FM Randomness: Strength or Weakness

I've been having a rather long email discussion with Hammer1000 regarding the problems he perceives with FM09. Ultimately, it seems to come down to issues with randomness of performance on a season by season basis, which he argued meant the game was unplayable. In reply, I suggested that his method of playing ensured randomness and actually illustrated how robust the ME and AI actually were. The following is a rough summary of our debate.

Opening Argument

I started a game with West Ham and used 1 tactic the whole way though. This was unlike most other tactics that i tend to use, as for one its being used in Patch 9.3.0 which has once again lessened the chance of taking advantage of weaknesses in the ME and secondly, it has not guaranteed me the kind of dominance I've been used to in the past.

What this tactic appeared to do, was give me good results based on whether the team actually performed match by match and coupled with some very good early purchases, allowed my West Ham side to finish in 5th place in season 1.

However, in season 2, despite putting together a massively superior squad i struggled massively and having first hoped to successfully challenge for Europe again, we were languishing between 10th and 12th place in the EPL?(although in Europe we won 6 out of 6 of our games?)

I decided to start a new game as a test to see if something similar occurred when playing as a stronger EPL side? I started a game with Liverpool and played the game in exactly the same manner with exactly the same tactic, making a few early editions to the squad, but more to give squad depth rather than improve the quality to any extent.

Frustratingly i finished 4th and ended up out of the Champions League after the first group stage. I did go on to make the final of the UEFA Cup, as well as winning the League Cup and losing in the FA Cup Final, so all in all not a total disaster.

In fact, i was happy with performances as i was with my West Ham save and had i had a little more luck in some earlier away games, I'm sure i would have been challenging for the title.

So, season 2 and despite having a lot of money to spend i only really managed to improve 3 positions in the team, with the rest of the players i brought in being good youngsters who had the potential to become great players, but not ready for the first team.

As season 2 began i had expected to struggle somewhat after what had happened in my West Ham save and was willing to put it down to the fact that the tactic was one of many i had come across in the past that was a bit hit and miss after the first season.

To my astonishment though, my season started superbly and has basically gotten better and better, qualifying ahead of R Madrid in the CL and leading the EPL by 7 points at the halfway stage of the season.

We have been practically unbeatable, with the only EPL loss coming away to Chelsea in a game where we were clearly the superior side.

Now, not for one instant am i suggesting that me finishing 5th with West Ham in the first season should have seen us go on to challenge for the EPL the following season, expecting a massive upturn in results.

What i am suggesting though is that based on the fact that i played both games in an identical manner/tactics/training/team talks(and so on) that i should have seen some kind of relation between the success of both teams, with West Ham being more than capable of establishing themselves as a top 6 or 7 side, as easily as Liverpool were racing away with the EPL and dominating in Europe?

This is where randomness becomes a massive factor, just what is it that decides how/why a much stronger West Ham side will struggle in season 2, where Liverpool can suddenly do no wrong? something somewhere is screwed up and if not the real issue would be that the game itself is in fact far too random?

It looks to me very much like that there is some obvious miscalculations being made by the game, maybe its something as simple as Liverpool somehow becoming massively overrated after actually underachieving in season 1, or, West Ham are being massively underated after overachieving in season 1, even a mix of the two?

The bottom line is that by playing two different games identically, such a massive difference in two teams fortunes shows that something is wrong somewhere and if you were to suggest this was not the case then that just further goes to prove that the game actually is in fact categorically random?

Counter-Argument

You start each match with the same tactic. Because you know it is quite a solid tactic given your testing, you expect it to give you the lead in a reasonably high percentage of matches. Taking out any squad motivation factors that might shift things against you, let's say you have a 60% chance of scoring first, a 20% chance of the opposition scoring first and a 20% chance of no-one scoring. As a knowledgeable football fan, I think you'll agree that a 60% chance of grabbing the opening goal is good odds that you'll happily take if offered.

Thus, over a 10 match split, you will see the following:

1-0 lead (60%)

0-0 (20%)

0-1 deficit (20%)

At this point, things start to change. The AI will do two things. If losing it will either retreat into its shell until the last 20 mins, when it will decide to attack, or it will try to get back into the game. Either way, the odds of who scores the next goal will change, because something has changed strategically. Assuming the AI's tactical change is logical and works in its favour, it perhaps shifts to 40%-20%-40%.

Of those 8 matches, 1 or 2 will remain 1-0 or 0-1. Of the other 6, three times will see you score the next goal and three times the AI. So perhaps we now have a split of:

2-0 lead (20%)

1-1 (30%)

1-0 lead (10%)

0-0 (20%)

0-1 deficit (10%)

0-2 deficit (10%)

By now the butterfly effect has fully spread its wings and from this point on anything can happen. The only modifier is that it is the AI trying to make things happen (i.e. making tactical decisions trying to turn things in its favour) whereas you are not. Thus, the same 10 match split could end with 3 wins, 4 draws, 3 defeats, or 7 wins, 1 draw, 2 defeats, or 2 winds, 2 draws, 6 defeats. As soon as you begin to add squad strength variables into the equation, then this pattern becomes even more random.

All you need for this pattern to shift significantly for you or against you is the tiniest modification. Your West Ham game, for example. You had a good season and improved your squad but did badly. Perhaps the shift in personnel dropped that 60% chance of scoring the first goal to 53% as the team were less gelled. Perhaps other teams started more defensively as your reputation had improved, dropping it to 45%. Add this to related form and morale boosts/drops, and you will have a poor season.

For Liverpool, perhaps the opposite happened. The team was so strong with the new personnel, plus no significant reputation boost that alters the AI's perception of you, that you increased the chance of scoring the first goal to 67%, or perhaps even higher. Given that you are winning, then morale will be high which might push the odds even further in you favour.

The point is that if this method of play didn't produce randomness, I'd be worried about the ME and the AI. If they were so poor that a single strategic decision (I will play this tactic) undermined them to the extent that you could perfectly predict what was going to happen, then FM wouldn't be a very good game, if a game at all. The whole point of games is you have to make regular strategic decisions in order to change things in your favour. You don't just push play and hope for the best.

I'm hoping this debate can generate a discussion on who is right, but also on how the game could develop to stop people feeling totally out of control of their team. If Hammer is right, then the game is pointless. If I am right, then it is only pointless to play the game in Hammer's manner. Either way, a decent, constructive discussion will enable SI to understand how different sections of their fanbase perceives and plays FM, which can help further development in terms of helping each group better enjoy the game.

weakness for me, as on my manu save, in 1st season, I won elp and cl, lost the cups in final. now I'm struggling in 2nd season, at 3rd place, the leader has 15 points advantage over me :S my only improvments were messi, and some regens that aren't ready to play in 1st team yet ..

There are likely to be too many factors involved in the exact makeup of the experiences of either save to make a needle sharp analysis plausible, but equally a large quantity of variables is not randomness. In short the randomness is superficial, it is not truly random at all. It is much like stating that the tactic that wins against X and loses against Y proves the match results are randomly generated, except we are talking about seasons and saves instead of matches.

I am unsure of the premise for this statement of randomness, perhaps there is randomness inherant within the game mechanics that I am ignorant of. I would surmise there is some element of randomness involved in certain calculations, but season defining random values? I think it is more likely that the author of the OP gives too much credit to a concept that is a perception, albeit for an understandable and commendable purpose.

To assume the perspective in the original post however I do not see quite how this randomness of AI reaction is any different in principle to the randomness of reaction against a successful and recently improved side in real world football, in short that a different challenge is to be expected but that the success or failure of the reaction is not inherantly set in stone, the reaction is not inherantly effective, and the reaction may prove to be an inferior strategy over the longer term.

Look at for example the reaction of English Premier League Football to Jose Mourinho and Rafa Benitez. Their arrival in the English Premier League sparked a massive change in the style of English top flight football with the 4-4-2 becoming almost extinct for a couple of seasons as Chelsea ran riot in the League. Ultimately though it has had very little impact on the status quo of domestic football with Manchester United reasserting their dominance, no one breaking into the top four with any kind of extended challenge, and very little difference to the results achieved by the so called lesser sides against the top sides. Interestingly though Arsenal and Arsene Wenger seem to have been nullified to a great extent as a force of dominance in England. They have suffered greatest under the new watertight defences of Premier League opposition.

My point is that reaction and change occur in real world football. The Premier League has gone from strength to strength with the top sides spurred onto new heights, while one of the old powerhouses has failed to adapt to the new requirements. Clearly it is not a case of new tactics being worked out and defeated in detail, but of old principles remaining true while specifics vary slightly, and vary enough to cause the occasional unpredictable anomoly. The AI of FM is attempting to adapt to what is going on in the game and its adaption is one of basic premises where old principles still apply and still produce results, but in the occasional context the adaption is inferior and equally in another context the adaption is superior. On the whole though the adaption of the manager to the adaption of the AI should in most contexts be sufficient to obtain the expected results.

I would say that it is clear that this "randomness" is the result of a lack of alteration to an AI that has changed its gameplan without having the ability to plan intelligently. In the case of the West Ham save the adaption has succeeded in blunting whatever offense is being used against it, whereas in the Liverpool save it has had the opposite effect of playing to the strengths of the tactic in combination with the team. I don't think two seasons of observation of the AI is a fair length of time to draw the conclusions of "randomness". One would expect over the course of say ten seasons for the rise and fall of the fortunes of both sides to stabilise if the same tactic is employed continuously.

Finally I do not think this game would benefit from having a static AI that does not respond to a players management of a side. It may produce more "consistent" results across several seasons with multiple teams and the exact same tactic, but what benefit is gained from this gameplay?

Will always be a strength for me. One of FMs greatest strengths, the thing that sets it apart from other strategy games in general, IMO, is the AIs ability to, at a minimum, create the illusion that it's adapting to you. Both in a match (short term) and over the season (long-term), FMs AI shows the flexibility needed to keep me on my toes, to be looking out for what it's done to stop me, and then to adapt myself to the AIs adjustment. This level of "adaptability" is not totally unknown in computer gaming, but rare enough to savor once found...

Furthermore, if I were to play one game one way and always have it turn out the same way each time through, ell, that jusst defines "boring" to me...

I would have liked to have seen a third option in the poll, this being something along the lines of: 3, I am not experiencingseason by season randomness to an unusual extent, as I'm sure there are plenty of fm users who, like myself aren't really seeing much evidence of season to season randomness in fm09. Now don't get me wrong i'm not trying to claim that this game can't be random and at times frustrating, I know it certainly can, however that randomness can in my experience essentially be to a large extent simply switched off by the user.

I should say however that I have only ever managed 'big' teams and have never really had an attempt at llm where this randomness is perhaps more prevelant.

As an example (and I opologose if this seems like me just boasting, it is not intended as such), take my current save where I set my past experience to ex international footballer (the first time I'd tried this) and started off as the manager of Celtic. I spent two and a half seasons managing themand in that time managed only one trophy, the SPL title in my first season.

"ah..there you go, evidence of this randomness" you might be thinking at this point. However I don't think it is, as irl Celtic in recent history have never had the financial resources to really pull away from their closest rival Rangers and the Edinburgh clubs Hearts and Hibs are always giving it everything they've gotto close the gap between themselves and the 'big two'.

This was mirrored in my game experience, as I lost the league title in my second season in a close faught(sp?) battle with Rangers. In my final season with Celtic I finished third to Hearts and again there may be a case for putting this down to randomness, however In that third season I had already decided I probably wasn't going to stay at Celtic much longer and made a deliberate decision to concentrate all my efforts in bringing success in Europe, which meant I rested key players in important league games.

This tactic worked to an extent and we qualified for the last 16 of the CL, only going out as a result of qualifying second and getting a very difficult last 16 draw (Barcelona iirc).

This strategy while not as successful in the short term as I had hoped, did seem to have one long term benneificial effect, the hierarchy at Zaragoza decided to dispense with the services of their manager and I was quoted in the media as the favourite to get the job, so after a long think (and taking some very good advice from users of these forums), I left Celtic for the lofty hieghts of management at a mid-table Liga BBVA side, where I set about re-building the under-achieving first team squad.

To cut a very long story short, I got some decent results in my half a season in charge of Zaragoza when to my surprise I got a news item informing me that their was a vacency in the managerial position at AC Milan and again I was strongly tipped for the job. I nervously resigned my position at Zaragoza, applied for the Milan job and I got it. I have currently been at Milan for the best part of three seasons (3 league games left in the third) and in that time I have won 1 league title, two Spanish supercups and three Spanish cups. The only area as yet unconquered being a European trophy ( I finally got us into the CL final this season which will be against Barcelona).

So to sum up, yes this game can be very random and before I lealised that past experiance can be set (and the impact it can have on your career) I would probably have voted that the randomness in the game is a weaknes and that would have been that. Instead however I haven't voted and instead made this post to (hopefully) back up my argument that the randomness in the game is in fact user defined.

I'd like to take this opportunity to explain myself a little better. I fully understand that a lot of FM'ers have formed an opinion of me based on my previous posting style(or lack of it)

I feel i must point out though that i am often misquoted and/or misunderstood(dont worry, i'm not looking for any sympathy)

Despite the popular misconception, i do NOT want an easy game in which i can just go out and win every match with minimum input, in fact if you look back through a lot of my posts you will clearly see that i am of the opinion that FM could actually do with being MORE difficult.

Do not confuse less time consuming and less random with EASY, this is the biggest misconception

I hope it would be fair to suggest that wwfan is of the notion that this game should be more strategic in nature. He likes to go head to head with the AI trying to pre-empt and foil the AI at every turn and whilst that style of play and the game that goes with it is great for him, my belief is that it actually leaves many FM'ers not just confused, but also a feeling of utter randomness, which in turn largely detracts from what they want from the game, which is largely fun and some feeling of consistency.

Favourite Tactics

For a start go into the T&T Forum and take a look at the favoured style of tactics? You will quickly see that the preferred choice is just a single tactic.

Is this simply because everyone wants an easy plug and play tactic that wins every game? NO!(well maybe some;))

Its because of at least two things?

1. They do not understand how/why a tactic works, or how to read and pre-empt the AI, so they look for a single tactic that appears to give them the most consistency.

2. Here is by far the most important reason...TIME...suggesting that FM'ers do not want to have to make regular strategic decisions during a match. This is because it forces them to watch matches in far greater detail, in fact, the worse you are at understanding the changes you are making, the greater the need to watch the match in even more detail, this of course takes up a lot of time and this is something the average FM'er just does'nt have, not if they have any kind of life at all away from FM?

Lets be honest, if we really were looking for absolute realism? then we all should be watching every minute of every game, so again we have to ask the questions...

1. Who wants to have to do that?

2. Who has that kind of time?

My side of the argument would suggest that a massive % of people who play this game want to play having some modicum of success and that the better quality of players, the more gelled your side, the better your tactics/training/team talks etc, the better you will do based on these factors?

If i manage to take Liverpool to the quadruple with consumate ease in season 2, this would suggest that i'm getting most of the above right? so on that basis, i should also be able to manage a modicum of success with West Ham in season 2 after finishing season 1 in 5th place. With the large improvement in the squad and a side that are gelling well together, plus an identical Management technique, i should still be able to maintain a certain amount of consistency and if not? that suggests that there is a randomness in the game that largely interferes with those abilities to make the right Managerial decisions and as such, largely detracts from the fun and the reason for playing and loving this game in the first place?

I'm not a fan of "randomness", it seems perfectly logical for the match engine to make team A weaker in the second season because team A overachieved in the first, to "balance" out things.

If this is true, then there is no good tactic for the game, there is no great man-managment skills needed, you just need to know when the ME will actually let your team achieve something, chosen categorically, resulting in FM not being a game.

However, this has actually given me an idea, I might replicate what you did with West Ham, use 1 tactic for the whole year. Then the same for next year, yet boost the squad by 2 players at most.

Very interesting. I think people are finally starting to uncover the huge flaws the ME has.

This reminds me of the discussions on the Civilization 4 boards about whether Spiritual is a strong trait or a weak one. The answer, as far as I can see, is that it's strong, provided you make use of it. It's not a trait for people who just want the trait to make their empire a little bit better without their really noticing.

The FM tactical system is rather like the Spiritual trait. You'll never get the most out of it if you play like most FMers play.

just because you dont improve your team.. you got to remember the opponents are always being strengthened and/or weakened through transfers etc. So depending on what they do compared to you, as well as what managers come in using different favoured tactics, your always going to see differences.

I have used the same tactic now for 5 seasons, onto the 6th season. Never had any issues. Unbeaten in the league for almost 200 games (dont htink i passed 200 yet) and though not had clean sweeps in the cups i have won them, notably i think i won champions league every season also. With some FA cup and league cup titles in the mix.

This is playing as Man Utd, I always adding new players though majority are either Free Transfers or young players (mainly free transfers of top players currently), never felt like there was any balancing act going on in anyways in the matches.. if a game is looking bad i will make subs at half time and lay into my players and second half the subs normally turn the game for me. This is with alot of squad rotation involved (league team is pretty constant but many are rested for cup games)

I like the randomness, i dont want to go into games knowing i will definately walk it, some my hardest game been against the weaker teams infact

I'm not a fan of "randomness", it seems perfectly logical for the match engine to make team A weaker in the second season because team A overachieved in the first, to "balance" out things.

If this is true, then there is no good tactic for the game, there is no great man-managment skills needed, you just need to know when the ME will actually let your team achieve something, chosen categorically, resulting in FM not being a game.

However, this has actually given me an idea, I might replicate what you did with West Ham, use 1 tactic for the whole year. Then the same for next year, yet boost the squad by 2 players at most.

Very interesting. I think people are finally starting to uncover the huge flaws the ME has.

This kind of logic makes me laugh (or despair).

Reasoning

My first season I expected to come mid-table, yet came 5th, therefore I'm great. My second season I expected to come 5th, but came mid-table, therefore the ME sucks. Because this has happened, I have now started to prove that there are deep flaws in the ME. All I need to do to prove this is go on holiday twice and spend 20 mins finding better players.

I am suprised this thread hasn't generated more debate as this could turn out to be a fantastic discussion.

Randomness; would you say real life Football is random?

To answer the question; Hammer is wrong in my opinion.

Hammer seems to be presuming that tactics are the be-all and end-all of success in Football Manager 2009 but there are so many factors that can determine how well a season goes and so many decisions that Hammer could have made that may have changed the course of his Liverpool season.

1. One game in a teams season can change the course of their whole campaign. Last season, Arsenal's draw to Birmingham City physcologically put them out of the title race. I am sure this was running through the players minds of their players at the end of the game. My question is, what if Eduardo's leg wasn't broken in that challenge? What if Martin Taylor's tackle was half a millisecond earlier and didn't hit Eduardo quite so hard? What if, because of this, Arsenal went on to win the game? Could they have won the title?

My point is, one game can change the course of a season. So in the second season with West Ham or Liverpool, one game, however early in the season it was, could have changed the course of the season and made a new path for the side in their morale and success.

2. Hammer claims he made some changes to each side during the start of the second season. What is saying that these transfers haven't altered Hammer's season massively. He seems to forget that players are the most important people in Football and that is why they earn so much compared to the manager. Signing these players may have had so many affects on so many things that could have made a difference in results.

2.5. I name this 2.5 because it is about how the players he signed fitted into the tactical system and how this affected the team.

3. My third and final point is that the AI managers decisions may well have affected the outcome of the seasons and how the AI teams performs. Just because Hammer treated his teams the same it does not mean the AI didn't do the same.

Overall, I wouldn't say that the 'randomness' here is more of the nature of Football and Football Manager.

This kind of logic makes me laugh (or despair).

Reasoning

My first season I expected to come mid-table, yet came 5th, therefore I'm great. My second season I expected to come 5th, but came mid-table, therefore the ME sucks. Because this has happened, I have now started to prove that there are deep flaws in the ME. All I need to do to prove this is go on holiday twice and spend 20 mins finding better players.

I think people knew that the ME had flaws and mistakes before this thread, in fact since it's AI it will always have flaws, it can never be perfect and it can always be taken advantage of.

In the first season, you manipulated the ME very well to come 5th.

In the second season, you didn't manipulate the ME as well, so you finished worse? You don't seem to show a great understanding yourself to be fair.

Either way the way FM has changed into, is that you aren't a football manager anymore, now it's all about finding exploits in the match engine, combined with finding the perfect slider settings for your team, I'm not complaining because I lack skill in FM, but it seems quite pathetic what this has turned into.

You should be able to control the game completely, if you are good enough or smart enough in FM, you should always be able to finish first and win every game, but the ME filters this impossible by making everything random, care to try and tell me if I make the perfect decision for every game (such as making little tactic changes, more defensive against better teams), I should be able to win or draw every single game, but no, the ME filters this impossible, so not even a super-human understanding of how Football Manager works will lead you into winning everything, as the Match Enigne seems to feel free by balancing me winning 10 in a row with 5 losses in 10 games, thus giving me random results out of nowhere.

^ If that is broken logic, you're basically saying you do not have control of FM, you are not the manager of anything, FM is all judged on pre-calculated odds and you can do, at times nothing about that.

Seems to me the perception of control is a major factor on how you view the game, in FM this could be split into two categories...

1. The game is programmed like this and is inherently random, there is nothing I can do about it, I have no control.

2. The game produces random events because of the inputs, I can do something about this, because I have an element of control.

If it's the former, I don't think I can agree. It just wouldn't make sense.

The latter though seems much more likely, but at the same time can be twice as frustrating. The frustration (imo) comes down to the users perception of what the ME should do when interpreting your instructions, and how skilled you are at reading the match. This is where the one tactic / no tweaking approach becomes harder and harder to implement.

The fact is, at the moment, unless you can read the ME to a good degree and understand the impact of what each change does, and read when a change is needed, you may well feel you are experiencing more and more random elements. That doesn't mean the events themselves are random.

This is why the new tactical system is so exciting and could well bring the game on leaps and bounds. If we are able to trust the shouted instructions, see the changes that are made to the sliders and learn what these do, I’m convinced that less and less people will experience the amount of randomness they feel they do now.

I think people knew that the ME had flaws and mistakes before this thread, in fact since it's AI it will always have flaws, it can never be perfect and it can always be taken advantage of.

In the first season, you manipulated the ME very well to come 5th.

In the second season, you didn't manipulate the ME as well, so you finished worse? You don't seem to show a great understanding yourself to be fair.

Either way the way FM has changed into, is that you aren't a football manager anymore, now it's all about finding exploits in the match engine, combined with finding the perfect slider settings for your team, I'm not complaining because I lack skill in FM, but it seems quite pathetic what this has turned into.

You should be able to control the game completely, if you are good enough or smart enough in FM, you should always be able to finish first and win every game, but the ME filters this impossible by making everything random, care to try and tell me if I make the perfect decision for every game (such as making little tactic changes, more defensive against better teams), I should be able to win or draw every single game, but no, the ME filters this impossible, so not even a super-human understanding of how Football Manager works will lead you into winning everything, as the Match Enigne seems to feel free by balancing me winning 10 in a row with 5 losses in 10 games, thus giving me random results out of nowhere.

^ If that is broken logic, you're basically saying you do not have control of FM, you are not the manager of anything, FM is all judged on pre-calculated odds and you can do, at times nothing about that.

My word. That's brilliant even by your standards.

I think people knew that the ME had flaws and mistakes before this thread, in fact since it's AI it will always have flaws, it can never be perfect and it can always be taken advantage of.

Bleeding obvious. Stating thereof.

In the first season, you manipulated the ME very well to come 5th.

In the second season, you didn't manipulate the ME as well, so you finished worse? You don't seem to show a great understanding yourself to be fair.

Umm, this was my criticism of you, not a description of my last two seasons. Your point is...?

Either way the way FM has changed into, is that you aren't a football manager anymore, now it's all about finding exploits in the match engine, combined with finding the perfect slider settings for your team, I'm not complaining because I lack skill in FM, but it seems quite pathetic what this has turned into.

You should be able to control the game completely, if you are good enough or smart enough in FM, you should always be able to finish first and win every game, but the ME filters this impossible by making everything random, care to try and tell me if I make the perfect decision for every game (such as making little tactic changes, more defensive against better teams), I should be able to win or draw every single game, but no, the ME filters this impossible, so not even a super-human understanding of how Football Manager works will lead you into winning everything, as the Match Enigne seems to feel free by balancing me winning 10 in a row with 5 losses in 10 games, thus giving me random results out of nowhere.

^ If that is broken logic, you're basically saying you do not have control of FM, you are not the manager of anything, FM is all judged on pre-calculated odds and you can do, at times nothing about that.

For this to be the case I need to accept that:

1: Human users are capable of making perfect decisions and know that they have done so

2: The AI will never make a good decision

Only if I agree with the above does your claim have merit. Is that what you are claiming?

The randomness is definitaly a strength.

When a game like FM would have no randomness at all, a person could 'crack' the ME and win every single match. To avoid this über-winning the game is in such a way programmed that there are always matches that you lose because of the totally randomness. Some could see this as unfair, but I see it as fair play.

In RL football there is a lot of randomness too. We all know the games of super teams who make a draw at some underdog team. This has to do with randomness; players not touching the ball perfectly well, tackles which are two inches away from the wrong place, etc.

Since FM is a simulation of RL football management I see the randomness as a strength and not as weak spot.

Despite the popular misconception, i do NOT want an easy game in which i can just go out and win every match with minimum input, in fact if you look back through a lot of my posts you will clearly see that i am of the opinion that FM could actually do with being MORE difficult.

The problem is though that the removal of the aspect of the game that you call "random" would result in a complete lack of challenge once success has been established. Once you have achieved a working tactic in season 1 and understand the players required to fulfill that tactic, you would never fail to have success over the long term. The game would not attempt to adapt to your success and there would be no difficulty left in the game once a degree of success was achieved.

You are infact advocating with this statement a game whereby it is harder to achieve success than currently yet completely impossible to fail to achieve success consistently when successful once. There is perhaps no greater misrepresentation of football than this single statement.

I hope it would be fair to suggest that wwfan is of the notion that this game should be more strategic in nature. He likes to go head to head with the AI trying to pre-empt and foil the AI at every turn and whilst that style of play and the game that goes with it is great for him, my belief is that it actually leaves many FM'ers not just confused, but also a feeling of utter randomness, which in turn largely detracts from what they want from the game, which is largely fun and some feeling of consistency.

Fun is both contextual and subjective and is achieved by a staggering variety of persuits as shown by the vast range and extent of entertainment and hobbies that exist in the world. Clearly FM is fun for a number of people, clearly it is not so much fun for others. To state that a game such as FM which has staked out its territory and defined its context is somehow "unfun" in any context and that to target a specific medium is a design flaw is frankly false.

Favourite Tactics

For a start go into the T&T Forum and take a look at the favoured style of tactics? You will quickly see that the preferred choice is just a single tactic.

Is this simply because everyone wants an easy plug and play tactic that wins every game? NO!(well maybe some;))

Its because of at least two things?

1. They do not understand how/why a tactic works, or how to read and pre-empt the AI, so they look for a single tactic that appears to give them the most consistency.

2. Here is by far the most important reason...TIME...suggesting that FM'ers do not want to have to make regular strategic decisions during a match. This is because it forces them to watch matches in far greater detail, in fact, the worse you are at understanding the changes you are making, the greater the need to watch the match in even more detail, this of course takes up a lot of time and this is something the average FM'er just does'nt have, not if they have any kind of life at all away from FM?

Go to the same forum and look for the thread with the largest number of views and the largest quantity of replies. It is the thread that approaches FM with the largest degree of strategic perspective and contains the most detailed and technical discussions of activity in FM as a strategy game.

I think that Point 2 regarding Time provokes a truly fundamental point regarding Football Manager and those that play it. It would seem to me that there are those that play the game to Win at Football and imagine there is some kind of increased "fun" event at the end of the season. Then there are those that enjoy playing the game, and derive their fun from observing the match engine and taking the Time to explore every nuance of the game world on a game day by day basis. The former do not technically enjoy the game so much as they enjoy the impression of success within what is obviously a deep football simulation, whereas the latter enjoy the game for what it is and has in detail. If some fundamental and core aspect of a computer game is deemed time consuming and boring then there is clearly a clash between the underlying philosophy of the game and the preferences of that specific gamer. Perhaps when all is said and done the medium interests the gamer, but the game itself is not a game for them.

Lets be honest, if we really were looking for absolute realism? then we all should be watching every minute of every game, so again we have to ask the questions...

1. Who wants to have to do that?

2. Who has that kind of time?

The same can be said of Football itself. Who wants to sit down and watch 90 minutes of passing, movement, positioning and teamwork and who wants to switch on the highlights at 11:30PM to watch a compressed impression of the match showing only the high action scenes? Who wants to fire up a save of Hearts of Iron and watch WWII documentaries on their sattelite television rather than load up COD4 on the Xbox?

My side of the argument would suggest that a massive % of people who play this game want to play having some modicum of success and that the better quality of players, the more gelled your side, the better your tactics/training/team talks etc, the better you will do based on these factors?

Clearly these factors operate within the context of the game and not simply within the context of your desire to win matches, trophies and titles. I think perhaps that Football Manager suffers to a certain extent from player expectations by not wearing its grand strategy genre on its sleeve, while no doubt benefiting to an extent financially and reputation wise amongst football fans by never really mentioning this fact.

If i manage to take Liverpool to the quadruple with consumate ease in season 2, this would suggest that i'm getting most of the above right? so on that basis, i should also be able to manage a modicum of success with West Ham in season 2 after finishing season 1 in 5th place. With the large improvement in the squad and a side that are gelling well together, plus an identical Management technique, i should still be able to maintain a certain amount of consistency and if not? that suggests that there is a randomness in the game that largely interferes with those abilities to make the right Managerial decisions and as such, largely detracts from the fun and the reason for playing and loving this game in the first place?

For you; that is how you feel and that is how interperate what you see based upon your own motivations for playing and your own comprehension of what you observe.

At the end of the day this game is a deep, complex attempt to simulate a sport that can only be simulated to any remotely accurate degree by depth and complexity of detail and relationship. It attempts to provide the clearest and most accurate experience of Football in as many facets that are deemed relevant to accurate simulation, and the offline version of Football Manager has evolved into the ultimate attempt to produce the football world for the single player from a managers perspective. You cannot deny what this product, this franchise and this project is. You can ofcourse point out that certain systems within the game fail to produce what is expected or desired, you can ofcourse point out that you personally do not enjoy the consequences of the entire premise for FM as an end-user, but ultimately while sales continue and while this product remains firmly at the cutting edge of not just football simulation but simulation, strategy and indeed one might claim roleplay gaming, you cannot state that in any way this game as a whole is either a failure or misguided. Even should sales ultimately drive this product down some other avenue of fundamentals then what has been produced so far will remain as testament to what was achieved, and should sales drive SI down some other route of fundamentals then it is unlikely that the simulation and representation of Football produced in recent years will ever be surpassed.

Clearly though all of us users in some context or another would like Football Manager to progress and continue forwards, not only with an improvement in the simulation of football but obviously also with an improvement in the feeling of understanding and comprehending the systems at work within the game, and indeed of perceiving challenge as challenge and of providing greater tools within the game world for a manager to understand those challenges, rise to those challenges and defeat those challenges.

It is my opinion first of all that ease of facilitating end results and rapid turnover or indeed complete omission of content is no path for a simulation. If we wished purely to simulate victory we could blow up our plastic European Cups and don our football kits and play the videos of Cup Final celebrations while we wave to the girlfriend or the kids or the neighbours. With that out of the way it is my opinion that alongside an improvement of the tactical capabilities of the AI the user could benefit greatly from an improved access to the wealth of tactical information already inherant within the Football Manager database and game engine.

In a general sense I think that the game would benefit dramaticly from the impression of a manager being surrounded by a sea of individuals with a wealth of tactical and footballing knowledge that can be accessed and tapped. One of the greatest additions to the game in recent years is the implimentation of the ability to interact with staff, but it is also to me one of the most frustrating and shallow gameplay elements that represents one of the deepest and fundamental aspects of football management. Top managers regularly surround themselves with disciplinarian stalwart veterans of multiple campaigns, sports science graduates bursting with new ideas and cutting edge knowledge, tactical disciples from around the nation or continent and a whole manner of characters that produce an environment of experimental footballing concepts and the tried and tested methods of a hundred seasons in a hundred countries.

This game series has always been something of an educational tool for the football enthuisiast as much as a simulation and perhaps the next big step for the game is a radical improvement and development of the AI in conjuction with the production of a comprehensive managerial context football library of methods, tactics and concepts. All displayed and accessed through the back room staff within their various fields of expertise, and all utilised by the backroom staff in improved methods of contextual relevant advice. I would expect my Determination 20, Tactical Knowledge 20 Assistant Manager to be one of the top men in the business not only to learn tactical concepts from, but also to provide me with a complete tactical overview of the league and competitions I enter and the challenges I am likely to face in a general sense on a season by season basis. I expect my Assistant Manager to ask me for a meeting before the start of each season where we discuss in depth the tactical nature of football in my league and at my level. I expect to be able to learn from this individual a staggering quantity of information on tactics, formations, key concepts, tips and tricks, etc.

This is obviously a vast quantity of work that would only improve the game (if it were possible) if the AI its self was sufficiently improved to be able to deal with this dramaticly increased level of general and contextual knowledge that a manager could now draw upon. I think though that ultimately a comprehensive library of football information coupled to a vastly improved backroom staff and vastly improved ability to analyse and explain context relevant information, and a vastly improved AI capable of handling this human ability would turn this epic football simulation into the definative football product for gamers, fans, tactical buffs and historians, and anoraks of all kinds that may not be quite so interested in a database of current player attributes.

Imagine this for example: You go into your staff screen, pull up your Assistant Manager with Tactical Knowledge 20 and click his Tactical Knowledge Attribute bar. A drop down menu appears detailing basic topics such as Positions, Formations, Tactical Concepts, History of Tactical Setups versus (your club) etc. You click on Positions and up comes one of those help screens that currently exists ingame with all known positions displayed on a football pitch. You click on Sweeper and you read about Beckenbaur, Cattenacio, the premise behinds its invention and the developments that contributed to its decline. You read about modern sweeper roles and you get an overview from your Assistant Manager on the players you have that could perform the function of sweeper, the strengths of that player in the sweeper role, his weaknesses, and the attacking setup that would be nullified most effectively by this player in this role etc.

I have no doubts that such a system if possible would be an arduous undertaking, and such a comprehensive library would be an equally monumental task, but at the same time I think it would provide manager and enthusiast alike an awsome resource if kept within the boundaries of function and assistance.

I must go with the randomness of FM being a strength.

My reason for this opinion is that it is more realistic this way, because let's face it, there's plenty of examples in the real world where one split second decision, or one random event, can change things in immeasurable ways, from any given point in time. It's only with the benefit of hindsight that often draws one's attention to a particular event and may make a person wonder "what if..." or "if only I had...", maybe "I should have...", etc...

If you remove the element of randomness from the Football Manager games, you will be left with a very linear experience, which will become very boring in a short space of time. Many producers of modern games are trying to give their products a "non-linear" or "open-ended" experience, but there's also some good examples from the past... Frontier: Elite (2) anyone?

Frontier: Elite was perhaps one of my favorite games of all time, despite the bugs . Why? Because you could pretty much do what you wanted in a huge gaming universe, indefinately. Each time you entered a particular star system, something different could happen each time. Random events that were never the same twice. Every decision you made had an impact on what direction the game went. All this in a game that was no more than a few hundred kilobytes in size and had a complexity that even puts a lot of modern games to shame.

Getting back to FM, the only linear aspect of the game is the actual competitions your team plays in. Each season has a start and a finish. How you perform managing your team is entirely up to you, but can also be influenced by millions of possble events throughout the course of a save. The game itself is pretty much open ended. That's something that I enjoy because I know that there will be always challenging and interesting "random" events which I can either respond to, or not.

To sum up, you take the randomness out of FM and you kill what's intrinsic to the game. Just think about those first-person shooters that you can play through a level and the same enemy pops up in the same place every time. Once you've played through those games once, then if you're like me, they'll very rarely get played again. Been there, done that sort of scenario. I personally feel let down when I buy a game like that.

just because you dont improve your team.. you got to remember the opponents are always being strengthened and/or weakened through transfers etc. So depending on what they do compared to you, as well as what managers come in using different favoured tactics, your always going to see differences.

I have used the same tactic now for 5 seasons, onto the 6th season. Never had any issues. Unbeaten in the league for almost 200 games (dont htink i passed 200 yet) and though not had clean sweeps in the cups i have won them, notably i think i won champions league every season also. With some FA cup and league cup titles in the mix.

This is playing as Man Utd, I always adding new players though majority are either Free Transfers or young players (mainly free transfers of top players currently), never felt like there was any balancing act going on in anyways in the matches.. if a game is looking bad i will make subs at half time and lay into my players and second half the subs normally turn the game for me. This is with alot of squad rotation involved (league team is pretty constant but many are rested for cup games)

I like the randomness, i dont want to go into games knowing i will definately walk it, some my hardest game been against the weaker teams infact

Pretty much same goes for me, I am playing with villa only use 1 tactic that I tweak if needed for 7 seasons.

5 league title, 3 CL titles, 2 FA cup titles, 5 league cup titles.

So I must go for strenght.

so many variables none of them truely random.

I like the games, so I guess thumbs up from me.

Despite disagreeing with him on another thread , have to say I agree wholeheartedly with SFaser on this one. Randomness is an essential part of real life football that at times can have massive impacts (another classic example being a few years back when half the Spurs team got food poisoning before the last game of the season, which they duly lost allowing Arsenal to remain in the top 4. Things could well have been very different for both clubs had that event not occurred…and that was off the football field!). Some element of randomness therefore needs to be built into the game to make it as realistic as possible from a football management sim point of view. Taking it out would weaken the game immeasurably.

By the way SFraser, your crystal-balling into the future of FM left me drooling. SI can you please hire this guy as part of your ‘conceptual development’ staff?

For a start go into the T&T Forum and take a look at the favoured style of tactics? You will quickly see that the preferred choice is just a single tactic.

Sadly, not true, or even close. Of the 10 most popular tactic threads, plus the two more recently started and TT&F, only 1 out of the 13 is arguing for a single tactic approach. Some are only arguing for a home and away version, but all require more than one.

Tactical Sets Approach

Posts: 8088

Views: 521,494

Single Tactic Approach

Posts: 58

Views: 5,708

If you are going to make claims like this, Garry, they need to be based on fact, or you will get shot down.

I'm hoping this debate can generate a discussion on who is right, but also on how the game could develop to stop people feeling totally out of control of their team. If Hammer is right, then the game is pointless. If I am right, then it is only pointless to play the game in Hammer's manner. Either way, a decent, constructive discussion will enable SI to understand how different sections of their fanbase perceives and plays FM, which can help further development in terms of helping each group better enjoy the game.

I think some people are better suited for a role where they decide on who plays for the team and what style of football the team should play based on their desired level of immersion into the game.

Others are better suited for a role where they get immersed in the tactical tinkering necessary to pull out wins.

IMO, keep the "randomness".

Give those who are in the first category the option to play as the director of football. Let them choose the style they want to play based on the head coach they appoint. Blame/fire the head coach when things go wrong.

Give those who are in the second category the option to play as the manager or the head coach and deal with the in match tactics manipulation.

On my game im currently in charge of Messina.

In my 1st seaon with Stranrear I was expected to finish 9th. I finished 5th, 1 point off a playoff place.

I see this coming from my good tactic and good signings. And down to bad luck that the results did not go our way last day of the season. No randomness there.

In my 2nd season with them I was expected to finish mid table, I over achieved and finished in the playoff places and won.

Yet agian no randomness. My tactic worked well and we got some results that we probaly shouldn't have. And we lost some games we shouldn't have.

In my 3rd season them I was expected to finish 14 (Relegation playoff) I finished 6th

Same tactic in a tougher division. No randomness agian. We a cleary a team who overachieve and its making me look like a good manager.

Now im about to start my 4th season.

The club is £300,000 in the red, we are £3,000 over our wage budget. Predicted to finish 9th. But I think we will be there or lower down as the clubs finances have fallen appart. This is not a random factor. I could have taken steps to improve them but didn't.

Therefore in my view fm is fine the way it is.

I have enjoyed the fact I have overachieved with the two clubs I have been at. Some may argue this is random but its really good tactics and players.

Now I will strugle. I put this down to the club falling apart due to me.

And as for a statment earlier on about hammer1000 being 11-12 in the league yet winning 6 out of 6 in europe. They are two different competitions and you can't compare them. For example, in real life.

Rangers get to the uefa cup final, finish second in the league. Next season we are out of europe in the early stages. Not random but down to poor managment choices.

Celic win the league, but cant win a game away from home in europe. Not random, just the in-ability to play away from home in europe.

Liverpool, a fine example of why you cant compare league form and european from. Nothing randomness here either. Liverpool normaly do far better in europe than they do domesticly.

All you have to do is look at real life to see their is no randomness in football. Same in the game in my view. Its down to YOU, YOUR tactics, YOUR players, YOUR choices. Outside factors will contribute though such as injuries, suspensions, touchline bans, finances, morale.

You should be able to control the game completely, if you are good enough or smart enough in FM, you should always be able to finish first and win every game

Whoa. Brilliant :thdn:

If you take the references to Football Manager 2009 out of these posts, you're left with a debate very much akin to the centuries-old philosophical debate on free will vs. determinism.

The latter suggests that if we could only discover the finer points of the fixed deterministic laws of nature, we could predict with 100% accuracy all future events and thus maximise their benefits to bring about a perfect world.

The contrary case is that the laws are not fixed at all but at the most extreme levels (the quantum world), random.

Somewhere between the two we could deduce that even if the laws are ultimately fixed, with our limited, finite minds we can never know all the complex variables and their relationships, thus to us the world must appear non-deterministic.

By the way, I use the term 'non-deterministic' rather then 'random'; 'random' suggest no order at all, which no one is advocating.

I just offer these thoughts, as a philosophy professor, to put this discussion into a little wider context. It's worth concluding with the observation that after millennia of philosophical debate, no consensus has been reached; thus, the chances of universal agreement over the "randonmess" or otherwise of FM09 is minimal, to say the least.

PS for me, despite nit-picking at wwfan's thread title, I'm with him on the issue.

We could debate the doomed hope of telos of enlightened Western philosophy and the seductive but illusory nature of positivist theory if you wish, but I think the thread will get closed. Best stick to football I think

I approach this from the point of view of playability.

It is not necessarily the case that the closer to reality you get, the better the game is as a game.

When playing FM one is faced with a succession of conundrums. Each match is a mini game in itself and one (obviously) attempts to win it. I am not a member of the 'one tactic for all matches' school, as I enjoy attempting to turn things round if they appear to be going wrong and this, for me, is a large part of the point of the game.

The degree of randomness is crucial here for me. If the number of 'extraneous' factors (whether they are the 'butterfly effect', the weather, media considerations or whatever) reaches a point where my tactical input and the quality of the players on each side are not the major factors in determining the result of the match, then I believe that, however 'realistic' this may be, this detracts from the viability of FM as a game. And I think that, with its ever growing complexity, FM is in some danger of reaching this point.

A certain randomness is essential, otherwise upsets would never occur and that would mean that I (currently managing Bognor Regis, masochist that I am!) could never expect to beat a much better team or enjoy a cup run. However, for me, this needs to be limited enough so that there is a sufficient degree of logic in the matches to satisfy my need to feel that my input and the quality of the squad which I have assembled are going to be, in general, the most important elements in the equation.

However enthusiastic Sfraser may be, he must acknowledge that there is a group of erstwhile purchasers of the FM series who are expressing doubts about the 'fun' factor in this game. I believe that a feeling of lack of control, of being at the mercy of events is a significant part of this feeling.

The game strives to be realistic through randomness and yet is utterly unrealistic in other areas. For example, the player search function makes it ridiculously easy to assemble a good squad of players (that's why I use LLM guidelines; for me, an essential part of the game having some sort of authenticity is using scouts). Nevertheless, the important question for me is not so much, 'Is it realistic?' as, 'Is it as much fun to play as it should be?' and the balance of randomness makes me conclude that, for me anyway, it isn't.

We could debate the doomed hope of telos of enlightened Western philosophy and the seductive but illusory nature of positivist theory if you wish, but I think the thread will get closed. Best stick to football I think

Philosophy is about the meanings of words. However, my husband has called it 'mental indigestion', which is actually not a bad analogy at all!

Philosophy is about the meanings of words. However, my husband has called it 'mental indigestion', which is actually not a bad analogy at all!

Thanks a lot for that , even if wrong on all accounts

To paraphrase Albert Camus, the Existentialist philosopher who kept goal for Algeria, "All I ever learnt about obligation and philosophy, I learnt from football." Today he might say 'Football Manager'.

Let's swiftly move on ........

I have one argument I like to use in these threads, and that is that is has been calculated by a well reknowned economist (Stephen/Steven Levitt I believe), that sports results can be highly reliant on luck. It is not significantly unlikely for 15 straight defeats to all be due to bad luck. Anyone with knowledge of statistics will know that any theory, correlation or difference is tested to degrees of confidence to determine whether there is anything of statistic merit to draw from your results. Add to this the "butterfly" affect of confidence, motivation, fitness, player gelling, teamwork and the other team's abilities and you leave yourself with a LOT left to chance. For example, we all consider our team's performance, but do you ever consider that you may just have caught the oppo on a good or a bad day if you trounce them, or get hammered respectively? If you were really unlucky, you could face EVERY team when they are on a good day, even if you have an equally strong team, your likely to be beaten in, or draw, a fair few of the games.

Thanks a lot for that , even if wrong on all accounts

To paraphrase Albert Camus, the Existentialist philosopher who kept goal for Algeria, "All I ever learnt about obligation and philosophy, I learnt from football." Today he might say 'Football Manager'.

Let's swiftly move on ........

Well, I am not a philosophy professor, but I do have a first class honours degree in the subject so I am by no means accepting your 'argument from authority'. However, as you say, we had better move on!

A J Ayer was, of course, an avid football fan!

Hammer, I understand your point made in post #6 and I agree for the most part.

I would also like to just have one single tactic that somehow works. Not because it would make things easier, but because it just takes so much time. Having to dig deep into tactics for every match, looking at the opponent's side, singling out its strengths and weaknesses and then tweaking tactics while also taking into consideration if the replacement MCa coming in for my suspended captain has a higher long shots or jumping/heading or lower and then tweaking individual instructions is no fun.

It's utterly realistic and no one would imagine any rl manager could have success without dealing with any individual player and his qualities separately and without ever tweaking his tactic. But in a video game, that part is no fun if it has to be done so extensively if you want to have success (and everybody wants that).

However, here I think we are talking about the tactical interface of the game and an area which we know SI look at as the biggest priority.

When talking about randomness, that matter is not important to me at all. Looking at how random real life football is, the game reflects that very well. I understand wwfan's argument and fully support it. If doing things the same way would always lead to more or less the same results, then playing the game would neither be a challenge nor fun. It would just be about finding 'the way' and then applying it. Once you've done that, you might still watch it playing out over a few seasons, but then what is left to do? What is left to achieve? It would be like playing Half-Life. Done once with great pleasure, maybe a second go for the fun of it, then bin it. Not what I'm looking for in FM.

FM even offers more depth than that, accomodating different styles of play in different nations. That makes it even more unlikely that a single tactic would work everywhere. Same with different teams, different signings and different number of signings as seen in the initial example. While Liverpool might usually be 3rd and under- and overachieved a bit, West Ham might be 8th with that squad and over- and underachieved a bit. The fact that not everything always goes as planned is a strength of FM to me. Back in the CM days there was never a season in which things went wrong and you always knew that with your good signings things would improve. But that's not how rl works.

While I would like less hassle with tactics that does not mean that I don't want realism. Someone who is knowledgable and takes the time to tweak every little thing should always have the head start he deserves, just maybe a smaller one.

Wanting realism also includes randomness. Real life football is incredibly random. Hitting or missing a goal, a wrong call by the ref, a card given or not given. Any smallest thing will totally alter the game's progress. I don't feel FM is more random than real life at all. Nor should it be less random.

We could debate the doomed hope of telos of enlightened Western philosophy and the seductive but illusory nature of positivist theory if you wish, but I think the thread will get closed. Best stick to football I think

Now that sounds like something out of a Monty Python sketch. Best not go there.

Wanting realism also includes randomness. Real life football is incredibly random. Hitting or missing a goal, a wrong call by the ref, a card given or not given. Any smallest thing will totally alter the game's progress. I don't feel FM is more random than real life at all. Nor should it be less random.

I suppose it depends on what one is looking for.

For you, obviously realism is very important and that must equal fun for you.

For others, that isn't necessarily the case. If the random element becomes too pronounced for them, FM as a computer game (as opposed to a reality sim) becomes less attractive than they would wish. Those people (amongst whom I count myself and, I suspect, the same applies to Hammer) would rather it were less 'realistic' and that they had more control.

For me, the initial poll is slightly flawed - as it assumes Garry's second season woes are a result of "randomness".

That may or may not be the case, its impossible to say without in depth analysis.

But should the game involve "randomness", or "luck"? Damn right! Main thing to remember is that all randomness in FM's ME is weighted according to the situation at hand.

It's a matter of degree, though Paul.

But, there again, we've had this discussion before!

I suppose it depends on what one is looking for.

For you, obviously realism is very important and that must equal fun for you.

For others, that isn't necessarily the case. If the random element becomes too pronounced for them, FM as a computer game (as opposed to a reality sim) becomes less attractive than they would wish. Those people (amongst whom I count myself and, I suspect, the same applies to Hammer) would rather it were less 'realistic' and that they had more control.

Not quite.

As I said tactics are one part of the game which are very realistic, but no fun.

There is also a second issue with tactics, which is if they are all that realistic at all, looking at the widespread feeling of having no control. But that's a different thing.

Yet the questions whether realism equals fun (to which I would agree in most points) is not the main thread topic really, though a bit related.

My point is that FM shouldn't be a lot less random than real life. I'm not going to start giving rl examples of over- or underachieving teams or title winning surprises as I guess that the randomness of rl football needs no proof to the experts in here.

The reason why FM should not be less random than real life was in my previous post as well. The game would quickly lose its appeal and challenge like an ego-shooter or an adventure game once you have played the campaign once. (finding a well-working tactic equalling the finish of the campaign here)

For me, the initial poll is slightly flawed - as it assumes Garry's second season woes are a result of "randomness".

That may or may not be the case, its impossible to say without in depth analysis.

True. Buying many players for West Ham pre season 2 while just 3 for Liverpool may hint to a squad gelling issue (assumed difference in squad quality even in the seond year still left apart) being partly respondible for the results.

For me, the initial poll is slightly flawed - as it assumes Garry's second season woes are a result of "randomness".

That may or may not be the case, its impossible to say without in depth analysis.

But should the game involve "randomness", or "luck"? Damn right! Main thing to remember is that all randomness in FM's ME is weighted according to the situation at hand.

What kind of "randomness" are we talking about here though? True randomness where there is no causal connection between the results of one season and the next, where the "spanner in the works" so to speak is the true random generation of results rather than the interaction of multiple, complex non-random factors? I do not know the match engine in enough detail to know the extent that randomly generated values play within the game, but I would view significantly influential random factors as a questionable design premise. Having said that, Snap! is a popular card game.

My point is that FM shouldn't be a lot less random than real life. I'm not going to start giving rl examples of over- or underachieving teams or title winning surprises as I guess that the randomness of rl football needs no proof to the experts in here.

The reason why FM should not be less random than real life was in my previous post as well. The game would quickly lose its appeal and challenge like an ego-shooter or an adventure game once you have played the campaign once. (finding a well-working tactic equalling the finish of the campaign here)

I see no reason why the amount of randomness has to replicate real life in order for the game to retain its appeal.

As I said previously, the game is in danger of losing appeal to a considerable number of people because of the current level of randomness. Whether or not that is a 'realistic' level is basically

irrelevant.

Edit: in any event, it is only an assumption that FM's level of randomness mirrors real life. How one would ever go about establishing that the 'randomness factor' was spot on is most unclear to me. It seems to me that it would be almost unquantifiable anyway.

it is only an assumption that FM's level of randomness mirrors real life. How one would ever go about establishing that the 'randomness factor' was spot on is most unclear to me. It seems to me that it would be almost unquantifiable anyway.

Ah no; this actually relates to 'soft determinism' to continue my earlier analysis.

Back on track - SI do a lot of statistical research to ensure the game replicates real life. Thus it is that PaulC claims that the number of injuries, shots on target etc in the game -as managed by the AI - closely resembles real life (never 'spot on', but close enough). What is random is that whilst the game might be coded to average say 1.5 injuries per match, you cannot know how many injuries will be in any specific match or who will be injured; that is 'random'.

Add to that the human manager's 'free will' to overload the players' training and push them too hard in the matches, and the 'determined' figure is altered but quite non-random factors.

The deeper the gamer can understand the 'mind of God' (i.e. the FM coding), the better he/she will be able to optimise results, but no one (including the programmers) will attain perfection due to this soft deterministic factor. Even PaulC can find his season disrupted by a long-term injury to his key player due to unfortunate 'random' factors.

What kind of "randomness" are we talking about here though? True randomness where there is no causal connection between the results of one season and the next, where the "spanner in the works" so to speak is the true random generation of results rather than the interaction of multiple, complex non-random factors? I do not know the match engine in enough detail to know the extent that randomly generated values play within the game, but I would view significantly influential random factors as a questionable design premise. Having said that, Snap! is a popular card game.

That's exactly right, which is why I said above that we shouldn't use the term 'random'; rather, the accurate term is 'non-deterministic'. However, let's accept that we don't all have obscure philosophical terminology on the tips of our tongues or typing fingers; we know what people mean here when they use the term 'random'.

we know what people mean here when they use the term 'random'.

Are you sure of that? A definition of what we mean by 'random' in the context of FM would be useful to avoid ambiguity and misunderstanding I think . And I agree with Sfraser that making 'randomness' an integral part of the design process is a dubious concept. It is too easy to use this idea as an excuse for deficiencies in the game (although I am sure that this is the last thing which SI have in mind, I hasten to add).

I sometimes am convinced that there is an inbuilt 'buggeration' factor which somehow ensures that the 'random' events (which average out, it is claimed, of course) have a habit of occurring at the most inopportune moment possible (so you have 4 injuries in one vital match just to get the random overall luck factor right, for example). I suspect that this is paranoia on my part, however!

For me, the initial poll is slightly flawed - as it assumes Garry's second season woes are a result of "randomness".

That may or may not be the case, its impossible to say without in depth analysis.

But should the game involve "randomness", or "luck"? Damn right! Main thing to remember is that all randomness in FM's ME is weighted according to the situation at hand.

I totally agree that there has to be SOME element of luck and even randomness to a certain extent, this randomness though should be generated by individual players performances which WOULD be realistic.

There is a massive part of this whole issue being overlooked here and this is largely down to the fact that Rich only takes ONEthing into considertaion when arguing his point and that is that this is all down to the fact that i am using just a single tactic and that goes against everything he personally believes this game is about, even though until very recently this was basically how everyone was playing the game.

Then came the need to use SUS tactics and those tactics needed to press for a late equaliser or winner and now FM09 where whoever it was that made the decision? it was now being suggested that you must make changes several times a game and that this was the future of FM.

I will continue to oppose this in some form, because of the same blatant issue that i have clearly stated on numerous occasions...TIME...

Many FM'ers like myself who have continued to support and purchase this game release after release(many like myself from day one) will be forced to quit playing altogether, as the game becomes too time consuming for those with any kind of life outside FM to be worth purchasing?

The other issue is indeed being looked at and an attempt is being made in the form of the Tactical Wizard to allay some fears. I'm still not entirely sure how this will be of enough help to those who simply dont know what tactical tweak to make in any given situation? but its a start.

The very fact that SI have felt a need to introduce the Tactical Wizard is enough to tell me that there are a massive amount of FM'ers who just dont get the tactical side of the game at all(even if they have a reasonably good idea of real life tactics and scenarios?) does this not then suggest that this need now to make numerous in match tweaks is further alienating a large percentage of FM'ers who dont know how or why they are having to make such tweaks?

As for the part of this issue being overlooked that i mentioned earlier, is it too difficult to assume that after playing this game year after year and already six months into FM09, that i actually have some kind of a handle on the other Managerial requirements that this game proffesses to be important to a teams success, like Man Management, player purchase, team talks(yes i leave it to the Ass Man, but i make changes when necessary as i know how my players respond) and all the many other Managerial decisions that need to be made, that are "allegedly" important to succeed?

My previous success would suggest that this is the case would it not?

Rich(and most of those posting in this thread) turns the whole thing into just one underlying problem, the fact that i am using just a single tactic. What about all the other parts that are supposed to make up being a successful Manager in this game? i'm good at everything else, so why is this minor tactical adaptation flaw turning certain seasons of my game into such a random game of chance? why can i turn a dissapointing season with Liverpool into a quadruple the following season? and why after a massive overachievement with West Ham one season, was the second season so full of random performances with a massively improved squad?....

.....Why?....because apparently its all down to the fact that i used just a single tactic, that in almost every FM gone by, was quite enough, especially when you were good at all the other parts of your job as Manager?

Randomness can be both a strength and weakness in the game. We certainly need to have randomness, otherwise the game would get stale pretty quickly but there also needs to be the right balance to make sure there’s not too much randomness otherwise you’ll never get the sense of having some sort of influence over events in the game. At the moment I feel FM is leaning towards the latter.

I’m more of a casual FM gamer these days so don’t have the time I used to go through any great level of detail setting up different tactics, scouting the opposition, setting opposition instructions and so on and so forth. My vision for FM is pretty simplistic as follows…

I’ll choose a team I want to manage and depending on the ability of my players I expect to perform around about the level of players at my disposal. Pick a mid-table side and I expect to get mixed results and finish around mid-table, pick a relegation side and I expect to battle against relegation and pick a title chasing side and I expect to be, well, chasing the title.

Progression for me will often be made through improving the squad. Take my mid-table side and start to replace the mid-table players with top 6 players and I’ll start pushing for the top 6 then replace my top 6 players with top 4 players and I’ll start pushing for the top 4 then replace top 4 players with the best players in the world and I’ll start pushing for titles, European glory etc.

However, what I don’t want to do is play FM as I currently do where I have a mid-table team and have to put in loads of time and effort just to make them finish mid-table. Fair enough if I want to do a Hull and go to Arsenal and win then I’ll happily agree to go into tactical complexity to make sure I enhance my strengths and exploit their weaknesses but for me I just want to go to Arsenal expecting to lose while being confident of playing West Brom at home and picking up three points.

The game should have randomness inserted in my vision, but it shouldn’t be the case of being ‘too’ random. While I expect the odd freak result along the way, both for and against me, I can’t accept too many freak results as being the norm.

Team talks has to be one of the most random occurrences in the game and I also feel it’s one of the most poorly implemented aspects. I know there are a number of factors which determine reactions to team talks, but there is still some sort of random element involved which totally skews the match engine and takes precedence over tactics, form, morale, opposition etc.

Losing 3-0 away to Chelsea and without a solitary shot on goal I tell the team I expect better and one or two players I’m disappointed in them and go on to batter Chelsea second half and draw 3-3, despite not making any tactical changes or substitutions. That’s the sort of random effect I really don’t want to see, as it goes against everything else. A few weeks later I could be losing 1-0 at home to Stoke and say I’m disappointed and have nothing noted and go out to lose the game.

I don’t expect my team talks to have the same effect every time but it shouldn’t be as random as it is now.

True. Buying many players for West Ham pre season 2 while just 3 for Liverpool may hint to a squad gelling issue (assumed difference in squad quality even in the seond year still left apart) being partly respondible for the results.

That is also without considering the other factors that could have affected the results for either West Ham or Liverpool such as injuries and suspensions to both the Human and AI teams throughout the season plus the fact that because Liverpool have a superior side then the AI will find it harder to stop them playing and the fact that Hammer1000 doesn't change his tactic when the AI does would have a greater influence on the individual games when playing as West Ham because there would be more games that the AI is of equal or greater standard in terms of team strength.

One point that I did pick up on was that Hammer1000 either didn't finish season two with Liverpool or hasn't updated us with exactly how it ended. My point is that maybe in the second half of the season the wheels may have/will come off the Liverpool steam train and they may not have ended up dominating as the first half of the season might have suggested. Could you let us know how it went Hammer1000?

I've not read all the comments, but I'm not sure I'd describe Hammer1000's problems as random, just realistic parts of the game.

Having taken Leicester City from League One to the Premier League title I felt that the way the AI reacted to the progress of the club was realistic. In 4 years in the top flight I've gone from defending most of the time when I was first promoted and just trying to stay up, to attacking most of the time as the opposition played more defensively.

In terms of squad gelling I also feel that is realistic. In my 2nd Championship season I struggled for a while, but once the squad gelled we improved and just missed out on the play-offs. Realising how well my team was playing at the end of that season I hardly changed anything for the next season and was promoted automatically.

In my 3rd Premiership season I finished 2nd, and again realising we were on the verge of something great I only signed 3 players, one of whom was a reserve goalkeeper. We subsequently won the league, finishing ahead of the previously unbeatable Arsenal, won the FA Cup and reached the Champions League semi-finals.

That's not randomness, it's because I made good managerial decisions, and adapted my tactics when I needed to. FM would be rubbish if one tactic could work for every team regardless of ability or personnel.

FM would be rubbish if one tactic could work for every team regardless of ability or personnel.

I totally agree, no offence, but as have many others who have posted in this thread, you have managed to completely misinterpret my side of this argument.

This "could" have been a very good discussion if less people would jump on bandwagons? shame

Hammer, while I still fully agree regarding the time issue, I still fail to understand in which way this is connected to randomness. Care to elaborate for the apparently stupid?

Rupal, I agree that there is no scientific study about it and there probably can't be, but I feel that it's about the same level of randomness right now.

As an rl example: My club is now 4th in the league and continuing to perform like we did so far, we might end up being champions or fail to qualify for Europe by finishing 6th. Also we might easily have been in one of those positions now. It has been just a few odd goals or missed goals which made the difference between glory and total failure so far.

We might disagree if that should be reflected by FM. I feel it should, although I see which issue one might have if an achievement was never 100% your own, nor was your failure. As long as you don't feel the your instructions are meaningless or just unimportant for that reason, I see nothing wrong. Our work is determining the odds and how it plays out must include a bit of randomness for as long as we are not player managers.