Please address the "Possession rats".

[mint maple]

So you want to get on the game and play creative and beautiful football. It's the sort of gameplay that makes you fall in love with the game and want to spend countless hours on it. You can always count on it to elevate your mood and get you hooked. But every so often you encounter a certain breed of humans in this game that completely destroy your experience and make you want to turn the game off.
Lo and behold — enter the possession rats: these people have only one goal — to get you into the same sadistic mindset that they are in and frustrate you to the core. They want to target 65% possession each game. If you were enjoying the game before, you can definitely say goodbye to that feeling. I don't know what it is with these creatures, but they're somehow so scared of losing that you can barely see the ball the whole game, and even when you do see it you're so frustrated that you can't really play your natural game. All the while you wonder why someone would play like this. Do they forget that it is, after all, a video game meant to be enjoyed and not a matter of life and death?
Can you please, EA, do something about these possession rats? I know last year, if you had 95 depth and we could sometimes use Team Press, and one could somehow counter these rats. But this year it seems impossible to get the ball off these guys — they're hitting obscene possession targets of 75% each game. I mean, they might hit >80% once Champs rolls around. Pros and everyone alike have been complaining about them for so long, and the game would be so much better and more enjoyable if you could nerf these people. I don't know — maybe nerf the passing attributes on their players or give the opposing team a free "Team Press" — but please come up with something, as the game is on the verge of being great this year.

I think this is an issue that impacts everyone negatively in the game, but because it’s so deeply ingrained in the way the game works, we often overlook it and aren't vocal about it enough . Game would be so much better for everyone if they fix this .

[cyan palm]

it is not because dribbling is overpowered, but there isnt tactic adjusting gap between players to have narrow formation.

my argument is proved in clubs mode. in club mode every players can be controlled by human so opponent team always take narrow formation to lock the space. so dribbler has no choice but to pass to teammate.

p.s i deleted the comment about team press because im not sure it is nerfed or not. actually i dont use high line of defense

[devout shoal]

I thought team pressing was alright playing against opponents that weren't dribbling through my entire team without getting tired or making a single mistake.

Almost like there should be some kind of punishment for too many changes in direction or frequent 180 turns.

[vocal mango]

Forget team press man even manual pressing has been nerfed like crazy. Even if you press after making the right switch chances of winning the ball are 50-50

Even players who loved pressing are now just forged forced to maintain position because they know if they manually drag there players out chances of winning the ball are very low

[mint maple]

Yea i agree . Some sort of punishment for ppl who go backwards in attack a lot . Sometimes it is acceptable, but a bunch of folks have an obsessive habit of it and its such a bummer to play against them .

[mint maple]

Yea i mean , so much for the promise of improving manual defending and pressing in the build up to this game . That was just a fake promise to make us buy the game huh!!!
And as you say everybody is forced to sit back and not take risks , that encourages those possession rats even more and they will just tik tak the ball in the final third for ages and make the opp frustrated and push out .

[mint maple]

Do the devs even read the threads ? Or are we just talking to a brick wall .

[timber knot]

I like having 90% possession because I want to play like man city a
Or prime Barcelona.

[mint maple]

Exactly, Guardiola is the proudest man on the planet . Well done EA .

[acoustic spoke]

This is my biggest issue with the gaming too. Also, the jockey speed and defending AI can be improved.

[devout shoal]

There's absolutely no reason to improve the AI when it comes to defending.

Manual stand tackles, jockey speed and physically challenges need to be improved greatly.

AI defending when using aggressive and deep line is very much alive and well especially if you have the right formation to go with them.

[mint maple]

I agree, improving AI defending would be the most regressive step the game can take. Just improve Manual defending, so one can enjoy the game out of possession as well . The game would become so much more engaging, right now its like sit and wait like an "absolutely bored out idiot" to regain possession rather than using skill to win it back . Why??

[devout shoal]

Only think keeping me away is the current state of defending.

[mint maple]

100% agree

[green bough]

You cant hold possession if the op can keep using team press without losing stamina. I hold possession on the ops half but with the low block with 2 cdms its boring af and the counters always the same fidget spinning.

[velvet ginkgo]

I think they should implement a mechanic where passing accuracy gradually decreases if you hold onto the ball for too long, making it easier for the opponent to win possession. This would encourage more active play and discourage players from just sitting back and endlessly passing around the defense. After all, it’s a video game — the player who attacks best, defends well, and scores the most goals should be the one who wins. Nobody wants to spend a match chasing a Pep Guardiola wannabe around the pitch.

[green bough]

And how do you play? Fidget spin?

Football is about passing, what you are saying is that players that pass around the back to make sure the opp is going to press should be punished?

[timber knot]

That already exists and it’s stupid.

What should actually happen is that pressing assistance from AI should be more effective … as long as that also means the ai has 0 assistance with actually tackling.

[velvet ginkgo]

I literally have made a feedback post about nerfing left stick dribling in some way, due to the fact that i think its stupid that people are left stick dribling with the same player for ages. But i understand your point also. My suggestion is that if you hold on to the ball for long periods of time there is a graduate decline in the passing accurasy. I dont see why that is such a big problem.

[waxen lance]

Ppl tend to fidget spinner because it's the only thing that they can do since the AI defense is just super broken. You cannot dribble throu, you cannot do skills bc AI will track them, you cannot pass bc the AI intercepts, the only thing left to do is spin again and again, it's a shame im with you there, but it's because the defense AI is too op

[green bough]

That is different than holding the ball to waste time, on that point yeah same.

[karmic nacelle]

Nerfing passing is not the answer. That’s a skill aspect of the game and shouldn’t be touched. Those people are annoying but usually really bad when they get frustrated so I just pause it a lot on them. but the game needs to reward positive play bc I always have more shots and xg doesn’t always translate to goals

[timber knot]

Dribbling should just significantly destroy your stamina

So fidget spinning isn’t possible for more than 2 rotations really

[cedar sluice]

it's not nerfing possession, its more about fixing your defensive ai. they are so ret-d when defending it hurts my head. pressing is terrible and lofted/dinked ground passes are OP. apparently now you can pass directly through a defender by double tapping pass

[karmic nacelle]

Idk with a good press it’s actually tougher this year to play the dink passes and especially the header chains to he out of it. That’s what I would do last year and it was op. Has actually been nerfed a lot main way to beat the press I use is to try and stretch the team eg big driven pass to gk and the switch play rapidly but the nerfed driven passes have kind of fixed that as well

*get

[mint maple]

Funny that the game isnt even designed to hold possession and be a fidget spinner 100s of time every attack . Defending is hard and attacking is easy . Still saddos will hold 70% possession . Please fix it @reef galleon . Have some sort of penalty for it.