I cant imagine how some people think the game is really really easy. I mean, I play this game every damn day while I ignore most of my responsibilities. That being said, I'm not exactly saying its too hard. I believe the difficulty right now is just right according to how other teams play. Of course teams like Chelsea are going to be able to rally and come back from a 1-0 or 2-0 down while lesser know teams usually cant do that if you play them right. On the other hand, if you are losing 1-0 or 2-0 to a team like chelsea then it wont be that easy to come back yourself while sometimes lesser know teams (like teams played in the champions league first rounds) can give up some quick goals. I really applaude you for this feat. Its not easy for someone to make the game this way, so i think this is a great accomplishment and this should not be changed.
While this seems to be true, there are some things for the game play that I would like to see tweaked other than those i already mentioned. The thing is, I feel like these are somewhat responsible for the 'feature' I stated above. I've noticed that when we are on the ball and IF we arent swarmed by 80 million defenders (which I'm pretty sure is the real number) then the reaction time of our players is WAY slower than the cpu's. This means that when I use things like first touch and moves that the cpu defender is ALREADY where I want to go before i even finish the move, even if I had them beat initally. They can turn on a dime and stop like they dont have momentum. Its like our players are dumb. Ive also noticed that whenever there is ANY contact that our players are the ones that get bumped off the ball and do the little animation like they just ran into a wall which renders them useless for like 10 minutes (not really, just feels that way).
Also, as I mentioned before, they always have all 11 players around the ball it seems like which makes using things like right stick moves and first touch useless. But I've recently noticed that our players never mark someone with more than one player. Its very frustrating to see, but it happens regularly, the spu's striker just run past a cb while the cb just stands there and turns because I've been marking him with my cm since he's made this run without passing since midfeild. Im just asking for maybe a balance here. I dont necessarily want for all my players to run at the ball, but getting help would be nice. And I'm not saying that the cpu defenders shouldnt all run at the ball, but some space once and a while when they are sitting back waiting for me to attack instead of always attacking me woul dbe nice also.
The trick with all of this is to not decrease the difficulty, which i realize is going to be extremely difficult. Maybe concentrate on making all the players react the way you want them too, then tweak non behaviorial stuff like shot accuracy and timing and things like that. Making them more in favor of the cpu in the higher levels would make it just as hard as now I would assume? I read that in your download that we wouldnt be able to say the cpu cheated and i guess thats correct about we can do things they can do, but our players dont act the same, and thats what bothers me.
Ok, I'm done. Sorry for the long response, and it already is a great update. Please dont make it too hard. Ockham knows what hes doing, so if he wants to make things harder he will know where to look.but people like me like the game just fine. I like the fact that I can blow out Sunderland when i play as Man U while a game with chelsea ends 1-0 if im lucky (or unlucky). But the fact is its fun either way. For the first time in a long time I can lose. I guess the most impressive thing is I can lose to any particular team on any particular game. I havent ALWAYS been able to beat sunderland easily, which makes the game that much more exciting. Great work!
Cheers
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PS- Sorry for being so long winded.