The AI, an elastic band? Maybe...

Hi Guys

Recently there's been a few threads that have caught my attention relating to the AI as 'alastic'. What I interpreted this to mean in light of my experience (whether correctly or not), was that the AI's performance was able to 'stretch' out to match your teams form or ability in the league.

For example. Your team Rovers are having a great season in the Premier League, 33 games played and on 86 points. This form continued will leave you on 99 points. In most instances this would have already won you the league, but United too, are having a good season and are on 84 points.

I conducted a set of 'events' im hesitant to use the word experiment, whereby in the last 5 games of the season, i would fix results and monitor what the team in second place achieved.

Season 2012

Table

1st - Rovers P33 - Points 86

2nd - United P33 - Points 84

In the first set i purposely lost all games:

0 - Rovers V - T1 3

0 - Rovers V - T2 4

4 - T3 V Rovers - 0

1 - Rovers V T4 - 3

0 - Rovers V T5 - 4

United results: L3 D1 W1

In the second set, i played and won all my games, (by reloading the game till I won)

Rovers 1 - T1 0

Rovers 3 V T2 1

T3 2 V Rovers 3

1 Rovers V T4 0

2 Rovers V T5 1

Uniteds results: P5 W5.

I repeated this as many as 10 times on each set:

On Average:

When I purposely lost all 5 games. Uniteds Avg points where just 6

When I Won all 5 games. Uniteds Avg points where 13

Now obviously you can interpret this however you want, i'm not making suggestions or accusations. I would also like to say there were some faults with my method, with just one season as a sample and measuring the results of just 1 team rather than the AI as a whole.

Now this would arguably happen in real life too, United can see that Rovers are dropping points and may ease up and become complacent dropping points themselves, however i would question whether to this extent...

Thanks

I have noticed this too in past versions of FM. I noticed it when a championship would be nearing it's end, the top clubs would stop performing for about 5 maybe 6 matches, to give me time to get above them.

I've been convinced of this theory since CM3 onwards - No matter how well you do, you'll always have competition

Wow - since when did the PL have 39 game seasons? (34 + 5 = 39) No wonder you won the league........

And for the serious reply - what a load of cobblers - I just won the league with 6 games to spare and have done the last 3 years. Theory disproved therefore I'm afraid

What IS unrealistic however is that the bottom couple of clubs get so few points - Watford got 6 in total for example in my last season (and that was having won their opening match!)

Wow - since when did the PL have 39 game seasons? (34 + 5 = 39) No wonder you won the league........

Ha, thanks for spotting the typo, i'll correct that now.

I wouldnt say it was so much as a theory that needed prooving, like i said its isolated to 1 save in 1 country. Much like your example.

I've been convinced of this theory since CM3 onwards - No matter how well you do, you'll always have competition

Well, this can't be true as I just won the league on 32 games.

No competition whatsoever for me this season.

Could it be that when the user-controlled team loses games, the AI feels less pressured to rack up big results as they will gradually catch up? Contradictory logic I know, since they should be giving everything to catch up a team off form, but it's all I can think of.

It fits better with when you win all the time, the AI has to give everything in their games to try to pick up as many points so as not to lose sight.

Just my thoughts.

The game uses so-called "player psychology" as a rubberband mechanism to make up for the AI's inability to operate outside the fairly limited tactical options available to it. "Pressure" and "complacency" result in a hidden reduction of determination and composure until even a team like Barcelona will have to eat a loss and relax the rubberband again when employing an uber-tactic. This is why a successful team will occasionally consistently fail to beat a hapless relegation candidate even if you repeatedly reload and replay, the variables are simply weighted against them due to the cumulative penalties imposed by success. This plays out most visibly in the dramatic reduction in the rate at which strikers convert "clear cut chances" to goal.

It wouldn't be a surprise, then, if title challengers also received some sort of hidden determination boost to at least raise the probability of them mounting a challenge to a team that's running away with the league. As the pressure/complacency mechanisms demonstrate, the game is at least as much a psychological simulation as a tactical simulation.

This is also why it's not that much fun to play a "big team." After you reach a certain level of in-game success, you basically lose all control over how your players perform.

It makes a bit of sense when you consider in the non-conspiratorial way as you have. When teams in any sport go on massive winning streaks, the pressure generally mounts and mounts to keep it going till it gets unsustainable. Personal player streaks are the same way. There is something psychological at work, and it is possible that FM reflects this as you say, by "dialing" up negative modifiers such as pressure, complacency etc. heading up to a spectacular crash and burn for a game. I know anecdotally that I have seem to have experienced better overall success in seasons where the losses are sprinkled throughout the season as opposed to a massively long streak which comes to fiery end in a really bad performance. Interesting post.

But does this happen IRL?

But does this happen IRL?

I think it does but probably not as often as in the game.

I would also say that it's a good thing for the game if players do react to other team's results rather than living in their own bubble-world.

Ego scripter

Nice response, Is this a hard fact that composure stats and determination do take a variable 'boom' or 'dip' depending on the situation?

Dr Hook (i remember my mum listening to a band by that name when i was younger, is it related ?)

Funny you should mention that you feel you have more success if losses are spread out rather than a run of successive wins followed by a dramatic plummet in form. I too experience this.

I all ways approach every game to win, so do you beleive that a 'tactic' to have a good season if you are a title challenging team, is to throw the odd game to 'reset' all the negative modifiers and avoid that 'recession' of results?

There is no rubber banding AI or w/e, just as there is no 'cracking' of tactics. Can anyone explain why i've won 15 straight league titles with the exact same tactics? (the lowest gap of 5 points to 2nd in the early years to a max of 23 points in later seasons) Why i've had 4 unbeaten seasons including an almost perfect 1 (33wins 1 loss), why I went 101 league games unbeaten with the exact same tactics? In fifteen seasons, surely the AI of every team would of figured me out if it exists, just as surely as I would of gone on some ridiculously bad form when I lost after many unbeaten runs which has never happened (if you believe morale is the key to winning and losing and i've had unexpected defeats like everyone and morale has dropped). In recent seaosns I've picked up an early loss out of nowhere and my team has simply gone on its usual winning form again.

Ego scripter

Nice response, Is this a hard fact that composure stats and determination do take a variable 'boom' or 'dip' depending on the situation?

Dr Hook (i remember my mum listening to a band by that name when i was younger, is it related ?)

Funny you should mention that you feel you have more success if losses are spread out rather than a run of successive wins followed by a dramatic plummet in form. I too experience this.

I all ways approach every game to win, so do you beleive that a 'tactic' to have a good season if you are a title challenging team, is to throw the odd game to 'reset' all the negative modifiers and avoid that 'recession' of results?

No relation to the band- it's a reference to a character from a 70s hockey movie, but I do remember the band, my mom liked them too

As to the rubber banding, I don't think throwing the odd game works, and I never approach FM that way. It just seems that when you do lose periodically, or even have a bit of a bad stretch, the pressure comes off. If you notice, when you get on a good run, you start getting the complacency warnings in the ass man feedback before the match, and at some point they seem to just go through the motions, especially against a weak team and get surprised. Then I wonder if we as managers don't give them the hair dryer, morale can drop, and you have to fight to get form back. An occasional close fought loss, or draw just seems to keep that complacency issue wolf away from the door.

I would like to add that I do sometimes seem AI teams having tremendous seasons, but I think like all things we notice these things more than the times when it doesn't happen, because there is nothing more fun in FM to me than a nail biter of an ending where it's down to the last match to see about promotion, or even relegation. Walking the league is a bore . . .

If I'd been managing Chelsea and had a season like the one they've had in real life, it would look like "rubber banding". In reality, SI have confirmed there isn't rubber banding in the game, but the appearance of it can always be there, in the form of things like complacency, injuries to key players, changing the system to fit in a new signing...