Talking FIFA 14 With Nick Channon

A few days ago, we were privy to an in depth presentation, looking at all the new changes being made for FIFA 14’s gameplay and career mode, which you can read and see about here. Following this, we had a chance to sit down with Nick Channon, Producer on the game.

TSA: With so much being tweaked and modified for this game, and as a kind of big picture question, what’s the stand out feature for you?

Nick Channon: This year? I think the visual stand out is going to be shooting. Ultimately that’s the one which everyone will pick up on really quickly, and it’s going to feel amazing. You saw the video which we showed there and that, to me, is the instant gratification.

Another thing that will stand out is that the marking is tighter, tightening up the midfield a little bit. I think what we’re seeing and feeling as we play is just how good that feels and how it’s making you think. So I do believe that this combination of things will make the game feel incredibly different, which is, you know, obviously it needs to be different in a positive way. What we try to do each year is take it to that next level and those are a couple of key components.

TSA: Do you find that, when you’re playing in the office, the new ball physics are changing the way you go about attacking?

NC: I think that what affects it more is the animation changes in shooting. You now have a visual feedback of what is happening. The real disconnect, which we showed in one of those videos, was when we snapped you into a normal shooting pose and then the ball would [roll along the floor] like that. It wouldn’t take off and wasn’t consistent between the animation and the ball trajectory. I think that at times that took you completely out of the moment, so now, when the animation matches up, and it feels amazing when you hit a good one, when it’s rushed, you now get it, because the animation supports where the ball’s going and that makes sense.

So what it’s starting to make you do is think if you should have done that in a particular situation, and maybe next time you’ll do something slightly different. So to me, that’s what’s really changing it. The visual output of what the physics are doing, and the mechanical changes are doing.

TSA: With the new ball physics and shooting animations, are these going to reduce the kind of “FIFA goals”, where it’s unrealistic?

NC: A lot of the changes we are making is going to take away those cheap goals, those repetitive goals. Again, tightening up the midfield means you need to move the ball around a bit more, having to think of different ways to get opportunities. Not that it’s hard, it’s just different ways to build up play, which will reduce some of the cheapness of some of the goals we’ve had previously.

TSA: You’re always taking on community feedback, and was it off the back of this, or already on the list of changes to revamp the AI again, and get rid of this gung-ho defence?

NC: Obviously we look at the feedback, and see something and think we need to fix it, that it’s something we need to address. But that’s the same every year, we look at what people are saying and the feedback we’re getting, and we try and align that with the new features we’re trying to create.

TSA: This is bordering on online, which I know you’re not discussing today, but with character creation there’s a phenomenon of creating really small, super fast guys. Are you trying to address this with ’14?

NC: We don’t want to limit people’s creativity, and that’s something we’ve had around for a while. One of the things we did last year was we put the virtual player online, and we separated the two, because people were boosting offline and going online. So that’s one of the things that can help with that, if you’ve got a 99 rated 7-foot striker… When you take your player online, you’ve got to build him up online.

TSA: There’s been news recently with goal line technology making its way into various football leagues next year, is that something which will feature in the game?

NC: We’ll see, obviously we’re just seeing the news coming through, and that’s changing on a near daily basis. We just need to monitor the situation and we’ll see, but there’s nothing to announce right now. Obviously that’s changing fairly rapidly at the moment, and we’ll see.

TSA: Along those lines, it’s a little weird how exact the referees are. They’re always right and never get anything wrong. Is that something which you can affect? I know that FIFA have a say in such matters.

NC: Ultimately, every year we have to look at the referees, in terms of anything we introduce, and balancing that. That was a big year when we brought in the impact engine, because the collision system completely changed and we had to make sure that aligned well with how the referees worked. Beyond that we’re pretty happy with how our games are officiated, and it’s just not a focus for us, which is just making sure that the gameplay is great. That’s what we really want to focus on.

TSA: Do you ever feel that the FIFA games are becoming too realistic?

NC: No, and we’re very conscious of that. We want to make our game realistic, but it has to be fun. We’re making entertainment at the end of the day, and we’re not going to put something into the game which is ultra realistic, but makes the game worse. That’s not what it’s about.

With the tightening of marking, we believe that’s making our game better and more fun. We’re not just doing it for the sake of it, to make it more realistic. So, that’s always what we look at, and we already have a very authentic game, that plays very true to Football. If we can improve that we will, but we’re not going to make it a worse experience.

TSA: How do you keep yourselves on the front foot? You have such a lead in the market, so how do you keep pushing yourselves to the next level?

NC: Ultimately it’s self-drive. That’s one of the reason we showed you metacritic [stats, which show FIFA has been over 88% for the last 5 years], and we’re really proud of that. We are also very aware that it’s hard to do, and if you don’t innovate each year, especially with gameplay, that’s not going to happen. So for us that’s a driving force. It’s not the only one, by any means, but it’s the only measure we have.

So for us, it’s how can we maintain the quality of our game year-on-year, and the way to do that is with key innovations and key leaps forward in the quality of the gameplay. That has been the strategy which has stood us in very good stead the last 4-5 years, and we know that if we continue to do that, we’re going to do well.

TSA: Finally, and this is maybe a bit out of sequence, but with in game commentary, it still always feels very unspecific. Is this still a focus, or is it more about the match day feel and vibe?

NC: We did Match Day last year, we introduced EA Sports Club Match Day, which actually does adapt the speech with regular updates. So we are now bringing things in for, if a player scored three goals in three games, you could potentially hear that.

So, lets say Luis Suarez scored three goals in three games, our game now has the potential to say that. I’m not guaranteeing that will happen every time, but the database looks at that stat, recognises it and it’s then a piece of data the commentary team can use. If a player was making his debut for a team, like Balotelli when he went back to Italy, then that might be mentioned in the next time.

These things are all in there, and we do a lot of that in career mode as well. Obviously that’s a fantasy, so that’s your story, and we’re starting to bring more and more of these elements into the game, and I think the commentary now is pretty dynamic and we’ll obviously look at any opportunity we can to improve that.

Thanks a lot to Nick Channon and EA for taking the time for this interview. You can read more about the changes planned for FIFA 14 here.