflexes than attacking, dribbling, makes choices in fact. I founded it more obvious and i wasn't even a defender. An LMF who participated to the center a lot, but could've also play CMF as i was pressing more than the others just because i hated to leave the opposite team doing what they wanted lol.
Well the only thing that was really "organic" in terms of attack to me was shooting, from any distance, and playing back to the goal/protect my ball. If think that's more or less everyone case as amateurs regarding shoots : shooting doesn't mean "on the goal", but clearing too.
Defending can definitely feel more natural and reflex based than attacking, especially depending on the context of the play, so I get what you mean, afterall, when we have the ball at our feet we need to judge what's the best course of action regarding the continuation of the play, you have a lot of options on what to do and it's up to you to decide what's ideal. When you're on the defending it can be a bit more obvious, if you're a CB and the ball is in the midfield you can see the DMF is on the player with the ball, so your job is mostly to block the passing lanes to the attackers and mark them well, however if their on the box then you need to tackle them and/or block their shot, or else they'll score. As someone who's mostly played as CB and DMF I'd say that the key element in attacking is the creativity, because that's the active phase of play, while defending is a reactive phase of play, so the key element is organization, everyone doing what they're supposed to depending on where the ball is and what player has it.

I don't know, i'm not in the head of everyone, but i remind when PES 2008 was out, we complained about one thing : it was hard to defend. The logic in football games at the time was "we got easy to attack, so it should be easy to defend too, to keep the balance for everyone who's playing and not having too high scores" (If i remember well an ITW, Seabass just wanted to decrease just a bit the defensive assistance. Just a bit, not too much, because PES 5-6 where a bit too assisted for him, but he was wrong as attacker gotted a bigger panel of weapons...)

But it seems that people now wants the total opposite. I sincerely don't get why.
I wasn't into forums in general back then, so I'm not very knowledgeable about what the concerns were each year, but I do like the logic that if it's easy to attack then defending should be easy too, or else you'll just have mindless goalfests. I'm not sure why nowadays the desire seems to be so geared towards attacking, perhaps due to the online modes making you spend money to get those flashy top players, so people want to score with them all of the time to justify the spending, or perhaps it is because of the newer generations just having different preferences in football, I recall reading before that more and more people are having a hard time watching full 90 minute matches and prefer to just see the highlights, so it could have something to do with that.

Make defending fun why not, but not harder on purpose.
Exactly. I feel this is the most important thing developers need to understand, afterall defending is 50% of football, so if you make a football game where defending isn't fun then 50% of your game isn't fun. I understand that attacking will always be more appealing than defending, doing plays and scoring goals, however defending can be very satisfying too, of course when you don't have the ball your main focus is to get it back so you can attack again, so I can see why defending can sound like it's nothing but a chore, something you have to do before you can go back to the good stuff, but while there's nothing in defending that feels as satisfying as a scoring a goal, it's still rewarding to get it right. When I make a succesful tackle or interception due to my correct positioning and decision making that's very rewarding, especially if I can stop an attack which is clearly dangerous, like a counter, and succesfully making a difficult tackle without fouling the opposition player is one of the most satisfying things in football.

However, those things don't work and can feel like much more of a chore if I'm trying to do them while my teammates aren't marking anybody or blocking passing lanes, because then it's not a 1v1 situation between me and the opposition player anymore, it's 11v1 with me alone trying to stop a whole team, so instead of feeling like part of an organized unit where I have to focus on my function in an 11v11 match I just feel helpless having to do everything, and that's not fun at all.
 
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