This is our pledge for FIFA 10:
No more custom teams in ranked games. Their presence in FIFA 09 Online was a bug, and we are implementing foolproof checkpoint-based loading and unloading of squads in online matches. This also applies to original teams in Clubs.
Diminishing returns for playing repeatedly against the same team. The more you play someone within a close period of time, the less ranked points you get. Ultimately, it is not even worth the effort. And to those who tried to hide their tracks by playing other modes in the middle of winning streaks… This won’t work anymore. Nice try though.
No more game exploits. Halfway goals are gone, goalkeeper 6-sec exploit is gone. CR7 is still there, however, so use our brand new Training Mode to learn how to better defend against him…
Faster identification and punishment of cheaters. Never say never… if someone finds a way to consistently cheat our game, our improving stat tracking will flag inconsistencies in their logs, and we will find and punish them. We are actually setting up a Live Team, whose responsibility will be to track down suspected cheaters.
As a minor but nice new safeguard, we now disconnect players who idle for too long in 10-vs-10. No more AFK’s getting control of the ball as the last defender!
What about disconnects? For this one, we cannot do any better detection than the one our current system is providing. Peer-to-peer means that connections can be lost for network reasons, freak outages… anything really. Understanding how you connect to the Internet and setting up the connection in consequence is key, but we still cannot guarantee 100% connection results. We will strive, though, to keep explaining how to properly set up internet connections, as it is definitely not as easy as plug-and-play! And, oh, downloading risqué videos is a major cause of network disruption, so don’t do it!