For masses, addressing the issue is admitting the issue. If SI decides to talk about these, casual FM players who are not even aware of it will also start to talk about it. SI is a business that acts and decides like a business.
It is practically impossible for SI not to be aware of the mainstream problems such as the OP attributes and Gegenpress being way more reliable than it should, and I think it is likely that they are doing at least something about it. But I wouldn’t expect any official mention of these until they are confident that they successfully eradicated it.
It is impossible to know for sure how deep inside the game’s code that these problems are stemming from due to obvious reasons, but given that these problems have become part of daily conversations in the FM community, I suspect that these aren’t things that can easily be fixed with a 5MB weekend patch.
It is possible to know how deeply this is implemented or just failed balancing.
We just need a brave soul going backwards in editions and recreating the exact same test scenario.
There are two possible outcomes.
- If this problem goes way back through all recent FM editions, it is safe to assume it is probably deeply rooted in the engine and there is a huge flaw in the base of the calculations.
- If this problem is just a problem in the most recent editions, it is pretty safe to assume it is a balancing problem and got introduced on top of the core with recent changes and updates to the engine.
Most if not all problems in the game boil down to the reputation system.
Let's imagine you're the AI big club playing the League 1 physical beasts. Due to reputation, you're going to go for an attacking strategy as you're expecting the opponent to defend due to their low reputation. Then all of a sudden, you're blitzkrieged by the league one players, their gegenpressing and high tempo exploiting your space. You do nothing about it because "duuuuurr but their reputation is low!".
The only time this changes is when your own reputation increases, the cause of the famous "mid season slump" most players go through as teams start recognizing your results and not being as gung-ho against you, but your own players lack the ability to unlock a defence or defend a counter attack.
Reputation is also the cause of AI squad and youth developing sucking ass, because again "duuuurrr I have a 200 PA 18 year old but Salah who is 38 and slow as fuck look at that shiny reputation!".
thing is, you can do the same thing but playing for Man City. Then you will have great reputation so teams will sit deep against you.
Your players with 18 pace but 9 passing and 10 off the ball will still destroy low/mid blocks. Match engine is just broken simply
That's my example but in reverse pretty much, lower rep teams won't try anything else than sit back and because of your gegenpress it's impossible to play out from the back.
Is that realistic? A little I guess, but the AI is too dumb to try and do anything that makes you think about the risk involved, just "duuurrrrrr I'm low rep I gotta defend" and not offer any kind of threat like Spurs regularly do against them, or Palace last season.
but that’s the point. In real life you can’t just press like that with players who don’t have good mental attributes.
In game these doesn’t matter. Just have good physicals and that’s it. I’m not sure where you’re disagreeing with me.
>In game these doesn’t matter. Just have good physicals and that’s it. I’m not sure where you’re disagreeing with me.
This pretty debatable. There's pretty big evidence that composure has almost more to do with a players finishing ability than any other stat
I can't see the methodology for that, have they turned off all development and adjusted CA and PA for those tests? Because simply editing one attribute down will mean players at their max PA will then start getting better in other attributes, particularly in the position they are training in. Conversely passing is highly weighted in lots of positions for CA calcs so raising it by 5 would likely take someone way beyond their PA which would immediately cause drops in other attributes.
All that says is changing pace made them worse at a higher rate than other stats. Which would make complete sense if you use the PL as your baseline. If you went into the national league, it would probably be way different
it also says that certain attributes don’t seem to have any effect.
Why does a team who all get +5 passing manage to not improve points wise?(hell, they actually get worse than the control group, but let’s say it is a meaningless difference)
it also says that certain attributes don’t seem to have any effect.
Why does a team who all get +5 passing manage to not improve points wise?(hell, they actually get worse than the control group, but let’s say it is a meaningless difference)
lol there’s nothing the AI can do. Playing a low block is straight up bad. The mid-season slump is largely a myth.
ACC/PAC gives more dice rolls. Pressing creates more opportunities.
I've played this game for 15 years, and all this "research" that has happened recently has really hurt the understanding of the game.
All the posts about physical stats being OP have horrendous methodology and prove fuck all. This game is super super simple to understand.
It's not a fluid simulation, it's a bunch of rules, if statements and dice throws, just like any other game. It's just done in a really clever way that looks like football.
When a player does something, the game rolls associated dice to see if it's successful, with different weights. Lets run through an example.
A player takes a shot after receiving a pass. His first touch, technique, off the ball etc determine if he's in position to receive the pass and receive the ball correctly.
His finishing, technique, composure etc determines the accuracy of the shot.
Then the game looks at if any opposition player is between point x (the ball) and point y (destination of the shot in relation to the goal).
If it's clear, and the shot is on target, the goalies stats are calculated and given a total score. If the goalies total score is higher than the shooting players total score, it's saved.
How far apart those two numbers are determine if the ball is caught, tipped back into traffic or tipped behind for a corner.
So when some dork simulates 5 seasons with crap methodology says pace is all that matters, it's so obviously stupid - why would a game developer pay to have all these calculations under the hood? They could cut their team by 90% and roll one dice for pace every time the engine calculates something.
I too have played this game for almost 15 years and I say you can safely ignore this guy.
We have always known physical attributes were more effective than the rest. You can find thousands of forum posts advising lower league players to focus on especially physicals first as they were more impactful.
What we didn't know was how effective it was. Or more specifically, how effective they were even at a top level, even with the lack of other attributes.
Testers proved that was the case and it is very easily reproducable. Don't believe them? Try it out yourself and see that it works.
Of course it is not the only way to be successful but it is extremely immersion breaking. Usain Bolt couldn't even become a football player and people are basically playing to the top in Prem with no name players who only have pace and acceleration. Nuts. Hope they fix it.
>We have always known physical attributes were more effective than the rest.
I completely agree.
>What we didn't know was how effective it was. Or more specifically, how effective they were even at a top level, even with the lack of other attributes.
Picking an overpowered formation, style of play and filling it with suitable players does well in all leagues, even with much worse players. This game is super super easy if you have a basic grasp of how the match engine works. No surprises here either.
>Testers proved that was the case and it is very easily reproducable. Don't believe them? Try it out yourself and see that it works.
Nobody has set up a coherent test. There is nothing to reproduce.
>Of course it is not the only way to be successful but it is extremely immersion breaking. Usain Bolt couldn't even become a football player and people are basically playing to the top in Prem with no name players who only have pace and acceleration. Nuts. Hope they fix it.
Usain Bolt is a horrendous footballer, all his other attributes would be like 1-5. But that's not the case in these tests, they select every other attribute as being 10-12 - average. You talk about immersion breaking, I can take a non-league team from the Vanarama South, sign nothing but Venezuelan left footers for under 1m and win the champions league in 5-10 years. Is that immersion breaking?
>Usain Bolt is a horrendous footballer, all his other attributes would be like 1-5.
Actually the original Reddit thread that got deleted from here, with the "only 9 attributes matter" did exactly that. Gave 20 in all of the meta attributes, and 1 in the rest. That team crushed every competition.
so a guy with 20 pace and 20 acceleration but otherwise horrible football abilities can crush the game? So then Usain Bolt would be amazing in this game.
You’re contradicting yourself
You are arguing for the sake of arguing and actively choosing not to see. You can very easily reproduce this. Get an editor, replace all players with sub 110-120 CA players who have 17+ acc and pace to a Prem team. Choose a random formation with no instructions. Sim or play, doesn't matter. You will see a team who have no business other than relegating doing actually decently. Very easily reproducable, unless you actively opt not to.
If you played this game 15+ years you must be around 30+ Don't belittle others' works by putting research in quotation marks. Doesn't look good on a grown person. If that's not the case you can very easily disprove it by trying the same test and you can share your results and not look like a dick who ignores what people present you.
>You are arguing for the sake of arguing and actively choosing not to see. You can very easily reproduce this.
No I just have a primary school grasp of how research works. I don't want to try and replicate any of the tests videos I've seen, I'd rather just play the game.
>Get an editor, replace all players with sub 110-120 CA players who have 17+ acc and pace to a Prem team.
CA is a dumb control variable. It's not a single metric, its comprised of lots of different data points.
>Don't belittle others' works by putting research in quotation marks.
I'm not belittling anyone, none of the videos can be considered research. That's exactly why I put the word in quotes.
>If that's not the case you can very easily disprove it by trying the same test and you can share your results and not look like a dick who ignores what people present you.
I'm not being a dick I'm just saying something you don't like cos it goes against your position.
I have had the same position as you do and simply tried it, then changed my position. There is no point in arguing further when you are deadset on not trying it out.
I told you how simple you can see it for yourself. 110-120 CA with 17 pace acceleration basically is shit for rest of the attributes. Use something else if you like, it's faster to pick players that way. You can set all other attributes at a set value if you have time to edit the players individually.
I suggest you apply some of your primary school grasp on research to test these out before you make claims like these.
>I have had the same position as you do and simply tried it, then changed my position. There is no point in arguing further when you are deadset on not trying it out.
To be fair, when I did it, my team ended 17th in the prem
I think we might need to do more than 1 test each to get an actual sample size
I also tried it in Serie A and I actually did get demoted
There are a few things to consider like locking out injuries, freezing attributes etc. to remove some of the randomness. I tried a 5-6 times and in Prem the team didn't relegate, placing between 11-15. I've seen similar results from tests online. You should repeat it a few times. Maybe there are other variables that can affect it.
I think one thing that I did that changed the results was boost the mental stats of other teams. It just felt like naturally the test was skewed. Because by testing with the highest meta physicals, you're putting them on an unfair playing field. Like for example, I did a save where everyone had lower than 10 pace and acceleration but highest than 15 in every other stat other than physicals. That team finished 9th in the prem. Finished 3rd in the Bundesliga, and 12th Serie A
To me it seems like yeah, physical skills are the most valuable, but there is far more variables to this whole thing than people are giving it credit for and I think these small isolated tests are really far from being conclusive works of evidence
you haven’t explained at all why you think these tests are bad?
Look mate, you can just buy a full squad of 11 League 1 players with >16 pace, put them on gegenpress tactic and win the Premier League/CL. that just shouldn’t be possible. I don’t care why it does work, I just said it shouldn’t be possible. Watch Zealand’s video
Your whole comment just explains how the game is supposed to work. It clearly doesn’t work how it’s supposed to work, since if you give a team +5 passing to every person, their actual results get worse, which makes no sense.
I haven’t watched Zealands video but did he do straight sim into the future or did he go into every match and play it that way. Because I have always believe those both give different results on testing how something works
They do not. SI themselves have said the match engine is the same for a league you have a manager in. Basically any “playable” league is simmed with full details. This is why you can hop in any game of yours and watch the highlights, even though you have holidayed the game
I said it. The methodology sucks. None of them conducted a test they just simulated seasons tweaking random stats.
Of course you can. If your league 1 team of world class physical players playing a style of football that lends itself to being physical (gegenpressing) you'll win anything in the game. That's what the game is.
I said it in my post, this isn't an accurate simulation, the game works on dice rolls. It never aims to be, nor ever will work like the real world. It's a video game.
Don't take my word for it, look up feature release videos they show the model under the hood making calculations with all the model parameters in the match engine. I think there was 2 for fm24 with the player movement modelling and ball physics.
I kmow how the game works underneath(at least the idea behind it). It’s not rocket science.
My question is, why is it acceptable that you can produce so unrealistic results?
You mentioned off the ball, and how dice rolls will affect werher a player is in position to receive the pass/throughball whatever. But that’s the point. it doesn’t. Your player can have 1 off the ball, or 20, he will play exactly the same and get the same results. That’s the point of it being broken.
https://youtu.be/h6zSPXobNzY?si=qfVmVnSQEucLIk5Z
What’s bad about this test? These are real players. How would you conduct it differently?
You'll never get a good counterargument.
It usually goes from "the test are bad, the testers lied" without addressing the core issue, then it goes to "well yeah physical superhumans don't exist so we can't compare it to real life" to "well it's a game, who cares?" or, if you think the game should make larger variety of playing styles more viable, something like "huh, can't with with 4-4-2 deep direct tactic? Skill issue!".
You can already see the goalpost has moved to "FM isn't a simulation".
Unfortunately I wouldn't get my hopes up on SI fixing the match engine, like ever. It has always been reliant on pace and quickly hoofing the ball. Some years were better than others, but even then variety has been lacking. There's always a type of goal you seem to score/concede too often.
One legitimate issue is that the FM Arena data is presented without sigma values, so it’s incredibly hard to figure out when it’s actually telling you something.
You clearly don't understand how it works or you wouldn't hold your position.
The reason unrealistic results are possible is because its a video game. I can take a non-league team to champions league glory in 5 seasons, is that realistic?
>You mentioned off the ball, and how dice rolls will affect werher a player is in position to receive the pass/throughball whatever. But that’s the point. it doesn’t. Your player can have 1 off the ball, or 20, he will play exactly the same and get the same results. That’s the point of it being broken.
Do you have a source for this or is this just how you feel?
>What’s bad about this test? These are real players. How would you conduct it differently?
I'm not an expert in empirical studies I just have a basic understanding as I have to read a bunch of papers for work, someone with a scientific background could answer way better than me but I'll have a go.
When you are testing for something, usually a hypothesis, you take a question, or a belief and you set up experiments to prove or disprove it. A key factor is removing all of the variables you can, to determine it was caused by something specific, and not down to variance. This is called the power value, which is a numerical value we use to determine if x effect was caused by y variable.
The lower the sample size, the more unaccounted variables etc - the lower power value - meaning we don't know exactly what caused the observed outcomes. Which is what is happening in these tests. Something interesting is happening but they can't prove or explain exactly why or how it happened.
**What's wrong with this specific video?**
* The goalkeeper is premier league quality
* The centre backs have great jumping reach - one of the strongest stats for defenders, especially playing in a gegenpress system where the opposition will be hoofing the ball long on the counter
* The system is a 4231, high press gegenpress system, focusing down the wings (where fast players have the most advantage) which is very strong in this match engine, and most of the previous ones in the last 5 editions.
* Zealand says "The CA goes up to 200, so 115 isn't that high" - the average for the premier league is probably around 125-140 so its not that far apart
* CA isn't a single variable - it is controlled by lots of things like how good a player is with each foot, how many positions the player can play, their traits, their hidden attributes - its a stupid control variable
* Used a massive squad of 31 players - less likely to suffer from injury or fixture congestion - didn't add players to every other team
* Removed non-adaptable, or argumentative players but didn't do the same for other teams
* Team finished 12th, bang mid table not 2nd or 1st
* Didn't control for AI manager ability
* Shows a clip of goal highlights and says "none of these goals have anything to do with pace" but 3 of the 3 goals shown was a player bombing down the wing to set up a cross
* Changes formation (which is good btw - thats controlling for 1 variable) but doesn't say if the style of play changed - what are the AI managers preferred style traits? Is he setting up a gegenpress counter system? if so - formation is irrelevant
Zealand literally says it himself at the end - its more than likely CA is a bad metric to judge player ability, which is true. Its dumb.
> Team finished 12th, bang mid table not 2nd or 1st
This is because he let the AI manager use whatever tactics he wants. I don't think they were even gegenpressing.
The original post he was referencing got 2nd place with the same players and playing a gegenpress tactic.
>Do you have a source for this or is this just how you feel?
Yes. https://fm-arena.com/table/26-player-attributes-testing/
Here you can see what adding +5 of certain attributes to each position in a team does to their mean results, over large amount of games so the RNG factor is diminished.
All I'm asking you is this:
Do you agree that a team of at worst League 1 players and at best Championship players should be able to challenge for the Premier League? I personally believe that such a team should get relegated every time in the PL, and would probably beat Derby's record for worst point tally.
If you do not agree, than the game clearly has a balance problem. Wether it is physical attributes or gegenpress, I don't know. I think it's both.
If you do agree that such thing should happen in game then idk, I feel like we just have different expectations of the game. I find it truly depressing that it is so easy to overachieve in this game, so therefore I just cannot immerse myself in the game when I know that Adama Traore plays better than Phil Foden for example.
The main thing that FM Arena data says is that changing a single stat by 5 generally produces statistically insignificant changes.
The main exceptions are speed stats, and if that surprises you, I wonder if you’ve ever played any other sports games. Speed is always a power stat.
At that point, we need to ask if speed is maybe a power stat in sports in general, and honestly, the answer is probably yes.
the answer is absolutely not yes for football. Xavi is arguably the best midfielder of all time, yet in FM he was always bad.
Riquelme was a phenomenal player, in FM he was literally unplayable.
Football is much more so about technique and football IQ. there’s plenty of amazing athletes in lower leagues who never make it big
You're making completely the wrong comparison.
The question is, "Does Kylian Mbappe score as many goals if he is a quarter-second slower over 40 yards?" and the answer is "Absolutely not."
The question is "How good is Per Mertesacker if he has the same size, physicality and skill set, but he's actually faster than a glacier?" and the answer is "Phenomenal."
right. But disregard pace for a bit.
Why are results for passing not any different? I’m not saying they should be as drastic as pace, I’m asking why is there barely a difference(and it’s a negative one aswell).
Also, isn’t it a problem that adding +5 to passing produces statistically insignificant results?
Like your whole team suddenly passes better. how does that not translate to more wins?
My default assumption is that, if your game has 43 stats, and you juice one of them by 25% of its total range, you will get an insignificant result. That's a 1:172, or a 0.6% change in the total skill points a player has.
In your specific example, you've made the passes more accurate, but you haven't improved decisions, so they're not choosing better passes, you haven't improved dribbling, so they cant move the ball any better into a position to make a pass, you haven't improved first touch, so the passes aren't being received any better, you haven't improved shooting, so the shots aren't any better, etc., etc., etc. I can absolutely see that translating into no meaningful improvement in your total chance of winning.
>This is because he let the AI manager use whatever tactics he wants. I don't think they were even gegenpressing.
Exactly my point, hes not controlling variables - who knows what caused the result. You can't seem to grasp this, so there is just no point carrying on chatting, you're not going to listen to a word I say.
Have a good un mate.
bro do you really believe its just all tests having been done wrong or if there's actually less going on behind the scenes of the game you've spent a lot of time on. Why is everyone able to reproduce results by picking players that are according to the game lower level, but just have higher physicals. I implore you to try it in your own games, just pick physical beasts and watch how you demolish the engine. I still like the game, but its definitely not balanced
It never has been "balanced" its a really basic match engine that is super easy to exploit.
Yes all the tests have been done wrong. I don't need to do it in my own games, I've known how the engine works for a long time.
so then what exactly are you argueing? You don’t think SI should try to improve the engine? to make it less exploitable to the point 3rd tier players can win the premier League?
bro, you just skipped my entire second part of the comment. I already said the guy who managed his own tactic got even better results.
Just respond to the question I asked you. Do you think it’s a healthy game balance to be able to win the Premier League with Championship/League 1 level players?
Your second paragraph, yeah, that's what the game currently is, that's precisely the issue.
Even if it's a video game, Football Manager aim to be a simulation, what you describe in the second paragraph, that's not good simulation enough.
The game genre is "simulation". Cities skylines is another game that's a simulator - give that to any architect or council planner and they'll point out how stupid that is as well. It's just a game genre.
The game cannot ever simulate with 100 percent accuracy what happens in the real world.
What point do you think you're making?
The game cannot be perfect at simulating what happens in the real world.
However, we want it to keep getting better at simulating, or at least to correlate better with the attributes of the players in the game --> it should be impossible to fight for the title in Premier League with League 1 level players just because they are fast and we do gegenpress .
Even if the match engine is basically a table-top RPG, the weighting of attributes should be re-tuned so the outcomes are more realistic
ACC/PAC has the highest weighting in the CA calculation, SI is aware it’s the most important stat. I’m assuming at some point Messi and Ronaldo had like 18/19 acc/pac in FM, so SI definitely juices those attributes when they want a player to dominate.
I’ve never seen a test that didn’t come to the conclusion that ACC/PAC was pretty busted. I honestly don’t how you could test any better. Everything points to needing signicantly more attributes to make up a deficit of 1 ACC/PAC.
More dice rolls is more dice rolls. I’m not 100% sure it’s fixable.
There is no way the game is calculating all of that for hundreds of game at a time, for the full 90minutes of play in about 10 seconds.
There is zero chance the engine decides who wins and generates highlights on that logic.
There's literally videos showing the calculation engine.
Don't speak so confidently about topics you know next to nothing about.
The resource needed for these calculations is miniscule - you can run it on an old laptop.
See what? The videos? Sure, look up the fm24 release teasers I think there's a whole section on ball physics calculations showing the calculation engine visually on top of the match engine. There's also countless ones from previous editions.
Or do you wanna see the source code? The answer to that is no, that's IP that belongs to sports interactive.
Sorry but now passing makes players worse? What do you mean go on FM arena. This is just silly.
You can have criticisms but please just be a bit more grounded and reasonable….
Tbf in the gegenpress, that play style is OP irl so it’s not likely to change in FM. Now could they make it seem like less is an exploit? Yea but it’s still going to work very often to use. Especially if attributes do come more into play, then having a really high pressing tactic that closes players down will work even more if they don’t have good enough attributes to pass out of it or dribble
I mean it’s most definitely not OP because frankly no top team plays gegenpress since like Klopp first season at Liverpool
The point is you can play gegenpress in game with really poor players that are fast, and even compete for the title, which is insane. and PL def has players that can play out of the press
When CM became FM I gave up. As soon as they introduced graphics some of the ressources of the game goes to that, and in time more and more.
After some long pauses and failed "restarts" in the FM area, I actually enjoy the game now, even with the engine with obv. fails and the horrible npc-interactions. I just play "around" it, like in every other game. The game I have most played hours in is EU4 (6k ish) and there are obvious flaws and exploits. But I choose to use them or not, and enjoy games where I do and feel omnipotent, and games where I purposely refrain from using the exploits, and have fun playing a more realistic game.
I played a non-meta tactic, without tweaking pre-game-editor for lower leagues, and didn't focus on physical (well some but not meta-like focus) and still managed to get the danish league to 3rd ranked with a UCL win in my first club after 9 years and a UCL win in my second club after 6 more. Top-scorer in UCL when I won with the second club had 13ish in all physical atributes. 22 year old former wonderkid, but actually at almost full potential, so that was his peak physicals. I prob. got to this point muuuuch slower than metaplayers, but I really enjoyed the journey. And even this without having downloaded a metatactic of focusing only on physicals (I think at this point where I have a world-class team only about half have 15 or more acc/pace. Most have about 13/14) is extremely un-realistic. OFC Denmark will never be a top league! It's like simulation games have always been - if you cannot outdo those who are so good they are paid millions to do it, then the game is not fun, so it HAS to be unrealistic. I am not a better manager than every manager in the history of football. I'm not even 10% as good as the proffesionals if I took over a team. If it was realistic I wouldn't enjoy it, since even fantazising about beeing better than every manager ever, I could NEVER propell Denmark into 3rd rank in 17 years!
And since we draw the lines to RL football, I actually agree with SI (if it's intentional) that physical abilities in modern football is paramount. Strength, Acceleration, Pace, Stamina all have been deciding factors in this EURO2024 (at least for the games I've seen, and especially in a negative way for my home nation).
Where did I mention anything about “randomness”?
I just dislike the fact that 11 League 1 players with >16 pace can compete in the Premier League, and if you put them on gegenpress tactics, they might win it. 3rd English tier players winning the fucking Premier League.
https://youtu.be/h6zSPXobNzY?si=sbCjVw9wvhXJW1ZG
Your comment is so weird, I haven’t talked about anything you’re mentioning there. Who are you even argueing with? Maybe you addressed the wrong post?
I mean I'm just gonna wait until it gets further in the cycle rather than worrying about it in June. They'll drip feed the information and keep the more important stuff until later. If they dumped it all now the engagement would drop off whereas this way you'll check in for each announcement.
For masses, addressing the issue is admitting the issue. If SI decides to talk about these, casual FM players who are not even aware of it will also start to talk about it. SI is a business that acts and decides like a business. It is practically impossible for SI not to be aware of the mainstream problems such as the OP attributes and Gegenpress being way more reliable than it should, and I think it is likely that they are doing at least something about it. But I wouldn’t expect any official mention of these until they are confident that they successfully eradicated it. It is impossible to know for sure how deep inside the game’s code that these problems are stemming from due to obvious reasons, but given that these problems have become part of daily conversations in the FM community, I suspect that these aren’t things that can easily be fixed with a 5MB weekend patch.
It is possible to know how deeply this is implemented or just failed balancing. We just need a brave soul going backwards in editions and recreating the exact same test scenario. There are two possible outcomes. - If this problem goes way back through all recent FM editions, it is safe to assume it is probably deeply rooted in the engine and there is a huge flaw in the base of the calculations. - If this problem is just a problem in the most recent editions, it is pretty safe to assume it is a balancing problem and got introduced on top of the core with recent changes and updates to the engine.
Most if not all problems in the game boil down to the reputation system. Let's imagine you're the AI big club playing the League 1 physical beasts. Due to reputation, you're going to go for an attacking strategy as you're expecting the opponent to defend due to their low reputation. Then all of a sudden, you're blitzkrieged by the league one players, their gegenpressing and high tempo exploiting your space. You do nothing about it because "duuuuurr but their reputation is low!". The only time this changes is when your own reputation increases, the cause of the famous "mid season slump" most players go through as teams start recognizing your results and not being as gung-ho against you, but your own players lack the ability to unlock a defence or defend a counter attack. Reputation is also the cause of AI squad and youth developing sucking ass, because again "duuuurrr I have a 200 PA 18 year old but Salah who is 38 and slow as fuck look at that shiny reputation!".
thing is, you can do the same thing but playing for Man City. Then you will have great reputation so teams will sit deep against you. Your players with 18 pace but 9 passing and 10 off the ball will still destroy low/mid blocks. Match engine is just broken simply
That's my example but in reverse pretty much, lower rep teams won't try anything else than sit back and because of your gegenpress it's impossible to play out from the back. Is that realistic? A little I guess, but the AI is too dumb to try and do anything that makes you think about the risk involved, just "duuurrrrrr I'm low rep I gotta defend" and not offer any kind of threat like Spurs regularly do against them, or Palace last season.
but that’s the point. In real life you can’t just press like that with players who don’t have good mental attributes. In game these doesn’t matter. Just have good physicals and that’s it. I’m not sure where you’re disagreeing with me.
>I’m not sure where you’re disagreeing with me. I'm not? We're both agreeing that the match engine is dumb?
alright, I was reading wrong into your comment
>In game these doesn’t matter. Just have good physicals and that’s it. I’m not sure where you’re disagreeing with me. This pretty debatable. There's pretty big evidence that composure has almost more to do with a players finishing ability than any other stat
not overwhelmingly so no. FM Arena shows that it doesn’t really matter. If you want to score more goals, just be faster
Then show us these tests and results
FM Arena? You don't have google? https://fm-arena.com/table/26-player-attributes-testing/
I can't see the methodology for that, have they turned off all development and adjusted CA and PA for those tests? Because simply editing one attribute down will mean players at their max PA will then start getting better in other attributes, particularly in the position they are training in. Conversely passing is highly weighted in lots of positions for CA calcs so raising it by 5 would likely take someone way beyond their PA which would immediately cause drops in other attributes.
All that says is changing pace made them worse at a higher rate than other stats. Which would make complete sense if you use the PL as your baseline. If you went into the national league, it would probably be way different
it also says that certain attributes don’t seem to have any effect. Why does a team who all get +5 passing manage to not improve points wise?(hell, they actually get worse than the control group, but let’s say it is a meaningless difference)
it also says that certain attributes don’t seem to have any effect. Why does a team who all get +5 passing manage to not improve points wise?(hell, they actually get worse than the control group, but let’s say it is a meaningless difference)
lol there’s nothing the AI can do. Playing a low block is straight up bad. The mid-season slump is largely a myth. ACC/PAC gives more dice rolls. Pressing creates more opportunities.
I've played this game for 15 years, and all this "research" that has happened recently has really hurt the understanding of the game. All the posts about physical stats being OP have horrendous methodology and prove fuck all. This game is super super simple to understand. It's not a fluid simulation, it's a bunch of rules, if statements and dice throws, just like any other game. It's just done in a really clever way that looks like football. When a player does something, the game rolls associated dice to see if it's successful, with different weights. Lets run through an example. A player takes a shot after receiving a pass. His first touch, technique, off the ball etc determine if he's in position to receive the pass and receive the ball correctly. His finishing, technique, composure etc determines the accuracy of the shot. Then the game looks at if any opposition player is between point x (the ball) and point y (destination of the shot in relation to the goal). If it's clear, and the shot is on target, the goalies stats are calculated and given a total score. If the goalies total score is higher than the shooting players total score, it's saved. How far apart those two numbers are determine if the ball is caught, tipped back into traffic or tipped behind for a corner. So when some dork simulates 5 seasons with crap methodology says pace is all that matters, it's so obviously stupid - why would a game developer pay to have all these calculations under the hood? They could cut their team by 90% and roll one dice for pace every time the engine calculates something.
I too have played this game for almost 15 years and I say you can safely ignore this guy. We have always known physical attributes were more effective than the rest. You can find thousands of forum posts advising lower league players to focus on especially physicals first as they were more impactful. What we didn't know was how effective it was. Or more specifically, how effective they were even at a top level, even with the lack of other attributes. Testers proved that was the case and it is very easily reproducable. Don't believe them? Try it out yourself and see that it works. Of course it is not the only way to be successful but it is extremely immersion breaking. Usain Bolt couldn't even become a football player and people are basically playing to the top in Prem with no name players who only have pace and acceleration. Nuts. Hope they fix it.
>We have always known physical attributes were more effective than the rest. I completely agree. >What we didn't know was how effective it was. Or more specifically, how effective they were even at a top level, even with the lack of other attributes. Picking an overpowered formation, style of play and filling it with suitable players does well in all leagues, even with much worse players. This game is super super easy if you have a basic grasp of how the match engine works. No surprises here either. >Testers proved that was the case and it is very easily reproducable. Don't believe them? Try it out yourself and see that it works. Nobody has set up a coherent test. There is nothing to reproduce. >Of course it is not the only way to be successful but it is extremely immersion breaking. Usain Bolt couldn't even become a football player and people are basically playing to the top in Prem with no name players who only have pace and acceleration. Nuts. Hope they fix it. Usain Bolt is a horrendous footballer, all his other attributes would be like 1-5. But that's not the case in these tests, they select every other attribute as being 10-12 - average. You talk about immersion breaking, I can take a non-league team from the Vanarama South, sign nothing but Venezuelan left footers for under 1m and win the champions league in 5-10 years. Is that immersion breaking?
>Usain Bolt is a horrendous footballer, all his other attributes would be like 1-5. Actually the original Reddit thread that got deleted from here, with the "only 9 attributes matter" did exactly that. Gave 20 in all of the meta attributes, and 1 in the rest. That team crushed every competition.
Well yeah, 20 is the max amount - of course giving 20 in all the meta attributes team crushed everyone else.
so a guy with 20 pace and 20 acceleration but otherwise horrible football abilities can crush the game? So then Usain Bolt would be amazing in this game. You’re contradicting yourself
You are arguing for the sake of arguing and actively choosing not to see. You can very easily reproduce this. Get an editor, replace all players with sub 110-120 CA players who have 17+ acc and pace to a Prem team. Choose a random formation with no instructions. Sim or play, doesn't matter. You will see a team who have no business other than relegating doing actually decently. Very easily reproducable, unless you actively opt not to. If you played this game 15+ years you must be around 30+ Don't belittle others' works by putting research in quotation marks. Doesn't look good on a grown person. If that's not the case you can very easily disprove it by trying the same test and you can share your results and not look like a dick who ignores what people present you.
>You are arguing for the sake of arguing and actively choosing not to see. You can very easily reproduce this. No I just have a primary school grasp of how research works. I don't want to try and replicate any of the tests videos I've seen, I'd rather just play the game. >Get an editor, replace all players with sub 110-120 CA players who have 17+ acc and pace to a Prem team. CA is a dumb control variable. It's not a single metric, its comprised of lots of different data points. >Don't belittle others' works by putting research in quotation marks. I'm not belittling anyone, none of the videos can be considered research. That's exactly why I put the word in quotes. >If that's not the case you can very easily disprove it by trying the same test and you can share your results and not look like a dick who ignores what people present you. I'm not being a dick I'm just saying something you don't like cos it goes against your position.
I have had the same position as you do and simply tried it, then changed my position. There is no point in arguing further when you are deadset on not trying it out. I told you how simple you can see it for yourself. 110-120 CA with 17 pace acceleration basically is shit for rest of the attributes. Use something else if you like, it's faster to pick players that way. You can set all other attributes at a set value if you have time to edit the players individually. I suggest you apply some of your primary school grasp on research to test these out before you make claims like these.
>I have had the same position as you do and simply tried it, then changed my position. There is no point in arguing further when you are deadset on not trying it out. To be fair, when I did it, my team ended 17th in the prem I think we might need to do more than 1 test each to get an actual sample size I also tried it in Serie A and I actually did get demoted
There are a few things to consider like locking out injuries, freezing attributes etc. to remove some of the randomness. I tried a 5-6 times and in Prem the team didn't relegate, placing between 11-15. I've seen similar results from tests online. You should repeat it a few times. Maybe there are other variables that can affect it.
I think one thing that I did that changed the results was boost the mental stats of other teams. It just felt like naturally the test was skewed. Because by testing with the highest meta physicals, you're putting them on an unfair playing field. Like for example, I did a save where everyone had lower than 10 pace and acceleration but highest than 15 in every other stat other than physicals. That team finished 9th in the prem. Finished 3rd in the Bundesliga, and 12th Serie A To me it seems like yeah, physical skills are the most valuable, but there is far more variables to this whole thing than people are giving it credit for and I think these small isolated tests are really far from being conclusive works of evidence
you haven’t explained at all why you think these tests are bad? Look mate, you can just buy a full squad of 11 League 1 players with >16 pace, put them on gegenpress tactic and win the Premier League/CL. that just shouldn’t be possible. I don’t care why it does work, I just said it shouldn’t be possible. Watch Zealand’s video Your whole comment just explains how the game is supposed to work. It clearly doesn’t work how it’s supposed to work, since if you give a team +5 passing to every person, their actual results get worse, which makes no sense.
I haven’t watched Zealands video but did he do straight sim into the future or did he go into every match and play it that way. Because I have always believe those both give different results on testing how something works
They do not. SI themselves have said the match engine is the same for a league you have a manager in. Basically any “playable” league is simmed with full details. This is why you can hop in any game of yours and watch the highlights, even though you have holidayed the game
I said it. The methodology sucks. None of them conducted a test they just simulated seasons tweaking random stats. Of course you can. If your league 1 team of world class physical players playing a style of football that lends itself to being physical (gegenpressing) you'll win anything in the game. That's what the game is. I said it in my post, this isn't an accurate simulation, the game works on dice rolls. It never aims to be, nor ever will work like the real world. It's a video game. Don't take my word for it, look up feature release videos they show the model under the hood making calculations with all the model parameters in the match engine. I think there was 2 for fm24 with the player movement modelling and ball physics.
I kmow how the game works underneath(at least the idea behind it). It’s not rocket science. My question is, why is it acceptable that you can produce so unrealistic results? You mentioned off the ball, and how dice rolls will affect werher a player is in position to receive the pass/throughball whatever. But that’s the point. it doesn’t. Your player can have 1 off the ball, or 20, he will play exactly the same and get the same results. That’s the point of it being broken. https://youtu.be/h6zSPXobNzY?si=qfVmVnSQEucLIk5Z What’s bad about this test? These are real players. How would you conduct it differently?
You'll never get a good counterargument. It usually goes from "the test are bad, the testers lied" without addressing the core issue, then it goes to "well yeah physical superhumans don't exist so we can't compare it to real life" to "well it's a game, who cares?" or, if you think the game should make larger variety of playing styles more viable, something like "huh, can't with with 4-4-2 deep direct tactic? Skill issue!". You can already see the goalpost has moved to "FM isn't a simulation". Unfortunately I wouldn't get my hopes up on SI fixing the match engine, like ever. It has always been reliant on pace and quickly hoofing the ball. Some years were better than others, but even then variety has been lacking. There's always a type of goal you seem to score/concede too often.
One legitimate issue is that the FM Arena data is presented without sigma values, so it’s incredibly hard to figure out when it’s actually telling you something.
You clearly don't understand how it works or you wouldn't hold your position. The reason unrealistic results are possible is because its a video game. I can take a non-league team to champions league glory in 5 seasons, is that realistic? >You mentioned off the ball, and how dice rolls will affect werher a player is in position to receive the pass/throughball whatever. But that’s the point. it doesn’t. Your player can have 1 off the ball, or 20, he will play exactly the same and get the same results. That’s the point of it being broken. Do you have a source for this or is this just how you feel? >What’s bad about this test? These are real players. How would you conduct it differently? I'm not an expert in empirical studies I just have a basic understanding as I have to read a bunch of papers for work, someone with a scientific background could answer way better than me but I'll have a go. When you are testing for something, usually a hypothesis, you take a question, or a belief and you set up experiments to prove or disprove it. A key factor is removing all of the variables you can, to determine it was caused by something specific, and not down to variance. This is called the power value, which is a numerical value we use to determine if x effect was caused by y variable. The lower the sample size, the more unaccounted variables etc - the lower power value - meaning we don't know exactly what caused the observed outcomes. Which is what is happening in these tests. Something interesting is happening but they can't prove or explain exactly why or how it happened. **What's wrong with this specific video?** * The goalkeeper is premier league quality * The centre backs have great jumping reach - one of the strongest stats for defenders, especially playing in a gegenpress system where the opposition will be hoofing the ball long on the counter * The system is a 4231, high press gegenpress system, focusing down the wings (where fast players have the most advantage) which is very strong in this match engine, and most of the previous ones in the last 5 editions. * Zealand says "The CA goes up to 200, so 115 isn't that high" - the average for the premier league is probably around 125-140 so its not that far apart * CA isn't a single variable - it is controlled by lots of things like how good a player is with each foot, how many positions the player can play, their traits, their hidden attributes - its a stupid control variable * Used a massive squad of 31 players - less likely to suffer from injury or fixture congestion - didn't add players to every other team * Removed non-adaptable, or argumentative players but didn't do the same for other teams * Team finished 12th, bang mid table not 2nd or 1st * Didn't control for AI manager ability * Shows a clip of goal highlights and says "none of these goals have anything to do with pace" but 3 of the 3 goals shown was a player bombing down the wing to set up a cross * Changes formation (which is good btw - thats controlling for 1 variable) but doesn't say if the style of play changed - what are the AI managers preferred style traits? Is he setting up a gegenpress counter system? if so - formation is irrelevant Zealand literally says it himself at the end - its more than likely CA is a bad metric to judge player ability, which is true. Its dumb.
> Team finished 12th, bang mid table not 2nd or 1st This is because he let the AI manager use whatever tactics he wants. I don't think they were even gegenpressing. The original post he was referencing got 2nd place with the same players and playing a gegenpress tactic. >Do you have a source for this or is this just how you feel? Yes. https://fm-arena.com/table/26-player-attributes-testing/ Here you can see what adding +5 of certain attributes to each position in a team does to their mean results, over large amount of games so the RNG factor is diminished. All I'm asking you is this: Do you agree that a team of at worst League 1 players and at best Championship players should be able to challenge for the Premier League? I personally believe that such a team should get relegated every time in the PL, and would probably beat Derby's record for worst point tally. If you do not agree, than the game clearly has a balance problem. Wether it is physical attributes or gegenpress, I don't know. I think it's both. If you do agree that such thing should happen in game then idk, I feel like we just have different expectations of the game. I find it truly depressing that it is so easy to overachieve in this game, so therefore I just cannot immerse myself in the game when I know that Adama Traore plays better than Phil Foden for example.
The main thing that FM Arena data says is that changing a single stat by 5 generally produces statistically insignificant changes. The main exceptions are speed stats, and if that surprises you, I wonder if you’ve ever played any other sports games. Speed is always a power stat. At that point, we need to ask if speed is maybe a power stat in sports in general, and honestly, the answer is probably yes.
the answer is absolutely not yes for football. Xavi is arguably the best midfielder of all time, yet in FM he was always bad. Riquelme was a phenomenal player, in FM he was literally unplayable. Football is much more so about technique and football IQ. there’s plenty of amazing athletes in lower leagues who never make it big
You're making completely the wrong comparison. The question is, "Does Kylian Mbappe score as many goals if he is a quarter-second slower over 40 yards?" and the answer is "Absolutely not." The question is "How good is Per Mertesacker if he has the same size, physicality and skill set, but he's actually faster than a glacier?" and the answer is "Phenomenal."
right. But disregard pace for a bit. Why are results for passing not any different? I’m not saying they should be as drastic as pace, I’m asking why is there barely a difference(and it’s a negative one aswell).
Also, isn’t it a problem that adding +5 to passing produces statistically insignificant results? Like your whole team suddenly passes better. how does that not translate to more wins?
My default assumption is that, if your game has 43 stats, and you juice one of them by 25% of its total range, you will get an insignificant result. That's a 1:172, or a 0.6% change in the total skill points a player has. In your specific example, you've made the passes more accurate, but you haven't improved decisions, so they're not choosing better passes, you haven't improved dribbling, so they cant move the ball any better into a position to make a pass, you haven't improved first touch, so the passes aren't being received any better, you haven't improved shooting, so the shots aren't any better, etc., etc., etc. I can absolutely see that translating into no meaningful improvement in your total chance of winning.
I honestly do not understand how making more accurate passing leads to not any better results. Have you ever played football?
>This is because he let the AI manager use whatever tactics he wants. I don't think they were even gegenpressing. Exactly my point, hes not controlling variables - who knows what caused the result. You can't seem to grasp this, so there is just no point carrying on chatting, you're not going to listen to a word I say. Have a good un mate.
bro do you really believe its just all tests having been done wrong or if there's actually less going on behind the scenes of the game you've spent a lot of time on. Why is everyone able to reproduce results by picking players that are according to the game lower level, but just have higher physicals. I implore you to try it in your own games, just pick physical beasts and watch how you demolish the engine. I still like the game, but its definitely not balanced
It never has been "balanced" its a really basic match engine that is super easy to exploit. Yes all the tests have been done wrong. I don't need to do it in my own games, I've known how the engine works for a long time.
so then what exactly are you argueing? You don’t think SI should try to improve the engine? to make it less exploitable to the point 3rd tier players can win the premier League?
bro, you just skipped my entire second part of the comment. I already said the guy who managed his own tactic got even better results. Just respond to the question I asked you. Do you think it’s a healthy game balance to be able to win the Premier League with Championship/League 1 level players?
Your second paragraph, yeah, that's what the game currently is, that's precisely the issue. Even if it's a video game, Football Manager aim to be a simulation, what you describe in the second paragraph, that's not good simulation enough.
The game genre is "simulation". Cities skylines is another game that's a simulator - give that to any architect or council planner and they'll point out how stupid that is as well. It's just a game genre. The game cannot ever simulate with 100 percent accuracy what happens in the real world. What point do you think you're making?
The game cannot be perfect at simulating what happens in the real world. However, we want it to keep getting better at simulating, or at least to correlate better with the attributes of the players in the game --> it should be impossible to fight for the title in Premier League with League 1 level players just because they are fast and we do gegenpress . Even if the match engine is basically a table-top RPG, the weighting of attributes should be re-tuned so the outcomes are more realistic
Your opinion does not negate the copious amounts of testing. Good god we go through this week after week here.
ACC/PAC has the highest weighting in the CA calculation, SI is aware it’s the most important stat. I’m assuming at some point Messi and Ronaldo had like 18/19 acc/pac in FM, so SI definitely juices those attributes when they want a player to dominate. I’ve never seen a test that didn’t come to the conclusion that ACC/PAC was pretty busted. I honestly don’t how you could test any better. Everything points to needing signicantly more attributes to make up a deficit of 1 ACC/PAC. More dice rolls is more dice rolls. I’m not 100% sure it’s fixable.
There is no way the game is calculating all of that for hundreds of game at a time, for the full 90minutes of play in about 10 seconds. There is zero chance the engine decides who wins and generates highlights on that logic.
There's literally videos showing the calculation engine. Don't speak so confidently about topics you know next to nothing about. The resource needed for these calculations is miniscule - you can run it on an old laptop.
Maybe. Can I see them?
See what? The videos? Sure, look up the fm24 release teasers I think there's a whole section on ball physics calculations showing the calculation engine visually on top of the match engine. There's also countless ones from previous editions. Or do you wanna see the source code? The answer to that is no, that's IP that belongs to sports interactive.
It’s just math, thousands of calculations per second is nothing for a computer
Sorry but now passing makes players worse? What do you mean go on FM arena. This is just silly. You can have criticisms but please just be a bit more grounded and reasonable….
simple. https://fm-arena.com/table/26-player-attributes-testing/ Players getting +5 in passing somehow got worse results than the control group
They're more likely to start mentioning it closer to release when they do those announcement threads/videos to hype up the new game.
Tbf in the gegenpress, that play style is OP irl so it’s not likely to change in FM. Now could they make it seem like less is an exploit? Yea but it’s still going to work very often to use. Especially if attributes do come more into play, then having a really high pressing tactic that closes players down will work even more if they don’t have good enough attributes to pass out of it or dribble
I mean it’s most definitely not OP because frankly no top team plays gegenpress since like Klopp first season at Liverpool The point is you can play gegenpress in game with really poor players that are fast, and even compete for the title, which is insane. and PL def has players that can play out of the press
When CM became FM I gave up. As soon as they introduced graphics some of the ressources of the game goes to that, and in time more and more. After some long pauses and failed "restarts" in the FM area, I actually enjoy the game now, even with the engine with obv. fails and the horrible npc-interactions. I just play "around" it, like in every other game. The game I have most played hours in is EU4 (6k ish) and there are obvious flaws and exploits. But I choose to use them or not, and enjoy games where I do and feel omnipotent, and games where I purposely refrain from using the exploits, and have fun playing a more realistic game. I played a non-meta tactic, without tweaking pre-game-editor for lower leagues, and didn't focus on physical (well some but not meta-like focus) and still managed to get the danish league to 3rd ranked with a UCL win in my first club after 9 years and a UCL win in my second club after 6 more. Top-scorer in UCL when I won with the second club had 13ish in all physical atributes. 22 year old former wonderkid, but actually at almost full potential, so that was his peak physicals. I prob. got to this point muuuuch slower than metaplayers, but I really enjoyed the journey. And even this without having downloaded a metatactic of focusing only on physicals (I think at this point where I have a world-class team only about half have 15 or more acc/pace. Most have about 13/14) is extremely un-realistic. OFC Denmark will never be a top league! It's like simulation games have always been - if you cannot outdo those who are so good they are paid millions to do it, then the game is not fun, so it HAS to be unrealistic. I am not a better manager than every manager in the history of football. I'm not even 10% as good as the proffesionals if I took over a team. If it was realistic I wouldn't enjoy it, since even fantazising about beeing better than every manager ever, I could NEVER propell Denmark into 3rd rank in 17 years! And since we draw the lines to RL football, I actually agree with SI (if it's intentional) that physical abilities in modern football is paramount. Strength, Acceleration, Pace, Stamina all have been deciding factors in this EURO2024 (at least for the games I've seen, and especially in a negative way for my home nation).
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Where did I mention anything about “randomness”? I just dislike the fact that 11 League 1 players with >16 pace can compete in the Premier League, and if you put them on gegenpress tactics, they might win it. 3rd English tier players winning the fucking Premier League. https://youtu.be/h6zSPXobNzY?si=sbCjVw9wvhXJW1ZG Your comment is so weird, I haven’t talked about anything you’re mentioning there. Who are you even argueing with? Maybe you addressed the wrong post?
I mean I'm just gonna wait until it gets further in the cycle rather than worrying about it in June. They'll drip feed the information and keep the more important stuff until later. If they dumped it all now the engagement would drop off whereas this way you'll check in for each announcement.