Pass Receiver Selection
Before learning pass types, you need to understand how the game selects your target. In GOALS, passing is based on two inputs:
Direction (aim) + Charge (power)
How it works
When you're aiming a pass, the game identifies all teammates in that direction, and your power bar does the rest. A low charge picks out the closest teammate, while a high charge zips the ball to a player further away.
Key concept
Charge is not just about power, it’s about intent.
Example
If you have two teammates ahead, just tap pass to find the closer player or hold it down to pick out the one further away
If there’s only one teammate in that direction, even a light tap will find them. No need to worry about overcharging to reach them at a distance.
This keeps passing:
- Fast
- Responsive
- Easy to execute under pressure
Why GOALS uses this system
We’ve designed passing to be fast-paced, reliable, and predictable for everyone on the pitch. Receivers lock onto the ball instantly so you always know exactly who you're targeting, which also means defenders can realistically read the play and react.
The result is smooth gameplay without the guesswork or miscommunication that often comes with manual aiming or charging. We want the focus to be on your vision and execution, not on fighting the controls.
Why GOALS doesn’t opt for
manual charge and/or aim
GOALS aims to be a fast paced game. Enabling manual charge/aim would work against that. For example, if you wanted to pass to someone far from you with more of a manual approach, we would slow users down by forcing them to charge more. In this system, a simple tap can work under the right circumstances.
In GOALS, pass receivers lock-on to the ball instantaneously. You are guaranteed to have complete understanding between passer/receiver. This is an already massive advantage for the offensive user as there will never be a case where your intended receiver has a misunderstanding with you as a passer and isn’t able to make an effort towards the ball. Even though misunderstandings can occur frequently on a real football pitch, a football video games' restriction of being able to select only one player at once calls for different rules.
Building on the previous point, this is also why adding manual aim wouldn’t make sense. For example, imagine the offensive user is looking to play a through pass to their team mate running diagonally and up. If the user was able to manually play that through pass to force a complete change in the runners direction (so diagonally down), our instantaneous lock-on would actually allow for it to work. This becomes an overwhelming disadvantage for the defensive user. Defenders are forced to track passes with only the enemy runner's direction as a hint to go by. Adding complete manual aim in combination with a guarantee of instant lock-on would make tracking runs futile.
Manual aim complicates who the desired locked-on receiver is going to be. In the same scenario just mentioned, passing away from where the runner was going to be increases the likelihood of aiming more towards a completely different team mate. As good as it sounds in theory to be able to play a pass in any spot on the field, complete freedom means that users may often aim thinking they had a certain pass in mind, but was actually played closer to a completely different team mate. Replicating user intent with manual aim becomes a complex challenge that with current underlying systems would give an overwhelming advantage to the offensive user.