the results are predecided

ive had the feeling the results in this game were rigged for quite some time. i often load a previous save if an important player gets a long injury or if I lose certain games, and when the same date the previous injury occur, the same thing often happend again, with the same player or another.

another thing that caught my attention was th big teams always do good, despite deteriorating squads, and an AI that seldom manages to maintain a good balanced squad.

it turns out the outcome of games is predecided to an even greater extent than these little things I discovered.

a guy on an Norwegian forum did an extensive test to confirm the hypothesis.

the experiment

he edited the big for teams in Englang in the editor, so that the would not stand a chance. first he removed all their good players, and contracted ****** ones to them instead. ofcourse on ridicoulous contracts so the clubs would be in financial despair, not able to sign any new players. for example man united only had eleven sucky keepers in their first eleven. a team that could not hack it in Norwegian fourth division, let alone the premiership.

the results: only Liverpool were relegated, and they bounced back the year after still with a turd of a team.

Manchester United came second (!) in the league with a team consiting of ****** goalkeepers

Chelsea came third in the league :confused:

the point of this is that their some sort of coding in the game that makes sure that the big clubs does not embarress themselves.

well just wanted to know what SI had to say about this. the games certainly lost its appeal to me after this.

the credit of this discovery is the user as_roma on the VGD forum.

So he simmed the games rather than playing them.

If the league isn't a playable league the results aren't based on players or attributes, they are simmed with results based on the teams reputation.

Hardly a shock given fans have known this for years tbh.

EDIT

If it was in a playable league I suspect Man Utd would have been given "grey" players to make up for the gaps in the squad left by giving them a load of GKs. These "grey" players would be based on the teams reputation and therefore perform to a similar standard as those he moved out of the club.

the game has always been "predecided" to an extent, but that's only taking into the account that once u click play, u don't change tactics, subs, ect

soon as u make a change, a whole new "prediction" is created.

A similar experiment was done, and I am going to guess at a few things your Norwegian friend did.

Firstly, I presume he wasn't so naive as to set the English leagues as view-only, but rather make them playable. This is very important.

Secondly, and this is the mistake, I don't believe he would have taken charge of a team in that division. It is a limitation of FM that in an 'inactive' league (one in which the human is not controlling anyone), giving all the matches due process would simply be too much of a strain on the computer. To determine the results, the biggest factor is on reputation. Had the "big 4" had their reputation slashed, then they would have performed as poorly as expected.

The experiment I remember was that the entire Chelsea squad and manager was moved to League 2, but given the reputation of a relegation battler. Meanwhile, a League 2 side and manager was put in the Premier League with Chelsea's reputation. The very good side in League 2 only managed the play-offs (or something similar), while the League 2 side finished mid-table in the Premiership. When the experiment was repeated with the leagues 'active', far more predictable results were achieved.

he was manager for all five teams and went to holiday to simulate. he checked in once in a while, to see how things went, and to check the lineups etc.

tbh don't about the test

but am managing crystal palace, who were expected to fight relegation, bring in many decent loaned players from top clubs in Europe, so i can really get promoted instead, yes i dominate the game but goals per chances rate wise is 2-3 lower than opposition teams, don't know if it is related to my bad tactic or fact that am punished as my club should be in relegation zone, am in 8th position now, but honestly should be in better position if my players can score more per chances

meanwhile why SI pre-decide the game outcome? it really doesn't make sense to me , so i doubt that theory

i guess they do because Ai managers still suck and cant put a good squad together as the years go by, so in order to keep the premier league winners "realistic" they give the teams that are famous an edge.

In my current save i did something different and edited the database in a way that clubs from all around the world can't have foreigners in their squad. In the first season both Arsenal and Liverpool got relegated becase they barely have any decent british players, Chelsea finished midtable and Man Utd still won it, but they still had one of the best squad in the league. Liverpool, eventhough they built a squad that is clearly better than the other Championship squads, are still in the Championship after 4 seasons.

If results were pre-determined, would there be thousands of unique stories and career updates housed on this forum?

I think it's only right that reputation plays a factor simply because it does in real life. Is the initial experiment true to real life in any way?

i did not conduct the experiment myself, but this is certanly not made up. im not saying every result is predermined, but it seems that the game intervene when a good team is in trouble.

If your gonna make such accusations, then maybe you should have some substans first. for example replicate the experiment and post screenshots of your results.

i might add that this experiment was done on fm 09 and not the most current version.

peace

The results of AI teams are based on the club's Reputation.

So when a big club relegates, it loses reputation, and its expectations are adjusted to that reputation. That is why Manchester United in both 10.3 and 11.2 (a couple of long games) was struggling mid-table and still didn't sack their managers or buy players to fight their way up. This is also why if you followed your staff's advice on players and staff additions, you would never do better than you do currently.

the experiment is completely useless, basically someone has imputed completely unrealistic data into the match engine, there is no real way to know how the ME handles something like that and how it effects the results. What a completely pointless thread, the results are not scripted or pre-determined.

the experiment is completely useless, basically someone has imputed completely unrealistic data into the match engine, there is no real way to know how the ME handles something like that and how it effects the results. What a completely pointless thread, the results are not scripted or pre-determined.

Agreed. This "experiment" is flawed on so many levels that is is ridiculous. All this "experiment" shows is that more factors than just the skill of the players on the pitch are used to calculate how any given match will pan out.

Also, I imagine the teams in question would have been given "grey players" which, as has been stated before, will have their ability decided by the rep of the club & division, so I the "results" of the "experiment" are exactly as I would expect.

To debunk the test:

Load up any save game you have. Go to the next match and save before starting it.

Replay the match over and over again, making a note of all the results from every team in that league from the same day.

i know from experience of trying to cheat scottish clubs further into Europe that results are not scripted, if i can get Hearts to knock Real out of the champs league qualifiers then any result is possible.

I love what this thread has become.

"We are man of Science! And we shall debunk your experiment!"

I guess we still cannot explain the rsults the guy came up with, but its still interessting too discuss. how important is reputation? does the game intervene when a great team is in great trouble?

I guess we still cannot explain the rsults the guy came up with, but its still interessting too discuss. how important is reputation? does the game intervene when a great team is in great trouble?

???

The posts ^^ suggest why he got the results he did but we can't be sure as you haven't provided a link to the full "experiment"

The game doesn't intervene if a team is in trouble but reputation is used in some calculations to save processing time and speed the game up - Usually in leagues where the user isn't actively managing.

To debunk the test:

Load up any save game you have. Go to the next match and save before starting it.

Replay the match over and over again, making a note of all the results from every team in that league from the same day.

Me, I remember playing England vs. Ireland. I was winning 2-1 but the game crashed in the 80s minutes. I wanted my victory so I reloaded (I save before each match now ), lost 4-0 and was sacked. After about five plays I had to settle for a draw. Thus proving the results are not predetermined.

Also, I imagine the teams in question would have been given "grey players" which, as has been stated before, will have their ability decided by the rep of the club & division

This is one of the biggest points for me. They had squads of goalkeepers? Then grey players will be involved.

Theories like this are often trotted out, its rubbish. In my current save (managing Ajax) Liverpool are 9th, below teams with far worse squads and reputations. Id imagine the results where due to what someone above said, it asigning greys to fill gaps in the squad. I remember an old save in FM06 (or thereabouts) playing against a team from spain (Valencia I believe) with greyed out players who were better than most of the players in the rest of the league.