The FIFA series has been around for years now and the latest release “FIFA 10″ is getting a lot of attention after last season’s highly acclaimed FIFA 09. Last season’s version was reviewed very highly and EA Sports is set to improve with FIFA 10. I was able to ask FIFA 10 producer David Rutter some questions about the game. A trailer of the game can be found here,  screenshots can be found here.

David Rutter
Producer FIFA Soccer 10 on Xbox 360 and PS3

What are the changes/improvements being made from FIFA 09 to FIFA 10?

David Rutter: I think the two things that I can talk about now that will be fan favorite features are our new dribbling system. And Customized Set Pieces. We’ve added 360 degree dribbling which revolutionizes how dribbling works in Football games.  As opposed to last years’ 8 directional dribbling, the user will now have full freedom when choosing which direction to move while on the ball.  On top of this, we have added a new feature we are calling Skilled Dribble.  This will allow skilled players to be able to take quicker dribble touches at low speeds to maintain close control in an effort to protect the ball from defenders.

One of the coolest things that we’ve only just started talking about is our Created Custom Set Pieces. From the new practice arena you’ll be able to record up to four totally personalized free kicks in 8 quadrants. The 2 quadrants by the corner flag will correspond to both free kicks and corners in those areas. You select players with the right stick, then moving them around with the left stick as in standard play, you’ll be able to record their movements, for multiple players, edit their paths, assign them to the D-pad and trigger them in game. We’re still debating internally about whether we’ll be allowing their use online at the moment.

What changes will be made to the online play for FIFA 10?

David Rutter: We’ll also be announcing some other cool stuff at GameCom in Cologne mid August.

Many United States fans have complained that the player and teams ratings of Major League Soccer are a bit low? Are the ratings similar to last year or what changes have been made?

David Rutter: We are still in the process of tuning the ratings based on the current season but feel that the MLS is rated accurately and fairly, considering that the team ratings are based on the player ratings and the MLS squads are primarily built around young players that are not at the same level as their European counterparts.
The MLS team ratings are comparable to most of the England Championship clubs, and also within the same range as Bundesliga 2, Denmark 1st division, Norway 1st division and Italy Serie B clubs.

How much do you rely on input from fans when designing and refining the FIFA series each year?

David Rutter: This year we wanted to focus on what mattered most to our fans so we spent a lot of time listening to their frustrations and reading forums for their requests. We’ve worked really hard to remove as many frustrations and add as many requests as we could…so I’ll take each in turn…

Major frustrations would probably be scoring from Kick off, too many offsides, advantage rule not working as well as it might, and a host of other game imbalances. We’ve fixed or improved the vast majority of these throughout the game, and continue to work on some even today.

Requests have also been popular. This year we’re really proud of the work we’ve put into Manager Mode, at our communities request. Over 50 major components to do with Match Realism, Transfer Authenticity, and player growth and development have been addressed, and thats something we’ll be continuing to focus on in coming years. In addition we’ve added a Practice Mode it’s load free, includes set pieces, and a variety of AI player numbers on the pitch. You can play up to 11 outfield players, and even have multiplayer. 4 v 4 has been christened ‘Death Mode’ by some of our community members. Unfortunately we’re not online with our practice mode though.

In standard gameplay we’ve also added the ability to switch free kick takers and move the free kick wall – and there’s loads of other things we’ve done too in response to feedback.

What new features or options are added to FIFA 10?

David Rutter: We have spent a lot of time innovating and refining gameplay, as well as focusing on Manager mode this year.

This year we have done a lot of work to our dribbling system to try to give the gamer more freedom to be creative on the ball.  We’ve added 360 degree dribbling which revolutionizes how dribbling works in Football games.  As opposed to last years’ 8 directional dribbling, the user will now have full freedom when choosing which direction to move while on the ball.  On top of this, we have added a new feature we are calling Skilled Dribble.  This will allow skilled players to be able to take quicker dribble touches at low speeds to maintain close control in an effort to protect the ball from defenders.

Adding these additions to the dribbling system, however, does not mean that the game is completely geared toward dribbling.  We’ve done a lot of work in our positioning, tackling, pressing, jostling systems etc… to ensure that the game remains in balance and it requires skill from the user to be able to utilize the new capabilities of the best dribblers in the game.  In real life, though, those who hold on to the ball too long usually will eventually get tackled and lose possession.  We continue to strive to achieve this same balance in FIFA.  We believe that achieving this goal will ultimately maintain the balance of football in FIFA, and ensure that the user will feel the need to pass to create space, and try to dribble only if they are 1. Good enough and 2. It is the right opportunity.

Further to this we are looking into the balance of our sprint dribble.  In FIFA 09 players like Christiano Ronaldo and Fernando Torres were very powerful because they were good dribblers and very fast runners.  While we want to keep this personality in our game we are looking at reducing their speed in relation to players that are only marginally slower to them.  One of the ways we are looking to do this is to tune the amount a player has to slow down at each touch of the ball.  This amount changes based on how difficult the dribble touch is, and how good of a dribbler the player that makes the touch is.  We are working at refining this system to ensure that it is not too easy to just pick up the ball and run with these players.  While we are retuning this, we are still aiming to preserve the feeling you get when you break away with one of these special footballers.  We want it to feel like you are controlling the world’s fastest dribblers.

For the more conventional Football enthusiasts, we have worked on our positioning system to improve the intelligence of the off the ball movement to ensure that a possession/passing strategy is effective.  We’ve added new behaviors like Curved Runs so that players will make a concerted effort to stay onside when trying to break the defense.  We’ve given the players a better understanding of space in and around the 18 yard box so that they will try to open up for cutbacks and position themselves better to create opportunities at goal.  We’ve done a lot of work on our defending, putting in concepts like covering to ensure that the best defenders in our game do a better job of cutting out easy through balls. Changes like these encourage the user to maintain possession longer and be patient when looking for opportunities to exploit space behind the defense, which we believe will make chance creation more rewarding.

We think we made huge improvements with our new trapping system last year, and this year we wanted to build on it, and tidy up the loose ends of the system where we thought it could have been better.  For FIFA 10 we have done a lot of work to improve the visuals and fluidity in trapping, working on blend times, popping and speed up issues which all detracted from the visual quality when a player takes the ball under control, and also the balance, as sometimes players could unrealistically speed up to trap a ball that maybe they shouldn’t have been able to get to.  We also have done a lot of work to improve the intelligence in trapping.  We added the concept of an easiest intercept, which gives the player the understanding of both where he can trap the ball the easiest, and how he can trap the ball the easiest.

Players will try to position themselves to take air balls at the bounce point instead of at head or chest height, or allow a ball to drop and volley it on goal if they have time instead of just trying a header from 20 yards out.  As you can imagine this helps greatly in responsiveness because the player is able to get the ball settled quicker and thus is able to move onto his next action quicker.

Goalkeeper is another area that we again invested heavily in this year. The main focus was improving his behavior/intelligence in loose ball situations, and improving his rushing behavior.  He’ll now get off his line a bit quicker and the animations look more realistic, with his arms out at his side so he’s ready to make a save.  We’ve also had the chance to add some cool new features to the keeper like Diving to the Post to make sure he’s got it covered on missed shots instead of diving full length, and added the ability for him to swat a ball that is close to his goal line.

Another often overlooked area that we really wanted to work on this year is Locomotion.  The run cycle that we had in FIFA 09 needed some work, so we went to the Motion Capture studio and recaptured almost all of our locomotion.  We’ve added the concept of urgency in locomotion this year, so players who don’t need to be moving urgently will play more relaxed versions of our run cycles and turns, but players in intense situations will play more energetic urgent animations.  We also did a lot of work to make sure that players are always trying to face the ball, whether it means running in a different fashion or just turning their head and shoulders more so they can see the play.  The result is that players not only look more intelligent, but position themselves better to react to the situations unfolding around them.

This not only greatly increases our animation quality and variety in locomotion, but also can result in more responsive actions because less often players put themselves into difficult situations.  We are quite happy with the improvements we are getting on this front for FIFA 10.

For manager mode this year we’ve focused on more than 50 major improvements designed to create a more authentic experience. Match results are based on team and player strengths and weaknesses while player transfers are determined by multiple decision points, including club finance and prestige, availability of similar players and cmpetition from AI-controlled clubs. Player development is more realistic with true-to-life growth curves based on factors such as age and environment.

We’re also giving people the opportunity to practice our improved gameplay in the load free practice arena, including set pieces, and a variety of AI player numbers on the pitch.

What was the biggest complaint about FIFA 09? How have you addressed this issue in FIFA 10?

David Rutter: I mentioned above the major frustrations gamers have had with FIFA 09. We’ve had close to 400 million games of FIFA 09 on 360 and PS3 played online since launch – and that level of play identifies a LOT of frustrations for people. We’ve really benefitted from that and worked to make the game fans want.