Player Editing - Written by BluChampBlogger on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 4:39 | 11,852 Views | 20 Comments | Add Comment
Ultimate Guide To Realistic Football in FIFA 09
Ok guys, be ready with the bouquets and everything. I’m presenting you the biggest discovery in FIFA 09. This discovery would change the way you play FIFA and will make you go crazy over it.
The below has been tested and found successful only in OFFLINE games so far. I play in WORLD CLASS difficulty with assisted passing/shooting and manual with the rest. I play with SLOW pace setting. Importantly, I DO NOT USE ADIDAS Live Season.
Firstly, let me start by saying why this discovery was needed. I’m now going to list down all the points which are affecting the FIFA 09 gameplay on the pitch:
- The game play is a bit too fast, even on slow settings
- Unable to hold the ball; AI always puts pressure and wins
- Ends up being just a quick one-touch passing game all the time
- Attacks are monotonous; there is not enough variety
- Attacks and chance creation are not random and realistic
- AI plays with the same plan in all through the match
- Quite difficult to pull off the tricks
What I’m going to suggest could be a time consuming process but certainly worthwhile, if you want to realistic football in FIFA 09. Just follow me very carefully. All that we need to do is to reduce the values of two attributes for each player in a team. Then in my FIFA 09 profile, set my favourite team as Tottenham (I’ll explain you the reasons later). Then I went to the ‘manage teams’ and chose ‘edit player’. Now this opens up the squad list of Tottenham so that I can edit each player. This is why I set Tottenham as my favourite team temporarily so that I don’t have to browse from Chelsea (my favourite team) to Tottenham every time.
Now I opened the first player for editing. I went to ‘movement’ attributes. In there, the first two attributes are acceleration and sprint speed. Now for these two attributes, I reduced the values by 15 points. For instance, if the acceleration is 86, changed it to 71, if the sprint speed is 83, changed it to 68. After I changed them, I hit the start button or back button to carefully ’save and exit’. Now I was back to the squad list. Then I kept repeating this for all the possible first teamers and the bench. It took about 5 minutes to make these tweaks for Tottenham team. Now I have a team that has no one in their 80s in sprint speed and acceleration. Then I edited the Sunderland squad. I set a match up between an edited Tottenham and an edited Sunderland.
The final result: I won 2-1. You won’t believe how much I enjoyed that match. Forget the result. The process was fabulous. My players were slower but they played like professional footballers. They had control on the ball. They were able to dribble tactically. I had the time to think how I can build the attack. When I was pressurised by the opponents, I could keep the ball by evading the opponent, something I just could never do before.
Earlier, whenever I was under pressure, all I would try to do was to hurriedly pass the ball to the nearest player. Now I could dodge the opponent just like how the AI players will evade your pressure or tackle. More than all this, the game play experience was fantastic. As players move slowly, you’re not in a mindset to hurry the attack. You keep the ball and try to look for spaces. The more I kept the ball, I started seeing the AI players making intelligent runs or even overlapping runs.
Earlier, when the game is played fast no one has time to make these runs. Typically, My CB will pass to CM, CM to LM, LM to CAM and CAM to ST (and the ST to fumble it!). There was some amount of routine in which the game was played by me. That was because, the players ran faster, passes were delivered quickly and hence the players received the ball even before they could start their attacking runs. In effect, all players would be in their respective positions as per the formation when they received the ball. They weren’t making too many runs primarily because I didn’t allow them to, as I would pass the ball to them to wherever they are, before they could make runs.
With the game now slowing down due to the reduced acceleration and sprint speed, the pitch now looks bigger! Yes! Earlier the pitch was small and the players in high speed made the pitch look even smaller. If someone like Torres could cover one half of the pitch in 5 real seconds earlier, now he will take 7 to 8 seconds. That’s a lot of additional time for you to react. Now you may ask, that if the defender’s speed is also reduced what difference it will make? Good question. Remember that the defenders’ pushing up is also slowed down and even if you lose ball to allow a breakaway, you have a lot of time to select the correct defender or to make the right decisions.
More time on the ball also makes you think creatively. That’s what happened to me. With that extra second on the ball, I started looking to surprise the AI (which is by the way, the best way to beat the AI) and even tried to do outrageous moves. This is all too good to be true but I have started shooting better than before, because of the overall adjusted speeds all around.
More than anything, I’m playing good football and I’m very satisfied with the way I play and AI plays. Because the sprint speed and acceleration of AI players are also reduced, the way AI played the game also changed. Granted it takes only milliseconds to process but certainly with more time at its disposal, it can take better decisions and that was very evident. Someone made this brilliant comment: ‘when the players run it looks like they have more than two legs’. Completely agree. But now, in reduced speeds, even the running animation looks nicer.
I’m very convinced that this is the way to play the game. I wished there was a quicker way to edit the attributes but I’m happy that we are at least able to edit them. Then I went ahead and edited for Chelsea and played against an unedited Man Utd, got beat 3-0 but again, was a very satisfying match. Then I edited Man Utd and they won in penalties after a 1-1 result at the end of extra time. I ended up editing Arsenal and Liverpool too. I’m planning to edit 4 teams per league per day. I’m not going to edit the players of a team which I’m never going to play as or play against. I did not edit any other attribute other than the two I mentioned above.
We generally know that the league two teams produce great matches in FIFA 09. Ever wondered why? Because they’re slower, you can control them better. Imagine a very controllable and slower Man Utd or Chelsea with the same level of their own skill and other capabilities. Remember, we’re only reducing the acceleration and sprint speed. We are leaving all other attributes as it is. There could be a top striker with a sprint speed of 68 with a ball control or 92. This means he will have controllable pace with having very good ball control. This is why my shooting (not finishing) has improved.
My suggestion to you is to edit the acceleration and sprint speed values for players in two decent mid-table teams and play out an exhibition match for a proof of concept. Play 10-minute halves in world class difficulty or professional difficulty, preferably the former. If you’re impressed, you can then go ahead and edit the values of players of all other teams that you might use. In a week’s time I’d have edited the player values for all champions league teams and the premier league teams. After you’re done with the editing, make sure you save the squad file in two or three different names so that your hardwork is safe.
Okay then, let me summarise what needs to be done in short bullet points:
- Choose the team for which you want to edit the values
- Set this team as your favourite team in your FIFA 09 profile
- For all players in that team, reduce the values of speed sprint and acceleration by 15 points.
- Save the squad file in two or three names to be safe
- For another team, go to step 1
Finally, if this is the way the game should have been, why did EA set the values of sprint speed and acceleration so high? Because, most of the millions of copies sold, were sold to very casual gamers or casual footie fans who may not look for realism, as much as you and I do. Those were the ones who kept EA in the FIFA business when they were sh1t. No disrespect to those type of gamers; each one can have different expectations from a same game. Out of the FIFA 09 buyers, the football connoisseurs would be a very very small minority. It makes sense to make the game to please the majority instead of an obscure purist minority.
Finally, if it works for you (certainly works for me), please drop a line here so that we all know. And, try to spread this message as much as possible so that everyone know about this. Please DO NOT WRITE OFF this idea without TESTING it. EA has hidden a great game within FIFA 09. The tweaked game that I play is incredibly better than the original retail copy. I would thank EA for making this great game and also for making it in such a way that it can be customised to your needs. Let’s FIFA 09!
20 Comments
1. crawford
Well, I tried and tested a 10-point reduction and 5 point reduction and even a 20-point reduction. Only the 15-point one was just perfect. So it’s purely by trial and error. And I’m sure it works! Doesn’t it?
3. js14
I’ve been searching the web for a couple of days now trying to tweak FIFA 09 to be as realistic as possible and I just found your page here, and…wow, just tried this with edited Man Utd vs. Liverpool and the game was just a joy to play. I will definitely keep on editing teams for complete realism with as many of the major teams as possible. Thanks for the tip BluChampBlogger! And keep up the great work!
I’ve been searching the web for a couple of days now trying to tweak FIFA 09 to be as realistic as possible and I just found your page here, and…wow, just tried this with edited Man Utd vs. Liverpool and the game was just a joy to play. I will definitely keep on editing teams for complete realism with as many of the major teams as possible. Thanks for the tip BluChampBlogger! And keep up the great work!
Thanks mate. Those who like this method normally extend the editing to various teams that we use. How about you?
5. ronin1234
Hey Blu, this is a brilliant find. I can see how this can work. I just finished editing Arsenal and Manchester United then I realised my adidas update was left ON. I was still interested to find out if those attribute changes took place… and I can see that 15 point reduction is there! So I’m thinking your method still works with Live adidas mode? Adidas mode is after all just a mulplier that boosts players ability, isn’t it? I’m sure you had this discussion with others on fifa forums. Any thoughts?
Anyhow, thank you so much for sharing this amazing find. great.
6. Jelle Vastmans
In fact, I have no problem at all with the passing and the crossing. I create numerous changes in different ways : players through on goal, high crosses, low crosses,…
But there’s something that just doesn’t work for me : long shots. I already tried the following :
- shooting on assisted
- shooting on semi
- pressing left trigger for pace control. The results in the ball being very close to the player which results in difficult shooting. It also gives opponents-midfielders the opportunity to track back and put pressure on my player
- pressing left trigger only just before i press the shoot-button. The player doesn’t slow down that much and sometimes the shooting seems a little bit better
- pushing the right stick in a direction to push the ball a little bit further to concentrate more on the shot. Helps a little bit, but the direction isn’t always right and it needs a lot of space to pull of. Space you don’t get on worldclass
- using finesse shot. But using finesse for a shot from long range just doesn’t seem right, does it? I want power…
I just can’t get this right. Even in situations when you think “a top-player should always get this shot right” it goes way over the bar and they start complaining about the player’s balance.
I know you should try to put the player in a optimal movement, situation to take the shot, but the negative influence from player-speed and player-turning is way to strong. It should be able to let fly of a decent long shot when sprinting, it should be able to shoot right after you turn. But it isn’t in the game. And i get the feeling they use the shooting to make the game more difficult. Because even on world-class i create lots of changes, but because of the shooting the game still stays difficult.
So I tried something different. I played with the Best of the world-team against a one star-team on amature-difficulty, only to try the long-shots. I played three games, had almost 90 shots, 30 of them were on target,… NONE of them went in. That’s not realistic. This was a complete let-down for me, even when i had all the time and space in the world the shots just weren’t realistic.
It kinda ruins the game. When playing online there’s just two things you should defend : throughballs to the strikers and contain the wingers. Why? Because there’s not threat at all from longrange. People don’t even try long shots anymore because they know that the chance of scoring is… well there isn’t a chance. So they keep passing until they create a chance inside the box. In two months of Fifa i scored maybe 4 goals with long shots. Two of them after a cross which was headed away by the opponents defence, and the other two cutting inside from the wing and scoring with a finess shot from just outside the box.
Do you have any tips to change this? I think a tried everything (no sprinting, pace control, right trigger,…), but it just doesn’t seem to work.
7. mAreK
@ 6.
Long shots go in only when the goalie isnt anticipating your shot. If u take a sprint and let go, you are making the goalie ready for that shot and so he is in a very good position to tip it away ….. For me, long shots work best when some player lays a sideway thru-ball for the striker to shoot it without taking a touch…. Also when the goalie doesnt have a clear view of the ball ( like when defenders are in the box )… You have to react fast when such situations arise. The whole thing is about unpredictability ^_^
8. Burton
I agree with Marek. I didn’t score a wonder goal for about 2 months then i was shweinsteiger(how ever you spell him) with neither player or ball moving about 8 yards outside the area. I randomly shot with power just over half the bar and went into top right of the goal.
9. A Bit To Easy - Electronic Arts UK Community
[...] FIFA 09 - BluChampBlogger - Ultimate Guide To Realistic Football in FIFA 09 [...]
10. ChrisH
that sounds like a really good idea but I want to play a manager mode which makes the editing task horrendous and players are still going to improve crazily over the course of a season
11. Quinn
Hey bluchamp, i was looking on google for a great custom tactic for bayern munchen and i came along one of ur blogs and it had one of the best custom tactics ever it made my rank go up fast and it worked brilliantly. But a couple of days later i turned my xbox on and it deleted all my files including the custom tactics.. And ive searched everywhere on the internet and could not find it can u help me find it or tell me what it is called.. And P.S its not the blog that has the custom tactics for religation teams mid tables and wuro aspirations.. If u can help me it will be greatly appreciated.. Keep up the good work bro:)
12. mee
crap
13. Liverpool
hey Bluchamp!!!
whats up buddy xD i have all your custom configs on my xbox live now. and after playing with them i’ve won 5 matches in a row just now. hAHAHHAHAH simply brilliant man !
can u make this more bigger ? like make more custom tactics for teams from Seria A, Ligue 1, La Liga and Bundes Lig ? please !
even though after playing with you custom tactics its gets quite easy to customize or tune settings for other teams. thanks a bunch again !!!! WOO HOOO 
regards from Bangladesh xD
14. Josh
Is there a way I can download your settings and edited players to my 360?
15. CP
Forgive me for being too technical - but wouldn’t subtracting an even 15 pts from every player upset the balance between forward and defenders? What I mean is, taking off 15 pts for everyone would increase the percentage of pace the forward have over defenders.
Eg… if you take a forward with pace 92, vs a defender with pace 70 and subtract 15 off each: The forward retains 83 % of their original speed while the defender retains only 78.5%. This would obviously increase/decrease depending on the speedier/more sluggish players.
If 15 works for the faster players, then maybe it’s worth balancing it out with an even percentage. Multiplying 92 by 0.837 gives you almost exactly 77 (15 less than 92), so my proposal would be to have a calculator with you and just multiply everyone’s stats by 0.837. Could be time consuming… but maybe an even more realistic balance and effect.
Discuss.
16. BluChampBlogger
Forgive me for being too technical - but wouldn’t subtracting an even 15 pts from every player upset the balance between forward and defenders? What I mean is, taking off 15 pts for everyone would increase the percentage of pace the forward have over defenders.
Eg… if you take a forward with pace 92, vs a defender with pace 70 and subtract 15 off each: The forward retains 83 % of their original speed while the defender retains only 78.5%. This would obviously increase/decrease depending on the speedier/more sluggish players.
If 15 works for the faster players, then maybe it’s worth balancing it out with an even percentage. Multiplying 92 by 0.837 gives you almost exactly 77 (15 less than 92), so my proposal would be to have a calculator with you and just multiply everyone’s stats by 0.837. Could be time consuming… but maybe an even more realistic balance and effect.
Discuss.
I did think of this but editing is such a pain in FIFA 09, I thought let me do 15 minus. There are subtle differences but based on experience I can tell you that it works beautifully. The proof is in the pudding!
17. Chris
These really work well. When you come inside the area, you don’t have to shoot as soon as you get in, you can weave between defenders or make room for your player. Amazing work!
18. Mike
Awesome, simply just awesome, made two matches with the setting u mentioned(World Class and slow), Tottenham vs Sunderland, i won 4-2, and Real Madrid vs Liverpool which i won 3-1. It was awesome to pull-off awesome moves combining Kaka and Ronaldo, scored 3 awesome goals, two volleys from kaka and ronaldo and a counter attack by Benzema.
19. John
Hey!
I don’t have xboxlive, so I don’t play FIFA09 on line.
I just wonder, how can I edit players in my fifa?
Cause I gotta have some expierence points, but how do I get them?
20. glenda davis
I was about to visit my fave site when I saw this site. And I am glad that I visit it. I have good times.
works superbly. thanks a lot mate. can you tell me why you suggest to reduce 15 and not 10 or 5 or 20? just curious to know. by the way, th e15-point reduction works superbly well.
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