Fifa 18 update sparks outrage after making game harder
Players are calling on EA Sports to reverse the first patch for the new game
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Your support makes all the difference.Fifa 18 aficionados have been left unhappy after the first patch for the new game has made goals much harder to score and increased the randomness of results.
The game has been out for barely a fortnight but EA developers have already made a series of tweaks in order to iron out bugs and improve the gameplay.
One of the most noticeable changes has been an improvement to the underwhelming net bulge when a goal is scored, but the scoring itself has seemingly become less common.
A combination of improved reaction time of the AI goalkeepers and a reduction in shot accuracy has been criticised by some, including professional gamer Benedikt Saltzer who wrote a lengthy complaint on Facebook.
"The goalkeeper has been massively improved," Saltzer said on Monday.
"Suddenly, there are significantly fewer goals from positions where you have scored a goal before.
"Sure, it is definitely still possible to score some goals. However, in my opinion, far too many one-on-one situations are [now] negative for the attacker."
Some players believe the AI defending has improved, narrowing the advantage of better players and making results more random.
"Together, all of this means that the AI defends very much by itself, which greatly weakened the very challenging defensive behaviour that we had at the beginning of Fifa 18 and had to learn first," Saltzer added.
"If EA announces year by year that they want to promote eSports and be a main title then I do not really understand this patch at all, because it is by no means progress but, in my opinion, a clear step back."
Some users have called on EA to reverse the patch and go back to how the game was when it was first launched.
“I’m fairly certain that the overwhelming general consensus here on reddit is that we prefer the game pre-patch,” wrote one player called Daniksn.
“I saw a poll on the topic here on /r/fifa where almost 80% of the votes was on the ‘prefer pre-patch’ option. I’ve also seen countless of threads on the issue, that do get a lot of support.
“I feel like we all agree that the game had some issues before the patch, no doubt. Keepers were a bit iffy, the radar was no good and longshots might’ve been a bit overpowered. But other than that, I feel like we can agree that it was a step in the right direction after Fifa 17.
“The skillgap was increased, you actually won versus players that you were better than, and lost versus players that you are worse than.
“A regular Joe couldn’t have close games versus pros anymore, as it should be.”
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