Official FM2011 Match Engine Feedback Thread

Am very pleased that ME got his own thread as for me ME is the most important thing in FM. I didn't play the DEMO much at all (due to technical porblems ), but from what I did see, it's the best one so far ever for me.

KUTGW Paul.

Cheers.

Paul, maybe u can help with this. Does the ME recognise the seasons. For example a game played in July at 19.45 will be light, and then a game played in Oct at 19.45 will be dark?

I've noticed that when an opposing winger is running up the pitch, it's my defensive midfielder who will stray from his position and close him down, while my full back will just stand there watching.

Centre backs will occasionally charge out to the halfway line to challenge for a header or close down a midfielder, leaving their man in acres of space near the penalty area.

Also, when a team breaks and it's 2 attackers versus 2 defenders, and one of the attackers is running wide with the ball, both of the defenders will converge on him, leaving the other attacker completely open.

Also, I've noticed the following pattern: when the ball is played to a forward who is standing in the middle of the pitch, between two opposing centre backs, like this:

DC       DC

    FC

the centre backs seem really slow in closing down the attacker with the ball, rather they just stand there and watch, giving him plenty of time to either shoot from distance or try and run between them.

And finally, I would tone the effectiveness of dribbling a little bit, I've seen forwards running around defenders like training cones a bit too regularly for my liking.

As with every new version the general play looks better than before.

However, I have noticed an unrealistically high number of shots from just outside the box that are hit straight at the keeper when one on one. This occurs with through balls behind the defence and with strikers running through the defence. The keeper will rush out and the striker will hit it at him. I'd expect to see far more lobs, rounding of the keeper, or placing it in the bottom corner.

Also, average strikers are terrible. If a player has moderate pace and height and moderate finishing they'll hardly ever score. You're better off with a quick but otherwise rubbish player. This isn't just a v11 issue, it was true with v10.3 as well.

This may or may not be a ME issue but I also noted that off form players perform terribly, as they should. This becomes an issue because players reach Very Poor far too easily. Playing as Palace I had an OK pre season, then lost the last couple of games. At the start of the season I now had at least half my first team on Very Poor. I hadn't given any out of the ordinary team talks or press conferences, so it seems to be based on losing a couple of friendlies. In that save I quit after 5 league games having only scored one goal - a penalty. In that time I had plenty of chances including two penalties and an open goal.

To solve this it seems that either

ME fix - Make morale have less of an impact

Non ME fix (my preferred solution) - Only allow morale to drop very low for good reason - i.e. if player is unhappy, season going very badly, or something like that. Individual results and player performance are way too important.

This is only based on a few hours play, so don't pay too much attention - it's just my initial thoughts.

On every one on one situation the goalkeeper rushes out almost out of the box, the 2D classic is laging but the 3D doesn't? That's all for now.

I like the look a lot and wide play seems a lot better.

I do seem to be getting a lot of goals from corners.

My issue is with corners. I have Sneijder taking them. His stats are corners and decisions 16 and technique and crossing 17. Compsure and Concentration are 15. And yet he never beats the first man taking corners, whether aiming at penalty area, 6-yard box or just mixed!

I noticed the same thing when he took a wide free kick i.e. one treated like a corner. His free kicks is 18.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Otherwise the engine and the 3d visualisation looks really good so far - about 4 matches in. Love the headed goals and goalmouth scrambles, big features of football that were barely featured in the last game.

In the few games I've played in the Premier League in the demo (admitedly only pre-season friendlies) the goalkeepers don't seem to control the angles too well. Several times I have seen a forward run down the channel in the penalty area past the keeper who stands on the six yard line and watches as the forward just slots the ball into the now ungarded net from out wide.

As and when I know what changes are going into any of the forthcoming patches I will update you in here btw.....

Great news, I have subscribed to this thread, I really look forward to see what will be the difference between 10.3 and 11.0 and 11.1. I haven't done enough game so far to check an issue, but my main "problem" was FB marking behaviors, hope it is sort out.

KUTGW

match enging has been faultless so far for me

First of all, I must say I like the new match engine.

I feel that the amount of cards has been increased? After the 16th matchday, there have been 45 red cards, 5 guys were even sent off twice. This is a ratio of almost 3 players per matchday. I just checked the stats for the Bundesliga this season and it's 1 red card/matchday. As for the yellow-cards I can't count them but the top 5 players have 7 or more yellow cards. This seems a bit too much for me.

I also noticed that at times the defenders are too passive, allowing the AMs to attempt long-range shots too often.

If I noticed it correctly, positioning is an even more important stat now. Sometimes GK's with a low stat really look lost and also weaker oppositions can be outplayed by a good pass more easily now.

, the 2D classic is laging but the 3D doesn't...

I see the same thing.

I've noticed DM/Anchormen doing some strange things like running off up the pitch to mark a player when the ball has been launched towards our own goal. I've tried setting him too zonal marking with no effect and very defensive with low closing down but it still seems to happen, obviously a problem there.

Players beating players far too easily. Marlon Harewood turned into Maradonna against me and left my defenders for dead time after time (I was Liverpool). I think maybe there is a little to much emphasis on pace? Can't quite put my finger on it but my forwards are destroying some teams when running with the ball, they seem to beat there man far too often and far too easily.

match enging has been faultless so far for me

Same here!

Although is there a problem with Playmakers. Not getting involved as much as they should in my opinion

the trouble with computer games and the ME in FM, nothing will ever resemble real life.. there only seem to be certain tactics which work well enough to win leagues. in the end we all end up playing the same way to find success, some better than others..

In real life when setting team tactics it's not a computer program that define's if they work, In computer games such as FM you have to play the way which best exploits the ME, if you dont know what them exploits are you bum out basicly. i dont feel there is enough scope to be succesfull with a wider range of tactic instructions..

There's something a bit off about the goalkeepers in one-on-one situations.

More often than not, whenever I have a striker that's one-on-one with the keeper the keeper always charges out right to the edge of the penalty area and stands in a relatively poor position, making it ridiculously easy for my striker to score. The majority of my goals so far have come from these sorts of situations. I've conceded a few like it as well. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm certain most goalkeepers don't charge out that far and look to make the angle as small as possible and most one-on-one's are not scored from 20 yards.

Another thing, though I'm not sure if this is an error, is that there seems to be a high amount of goals from crosses. Some of my most awful crossers of the ball have consistantly put in excellent crosses right across the egde of the six yard box and I've profited from it many times. Defenders never seem to deal with them well either; the striker always gets to the ball first.

- Crossing/wing-play seems so much better.

- Pace seems still too effective and defenders seem turned far too easily.

- Fullbacks getting in hard on their man and not letting them past and then challenging them seems better, and defensive covering (eg. fullbacks moving across) seems much improved.

- Finishing seems a bit indifferent. Powerfully hit efforts or those shots taken while running seem to be going far off-target a bit too often and very rarely go in. Also seem to be a lot of instances of players hitting shots wildly wide from close to goal.

- That said, long shooting seems much improved and looks much better graphically. Also shots going in the side netting or agonizingly wide seem more realistic.

- The ability for excellent players, midfielders especially, to really stand out seems very good.

- Too many goals from corners?

delap's long throws and corners are too low.

it seems that players can't tackle unless they run at the player with the ball, this is the reason that players can run around defenders not that dribbling is too effective.

goalkeepers don't cover their near post.

I mentioned this in another thread, but it's definitely more relevant here. I've witnessed a few really bad goalkeeping blunders that'd never happen in real life. Things like a goalkeeper bending down slowly to pick up the ball while an opposition player is right on top of him, resulting in the goalkeeper missing the ball and the opposition player scoring. Also, a keeper running way out of the box to try and clear the ball when the opposition player is being well marked, then the opposition player making a simple pass to his teammate, who shoots the ball into the open goal.

Im seeing quite abit of crads, in early september have had liek 3 or 4 red cards already, and conceided 2 penalties..

Maybe the agressive tackle setting has been tweaked, along with the personal opposition player instruction of going in hard on them has been made harder?

ME not as smooth as 10.3...not enough passing/passes even using barca and slow tempo & short passing etc...need to get that sorted for patch...using a trequartista as primary playmaker not as good as 10.3 where SI had got it just about perfect...play does not go thru trequartista as well as before. play seems a lot more disjointed where 10.3 was pretty seamless...a lot of elementary errors in key highlights which makes me wonder whats happening in the more mundane passages of play

ME not as smooth as 10.3...not enough passing/passes even using barca and slow tempo & short passing etc...need to get that sorted for patch...using a trequartista as primary playmaker not as good as 10.3 where SI had got it just about perfect...play does not go thru trequartista as well as before. play seems a lot more disjointed where 10.3 was pretty seamless...a lot of elementary errors in key highlights which makes me wonder whats happening in the more mundane passages of play

Yeah this problem will probably stop me from buying until sorted. Just played my first league game and my main playmaker (Paul Scholes) was never given the ball, had the ball around 30 times in 90 Minutes.

Even in Pre Season against lower league sides the figure did not rise much above 30

Now playing my first game. im 10 minutes in and already i can see a differance in ME and how thing'sa work so far i like it..

Thanks all, keep it coming.

As things stand there is no ME update in the day 1 patch due to the short turnaround period but that could change and if it does I will update in here.

I think ME need patch

It will get one, but if we cant get something better ready in time for release day it will be 11.2.

However most ME updates work with save games right? So in regrds to starting long term saves on release date ME issues arent the worst.

I have Nani / Giggs taking corners and they seem to hit the first man (closing down the short option) often. Anyone else have this? Seems a bit too much imo.

First of all, I must say I like the new match engine.

I feel that the amount of cards has been increased? After the 16th matchday, there have been 45 red cards, 5 guys were even sent off twice. This is a ratio of almost 3 players per matchday. I just checked the stats for the Bundesliga this season and it's 1 red card/matchday. As for the yellow-cards I can't count them but the top 5 players have 7 or more yellow cards. This seems a bit too much for me.

I also noticed that at times the defenders are too passive, allowing the AMs to attempt long-range shots too often.

If I noticed it correctly, positioning is an even more important stat now. Sometimes GK's with a low stat really look lost and also weaker oppositions can be outplayed by a good pass more easily now.

Yeah, I've noticed that cards have been given much more often.

I just started an Arsenal game, about 3 Premier League matches in, and I've gotten 2 red cards already!

And the funny thing is, Yellow cards come in hordes. It's as if once one person loses it and gets a yellow card, the rest of the team follows and gets 4 or 5 more yellow cards. Has anyone noticed this?

I like some of what I've been seeing in the matches this year. I love the fact that the wide men are more likely to cut towards the near post, rather than mindlessly keep staying wide even when unopposed. I have had more than one goal-mouth scramble, and scored from one of them; in the past it's always seemed that anything lucky going on didn't result in a score.

I have one over-arching complaint: WHEN ARE Y'ALL GONNA GET WHAT THE REFEREES AND THEIR ASSISTANTS DO RIGHT!!???? I mean, how hard is it to show the assistant with the flag in the proper hand, or having him indicate throw-in directions with the correct hand?? And can y'all please get the referee out of the way during the game a bit more often? Referees do make a pretty substantial effort to avoid being in the way in real life.

Finally, I'm WAY more happy with offside calls in this game. I've even seen what appears to be a clear example of a no-call on passive offside positioning. That NEVER happened last year. If it is actually true that y'all have fixed that part of offside calls, I'll personally send you a box of chocolates!!

Edited to add: Oh, and one more thing: stop showing replays of every yellow card issued. No one does that, not even the clueless morons at ESPN.

Some things I've noticed;

One on Ones are maybe a bit bias towards the GK again.

Playmakers don't seem to work at all. They always seem to end up with the lowest passes attempted on my team for some reason. This is with them playing at AMC and DMC, haven't tried anywhere else, and I haven't tried it for more than two games in each position yet.

Defenders still look a bit dumb. They stand too far apart when teams are playing through the middle and as a result it seems very easy for the ball to be played between them.

Playmakers don't seem to work at all. They always seem to end up with the lowest passes attempted on my team for some reason. This is with them playing at AMC and DMC, haven't tried anywhere else, and I haven't tried it for more than two games in each position yet.

I'm fielding Mikel Arteta as a playmaker in central midfield ( advanced playmaker attack with some alterations by sliders/options ) and he seems to be just fine. Just done with preseason and he scored and assisted two each in four friendlies. Can't ask for more to be honest Just signed Riquelme as well, so there is another option to test.

Two general remarks regarding my first impressions:

Off the ball movement seems a lot better than on FM10, especially for Inside Forwards. Quick direct play looks much more like real football, a substantial improvement.

Unfortunately the match engine still seems to be biased towards the English playstyle, players with high work rate and good physical stats are arguably performing better than they should. I.e. James Vaughan is scoring like crazy for me and that really should not be happening.

Edit: Arteta scored 2 goals and a 9.3 rating the first Premier League match, so may I suggest that playmakers allegedly not working is a tactics issue ?

Points

1.Goalkeepers although there less robotnic so to speak they follow the inital trajectory of the ball and if any divertion of the ball the still go after the inital ball and sometimes end up in the wrong postition in a unreal sence

2.Pens ... Seem to be one ever other game unfortunatly not quite a game stopper but not far off they seem to all go for me..

3..Poor player choice..... if i set my right footed as my left hand side midfield centre he seems to shoot at all times with his left foot instead of coming inside and using his stronger foot resulting in some very poor shots which would never be attempted irl.....

4..Tracking players runs need little tweeking as central midfielders tend to be pulled out of position when wide balls are played and i feel when we do not have the ball we tend to follow it kind of schoolboyish all players after 1 player...(pressing and marking has been tested and taken into account with no effect)

5..At times a few players on the ball seem to be moonwalking and lose possession of the ball match bug?????

6..a little one why does the ref blow his whistle for corners???? and it louder than 17000 cheering when a goal flys in....

7..Own Goals sergey below has it right 11 own goal in this time 9 were slight defelctions some off the keepers gloves trying to stop a shot...

overall i must say it the most playable demo since the incarnation of 3d and although thr player tracking and pressing and marking moduals seem a little out it a very good start....

i feel the game has more realism in 3d than in 10.3 but these issues need ironing out

ps this is after i have played 14 league games all at full highlights winning 8 and having 8 pens given

one other question i like the set piece modual however instead of the go forward option why can we not just put people into positions and also put exactly were we want the ball to go and also what trojectory....

it like the idea of it but feel it just a hollow idea at the moment

What's up with all the own goals? Seems like they're more common then they are in real life. Also ME seems to be registering some deflection goals as own goals when the shot was obviously on target before the deflection anyway.

Personally, I like the new goal celebrations. However, the match commentary doesn't add up with them- see, this happened a lot in the past versions, where a player is shown with outstretched arms running around and the commentary would say something like "He pumps his fist in the air" (I'm fairly certain this isn't exact, but the point remains)- no, he's running around with outstretched arms.

The same happens this year. Now, my player is shown sliding on his knees, while the commentary says "He pumps his fist in the air". This only bothers me because it was specifically advertised that celebration animations were a new addition, so why wasn't the commentary updated with it?

Not a game breaker, just a bit of a pet peeve of mine. It definitely bothers me more this year than last year because, again, I feel like the commentary should have been updated to reflect the new animations a bit better.

What's up with all the own goals? Seems like they're more common then they are in real life. Also ME seems to be registering some deflection goals as own goals when the shot was obviously on target before the deflection anyway.

This is so true!

Last year I thought they were too common, but in the demo it was ridiculous.

In this year's demo, I have had countless own goals in my favor, but only one against. Also, in one of the own goals, Iker Muniain scored, but some weak-ass deflection had it scored as an own goal. It was basically a moment like that Sneijder goal in the World Cup (no, can't remember the game, but I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about).

Sorry about the double post, I noticed the other post after posting the first time.

Some things I've noticed;

One on Ones are maybe a bit bias towards the GK again.

Playmakers don't seem to work at all. They always seem to end up with the lowest passes attempted on my team for some reason. This is with them playing at AMC and DMC, haven't tried anywhere else, and I haven't tried it for more than two games in each position yet.

Defenders still look a bit dumb. They stand too far apart when teams are playing through the middle and as a result it seems very easy for the ball to be played between them.

Yeah playmakers don't see the ball enough

the players skate or moonwalk as someone put it and thus seem slightly disjointed from the pitch sometimes tho ofcourse this is a small gripe i just cant get it out of my focus lol.

And where is my "fully 3d move the cam anywhere you want" feature ?? ... fm2018 ??

I've noticed that when an opposing winger is running up the pitch, it's my defensive midfielder who will stray from his position and close him down, while my full back will just stand there watching.

Centre backs will occasionally charge out to the halfway line to challenge for a header or close down a midfielder, leaving their man in acres of space near the penalty area.

Also, when a team breaks and it's 2 attackers versus 2 defenders, and one of the attackers is running wide with the ball, both of the defenders will converge on him, leaving the other attacker completely open.

Also, I've noticed the following pattern: when the ball is played to a forward who is standing in the middle of the pitch, between two opposing centre backs, like this:

DC       DC

    FC

the centre backs seem really slow in closing down the attacker with the ball, rather they just stand there and watch, giving him plenty of time to either shoot from distance or try and run between them.

And finally, I would tone the effectiveness of dribbling a little bit, I've seen forwards running around defenders like training cones a bit too regularly for my liking.

this all seems fine to me if youir midfielder is a roy keane type then he will try and cover every bit of ground.also the rest of what you say seems fine

As with every new version the general play looks better than before.

However, I have noticed an unrealistically high number of shots from just outside the box that are hit straight at the keeper when one on one. This occurs with through balls behind the defence and with strikers running through the defence. The keeper will rush out and the striker will hit it at him. I'd expect to see far more lobs, rounding of the keeper, or placing it in the bottom corner.

Also, average strikers are terrible. If a player has moderate pace and height and moderate finishing they'll hardly ever score. You're better off with a quick but otherwise rubbish player. This isn't just a v11 issue, it was true with v10.3 as well.

This may or may not be a ME issue but I also noted that off form players perform terribly, as they should. This becomes an issue because players reach Very Poor far too easily. Playing as Palace I had an OK pre season, then lost the last couple of games. At the start of the season I now had at least half my first team on Very Poor. I hadn't given any out of the ordinary team talks or press conferences, so it seems to be based on losing a couple of friendlies. In that save I quit after 5 league games having only scored one goal - a penalty. In that time I had plenty of chances including two penalties and an open goal.

To solve this it seems that either

ME fix - Make morale have less of an impact

Non ME fix (my preferred solution) - Only allow morale to drop very low for good reason - i.e. if player is unhappy, season going very badly, or something like that. Individual results and player performance are way too important.

This is only based on a few hours play, so don't pay too much attention - it's just my initial thoughts.

well not all players can show the range of say a bergkamp your in the championship saying the range of goals you want will be rare there after all the game can't have all players doing stuff like messi all the time.

Why is it that my fullback always see the ball most, one of them has twenty more passes than my midfield playmaker

Woodwork - seem to hit the post at least twice every game.

I'm still a fan of the 2D match screen but have noticed some stuttering in the past few editions. I've no plans to play the demo so can anyone report if the 2D match is smoother.

Please hire yourselves an in-house Quality Assurance team.

Another thing I've noticed. Too many free kicks at lower levels go straight out for throw ins/goal kicks.

ME not as smooth as 10.3...not enough passing/passes even using barca and slow tempo & short passing etc...need to get that sorted for patch...using a trequartista as primary playmaker not as good as 10.3 where SI had got it just about perfect...play does not go thru trequartista as well as before. play seems a lot more disjointed where 10.3 was pretty seamless...a lot of elementary errors in key highlights which makes me wonder whats happening in the more mundane passages of play

I'm having this issue as well. I thought that FM10 did a reasonably good job of this, but on FM11 my teams seem to be averaging about 100 passes less a game, which is a significant difference and also moving further away from what we see from teams who dominate the ball irl.

That said I haven't noticed any of the match engine doesn't seem to be throwing up stupid mistakes that I saw on FM10 (like a defender standing still doing nothing while being closed down or a player making a complete screw-up of a 5 yard pass in a dangerous area seemingly for no reason that so that the match engine had an excuse for me to give the ball away) so definite improvement in that aspect.