Lets Imagine That We Agree That Area's Of FM Need Work

Lets be honest, we all know at least this much to be true dont we? if SI have admitted it then so it must be, without going any further we must agree on this at least.

If not? walk away now.

If you are still reading and agree that SI have acknowledged certain parts of the game are buggy and still need work then its not too far a step to consider that the way the most difficult part of the game is put together may also contain some deficiencies?

Yes, i'm talking about the ME and largely the way it calculates results and performances.

If the following is possible? you must then make a simple leap of faith that there are obvious questions that ask if the most important and probably the most difficult part of the game to get right, the part that calculates results, is also largely misrepresented and riddled with errors.

I have already mentioned the first thing on my list and that is that teams like Hull, Bolton, Birmingham, Stoke and Wolves etc are all scouted as teams who "like to get the ball down and play possession football" we all know about this one and i can only reiterate that people understand just how off kilter based on realism this kind of statement actually is.

Just to add a couple more just so its understood that even what should be the most simple of things to get right are very much wrong are...

1. I have just played a season as Arsenal, i chose a single tactic and played out the season without a single tweak and came 3rd in the EPL(led with 2 games to go) got to the QTR Final of FA Cup and Semi Final of CL without doing nothing but holidaying between games then simply picking the team for each match and letting it play.

2. Having done the above, lost two continental coaches with newly signed contracts to both Wigan(relegated, finished 20th) and Sunderland(finished 14th) plus another National rated coach again to Sunderland.

These are just two of what are practically hundreds of some small insignificant issues, mixed with some other pretty major issues that we all know the game contains and as at least SOME of these issues are well known by SI and being remedied in a future patch i hope that you are still reading and understand that there is little to dissuage you from the fact that its not a big jump to consider that the part of the game that considers/calculates performances/results may also be way off the mark?

Now i am NOT saying here is proof and i am not yelling and screaming that the game cheats, i'm simply saying that certain visible parts of the game are admittedly off kilter, they are not quite right, so then its not difficult to come to the conclusion that whatever part of the game that calculates performances and results may also contain many of the same issues, thus not responding with a terribly realistic 2D/3D match to view.

Personally, i think this game is all over the place and does'nt really know what it wants to be? i can pick any top 6 side and know i'll be challenging for honours with just a single tactic untweaked throughout the season, yet i know i will struggle to put two wins together with a team just outside this bracket who may well contain the players but not the team rating of the teams and players above.

Personally, i think this game is all over the place and does'nt really know what it wants to be? i can pick any top 6 side and know i'll be challenging for honours with just a single tactic untweaked throughout the season, yet i know i will struggle to put two wins together with a team just outside this bracket who may well contain the players but not the team rating of the teams and players above.

I think the first part of you're post rambled a bit, but this part I absolutely agree with. Unfortunatly many one here won't and you'll probably get shouted down for the beginning of you're post.

Did SI also admit previously that results are "rigged" to make sure that over the course of the season things look realistic at the end? Thought I read that somewhere.

It's just that over the years they've tried to make the game do too much and most of the things it doesn't do to a high enough level.

Assuming that you are buying new players for the team outside the top six, the problem is obviously just that they take a while to gel. If you're not buying any new players then the problem is obviously that the players aren't good enough. Where's the bug?

Did SI also admit previously that results are "rigged" to make sure that over the course of the season things look realistic at the end? Thought I read that somewhere.

It's just that over the years they've tried to make the game do too much and most of the things it doesn't do to a high enough level.

I'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing, but SI have said that in leagues that are not played in higher detail i.e. not the ones you are playing in, the results are influenced by reputation as well in order to speed up the game processing speed.

Oh and about your statement of Birmingham not liking to pass the ball? Poppycocks.

You could have said that 2-3 seasons ago and more-so under Bruce but I feel McCleish and in particular Ferguson is getting us playing that way now. Maybe not particularly successful in doing so, but we 'look to' as the comment describes. Some of those teams however, I agree with or don't have the knowledge to say.

Press conferences need to be more INTERESTING!

Press conferences need to be more INTERESTING!

I think they're fine as they are, four questions and it's over. Usually no bad effects on your teams morale, and you can usually damage an opponents by saying "I wouldn't just focus on one player." There are other areas that need work before the press conferences.

I tell you what i'd like to know, just how results are worked out?

Like i've said, i can challenge for the title with any Top 6 Club in any league using a single tactic with no OI's and just holidaying between games, although i sometimes change my Ass Mans team talk, especially if he chooses "Pleased" at HT, i need minimal interaction bordering on the point of showing that all the features that we are made to believe bears SOME importance to performances are in fact window dressing and do very little if anything at all?

I would guess that the following are or are supposed to be important, but i'd like to know how much as a percentage each one has when the match result is being calculated?

Player Quality

Morale

Tactics

Team Talk

OI's

Luck

Ref Decisions

I'd guess i'm missing at least a couple there but you get the gist. Just how important is each one of the above when a result is calculated?

I have done tests on previous FM's that showed that OI's are practically useless, so i would imagine it only makes for a very slight difference, probably less than one percent.

As for team talks, these are a complete minefield, nobody seems to know how to use them to good effect and if i had the choice i would take them out/switch them off altogether.

Tactics however seem to hold by far the biggest influence when a result in FM is calculated, in fact i'd guess it was close to 90% if not more, its hard to argue with that when you all too often see poor teams with terrible players playing the most attractive of football even against the "Big Clubs" and their defences even if under heavy pressure being impossible to penetrate up against some of the most creative players in Football.

I think we are massively undereducated by the game, AI Managers all too often/always know exactly what to do in any given situation, whilst we must try to guess our way through it and what many of us may deem logical in a footballing sense, this may be completely illogical in game terms resulting in frustration and well, boredom really.

The game has taken a massive step backwards in terms of balance, just look at what "I" can achieve with nothing but a team and a tactic, there is absolutely no way i should be able to blitz through the game and win without rarely a glance even with the better teams, then with moderate teams barely able to survive relegation.

Its time to present us Human Managers with as much information as possible without spoonfeeding us a recipe for success, just to keep us interested in playing the game, because at the minute unless you are playing with a "Big Club" in whatever that division may be, we are just not in a position to challenge the AI.

Regression testing needs work, every year bugs appears that have been fixed in patches in the previous versions.

I know the common argument was that the new version is developed off the original version of the last version, as development starts before the end of the last.

But given the amount of time between the 930 and 10.0 was enormous, surely they could've retrofitted the fixes onto the trunk.

There is nothing more annoying at complaining about the SAME bug year after year.

- Penalty results during the game not corresponding with end result

- Closing down

- Long shots

We all know the last patch of each release is the most stable, but I can't understand why the first version is always worse than last year's final version.

Why can't the various fixes be merge back in and then tested rather than constantly fixing the same bug over and over again each year?

Why the 1 step forward 2 step back every year?

I'd like to agree with you but I cannot agree at all. You want them to tell you the receipt used to make the game as realistic as it can be to don't break down the gameplay. Of course the part about FM being bugged I agree with. But do not expect them to give you any percentage values of what is important to calculate the game result. It is all about the code. I think the code was being changed over the years but they can't just replace it and start from scratch. There are some major issues which should be looked at. But I think you are not neutral in this case. You may say you can chellenge the title going on holiday. But did you try to play normally? Maybe you could easily beat everyone and win the title with the advantage of xx points. It is all about the point of view. I also agree that AI managers always know what is going on and what to do, not always works but it is true. I'd wish to see players having an argue with their coach or situations like that or managers struggling to find a good solution to get back into the game which is controlled by the opponent. But you can't tell ME cheats. It is just a huge block of code and does what was told. The ME of FM09 was too complex and people were complaining about it. In my opinion the complexity of the visible part is now limited and it is pretty much fine, however that 'invisible' part of the code, yes, there may be something wrong with it, it may be too predictable, etc. But still it is only code. In my opinion instead of clearing the rules and making the ME 'easier to understand' SI should add more complexity and more random factors, even stupid slipping and and factors not based on any aspect of players, tactics, morale and day performance - just like in real world. Yes, people will get angry about their defenders making silly mistakes, but they'll accept it as a part of the game unlike the predicatbility and 'robotic ai'. But if you expect them to tell you exactly how the ME works - don't be silly. I am pretty sure any of them don't exactly know how the whole ME works as it is way too complex (you can notice that by seeing it is not perfect - easy things can be easily fixed, but ME requires much effort to tweak things to make it better rather than worse).

I'd like to agree with you but I cannot agree at all. You want them to tell you the receipt used to make the game as realistic as it can be to don't break down the gameplay. Of course the part about FM being bugged I agree with. But do not expect them to give you any percentage values of what is important to calculate the game result. It is all about the code. I think the code was being changed over the years but they can't just replace it and start from scratch. There are some major issues which should be looked at. But I think you are not neutral in this case. You may say you can chellenge the title going on holiday. But did you try to play normally? Maybe you could easily beat everyone and win the title with the advantage of xx points. It is all about the point of view. I also agree that AI managers always know what is going on and what to do, not always works but it is true. I'd wish to see players having an argue with their coach or situations like that or managers struggling to find a good solution to get back into the game which is controlled by the opponent. But you can't tell ME cheats. It is just a huge block of code and does what was told. The ME of FM09 was too complex and people were complaining about it. In my opinion the complexity of the visible part is now limited and it is pretty much fine, however that 'invisible' part of the code, yes, there may be something wrong with it, it may be too predictable, etc. But still it is only code. In my opinion instead of clearing the rules and making the ME 'easier to understand' SI should add more complexity and more random factors, even stupid slipping and and factors not based on any aspect of players, tactics, morale and day performance - just like in real world. Yes, people will get angry about their defenders making silly mistakes, but they'll accept it as a part of the game unlike the predicatbility and 'robotic ai'. But if you expect them to tell you exactly how the ME works - don't be silly. I am pretty sure any of them don't exactly know how the whole ME works as it is way too complex (you can notice that by seeing it is not perfect - easy things can be easily fixed, but ME requires much effort to tweak things to make it better rather than worse).

Sorry mate, but that post is hard to read, i'm not having ago at your English as it is obviously not your first language and as such is rather good, but it needs the odd paragraph here and there to break up the mass of sentences.