Gameplay Discussion - (Beta 0.8)

[Danne]

I hope you have played a few games now so we can discuss some gameplay.

Here are a few suggestions from me:


SHOOTING
* A little bit more maxpower in shooting.

FREEKICKS
* A little bit more power in freekicks.
* Normal aftertouch applied after you have shot.

AI
* More Longshots from the AI

KEEPER
* He is to good on penalties.


opinions/ideas guys?

[alkis21]

OK, these are my first impressions after about 90 minutes of playing.

Machine:
Intel Pentium(D) 2.80GHz
1,00GB RAM
NVidia GeForce 7600 GS (256 MB)
19'' TFT monitor
CMS digital joystick

Settings:
1024-768
Anti-aliasing ON
Top camera view
Offside OFF
Fixed power

Played: Friendly matches, mostly using a good team against a bad one (usually Olympiakos)

Graphics
Everything works for me. The pitch, players, advertisements, goals, all look fine. Something that made me frown was that the colors on the scanner are not the ones the teams use. I noticed that there were no black players, are they going to be implemented?

Sound
Quality crowd sound. What I didn't like much was the constant tap-tap when a player was running with the ball. In my opinion, the sound must be heard only when a player presses the fire button. I would also like the sound of the ball hitting the post to be more emphatic.

Performance
Speed was good, scrolling was flawless. It does take a bit too long to begin a match on my computer.

Dribbling
No problems there, I was able to change directions and stop & go at will.

Shooting - Chips - Lobs
Good aftertouch implementation. My shots and long balls went where I expected them to go more often than not. Kick Off players should have no problems. I agree with Danne that the maximum power much be a bit more.
Is there any way you can differentiate the shots to goal from the long balls for us who do not use selectable power? I would love the shots on goal to be more powerful, but not if that would influence my long balls too.

Passing
Again, very Kick Off-like, no problems at all.

Set Pieces
I haven't tried them enough to comment yet. A player can take a corner kick and start running with the ball without passing it first, but I'm sure you already know that.

Headers
I haven't done anything spectacular yet, but they seem fine to me.

Tackles
Very good in defense, and they're easy enough to time and avoid fouling the opponent. I'd like to be able to do them in offense to, like when I'm trying to kick the ball in the goal when it's a meter away.

Overhead kicks
I haven't mastered them yet.

Positioning of players
Good enough I think, although I'll have to play more games to be sure. Sometimes when you take a throw in there's nobody from your team to give the ball to.

AI
Well, variety is the key here. They need to do more things, surprise the opponent more. 1-2s, consecutive passes, long balls, shots outside the box, that kind of stuff. I also thought the weaker teams were not weak enough, I was able to draw 1-1 with AEK against Manchester without sweating a lot. I expect more weak times, as in clubs from Luxemburg, Albania etc. to be added.
I think the AI is the one thing that needs considerably more work.

Miscellaneous
As it is, the player name that appears on the bottom of the screen is that of the player who is closer to the ball. I don't like that much, I would prefer it if the name of the last player who touched the ball was shown instead.
The synopsis of the best moments at the end of the game is a nice touch, but the music is out of place. What do you think about having a commentator's voice there, speaking in an incomprehensible language?

Overall
I believe that Throw In is already better than Kick Off 2002 and Sensible Soccer 2006, and it's a title I will gladly buy.

[Danne]

dp

[Danne]

OK, these are my first impressions after about 90 minutes of playing.

Machine:
Intel Pentium(D) 2.80GHz
1,00GB RAM
NVidia GeForce 7600 GS (256 MB)
19'' TFT monitor
CMS digital joystick

Settings:
1024-768
Anti-aliasing ON
Top camera view
Offside OFF
Fixed power

Played: Friendly matches, mostly using a good team against a bad one (usually Olympiakos)

Graphics
Everything works for me. The pitch, players, advertisements, goals, all look fine. Something that made me frown was that the colors on the scanner are not the ones the teams use. I noticed that there were no black players, are they going to be implemented?

Sound
Quality crowd sound. What I didn't like much was the constant tap-tap when a player was running with the ball. In my opinion, the sound must be heard only when a player presses the fire button. I would also like the sound of the ball hitting the post to be more emphatic.

Performance
Speed was good, scrolling was flawless. It does take a bit too long to begin a match on my computer.

Dribbling
No problems there, I was able to change directions and stop & go at will.

Shooting - Chips - Lobs
Good aftertouch implementation. My shots and long balls went where I expected them to go more often than not. Kick Off players should have no problems. I agree with Danne that the maximum power much be a bit more.
Is there any way you can differentiate the shots to goal from the long balls for us who do not use selectable power? I would love the shots on goal to be more powerful, but not if that would influence my long balls too.

Passing
Again, very Kick Off-like, no problems at all.

Set Pieces
I haven't tried them enough to comment yet. A player can take a corner kick and start running with the ball without passing it first, but I'm sure you already know that.

Headers
I haven't done anything spectacular yet, but they seem fine to me.

Tackles
Very good in defense, and they're easy enough to time and avoid fouling the opponent. I'd like to be able to do them in offense to, like when I'm trying to kick the ball in the goal when it's a meter away.

Overhead kicks
I haven't mastered them yet.

Positioning of players
Good enough I think, although I'll have to play more games to be sure. Sometimes when you take a throw in there's nobody from your team to give the ball to.

AI
Well, variety is the key here. They need to do more things, surprise the opponent more. 1-2s, consecutive passes, long balls, shots outside the box, that kind of stuff. I also thought the weaker teams were not weak enough, I was able to draw 1-1 with AEK against Manchester without sweating a lot. I expect more weak times, as in clubs from Luxemburg, Albania etc. to be added.
I think the AI is the one thing that needs considerably more work.

Miscellaneous
As it is, the player name that appears on the bottom of the screen is that of the player who is closer to the ball. I don't like that much, I would prefer it if the name of the last player who touched the ball was shown instead.
The synopsis of the best moments at the end of the game is a nice touch, but the music is out of place. What do you think about having a commentator's voice there, speaking in an incomprehensible language?

Overall
I believe that Throw In is already better than Kick Off 2002 and Sensible Soccer 2006, and it's a title I will gladly buy.

Intresting thoughts.

GFX
I have planned to implement the right color on playerdots on scanner for later versions and I hope that Gianluca will help me. What is black players?

Sound
Do you mean that the dribblesound shouldnt be heard? (or only lower volume?) - Very easy to change both things. I actually think the dribblesound make it easier to dribble though but I agree that it may be to loud and irritating. Especially when the CPU dribbles. I havent tested with dribblesound off so I cant say that it is neccessary either. I will test it now though.

Shooting

Is there any way you can differentiate the shots to goal from the long balls for us who do not use selectable power? I would love the shots on goal to be more powerful, but not if that would influence my long balls too.

I wonder the same myself. Maybe it is possible to do this by 'read' the direction and distance to the goal? However. No matter what I definitely think that the power should be increased a bit. I have been able to play the game more intence and relaxed now (cause I dont have to work on GFX) and I am pretty sure that the shootingpower is lower than in 0,71 cause of new shooting power stat. It seems to be especially very low (far to low) for player with low shooting power stat. I notice this cause I think the longballs from defenders are not powerful enough......and also goalkicks!? (donät know if the stat effect the last thing though)
* So to reduce the decreased effect of players shootingpower when the shooting power stat drops from 99 would be good.
* Also slightly higher power over all.


AI
I agree

Misc
I will be back for a comment here.

[Calimero]

As it is, the player name that appears on the bottom of the screen is that of the player who is closer to the ball. I don't like that much, I would prefer it if the name of the last player who touched the ball was shown instead.

I completely agree and I already mentioned this to Gianluca in one of my older posts. Hopefully we will see this changed in the 0.9 beta!

[Bounty Bob]

I played it very briefly, so can't offer anything in depth but there was one thing that really annoyed me. When I trap the ball and keep my finger held on the button, the computer just comes through the back of me and takes the ball. This happens sometimes in Kick Off but usually you get nudged by the player behind and your player feels a lot more solid.

The selected player under your control seems to need a bit of work too. I found that very often I was not controlling the player I thought to be the obvious one.

Good effort on the whole though but I won't be playing it any more. This is nothing personal to Throw In though, I don't play Kick Off on my own either . I just had a quick look out of curiosity more than anything else.

[alkis21]

Danne, by black players I mean Negroes.
Yes, I'd prefer it if the dribble sound wasn't heard at all, or at least I would like it to be less audible than when you press fire.

[Danne]

Danne, by black players I mean Negroes.
Yes, I'd prefer it if the dribble sound wasn't heard at all, or at least I would like it to be less audible than when you press fire.

ok, I will lower the dribblesound volume to next version.


ok. Now I understand!
There are plenty of 'black' players in the game. (There are 7 different skincolors. The lightbrown may be to light though!? I really havent checked it very closely but I will now.

btw. Here is Viera. I admit that his lips look strange in 0.8 but this is allready fixed. The playermodel in the 0.8 Beta is old and have some bugs which not is present in the latest playermodel.

[Steve Camber]

ok, I will lower the dribblesound volume to next version.

For me the dribble sound was waay too quiet. This made trapping the ball harder.

[Danne]

ok, I will lower the dribblesound volume to next version.

For me the dribble sound was waay too quiet. This made trapping the ball harder.

What am I going to do now??

Make it optionable?


I would like some sound options in the future such as.

music - volume
soundFX - volume
crowd - volume

Maybe dribblesound volume as well then..

However this would require work from Gianluca so cant promise anything.

[Danne]

Miscellaneous
As it is, the player name that appears on the bottom of the screen is that of the player who is closer to the ball. I don't like that much, I would prefer it if the name of the last player who touched the ball was shown instead.
The synopsis of the best moments at the end of the game is a nice touch, but the music is out of place. What do you think about having a commentator's voice there, speaking in an incomprehensible language?

It appears like the player who is in control (marked with the playermarker) is displayed in the right or left bottom dependent on team.

[Bushmonkey Flex]

Hiya
This is my first ever post but I've kept my eye on Throw In for a while now. This is a cracking effort for a Kick Off style game. Really takes me back to my Atari/Amiga days.

The shooting definitely needs more power - I find it easier to have fixed power at the moment.
I haven't really mastered any type of dribbling yet and as the AI is amazing at dribbling.

The sound is incredible - reminds me of GOAL! where the crowd gets louder the closer to the goal you get. Other than that there are the little bugs that have already been discussed.

Totally impressed - keep it up people

[gdh82]

Hiya
This is my first ever post but I've kept my eye on Throw In for a while now. This is a cracking effort for a Kick Off style game. Really takes me back to my Atari/Amiga days.

Hi! Just to say welcome and do feel free to post on other forum sections too! For a great trip down memory lane, check outthe amigaClone project by Alkis

Garry