The year is slowly ticking away, which means it’s getting time for the annual sports series to get their yearly refreshes. EA is in the midst of marketing for their American football franchise, Madden NFL, but the other (and most would argue ‘proper’) football series is FIFA. It’s 2020 installment will be here before you know it, and while EA isn’t quite ready to get too in the weeds about it yet, we do have some change ups that we could be seeing.
In a Pitch Notes article on the franchise website, community managers Gabriel Zaro and Corey Andress along with The FIFA Gameplay DEV Team wrote about feedback they’ve received to last year’s entry and how they hope to address it in the next iteration. They talk about a variety of gameplay improvements planned surrounding AI, passing, 1v1 shooting, Timed Finishes, and much more. You can check out a partial list below, or see the whole breakdown here.
We don’t know the details on FIFA 20 yet, only that it will release in September of this year, as usual. Usually the game gets a big reveal in June, so we’ll keep you updated.
A.I. Defending
- Renewed Defending System the defending systems are being renewed, with revised positioning and adjustment to the cadence and flow on the pitch. Manual defending will be emphasized and result in more rewarding results for those who do so.
- Planned Tackling is a new system that favors manual tackling by making sure that the defender that tries the tackle does so in a favorable context to your team (like recovering the ball or kicking the ball to a nearby teammate when tackling, for example).
- Contain and Secondary Contain Effectiveness will be reduced, keeping the positioning of players/AI Teammates at a further distance and having a slower reaction to directional changes from the dribbler, rarely resulting in an auto-tackle or an auto-block. This will make manual defending not only more effective, but also more rewarding.
- Improved Jockey System will be implemented with more agility and precision, rewarding players that decide to take control of their defenders.
1v1 shooting Consistency
- 1v1 Shooting Accuracy will be improved, resulting in more shots on target and better consistency in easy situations inside the box.
- Open Goal Situations will also be addressed, and will see players being rewarded for 1v1 situations and creating greater chances of scoring “easy goals” – as pointed out in many community examples.
- Goalkeeper Reactions will also be tuned – specifically against 1v1 situations – resulting in less ‘superhuman’ reactions, which will humanize the goalkeepers movements and result in better scoring opportunities for the attacker.
- Outside of the Foot Shot situations will be improved and should only happen for players with the Outside of the Foot trait.
- Shot Elevation/Power Tuning will allow for low powered shots to result in shots similar to Driven Shots, creating more consistency, and resulting in better scoring opportunities.
