I'll be doing player attributes for MLS in FIFA 2005. I'm curious to know what everyone thinks Freddy's attributes should be. Here's what I'm thinking" Leadership- 1 out of 5 Talent- 5 out of 5 Consistancy- 2 out of 5 Acceleration- 84 out of 100 Aggression- 61 Pace- 81 Stamina- 81 Strength- 66 Balance- 73 Marking- 32 Tackling- 21 Ball Control- 79 Dribbling- 84 Crossing- 52 Heading- 67 Jumping- 79 Passing-73 Long Balls- 31 Shoot. Accuracy- 84 Shot Power- 73 Anticipation- 81 Awareness- 71 Determination- 91 This would give him an overall raiting of 76. I think this might be a little high for a 15 year old rookie. Keep in mind that the highest rated players in the league (ie. Donovan & Ruiz) are rated in the mid 80's. I know people will argue that he is the most talented player in the league and should be rated even higher, but this has been noted in the 5 out of 5 rating for talent. Keeping this in mind he would easily be rated in the 90's by the time he is in his early 20's. I would appreciate help from any United fans in feedback to make the attribues as accurate and REALISTIC as possible.
Two things ... First, considering that he has yet to play a single league game what possible basis do we have to help you? It's just conjecture if we go off his performance at the youth level. Second, I'm pretty sure if you ask the average DC United supporter on this board you're going to find them discounting his play quite heavily. If anything we're prone to under-estimate his abilities at the moment. In short, we might be the right people to ask, but I very much doubt this is the right time to ask.
Balance and ball control should be higher than any other player on the team, even at his current age.
His overall rating should be around a 70. This is a 15 year old in a game featuring the best players from around the world. Making him as good overall as more established players would be foolish.
NOTE: My revisions are the unbolded portion of your quote above. I'm not going to quibble, but at least these three should be higher. Once you see the kid, you'll realize why EVERYONE who sees him says that the ball sticks to his feet like glue. He truly glides through mazes of people almost never making a bad touch and seldom making a poorly placed pass. I think his crossing ability is significantly higher as well. I might lower his heading and jumping abilities though. There are several videos of him on the net, I suggest you watch some of those if you cannot get a hold of any game tapes. But his ball control and dribbling are insanely good. When you see him, you will be amazed, regardless of his age, he's pure talent with the ball at his feet. -Digital
I don't know how much time you have, but it'd be best if you waited at least until after the first few games of the upcoming season before finalizing anything.
sorry, landis i know that its not your fault, but was so disappointted to NOT be able to put Convey on DC United in FIFA 2004. Add that to Twellman being a CB and the Crew goalkeeper snafu, the MLS on FIFA 2004 was pretty poorly potrayed. Hope you guys do better on '05.
Re: sorry, landis Yes I agree with you. I am partially at fault for last season, as I was the one that did MLS rosters. I do not work for EA full time and did not get paid to do the rosters last year. Unfortunately, I was contacted with only 3.5 weeks to work on the ENTIRE LEAGUE. Last year's database interface, to put in nicely, sucked: we were unable to check the overall rating, so had to guess what the overall rating would be, and on at least 3 seperate occasions the DB system would crash and multiple hours of work would be lost. BUT, no excuses this year, we have about 3 MONTHS to work on it, and I am able to donate a little more time. So expect the rosters to be fantastic! Check BigSoccer often, as my colleagues and I will be soliciting information from the fans about the players.
Forget stats, you guys just need to focus on creating a product that actually resemebles the game we all love. Accurate stats will not help reverse the beating you are getting from Konami.
dude i gave mad props to fifa 2004. its fun. and that was the first time anyone from the EA (are you?) acknowledged any kind of responsibility for the mistakes. good job, and am really looking forward to '05.
Just to be clear, I am not an official employee of EA. They contract out to a few dozen people per year to work on rosters. I'm just a poor graduate student in SW Michigan. I have no input on the the graphics/gameplay/etc. in FIFA. The only thing I have access to is rosters, I hope for realism in that, and hopefully the other folks will do the same. You can bitch to me all you want about MLS and the US Natties in FIFA 2004, as I worked on them.
Why don't you contact MLS HQ to get the complete rosters prior to your deadline. I'm sure they'd be helpful since it only helps the league for video games to be as realistic as possible. Now, when it comes to rating players, I would definitely stay away from HQ. For one, they seem to consistently overrate over-aged European players. For individual player ratings, you'll probably get a lot of help if you talk to BS moderators or other 1000+ posters. Maybe I'm getting too far off topic, but for Dallas I suggest that you contact 3rddegree. He also has a website at 3rddegree.net, which is pretty good evidence of how well he knows the team. If you're not already aware, you can P.M. an individual poster to ask them questions directly. On a final note, why don't you talk to EA about setting up more realistic transfer prices on MLS players. Off the top of my head Cancela from New England and Guevara from NY are priced way too high. You'd think that MLS players would be a pretty good bargain in today's soccer climate. It's easy to pick out the marquee players who would carry pretty hefty price tags, but there are several quality players that shouldn't be weighed down by this.
I will bring this up, and yes, I agree it's an issue. Truthfully, I'm not sure how much can be done about this. Once the database comes online in a few weeks I'll be able to let folks know if transfers values can be set. I filled out an internet survey last spring at soccergaming that said EA was looking for editors. It was also posted here on Bigsoccer.com a month or so ago by my MLS editing colleague UxSxAxfooty. Truthfully I'm not sure why I was picked. Possibly because I used to be Crew season ticket holder, or that I get all of the games on satellite, or that I played some college ball. More than likely I was the only American that filled it out.
Landis, I really enjoy the game. Sometimes, however, I feels as if the MLS player rankings tend to be somewhat randomized. I don't know the situation, so I'm not blaming you. If you worked on the US Nat ratings, does that also include the US Nats that play in Europe?? If so, why is Brad Freidel's rankings so low? (His overall is in the 70s)...this is a guy who was voted best 'keeper in the EPL last season, and he is only gven an overall ranking in the 70s? Makes no sense to me. Based on the performances of some of the US Nats who recently moved to Europe, are guys like Boca, McBride, and Mathis going to receive higher rankings? Mathis' shooting rankings should definately be higher in the next version...if you have watched his finishes in the BL1 this season, you can see that he is a top-class finisher--the Germans themselves have noted this. I'd make both his shooting accuracy and shot power in the 80s (with more of an emphasis on accuracy). I think Landon Donovan's passing and trapping rankings are also too low. He impresses me a lot with his vision and passing accuracy (especially medium range passes) and his first touch control on the ball. MLS team rankings also appear a bit random. How are the MetroStars ranked the same as the Earthquakes? And the Galaxy are ranked as one of the lowest? About Freddy: it's hard to rate a player who hasn't stepped onto a professional pitch yet, but my suggestion would be to analyze the numerous video clips of him playing for the US youth teams within the past year or so. Yes, he is playing against youth level players, but you can see some of his pure ability such as his skill on the ball (trapping, dribbling, etc.), his vision, his shot accuracy and power, and his quickness/acceleration. I would like to see Tony Sanneh back on the 2005 USA roster in the game. The USA roster should be based on the average roster for the WC qualifier matches coming up this year--assuming Arena includes the European-based players. In addition, the roster for the Netherlands match and the roster for the upcoming match in Poland should also be factored in.
I'll give you input if you can tell me why Bobby Convey is not part of the DC United roster in FIFA 2004, but he's on the US Nats. Huh??? And that was well before he started getting a bunch of caps.
He was dropped to free agents when he was going to transfer to Spurs. When the transfer fell through do to lack of caps he was not put back on DC. He was supposed to be added back on once I realized he was missing, but Fifa already went gold, and he could not be added back on. He'll be on DC this year, unless of course he transfers out, and in that case he will be added to that team's roster.
Landis, You've come to the right place for DC United attributes. I hope that the moderators let you do your thing and continue to inquire. I agree with the revision sets offered up for Freddy, but feel that you should hold off on him until the very, very last minute to finalize, as he is an unknown. We would be happy and eager to help you with all of the players and attributes for DC United. Let me say that this group (as a whole) will likely be harsh, but fair about player's skill sets with few exceptions. One of my major pet peeves with the game over the years is when a player's appearance needs to be altered dramatically. Granted, this aspect has gotten better over time, but I want to point out that the DC United web site has photos of the players that should be very helpful. Finally, not sure if this is relevant to your style of rating, but I've noticed over time that MLS players tend to be less athletic than international competitors. I find this to be a misrepresentation of the actual situation, as the one thing that foreign players comment about MLS is that the league relies too heavily on athleticism and less on skill on the ball or tactics. In addition, I believe that an objective viewpoint would show that player for player MLS sides are impressively athletic in comparison to a lot of international sides. Same goes for the US nats. As a general rule, I'd say that the awareness, ball skills, passing, and shooting of MLS/US players should be 5 to 10 % lower on average than the top leagues, but many of the athleticism aspects should be comparable. Cheers, Tim
Hey Landis, I think you did a fine job with the MLS rosters this year, especially compared to the last few years. Yeah, Twellman as a CB was annoying and there was a problem with Presthus in CLE but overall both MLS and USA were well done. I've had the opportunity to beta test the Creation Centre the last couple of years so I know what it's like to work on the rosters with incomplete tools. I look forward to playing FIFA 2005 in November.