When skills take over

[Equites]

In the early game you use your attribute to play the game. You tackle with defence, dribble with controll, pass with passing and score with accuracy. If you get a skill you are lucky.

Now its all skills. Slide tackle, rainbow feint, long pass and cannon shot. Now a good platyer is determined by the level of the skills rather then attribute. This goes to far in my opinion skills are to powerful. With L3 they hardly ever fail. To counter a skill you need another skill.

If you manage to find the right combination you win easy and if your opponet dpes you lose big time.

Used to plat L4 header and it was the same setup and gameplay every game win after win. Then I tried a 200 accuracy FW and it was way harder to get a goal.

[View The Phenom]

Attributes still matter since Talents will modify or negate your Skills. It's even more likely with the DLC, where Potential means certain players have a higher roll than your own by default.

It's also always been possible to severely weaken the success rate of Skills with positioning and player roles. A L4 Head Play character isn't going to score if he can't get a chance to use his skill due to blockage, a L3 Long Pass is unlikely to succeed if it goes through multiple players, Cannon Shot needs a clear path, Rainbow Feint suffers in instances where multiple rolls are necessary before a scoring opportunity, etc.

A good combination of Skills can be strong, but they don't take over the game.

[Equites]

Another thread here is about defence against header L4. And without playing out your goalie dont stand a chance. Same is with a rainbow feint L3 walking straight through the defence. Cannon shot is the weaker of the three offensive as you need a clear shot to use.

Try playning against a team with all L3 skills without using any yourself? You will always have three actions wich is not enough to come close to scoring while your opponent have skills that dont use actions and kan bypass your players with ease.

[Bloodstorm]

I might be missing somethere here, but it sounds like what you want is for each skill to be tied to an attribute? Cannon Shot to Accuracy, Rainbow Feint to Control, Long Pass to Passing, etc. That makes sense thematically, but it eliminates some interesting player builds. For example, a Cannon Shot player with really high Control that you can loft the ball to on a corner for a nearly guaranteed goal. Or a Rainbow Feint forward with high Accuracy that only uses Rainbow Feint to get past the first line of defense, but then uses his Accuracy for a shot against a goalie with Reaction. Or a Long Pass defender that tackles based on really high Defense and then Long Passes the ball.

I often find that my best players are those that combine a couple of high Attributes with Skills that make up for the player's remaining low Attributes. It rarely makes sense to me to "double up" with Skills on top of an Attribute that provides more or less the same function. If I were to do that, I end up in the situation that you describe where Skills are everything and Attributes don't matter. But that's not a good player, in my opinion.

[Equites]

Originally posted by Bloodstorm:

Maybe thats what I am saying.

Instead of giftness x3 vs giftness you have skilllevel*25+25*giftness+attribute vs talentlevel*25+giftness*25+attribute. This would give you a 75 bonus for level 3 skill and a 25 bonus for each difference in giftness.

Or maybe just that the defender wins ties would tip the scale.

[CAJUN]

Almost all skills have a direct counter strategy. The game is very balanced. The star system has reduced the dominance of the skills from the previous version. The key is to have squad balance to mix and match skills and attributes depending on the opponent.

I am really in favor of what Bloodstorm stated, and I would add some to it. MF with slide tackle and high passing or high defense such that he can make passes and intercept passes. SW with long pass and high defense. FW with nutmeg and high accuracy. WM with nutmeg and high passing. MF with canon shot and high passing to either shoot or cross from wings. WF with canon/RF and high control. CF high acc and heading. CD with high def and layoff pass.

[View The Phenom]

Originally posted by Equites:

Another thread here is about defence against header L4. And without playing out your goalie dont stand a chance. Same is with a rainbow feint L3 walking straight through the defence. Cannon shot is the weaker of the three offensive as you need a clear shot to use.

Two players in front of a Head Play attacker prevent the heading attempt, and it relies on multiple challenges (crossing, heading, defender, goal keeper) to succeed.

Rainbow Feint becomes significantly weaker as it's used so walking all the way to the goal from outside the box is significantly harder if you go through multiple defenders; this also makes it good for one goal only at best. And it still suffers from CD auto-tackles and nerfs from adjacent RD/LD players.

Ironically, Cannon Shot is the strongest of the three because once you have a path (which you create by manipulating the defense) it's always a 1v1 with no other challenges to make. And on failure, it will always bounce for a potential corner opportunity.

You can face off against a team full of skills without using them yourself and still win with consistency. Skills do not make or break a team, they are only another factor in the overall strategy.
You can have attacking skills, but never get to use them or supporting skills like Long Pass/Layoff Pass that never result in opportunities. This is done by understanding the fundamental game mechanics (there are a ton of these) before skills come into play.

Having only three actions per turn is more than enough if you make positioning, roles, and action choice matter. Holding the ball in Midfield or running it down the flank and then setting up a play that gets your attackers into the box is far more important than trying to gamble with a Rainbow Feint chain against a line of Defenders, for example.

[Strategic Sage]

I think there's a problem of arguing from extremes in this thread. View wasn't saying that you can win against a skilled team without using any skills, but that there are strategic ways to minimize opponent skills and that they aren't the only thing that matters, as the OP claimed.

I agree with Bloodstorm's first paragraph; I think we would lose some of the variety that is possible if the balance is changed too much.

[Equites]

I am not against skills its just that i think they are op and instead of being only connected to giftness should be connected to an attribute as well. Maybe if makes a difference maybe not. Its just that when a rainbow feint walkthrough begin you can just watch as the other team autoscore.

This goes both ways. Longpass L3+Cannonshot FW , Header L4, Rainbow feint L3. Once you get the setup right you can exploit your opponent for an easy win. Then it does not matter if they are level 100 and high attribute values because it doesnt matter.

My point is that I think that takes more away from gameplay, playerbuilding and tactics then giftness based skills.

[Vander]

Rainbow feint is already linked with control.
If the feinter has no control, once he finishes the move on sometone, a near CD with high DEF just tackles him.
It's quite easy to have 1 CD in your whole team with "reaction" placed close to a feint target

[_K_o_S_]

1) Skills are a very strong power. They are specifically made to be so. We wanted the skills to be something which footballers have kind of born talent to. For example, young 16 yo Ronaldo might not have 10-15 years of training but his Rainbow Feint of 2nd level makes him a very strong footballer even if he has only 20th level.

2) However, every skill has an easy way to block it without skills. As mentioned many times, Rainbow Feint is easily blocked by several CD staying close to each other. In the Premier league and in European Cup, many teams know how to oppose to "Long Pass + skill" combination.

Sure thing, you as a player always have the advantage over AI, especially after you have built your team to your likings after many years in Premier League.

3) From time to time, I see that players ask to merge Skills+Attributes in one or another way. However, FTG is fun just because the Skills and Attributes are totally different things.

In other football management games, there is no other strategy except "Buy more powerful/talented footballers". You can make different actions, manage club etc but at the end of the day, you just scout for bigger numbers in the footballers' profiles.

But I wanted to represent another thing from real football life. I always liked to think about weaker teams in the way that their coach investigated the weak points of the opponent and found a way to exploit them. While his team is objectively weak, using the strong sides of his footballers allows him to win.

So there should be these "strong sides" of his footballers. In our game those are skills.

If skills and attributes are combined, there won't be any strong sides which a weak team can use against stronger teams.

4) In the DLC, we decreased the effect of the skills. Especially, in the Hard mode. So they better represent real life but still bring a lot of fun from my pov.

5) We tried our best to improve AI in the late game so it's harder to play in Premier League and European Cup (comparing to how it used to be in vanilla). But like in every game, there is always this moment when no one can oppose him.

[Equites]

Originally posted by _K_o_S_:

1) Skills are a very strong power.

Thanks for an answer from yout point of view. This is your game and I enjoy it most of the time. Other times I need to take a break to cool of or write a whine post on a forum.