I didn't realise Smart Assist helped out with defending so much
Context: I have been playing and making my way up the rankings, and developed a tactic that really, really works for me, and I have managed to beat several top 1000, top 200 players on my way to Div 1. My tactic generally is quite free-scoring, I usually score 3 goals a game. I was on a 10 game unbeaten streak, until...
I matched with someone who has a 3180 team rating (mine is 3218 for reference), and they were a F2P team except for one or two players they may have gotten lucky with.
In the match, they went 2-0 incredibly easily. That's okay, sometimes that happens and as I said, I back myself to score in this formation.
I couldn't move a player one yard on the pitch before they got closed down by AI. The defenders, the midfielders, the attackers, no-one got any space.
I finished the game only having one shot. One shot. On double red, in the 88th minute. I was in danger of finishing the game with zero shots in total.
I went from a tactic and play style multiple Top 200 ranked players can't defend, to someone who is outside the Top 3000 in Div 1 with Smart Assist on, not being able to lay a glove on them, despite changing to sub tactic, going ultra attacking.
Konami - this is disgusting. Create the filter already so I never have to play Smart Assist again. I watched NickRTFM streams, and it always made me laugh at how angry he got when he came across smart assist as I wrongly assumed it just made shooting easier. Now I fully understand, no-one gets it until they play someone who knows how to set up their team to exploit the relentless pressure and defending it automatically does, to the max.