Players’ complaints about gameplay might not be because the attack and defense system is unbalanced.

[pastel cedar]

it could simply be that there are already ways to deal with it, but many players don’t know about them.

For example, trying to pass through the middle against a narrow back five is actually very hard.
If the opponent is using a narrow 5-4-1 formation, the space between their midfielders is tight, so passes to your forwards often get intercepted.
To avoid this, you shouldn’t try long passes from too far away.
Even when you’re closer, using dink passes helps lower the chance of getting intercepted.
If the game explains these kinds of solutions in title updates along with the main complaints from players, developers wouldn’t need to change the core attack and defense mechanics unnecessarily.
That way, they can also avoid creating new problems by tweaking the system.

[pastel cedar]

if players get used to using 'dink pass' and any other ways to deal with it , improving off-ball movement for pass reception ,which i mentioned before in 'the root causes~' thread, might not be necessary. if it is still insufficient, and then it can be considered.

In summary, the first thing to check is whether the issue can be solved using the features already in the game. and and if those features already exist, they should be actively explained to players.

[pastel cedar]

these two ways, using dink pass and considering length between ball carrier and reciever, also can be effective in lateral passes when the attacker recieved the ball between opponent defenders and midfilders. that case would be the most difficult situation and if these two ways don't work well, adjusting off-ball movement can be considered.

[flat gale]

Agreed.

[celest radish]

I dont really understand the message here, because there are obvious problems with off the ball player movement and ai defending? Is the patchwork fix you want a game of rock, paper, scissors? The game doesnt get better when you have to use gimmicks to circumvent gimmicks

[pastel cedar]

Whether the problem lies within the offensive and defensive systems themselves can be determined by comparing them to statistics from real-world situations. However, this requires that in-game situations closely resemble real-world soccer scenarios. In real-world situations, dink passes are frequently used in such situations. Conversely, in games, players rarely use dink passes. If players' frequency of using dink passes approaches that of real-world situations, but still struggle with offense, then adjustments to the offensive and defensive systems can be considered
and please note that the game is a compressed 15-minute game, so the developers have adjusted the overall mechanics to be more arcade-like so that actual soccer scores can be reflected in the game.

[twilit vapor]

The dink passes you mentioned are the double x passes (ps controls)?

[celest radish]

The usage of dink passes would be meaningless in this scenario, exactly because there are obvious problems with the core gameplay of the game. Currently the game is gimmicky, slugish and inconsistent. Real football cant be "tweaked" and comparing a footballgame to the real counterpart cannot be done effectivly. You are never gonna be able to balance a game around real world football, simply because the options you have in real life are much greater than a game with limited controlls, tactics, one-mind controlling the players etc,. You cannot tell players to do specific things so more than half of all tactics used in football cannot exist. For the balancing philosophy, you want the develepors to adopt, to work they would need to make a 1 to 1 replica of real football

[celest radish]

I do very much understand the concept of "letting the meta figure itself out" and that the game does a poor job at teaching players, on that we both agree. I just cant see the game as it currently is being rewarding, fun or deep enough to warrant no changes to the core of the game.

[twilit vapor]

Anyway i disagree, because there's no balance (passes and interceptions) and meritocracy in manual defending. The problem started existing when they wanted giving us a unique experience every game (inconsistent gameplay), then people who wants Mbappe and R9 a lot better then Musa and Agbonlahor start growing and they start making R9 shooting no sense (he was clinical even in 360 with 2 defenders ahead of him) and that broke the football gameplay logic. After shooting, they did that with passing/defending but how they can do that with passing? dink passes, tunnel, wrong controls, etc... And for defending? They make CPU players defend by themselves (attribute marking that was like a jockey and then it was subbed by defensive awareness). Now we have inconsistency, no football logic and 1v1 unrealistic football (because of inconsistent movements by cpu teammates).