Struggling in second season

I fully admit that this game is still by far the best of it's genre and that sales suggest the game is still being enjoyed by the masses, but please, for my sanity's sake and for the love of football, please could you realise the following as an issue?

I'm going to provide stats from my second season in charge of Aston Villa, in the first season i finished 4th, but could easily have challenged for the title had it not been for the inappropriate amount of matches like the following that i'll post after this introduction.

First of all despite finishing 4th, i did not qualify for the Champions League, as Liverpool finished outside of the top four but won the competition and may i make it clear that i find that perfectly acceptable AND realistic, frustrating yes, but at least the right kind of frustrating.

Starting my second season, i improved the squad and with some friendlies and Euro Cup qualifiers, my squad is already "blending well together" and is full of quality and Superb morale(although less so now)

Here is the EPL Table after 5 games

Game 1

Game 2 to follow

To me thats not really an issue, your players have had a difficult pre-season, quite a few friendlies and qualifiers, try rotating your squad a little. by the way you were very unlucky with the chelsea game

the Blackburn match doesn't seem like too much of an injustice tbh.

To me thats not really an issue, your players have had a difficult pre-season, quite a few friendlies and qualifiers, try rotating your squad a little. by the way you were very unlucky with the chelsea game

I can guarantee that Hammer will have loads more evidence; it's not like him to post a couple of matches and then leave it at that.

I can guarantee that Hammer will have loads more evidence; it's not like him to post a couple of matches and then leave it at that.

well if he gets to september /october with that kind of form then fine there is an issue, but so far thats just the result of a heavy pre-season!

i await more evidence, im now intrigued

Yeah there's no evidence of a bug here.

I'm not sure what the basis of the complaint is.

In the first shot you highlight clear cut chances but with the others you seem to be showing the results are unrealistic on normal shots. So is it a problem with clear cut chances/games you're dominating or just poor finishing from your clear cut chances?

CCCs are pertty bugged in 9.2, mainly because the lack of strikers able to finish a 1v1.

I'm guessing Gabby gets on the end of a lot of through balls but doesn't put them away?

I just cannot grasp where the playability is supposed to be? its already understood that career games are mostly pointless, because the AI does not replenish its squads correctly, leading to even the richest and best teams in the World, playing aged players past their prime.

So my enjoyment can only be gotten from the first 3 or 4 seasons, where i want to be tested against the best clubs at their strongest, but even when i do so and play teams off the park, i still find a massive % of games where i quite ridiculously come away with nothing or scrape a point.

Now, if i was losing such games for specific reasons, such as last minute equalisers and winners, because i was not taking the necessary steps late on in games, then i would accept that this was in fact MY fault and not a problem with the game, but this is not the case at all, in fact, the way most of my games go, i have two or three good chances, dont score, the AI has one good chance and scores, then i have 3 or 4 more good chances and still dont score, how on Earth can this be acceptable and classed as realistic?

Even in CM01/02 there was always only a "reasonable" amount of games such as this, which made it pretty much acceptable and realistic in terms with "Real Life".

I dont know what else to say? only that by reading the forums, its obvious that a lot of your customers do not seem to understand what can be deemed "realistic" and what can't, but please, even if its for the minority, at least accept this as an issue and try to do something about it in future patches/games???

Yeah there's no evidence of a bug here.

I dont remember stating it as a bug?

Its clearly a massive issue of how games and stats are calculated in reflection to the scoreline.

sorry to be a bit of a douche mate but in all fairness you were playing man utd away! you cant moan about losing that game! its almost expected if your playing in the prem. once i was beat 6-2 away to man utd. and sorry mate but everything you have posted is realistic, apart from your only problem being that if your on the 9.2 patch then your strikers genearally dont score 1 on 1s

I just cannot grasp where the playability is supposed to be? its already understood that career games are mostly pointless, because the AI does not replenish its squads correctly, leading to even the richest and best teams in the World, playing aged players past their prime.

So my enjoyment can only be gotten from the first 3 or 4 seasons, where i want to be tested against the best clubs at their strongest, but even when i do so and play teams off the park, i still find a massive % of games where i quite ridiculously come away with nothing or scrape a point.

Now, if i was losing such games for specific reasons, such as last minute equalisers and winners, because i was not taking the necessary steps late on in games, then i would accept that this was in fact MY fault and not a problem with the game, but this is not the case at all, in fact, the way most of my games go, i have two or three good chances, dont score, the AI has one good chance and scores, then i have 3 or 4 more good chances and still dont score, how on Earth can this be acceptable and classed as realistic?

Even in CM01/02 there was always only a "reasonable" amount of games such as this, which made it pretty much acceptable and realistic in terms with "Real Life".

I dont know what else to say? only that by reading the forums, its obvious that a lot of your customers do not seem to understand what can be deemed "realistic" and what can't, but please, even if its for the minority, at least accept this as an issue and try to do something about it in future patches/games???

This is pretty much summed up by my comment in the realism/fun thread:

It's not fun to lose when you've done everything possible to not lose. You can spend an inordinate amount of time perfecting tactics, buying the right players, micro-managing player morale, but at the end of the day you can't guarantee anything against the random factor.

I'm not sure what the basis of the complaint is.

In the first shot you highlight clear cut chances but with the others you seem to be showing the results are unrealistic on normal shots. So is it a problem with clear cut chances/games you're dominating or just poor finishing from your clear cut chances?

Neji - I've always thought you were a pretty decent bloke, with intelligence to boot, so please dont tell me that you do not see anything wrong with what i am showing you?

If anyone thinks that i am completely wrong when it comes to this issue, may i suggest having a look at real match stats in your Sunday paper, magazine or supplement or even online.

I am a stat man first and foremost, i love my stats(real life anyway) and i am completely aware that teams win/draw games that they should lose and vice versa, the problem in FM is that these games happen far too often.

Lets say in real life for instance, that it happened once in ten games, in FM it would be more like five in ten, at least when its Human V AI

SI need to consider this and make the relevant changes to the ME or whatever else is used to come up with these statistics.

I dont remember stating it as a bug?

Its clearly a massive issue of how games and stats are calculated in reflection to the scoreline.

Your thread title is "SI Request: Please Realise This as an Issue." That's calling it a bug.

If anyone thinks that i am completely wrong when it comes to this issue, may i suggest having a look at real match stats in your Sunday paper, magazine or supplement or even online.

I am a stat man first and foremost, i love my stats(real life anyway) and i am completely aware that teams win/draw games that they should lose and vice versa, the problem in FM is that these games happen far too often.

May I point you in the direction of Liverpool this season. Dominating matches and possession, having lots more shots on goal, missing sitters. Yet drawing at home to much smaller clubs. And not just once or twice in a season.

Your thread title is "SI Request: Please Realise This as an Issue." That's calling it a bug.

Not in my Dictionary mate, but each to their own.

Hammer, i think you should play through the rest of your season before you go blasting off and making issues, as far as i can see its just some bad form which should clear up sooner or later, i suggest play to the end of that season, and if you get relegated or something then there might be something wrong, but at the moment, its nothing unusual

Gabbys composure and finishing are pretty poor if I remember correctly. Have you took this into consideration. What does the chelsea game prove anyways? That a world class team carved a goal out of nothing like so many times a world class team does and snatches a 1-0 win in a poor game where the opposition failed to make there few clear cut chances count. Well done....er thanks for bringing that to our attention statto.

Also you should have posted your team/player instructions so we could maybe have a better chance of understanding what going wrong for you. Bit late for that now tho isnt it statto.

Not in my Dictionary mate, but each to their own.

Any issue that needs to be fixed means there is something wrong, if there's something wrong there's a bug.

Even if you feel the whole match engine needs to be re-written, it would be classed as a bug.

Neji - I've always thought you were a pretty decent bloke, with intelligence to boot, so please dont tell me that you do not see anything wrong with what i am showing you?

I didn't say whether I thought there was anything wrong or not, I was just trying to find you what your main complaint is.

"Bugs" and "issues" are the same thing in developer terms.

Please be more careful in future, and don't put things like "SI Request" in your thread title if it's just a rant thread about how you're struggling.

Have edited the thread title to something closer to the actual content.

Not in my Dictionary mate, but each to their own.

Well if you dont want to call it a bug but you want SI to look at it what else would you call it?

In terms of what CP said I agree that this can happen IRL and if any player finished every ccc he had we would see higher scoring matches and everyone would be saying its too easy to score in this game.

There is a very fine line that SI tread between too much and not enough and I personally think they have got it right at the moment.

May I point you in the direction of Liverpool this season. Dominating matches and possession, having lots more shots on goal, missing sitters. Yet drawing at home to much smaller clubs. And not just once or twice in a season.

I'd take a look at Portsmouth irl. We are dominating matches and coming away with nothing! How many clear cut chances are we missing

Thats life

It's a problem which has been remarked upon in various places and at length by a number of people. It is unrealistic and annoying. It really isn't good enough to brush it aside by arguing over whether it's a 'bug' or not, that's just dodging the issue.

May I point you in the direction of Liverpool this season. Dominating matches and possession, having lots more shots on goal, missing sitters. Yet drawing at home to much smaller clubs. And not just once or twice in a season.

You see this is where the arguments start, but i have no intentions of getting into one, but i will just say this...

One of those Liverpool games your talking about was against my Hammers and if i sent you a DVD of the game, i bet you would be hard pressed to pick out a single chance Liverpool had that could be classed as "Clear Cut", whilst i would impress on you that West Ham in fact had two.

Gerrard having 15 shots from 25 yards plus does not suggest in the slightest that Liverpool had the better of the opportunities and i have friends who are Liverpool fans who admitted that West Ham were "unlucky" not to win the game.

Exactly.

So if you had 2 clear cut chances, and we had 0 and the score was a draw - surely you should have won the game and if that happened in FM you'd think the match engine was buggy because you had the better chances?

Clear Cut Chances mean nothing. People have been reading too much in to them since they included them on the stats.

Maybe you could upload your Chelsea or Man Utd pkms and we can have a look at what sort of CCC your team created and why they missed them?

It could be that your tactical set up is creating fairly 'artificial' CCCs which are then missed (the issue would be with what's defined as a CCC), or your players could be very good at getting in to the right positions but useless at finishing chances.

Judging by the stats, the opposition are generally having as many if not more shots on goal, but just not creating so many CCC.

Hammer, i think you should play through the rest of your season before you go blasting off and making issues, as far as i can see its just some bad form which should clear up sooner or later, i suggest play to the end of that season, and if you get relegated or something then there might be something wrong, but at the moment, its nothing unusual

Thats just it mate, i'm sure if i play the season out that i'll likely finish in the top four again. The problem is these runs are induced by the game and not due to key players missing, bad morale etc, etc.

This is why i mentioned CM 01/02, because at least back then these results were mere blips as is usually the case in real life and more importantly, were as likely to go in your favour as against, whilst in recent FM's i'm lucky to get a point out of a close game, let alone one that i have been outplayed in.

This is why this area of the game needs so much attention.

Neji - Okay mate!

How do you think SI have programmed the game to 'induce' these runs, though, for only the human player? It just doesn't make sense. I genuinely can't imagine the game artificially discriminating between human and AI players in the match engine.

What we're left with is that human players may tend towards certain types of tactical setup or tend to sign certain types of player (or maybe give different team talks) that lead to situations where lots of CCC are created but not taken.

Or do you see evidence of this happening for certain AI teams, too?

I think the best way to highlight the issue is for me to start a thread showing real life stats in the EPL week after week and comparing each specific teams stats to those manufactured by the game.

Of course CCC's could not be considered, as there would be too much individual bias.

I think the best way to highlight the issue is for me to start a thread showing real life stats in the EPL week after week and comparing each specific teams stats to those manufactured by the game.

Of course CCC's could not be considered, as there would be too much individual bias.

You haven't really articulated what you think the exact issue is, though - you've posted up five screenshots of your team having more CCC than the opposition but not winning the game.

If you stated some sort of aim and hypothesis in comparing real-life stats to the game's stats, it might be more helpful.

Thats just it mate, i'm sure if i play the season out that i'll likely finish in the top four again. The problem is these runs are induced by the game and not due to key players missing, bad morale etc, etc.

This is why i mentioned CM 01/02, because at least back then these results were mere blips as is usually the case in real life and more importantly, were as likely to go in your favour as against, whilst in recent FM's i'm lucky to get a point out of a close game, let alone one that i have been outplayed in.

This is why this area of the game needs so much attention.

Neji - Okay mate!

exactly you will finish in the top 4, which is actually an over achievement for an aston villa side, wheres the problem? Bad runs of form, thats all it is. Also in your original post you mentioned new players and the squad blending well. Wont the squad be blending well due to playing together all of the previous season? so your squad blends, but new players are still going to need to adapt. in all my games chelsea dont seem to manage to get a win until the eight game, they still manage to get right back up there and challenge for the title

You haven't really articulated what you think the exact issue is, though - you've posted up five screenshots of your team having more CCC than the opposition but not winning the game.

If you stated some sort of aim and hypothesis in comparing real-life stats to the game's stats, it might be more helpful.

I think most people understand the issue, it has been raised many times before, even my mate and Resident Moderator wwfan is aware of the issue.

Once i start providing RL stats compared to FM stats it will become obvious.

exactly you will finish in the top 4, which is actually an over achievement for an aston villa side, wheres the problem? Bad runs of form, thats all it is. Also in your original post you mentioned new players and the squad blending well. Wont the squad be blending well due to playing together all of the previous season? so your squad blends, but new players are still going to need to adapt. in all my games chelsea dont seem to manage to get a win until the eight game, they still manage to get right back up there and challenge for the title

When your annihilating your opposition and craeting chance after chance, its hardly the sign of players needing to adapt or gel is it???

When your annihilating your opposition and craeting chance after chance, its hardly the sign of players needing to adapt or gel is it???

Dude, you cant be annihalating your oppsition if you lose the game:p dominating is the word you want maybe

even my mate and Resident Moderator wwfan is aware of the issue

Again, "the issue". Go on, put it in to a sentence. Spell it out. Come on!

What were the player ratings like in those games? It strikes me that if you create ccc, and don't convert them it should show that either your striker has been poor or their keeper has excelled.

In real life, why do think top class strikers are so expensive? you can create all the clear cut chances you like, but if they all fall to a striker who can't hit a barn door its irrelevant. But I understand your point that its frustrating when you feel you've done all the game wants of you yet still suffer. thats life!

Hammer why do you even bother to prove those things anymore? to actually prove something here, you would need tons of real life stats and even then the random element in football is having such a big influence that there are no patterns or rules. that's what makes it so beatiful and interesting.

while final resoults in this game might seem perfectly normal and realistic, it doesn't take long for anyone with a little sense of criticism that there's something terribly wrong with football match in this game.

The Weekends Games(IRL)

Blackburn 0 v 2 A Villa

56% possession 44%

2 ShotsOnTarget 4

7 ShotsOffTarget 9

Chelsea 0 v 0 Hull

64% possession 36%

3 ShotsOnTarget 1

10 ShotsOffTarget 9

Everton 3 v 0 Bolton

63% possession 37%

6 ShotsOnTarget 3

10 ShotsOffTarget 3

Man City 1 v 0 Boro

60% Possession 40%

7 ShotsOnTarget 4

10 ShotsOffTarget 5

Portsmouth 2 v 3 Liverpool

43% Possession 57%

5 ShotsOnTarget 5

2 ShotsOffTarget 6

Sunderland 2 v 0 Stoke

61% Possession 39%

5 ShotsOnTarget 1

7 ShotsOffTarget 5

West Brom 2 v 3 Newcastle

53% Possesion 47%

5 ShotsOnTarget 4

6 ShotsOffTarget 5

Wigan 0 v 0 Fulham

43% Possession 57%

2 ShotsOnTarget 2

7 ShotsOffTarget 6

Tottenham 0 v 0 Arsenal

56% Possession 44%

5 ShotsOnTarget 2

11ShotsOffTarget 4

West Ham 0 v 1 Man Utd

46% Possession 54%

3 ShotsOnTarget 3

5 ShotsOffTarget 9

There is not one game this week that stands out like the games you get in FM week in week out and that will be true of most weeks with the odd exception here or there of course(which i have said many times is part and parcel of the game) but even so, it will not happen to the same team week in week out.

I would rather the game be much more difficult, as long as better matches and stats are produced and the luck runs closer to 50-50 instead of 95-5 in favour of the AI.

I'll show you nigh on the same thing week after week of real life stats in which games could have gone either way, nothing like what you see in FM.

If those stats from those 10 games above had been the stats from my first 10 games of the season in FM, i would have absolutely no complaint, as each result and stats correspond with each other in a believable and "realistic" fashion.

It's your tactics.

Dude, first of all its a game, and no game on this planet is absolutely perfect, second........ well there isnt a second because the first was so good!

It's your tactics.

There we have it in a nutshell, the "Original" Fanboy answer/excuse.

I dont mean any offence by it, its the only plausible excuse for those who will not see whats happening as a major game issue and absolute game/fun/enjoyment killer.

Its as blatant an issue as scoring 10 goals a game would be if that was happening.

There is not one game this week that stands out like the games you get in FM week in week out and that will be true of most weeks with the odd exception here or there of course(which i have said many times is part and parcel of the game) but even so, it will not happen to the same team week in week out.

I would rather the game be much more difficult, as long as better matches and stats are produced and the luck runs closer to 50-50 instead of 95-5 in favour of the AI.

I'll show you nigh on the same thing week after week of real life stats in which games could have gone either way, nothing like what you see in FM.

If those stats from those 10 games above had been the stats from my first 10 games of the season in FM, i would have absolutely no complaint, as each result and stats correspond with each other in a believable and "realistic" fashion.

agreed. if i'm right with my maths the match with most shots had 22 shots both teams combined. what those stats show even more is that in FM there are too many shots in the first place. in FM matches it is very comon that one team has over 20 shots in a match, especially in human vs AI matches. 910 patch resembled much closer to real life in shots/CCCs. defensivly it seemed much more stable.

Its totally realistic..dont you know...strikers convert just 36% percent of their CCCs be it a Fernando Torres or a 16 year old striker from BSP

Any chance a Moderator could change the title of the thread back to what it was originally? as i was hoping PaulC or a colleague might see the thread and choose to comment.

Thanks

No, the thread title is not being changed back to the original. I told you why I changed it in the first place. Also, putting "SI" in a thread title does not mean an SI staff member will look at it any quicker than they would do any other thread.

I looked at the stats and from what I can see it looks perfectly realistic. Chelsea were lucky, but they're title challengers so it goes with the territory. Birmingham was a local derby.

Your team only created 2 more clear cut chances than Blackburn in that game.

They all seem like very realistic results, maybe the AI calculates a higher shots at goal percentage for the human manager?

No, the thread title is not being changed back to the original. I told you why I changed it in the first place. Also, putting "SI" in a thread title does not mean an SI staff member will look at it any quicker than they would do any other thread.

And yet here you are?

And yet here you are?

I'm all over GD, baby.