Does pace have too much influence in the game?

[Cedrik]

I find it interesting to see every year again that the influence of overall speed is so high in the game. Especially seen forwards with high pace and acceleration scoring like maniacs while their other atributes are sometimes not high at all. I've tested a bit with the editor and if you tune their pace and acceleration down, they stop scoring goals. And with other strikers who don't have such high rates for pace and acceleration, if you upgrade these, they start scoring as if they are Messi or Ronaldo.

What do others think of this, and most of all I am interested in the opinion of someone who is at SI. Have others noticed this as well? Does pace have too much influence? And if so, is it possible for SI to take this influence a bit down? Strikers like Darrent Bent, Jermain Defoe, Mame Diouf and Javier Hernandez, they are all great, but they don't wrap up 30 + goals every season, that's just unrealistic.

[wardog]

Not any more no. I find i have pacey strikers but once other teams realise this they sit back

[deltablue]

No, have a forward (who can also play on the left wing), who is terribly slow, but managed fine when I needed to play him on the wing early on, and has really shone up front where his lack of pace shouldn't be as much of an issue. He'd be severely handicapped if pace was too important.

[Erimus1876]

For the first time in FM, the pace attribute has finally been addressed slighty. For years, not just in FM, but in other football simulation games, pace has been vastly over-powered because developers seemed to treat it like any other skill.

Its not. Until the AI is sophisticated enough to adapt its game to deal with pace, it should have been treat completely differently to other skills. It should never have been part of the 1 to 20 attribute scale.

Semi-pro and professional footballers do not have such a gap in their pace in real life. No team would ever field a player whose so slow he'd be an embarrassment, never mind a liability. But some games companies always fell into the trap of scaling pace like any other attribute so you would sometimes see that scenario unfold in their games.

FM12 was a prime example of where over-powered pace coupled with no collision detection compounded the problem (Febian Brandy often scored over 30 premiership goals for me, despite him costing me just 50K and having every other attribute on par with an average League 1 player, where I got him).

Thankfully in FM13 the new collision detection causes players to bump and shunt each other, so fast players cant simply sprint through opposing players as if they're ghosts. Their momentum is often slowed. So just by that addition alone, Pace in FM13 isn't as powerful as it was in previous FM's. But I still think the gap between the fastest players in the game and the slowest players should be narrowed.

[SCIAG]

Semi-pro and professional footballers do not have such a gap in their pace in real life. No team would ever field a player whose so slow he'd be an embarrassment, never mind a liability.

I would generally agree though, a player with 10 pace is too slow in game.

[Erimus1876]

I would generally agree though, a player with 10 pace is too slow in game.

10 should be the minimum pace really. The game shouldn't generate players with less than that, even at 16 years old. And aging players dropping below that threshold should simply retire at the end of that season!

[Ollep7]

Yeah, except if you're Beckham, pace below 10 calls for retirement

[Erimus1876]

He's already retired to the MLS, which is the old-pro's retirement home!

(joking)

[DIJRP]

yes, of course.

And the reason is very simple.

Too many players are really close to physical attributes of Usain Bolt: Pace 20, Acceleration 20, Agility 20 ... database update needed.

[SRL88]

I wouldnt say it affects massively although it helps. I have a 33yo Jermaine Beckford in my side and most of his goals come from in behind the defence which has pace at 14 (in League One).

[DIJRP]

I wouldnt say it affects massively although it helps. I have a 33yo Jermaine Beckford in my side and most of his goals come from in behind the defence which has pace at 14 (in League One).

pace 14 in League One makes difference ...

on average, a football player's pace can't be higher than 13 ... 14.

Just to make an example Cristiano Ronaldo (IMO) must be Pace 14, Accelleration 16, Agility 15.

[wazza]

No, my team is relativley slow and Im top of the BSS. Its you tactics if you ignore the cliche as you can quite easily defend against fast players by instrcuting your team to stand off

[scott MUFC]

only if you play the tactics right it can.

Hernandez is fantastic in FM13

and really now... one of those goals he just left the entire oppostion backline for dust so does have a big effect.

[lam]

It's not pace that is dangerous, it's the combination of acceleration, agility, balance and pace.

If someone has even average skills across the board in those they are going to be dangerous.......

Pace alone with none of the others is meh......

[BiggusD]

But look at how the known quick players have poor skills elsewhere! They have made some players real quick, but they aren't nearly as good at anything else, making up for it. Quickness is valued higher in the attribute distribution than ever before, and the collision detection and better decision making according to real life (you can't make a player dribble through dense defenses as you could before), has made Pace less powerful overall.

However, defense against deep through balls is still very very poor, so the quick poacher is still a major attacking force in FM while not so much in the real world. Good defenders don't need to drop embarassingly deep every time they encounter a quick striker. The fact that through-balls from more than 10 meters away are incredibly hard to do right (both technically and because the distance the ball travels allow defenders to react in time) is not reflected well enough in FM.

When this is fixed, FM13 will finally be balanced right.