Hi All,

I was curious how many of you have spent much time playing multiplayer FIFA cooperatively, i.e. humans on one side, strictly CPU players on the opposing team.

I've played many games where it is just myself versus a friend with the CPU filling out the rest of the teams. This works fine because you are still the sole controller of your team. However, trying to play cooperatively with another human player on the same team creates significant difficulty in finding effective game tactics.

Are there any recommended tactics for playing effectively with another human teammate(s)? Do people even play the game that way much? It's an interesting challenge and I can only think that once the tactics are mastered, multiple human-controlled teams can raise the bar in FIFA gameplay.

I have some other thoughts regarding the topic as well, such as potential ideas for making teams easier control for multiple human players, but I'll save those for another message.

- Holesinswiss

"Know thy selves" is all I can say. My friend and i tried it a few times. We have played each other so many times that we know our relatives styles in Fifa.

[ 07-25-2001: Message edited by: the_man ]

Yea, especially if your human teammate has the same playing style as yours, then it will be a perfect team.
Perfect for new tournaments :)

I certainly agree that you need to know your teammates to be effective. That is true for any team sport, of course.

I think the game itself poses some technical difficulties though. The root problem that I see lies in player-switching in the game.

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to control which player you gain control over when switching. It's even more difficult when another player on your team is switching as well, so it's even more of a guess who you're controlling next.

For instance, I'm pretty good at defending while my friend is excellent at working the ball up the field. What I think would be ideal is to be able to set "zones" of control. I would be able to specify that I'm on defense and thus when I switch players, my selection will rotate only through the defends. My teammate could then select to control the forward zone and thus his selections would be contained within the forwards/wings and possibly any offensive midfielders (depending on your formation). Any zones that you both select would then behave like the current game: the next closest player to the ball.

By providing this kind of predictability over the players that you control, you can further refine your tactics.

- Holesinswiss

what do you mean by defining "zones" of control?
is there any way to do this on FIFA or how?

I don't believe there is a way to set up these "zones" as I described in FIFA.

The way I envision it, the zones would basically be defined in three segments by your offensive, midfield, and defensive positions. Your formation would determine precisely which players are members of a particular zone, although it could be possible to customize which players belonged to a particular zone (perhaps defining your zones across the field rather than for the length of it).

You could then define your control of players in the game to be restricted to a particular zone. This could be good for practice scenarios where you want to hone your skills in a particular area of the field.

However, the real point of setting up such control zones would be to allow you to play more effectively as a team with other human players. The zones would prevent problems with contention for control over the same players with your human teammates during the match.

Do you see it now? This may be a stretch, but an analogy might be that this is akin to having separate offensive and defensive "coaches" in the game that could specialize in their roles.

- Holesinswiss

got ya :D

you write too much, but you do have something going :) tell someone that can do something about it!

I like to write, especially about topics I care about.

I could go on for pages about the Career Mode (http://www.soccergaming.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=35&t=000325) that sush (http://www.soccergaming.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_profile&u=00007483) suggested, but then what would you think? :)

- Holesinswiss