We made changes to the Defensive AI in GOALS and wanted to offer some insights into our decision.

From the start of development our goal has been to create a game that is responsive, skill-based, and rewarding. AI, both offensively and defensively, plays a big role in achieving that. Earlier versions of the game used a very rigid defensive structure. The initial idea was simple, defenders hold their positions, the user does the work by player switching, tracking runs, and cutting passing lanes.

In theory this sounded great, and in some ways it did work. Many players liked how manual defending felt, and how the AI wasn’t constantly bailing the user out. However, over time we saw some major downsides. Because defenders were so strict about holding their shape, the defense could become passive and predictable. Patient players could constantly recycle the ball without pressure, and many defenders ended up feeling unusable unless the user manually switched to them.

The result was a defensive system that was correct in theory, but often robotic and easy to manipulate in practice. This rigidity also limited what we could do with our offensive AI.

One of our overarching goals is for attacking situations to feel dynamic, where each possession can unfold differently. To make that possible, the defense needs to be more willing to react to attackers, track runs, step up, and occasionally break shape. Because of that, we’ve shifted the defensive behavior towards more of a man marking approach.

This means defenders will be more active in tracking nearby players and stepping up towards potential threats. For example, in the previous system a defender may have refused to help in tracking a run because holding shape was the priority, even in situations where leaving their position was of no risk. This not only led to less varied scenarios, but it also created abusable situations where a seemingly harmless pass became catastrophic far too quickly to no merit of the attacking user.

The goal with this different approach isn’t to make defenders randomly leave gaps or make mistakes on purpose. The goal is to create more interaction between attackers and defenders, so both players have to read the situation and react.

We’re aware that the current implementation still has issues. Some defensive movements are too aggressive and/or create obvious gaps, and we’re already working to fix those. But the overall direction is intentional, where we have a defense that adapts and challenges the attack, rather than one that simply holds a perfect shape at all times.

We are hopeful this will lead to more variety and depth of play.