Passing is Incredibly Hard

[KnightD]

Maybe it's just the reaction coming in from games like FIFA but passing in this game is the most frustrating part of playing it even with the assists set to the strongest level.

[soriley127]

Same experience, it's more annoying than anything, but in my head I've attributed this to my probably 300+ hours on various fifa games vs my few hours in this game

[ruairidx]

Hi KnightD and soriley127! Thanks so much for playing, and sorry to hear this has been frustrating for you. The loose-ish passing is somewhat intentional, although I agree it could be better in a lot of situations and I'm still tuning and improving it. These were the design reasons behind the decisions; not saying they're right or wrong, and there's definitely work to be done, just letting you know how I got there so you know I'm listening.

TL;DR: I wanted to make a game where players were encouraged to attack, could still have fun while defending, and had just the right amount of chaos.

• Avatar Strength: I'm a big fan of avatar strength in games, although I know it's nowhere near universally popular. It was important to me that as your in-game player improves, you could feel a difference in gameplay. Unfortunately, this means that weaker players will feel worse and you have to play differently, so it's a tricky balance and this is where there's probably more work to be done.
  
• Amateur Vibes: I really wanted the game to feel like how it feels when I play football. And I'm pretty crap. There's a lot of fantastic football games on the market, and I'd never want to denigrate any of them. But none of them quite 'feel' like they capture how it feels to be on the field in an amateur game where the ball is always turning over and everything is injected with a little bit of chaos. It shouldn't feel 'random', that's pointless. But it was important to me that everything felt a bit imperfect and rustic, although obviously not to the point of frustration. It should just feel 'bang average'.
  
• Use it or lose it: I liked the idea of the ball turning over somewhat frequently because in any given game, you'd expect to be defending ~50% of the time. In order for the defending to be fun, players need to feel like their actions actually matter and they have a proper chance of winning the ball back. Two of my early 'playtesters' were two of my nephews, aged 5 and 7 at the time. I liked that although the 7-year-old was clearly much better at video games, the 5-year-old still seemed to enjoy himself because he got some of the ball and could make life difficult for his brother, and this gave him a real chance to win sometimes as well. It encouraged a nice amount of risk while attacking; if it's difficult to retain possession for extended, you might as well try to move the ball forward quickly rather than wait for the perfect opportunity.

Obviously all this means that some playstyles will just feel less 'fun' or more frustrating, which is a shame. I'd still like to improve the balance between being in control and "anything can happen, and it usually does".