Still too random

I've put in a fair few hours on this years game and I'm left with an over-riding impression that the game engine is too random. Your own team form still plays too much of a role. Computer teams score from too many of their chances. Computer teams are not penalised for playing people out of position. The last game played was a perfect example. Lincoln, top three, good team, couple of stars, playing Northampton, 20th, no good players at all, playing 4-3-3 with two players in yellow positions and one in an orange position. Chances are 8 v 8 and they win away 4-0. It's not an isolated example, it's happened all season. I have no issue being beaten by better teams, or losing to a goal when the other team scores on the break and then sits back and defends it. It's the random results, sudden comebacks with defenders playing striker despite having a red tag. Last years version was like this until the first update, then it was okay. Any chance of tweaking it for the next update?

Moorcambe beat top of the league Crawley 6-0 with a poorer squad, Man Utd beat Arsenal 8-2 with a few players out of position. It's not all that 'random'

It's no more random than real life. I was sat supporting my team Barnsley last week, we were 2-0 up at half time and Ipswich couldn't even get in our half. Then in the second half 8 shot within 20 minutes scoring 5 goals!!!! That's random....or it could be my team are pants!!

Fair points lads, and of course it's always fresh in the mind when you have a rant about it on here. To illustrate my point though, we played a similar team near the bottom two weeks later, playing the same tactics for both teams. The result this time was a 4-1 win. I'm not saying we couldn't lose, I'm saying it happens too often and 0-4 was a ridiculous scoreline.

Anyway, Man Utd thrashed Arsenal because Arsenal weren't short of a few players, they had just sold their best ones. Here the good team beat a bad one. In the case Barnsley and Ipswich, you've got two mediocre teams so it isn't the same either. I don't know about Morecambe beating Crawley, but given the money Crawley apparently have that is a bit of a shocker. Mind you it was at Morecambe, maybe the Crawley lads had too many ice creams before hand.

A better comparison would be... Liverpool losing 0-4 to Wigan. Wigan might sneak one and hang on, but they wouldn't run riot with 4. And it wasn't an isolated example. In the first 20 games we lost once, were comfortably top of the league, but after one loss they suddenly shipped goals by the bucketload for the rest of the season.

All fine Marc!

But the answer is not that simple. I recently had 5 games in a row (3 lost - 2 draws) as first on the L1 ladder - Total shots on goal 69:6 with following results: 0:1, 0:0, 0:1, 1:1, 1:2.

Too odd in my mind and not explainable with just one or two odd games. In my mind the game penalizes offensive football much too often with the one-shot-goal-win. I know this happens in real life, but not 4 or five games in a row.

Furthermore I am missing the home advantage a bit and have the feeling that defensive playing away teams are over-supported.

Anyway, the mentioned issue above is there since I started to play FMHi with the 2010 and will most likely never change.

Merry Christmas

Oliver

PS - If you find your team is notable for 'collapses' or 'bad runs' check their maturity levels, it tends to happen more prevalently to younger sides who might not have the maturity to cope ...

One thing I think the game could do would be to provide you a little more feedback as to WHY bad (or good) runs happen. if its your tactics then a quick comment at the end of the match like "xxx just played too attacking today" would let the user know what he could have done differently and that it wasnt random. or if its a motivation/ lack of leadership issue then your assistant manager could mention it to you. this could help to reduce the feeling that everything is just random and there is nothing the user can do about it.

One thing I think the game could do would be to provide you a little more feedback as to WHY bad (or good) runs happen. if its your tactics then a quick comment at the end of the match like "xxx just played too attacking today" would let the user know what he could have done differently and that it wasnt random. or if its a motivation/ lack of leadership issue then your assistant manager could mention it to you. this could help to reduce the feeling that everything is just random and there is nothing the user can do about it.

Spot on. There simply is not enough feedback to be able to tell, beyond the basics, why unexpected things happen. Again, I'm not talking about Marc's example where he sold players and had an inferior team on paper. Or teams like Newcastle this season, where they over perform and then at a certain point slump back to where they should be. I'm talking about teams who are better than the opposition in almost every position, where the same tactics work one week but fail the next against near-identical teams.

I don't want to see the game where the stronger team wins every time because it would be unrealistic, and as a game, totally dull. Just a little more consistent. I agree about the points on attacking football. Sure, if you are Wigan and you go all out attack against Liverpool or Chelsea, you'll get caught on the break and be punished 9 times out of 10. But if you are Liverpool you should be able to attack Wigan without the constant fear of losing 0-1.

One of the things I personally find in my games is that I'm a fairly competant manager and tend to over-perform for at least part of the season, the thing I find is mentally when I do this I 'upgrade' my expectations for my team and am then annoyed if we lose a few matches ... whereas that isn't 'bad' per-se ... its that I've been over-performing previously, not that the team is as good as I might mentally have decided it is.

PS - If you find your team is notable for 'collapses' or 'bad runs' check their maturity levels, it tends to happen more prevalently to younger sides who might not have the maturity to cope ...

I think we've all had that, where on paper it looks a fairly scratchy team but you get some good results and think, hey, this is going well, but then it levels out. That isn't what I'm talking about here.

The maturity level thing is interesting. How many players under 21 do you need to have before they are prone to this? Obviously with lower league teams you tend to get young prospects, journeymen and classy veterans, so there's a real mix and they shouldn't be prone to maturity fatigue. At the moment my Lincoln team are in L1 (back to back promotions via playoffs each time) but the spine of the team is incredible. I have a Premiership quality CB, CM and ST. Around them are top notch loanees, exciting youngsters and good quality veterans. Their form has been uneven so far, but it would help if there was additional feedback to explain this - such as saying the team are still bedding in.