We revealed after playing FIFA 19 at E3 that there was a brand new ‘Timed Finishing’ mechanic that EA was touting as one of the core new features of the game.
At first, I thought it was a cool idea, but now that EA has explained how it works (both in video and text form), I’m quite frankly confused and worried for how it affects probably the most important mechanic in FIFA.
Basically, Timed Finishing works in the sense that you can now perfectly time your shot by pressing the shoot button a second time after kicking. If you do so correctly (which you’re able to tell by an on-screen graphic going from red/green), you’ll shoot with better accuracy and power.
The reason why this is confusing (and potentially a massive game changer) is due to the fact that it sounds like power is no longer dictated by pressing and holding, as it’s been for as long as I can remember.
“The basic process for taking a shot doesn’t change, but if you want to make your shots potentially unstoppable with this accuracy and power boost, it’s as simple as tapping the “shoot” button a second time after the initial button tap”
Instead, in all of EA’s text, they’re saying that you need to tap on the shoot button to take your shot and then use a second tap to correctly stop the meter. Now, hopefully I’m reading into this incorrectly, and you can still take a standard shot, but it sounds like this is pretty much engrained into the core functionality of the game.
I can understand why EA would want to change up shot making a little bit. In the last few years, it’s been much harder to correctly land shots, which would cause frustration for newcomers, but that’s kind of the point of the game. It’s reliant on skill, which is actually fairly enjoyable.
Whilst this is still going to be reliant on skill, EA probably believes that there’s an on-screen indicator to make the player feel like they have control of power/precision, rather than just endlessly spraying balls wide with no indication.
