FIFA 11 developers tackle Clubs, quitters

By Tom Bramwell Published 10 June, 2010

Teamplay changes and anti-quit measures.

The developers of FIFA 11 have told Eurogamer that they are "confident" of fixing the things people find offputting about the multiplayer side of FIFA, but that people quitting out from losing positions "comes with the territory".

That's not to say the team is ignoring the harmful impact of "rage quitting", as lead producer David Rutter explained.

"One of the things we've been toying with the idea of is a gentlemanly defeat where you can request to quit," he told Eurogamer.

"Where if you're 5-0 down you can say, 'Look this is no fun, can I please leave?' And the other person can say yes or no.

"The other one we've been toying with is, if they quit then the AI takes over and you play out against the CPU.

"But it is incredibly frustrating. I guess take a certain amount of cheer from it that you've played so well that the other person is infuriated to the point of quitting. I think it comes with the territory of football games."

Clubs mode - in which teams of up to five humans competed against one another - came under fire last year after the developer reduced the quality of the NPC players who fill out the squads.

This resulted in annoying situations where human players, using "Pro" players they had levelled up, would be paired with child-like defenders and goalkeepers who could barely reach the crossbar.

"It's a tough one because we're kind of on the frontiers of what's been done before, so actually getting people to turn up and do these things is a challenge in itself sometimes," Rutter told us.

"Last year what we wanted to do was discourage people somewhat from being Manchester United and 'I want to be Wayne Rooney', and actually allowing them to become football stars in their own right.

"I think in many ways we achieved that and in some ways we didn't... We're pretty confident we're addressing the vast majority of things that people are unhappy about in Clubs this year.

"I can't talk about a whole bunch of stuff, but we are definitely having goalkeepers who are like goalkeepers, and you have defenders who are like defenders. But if you want to set yourself up as a five-foot centre-back, and that's your personality, then we're going to let you do that. The AI won't generate team support players for you based on ridiculous physical attributes."

Creative director Gary Paterson concurred: "Obviously we made a mistake with four-foot goalies and what-have-you, because it unbalanced the game. We're aware of that and we're going to address that.

"But the general idea behind it is that we want to encourage people to play with 10 players."

Check out our whopping FIFA 11 preview elsewhere on the site. Key features for this year's release include Personality+, which emphasises the full range of individual players' qualities, and Pro Passing, which is designed to result in more rewarding build-up play.

It will also be possible to record custom chants, and there are myriad other tweaks, like optional handball, customisable nets and - finally! - the option to save replays locally.

"What we wanted to do was to keep going with what we did with 08, 09 and 10, which is refining the brilliant gameplay that we've got now, responding to feedback, and doing some cool innovations as well," lead producer Rutter told us in summary.

FIFA 11 is due out for PS3 and Xbox 360 this autumn.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (36) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • andywilkie35 #1 2 years ago

    About time they're going to do something about it. In the day and age of achievements/trophies, actively rewarding people for being cunts and quitting games is abhorrent. Its the reason why as good as FIFA2010 is, I stopped playing it online after a couple of weeks, don't see why I should waste my time beating someone just for them to quit out.

  • jonsaan #2 2 years ago

    Can they also tackle those weasels who put out yearly, disc based full price games when they could simply patch the existing game?

  • andijames #3 2 years ago

    I think they've improved it from where it started but unfortunately it does come with the territory. I think i've only rage quitted once or twice but that was because the person i was playing was being a complete cockend.

  • estoo #4 2 years ago

    Clubs mode was 10 v 10 not 5 v5 at full capacity.

    Hope they address the issue of pro ratings being very unfair if you play a defensive position, where the only was to get a good rating is to get an assist or score. Maybe that would stop the quitters who take the huff if they don't get to play striker.

  • mingster #5 2 years ago

    Why would you have a 4ft goalie?

  • uglygamer #6 2 years ago

    Like estoo says above club mode is not maximum of 5 vs 5 Human players but rather 10 vs 10.

  • Fab4 #7 2 years ago

    They should just make quitters play other quitters...simple.

  • Skandalle #8 2 years ago

    Aslong as it still counts as my win, they can quit all they want!

  • Drpwnage #9 2 years ago

    The problem with crappy AI players filling the non-player slots in defence is particularly annoying, when you have no chance against player's Pro's. We resort to checking the ratings of our defensive AI players and if any them are rated at 33 (seems to be the number) we just drop back to the club dressing room.

    Don't mind the quitting out either as once the match is past 5mins the score holds and your club is awarded the rating.

  • YobRenoops #10 2 years ago

    Surely the key is to put in a mechanism that detects someone hitting Start then Quit rather than a dropped connection. Give -1000 points for Start/Quit and -10 for dropped connections. Or even differentiate them on the person's profile. That should discourage people from the rage quit (are you really going to disconnect your router?). I'd much rather see a profile that says:

    ABC Completed Games: 10 Quit Games: 100 Disconnections: 10
    DEF Completed Games: 100 Quit Games: 2 Disconnections: 15

    Who would you pick?

  • LeSpank #11 2 years ago

    I don't play fifa but my flatmate is addicted and it seems the other player quits if losing pretty much every time. Surely all they need to do is record a hefty (5 or 10 nil) loss on the quitting team's stats to discourage this. Games like Halo and Gears of War have similar penalties.

    #9 - if thats how it works currently then I don't see a problem!
    Edited by 2 at 10/06/10 @ 11:25

  • ignatiusjreilly #12 2 years ago

    OK, controversial opinion: If I'm hating a game and getting very frustrated playing it, should I really have to continue playing so the stranger playing against me can extend his 7-0 scoreline?

    note: this isn't me, never played a sports game online

  • Stuz359 #13 2 years ago

    Quitters is why I stopped playing Fifa09 online (I never bought ten, I will only buy a football game every other year if I can help it). It's so frustrating when you are winning, you've played a good game and the other guy just quits on you. Personally, I learned a lot from a few players that did thrash me 5-0 or whatever. Seeing how they played the game made me learn about my own and modified my own play.

    Why is it in a competitive multiplayer situation, it's suddenly only become fun if you're winning?

  • tobi #14 2 years ago

    No more clones then? I'll believe it when I see it.

    Lock the game save!

  • darth_paul #15 2 years ago

    @ whiners

    what a bunch of whiners you all are. the quitters already get penalised for quitting. they loose like 50 Skillpoints. What can EA do more? Never bothered with quiiters. I always bagged the 50 Skillpoints, and would be playing a new game in no less than 2 minutes... bunch of whiners.

    edit|: yeah yeah... giveme negative feedback, u pussies
    Edited by 2 at 10/06/10 @ 12:33

  • The-Bodybuilder #16 2 years ago

    The easiest thing to do is to have a "review history" option of their last10-20 online games before playing them. If you have a quick look and see loads of matches saying "incomplete" then chances are, the person is a quitter, and then you just choose just to not play them.
    Soon it would get to the point where nobody will want to play with them anyways.

  • ObiChrisKenobi #17 2 years ago

    I still find it 'strange' that EA didn't patch the midget keepers in clubs. Almost makes you think they're trying to make it a selling point that you'll have 'real' keepers and defenders this year... or am I being too cynical?

  • BobsUncle #18 2 years ago

    @darth_paul

    I've given you a neg, because you obviously care enough about it to come back and edit your comment!

  • darth_paul #19 2 years ago

    @ BobsUncle

    thanks u genious.love being hated. plus i already knew i would get loads of neg feedback. hope ill reach -20. seriously, its nonsense that quitting issue. sometimes i just wish the other players just quit, so that i can get the skill points and go play another game, against a better player.
    See, edited my comment already 3 times. Any comment on that?
    Edited by 3 at 10/06/10 @ 13:11

  • Merlinho #20 2 years ago

    My problem isn't so much with the quitters who leave when 7-0 down, I can excuse that a little, and even send a message to people I've thrashed sometimes saying thanks for being a good sport and staying on.

    My problem is the quitters quit after going 2-0 in the 70th or 80th minute. It would be easier probably to stay until the end at that point. I've had someone quit after the final whistle! Then you don't get to see the match stats etc and it's just annoying. The system needs to be punitive to discourage that kind of stupidity.

  • JahB #21 2 years ago

    slow day at the office, darth_paul?

  • ignatiusjreilly #22 2 years ago

    I've had someone quit after the final whistle!

    This is wrong?! What if you don't care about the stats?

    I guess I just don't have the experience so don't understand why it's so annoying, but if I've just lost a game online I don't see why I would hang around in that game just so the other person can look at stats? No wonder it's so prevalent, it's sounds like a problem with the game rather than the players.

  • Tuffty #23 2 years ago

    Went back to playing FIFA 10 online recently after given up on it for a while due to all the quitters. And of 5 games I played, each one against a different person, all of them rage quitted. All of them. One even quitted when I was 1-0 up in 10 mins. It's just incredible.
    Edited by 1 at 10/06/10 @ 13:39

  • danclarke #24 2 years ago

    Hmm, undecided about this as of yet, call me shallow but I was hoping for more of a visual overhaul. The game has essentially looked the same for 3 years, and the player stances/shapes have never been quite right for me. I'll see how this shapes up along with Pro Evo 2011, then make a decision closer to the time.

  • Merlinho #25 2 years ago

    ]I've had someone quit after the final whistle!

    This is wrong?! What if you don't care about the stats?

    They quit after the final whistle but before the result had been set if you catch my drift, it was literally as the final whistle animation came on.

    This meant that the result changed from whatever it was to a 3-0 win to me, my PS3 froze up for a bit, you don't get to see how many points you got or how much your ranking has changed by as a result of the match, and I think even it doesn't count towards the achievements to not lose 5 in a row or win 100 online games (or however many it is).

    Yes, you could say this is a problem with the game interface as well, as it should prevent at least some of the factors above, but I considered that effectively griefing for the sake of it.

    Edit: stupid comment interface differing to forum
    Edited by 2 at 10/06/10 @ 13:47

  • ignatiusjreilly #26 2 years ago

    Seems simple to me - if you are winning when someone quits just make that count as a win (and towards your achievements and stuff).

    I guess there must be more to it than that though.

  • Trigga_Tybalt #27 2 years ago

    they really need to fix quitters. i went 1-0 unlocking the fastest goal trophy on the world cup game and they quit instantly and i had to replay that match, it didn't even count for a win and guess what? i lost the replayed match and was knocked out.

    they should ban quitters for an hour from playing online again or something similar. just ban them from 1v1 but still do team play or something. its the only way they'll learn. cause you know as soon as you go 3-0 up they will quit as it'll be the same score saved.

  • Lexx87 #28 2 years ago

    People who quit make me RAGE.

  • darth_paul #29 2 years ago

    @ JahB
    nah... but i can spare 2min to start an argument. at least keeps you guys happy for a moment

  • nasanu #30 2 years ago

    So Eurogamer didn't have the balls to ask them anything other than "can you quote me some marketing speak?"?

    What about the important questions like 'which horrible bugs are going to cripple this years release of fifa?'?

  • JJrabbit #31 2 years ago

    I do like the idea of banning people from playing for X amount of time after quitting, which increases over time the more the user quits. So, the first time the user presses Start....Quit, it's fine. But if they continue to do so, the minimum time till they can play a new game increases. The more games they complete, the minimum time decreases, eventually reaching zero so there's a way to get back 'on the good side'.
    IIRC (my xbox died, so haven't played FIFA in a while), but there's no quick way to see the opponent's result history (including quitting/disconnections). That would be a decent feature. I don't care how a person quits (on purpose/poor connection), I wouldn't want to play them.

    edit: For those who say "it's fine, you get the win anyway", I think that's besides the point. I don't play just to get the win. I actually want to have fun playing the game itself and that gets ruined when most of the time is spent selecting teams every 5 minutes.
    Edited by 1 at 10/06/10 @ 17:18

  • trubadman #32 2 years ago

    I've continued playing even when i was 8 nil down before. I did a survery on the UK Playstation forums to see how many games people had to win to get the Ton Up trophy. The description of this trophy was to win 100 online ranked games. Soon we found out that these games had to be completed to the 90th minute. I had to play 150 games to get it, hence in 1 out of every 3 games my opponent quit.

  • jebus #33 2 years ago

    Of course the secret is to play rubbish for the first 5 mins. If they quit after that you get the win anyway. Still annoying but it lowers the chance of it happening.

  • Madder-Max #34 2 years ago

    Pointless guff. How can they stop someone turning off their console?

  • trubadman #35 2 years ago


    jebus, unfortunately that's exactly what i do. Sometimes if i score 1 goal in the first 8 mins i make sure i dont get a second until 8 mins have passed. Personally im not too bothered by people quitting, it means i can win more matches in less time!!

  • CadetKid2009 #36 2 years ago

    Its really annoying when your opponent switches off halfway through a game because they r losing - They just need to practice more and get over it