Inexplicable Loses

*Losses

I have been playing for many years - but am not an expert, by any means.

However, I have taken many LL teams - for it is only LL teams that I manage - from the very cellar - to at least 2 to 3 divisional promotions before, several times.

And though I have noticed this in other incarnations of the game, it's never been quite so pronounced.

My bottom of the pile Swedish team was promoted straight up in my first season and then stayed top of the div. above the following season, narrowly missing out on promotion.

But since then, three seasons in a row now - I have had a series of inexplicable loses - to all (and terrible) opposition, home & away and in all conditions.

At this point I hear you say 'take a ticket and stand in line pal' - but this is just nuts.

On paper, my team is pretty damn good - usually better than the opponent.

And fearing that it was predictable formations and tactics that was losing me the games (as someone on another forum pointed out - though I have my doubts that these LL managers watch endless video footage of my deep lying striker and his penchant for cutting inside!), I introduced 2 other setups, both of which got me two 5 game unbeaten runs.

But then - the strange and massively overstated losses began again. I went from a straight 5 game winning streak (by huge margins) to a 7 game losing/draw streak - pretty much 3 seasons in a row.

I know there is no simple answer to why this is happening and there are several dozen permutations to the game engine etc etc - but my point is this:

Does a (relatively) very good team, with top rated, professional players who can clearly beat most teams in their div. week after week, suddenly drop into a endless losing streak when I am not changing anything drastically?

Surely they know how to win, their moral is pretty good, considering - and the formations are very familiar, and they're not complacent. They just suddenly can't complete a pass, or most often and most annoyingly, cannot tackle without fouling the opposite number!

I get so many yellows!

And yes, I've adjusted for opposition, weather, home/away, tall/fast opposition etc.

I simply can't imagine that me tweaking or in factnot tweaking a couple of sliders 3-4 notches one way or the other has such a major effect on the players and team as whole....! They're a damned good side - but I've just watched them go 0-4 down at half time to the second from bottom team when I was playing nothing too drastic or daring - simple counter that should've had me 3 up at half time.

0-4 at half time... Really?!? It's not as if I told them to all wear clogs and play with one leg strapped behind their backs...

As I said, there is no simple answer as to why this happens and I'm sure there are people that it never happens to - but are there things that I'm missing here? Or does someone have a simple checklist to run through when they do start losing to prevent the rot setting in?

And does it happen to anyone else - or am I just that rubbish... ?

thx.

The only thing that stops it for sure is by scheduling a friendly against very easy opposition. You dominate the friendly, morale improves, and you have a much better shot at winning your next real match.

Hm... except that, strangely, morale doesn't seem to be an issue.

I'll try it anyway. ta.

I always think of this as the AI trying to level the playing ground so to speak...... In the end of the day its a computer game and it will have specific behind the scenes ways to make you lose... where its not your fault or how you play or what players...

Simple examples are things like winning 30 games in a row and beating barcelona and real madrid and bayern and man city etc all in a row to then get tanked by aldershot in the cup with the same lineup......

If the computer wants you to lose then you will lose..... its just the stupid game mechanics

I had 6 straight wins (Stevenage in League 2, expected to finish 17th) whilst sitting at the top of the table and then played a significantly weaker AFC Wimbledon side compared to the sides we'd beaten before. They scored a 90th min winner (1-0) and I went on a 20 game streak without winning!

However, I don't believe in this 'the game forces you to lose' crap.

I always think of this as the AI trying to level the playing ground so to speak...... In the end of the day its a computer game and it will have specific behind the scenes ways to make you lose... where its not your fault or how you play or what players...

Simple examples are things like winning 30 games in a row and beating barcelona and real madrid and bayern and man city etc all in a row to then get tanked by aldershot in the cup with the same lineup......

If the computer wants you to lose then you will lose..... its just the stupid game mechanics

Absolute rubbish.

There is nothing in the coding that makes you lose, in fact the ME doesn't even know if a team is AI or human controlled when making the calculations.

Every match is winnable and depend on the many choices & inputs you make.

The games you're not winning Sparkle - are they generally games that see you get tanked (4-0 at HT), or are they usually narrower losses in close games?

It almost sounds as though your squad is mentally delicate - when you're winning, everything is going fine, but if one of them makes a little mistake and lets the opposition have the other hand, they throw their hands in the air and give up. It could be because as you've raised the club up, the reputation is taking a longer time period to match your achievements, so you are constantly overachieving. One loss, and your team become concerned that you'll stop overachieving and head back to the mediocrity you should be in.

It's not your formations at any rate - you shouldn't be needing to invent new formations every 5 matches to stay one step ahead of everyone else.

The game I'm on at the moment is seeing me do quite well, and whenever I start to drop off a little in form, I become a little more aggressive and demanding in team talks, and rotate some of the older, more experienced players back in rather than the youngsters to make sure they're keeping their composure. Then, if we really hit a rut, age is blindly ignored to play the happiest players, and teamtalks become sweet and pleasant, telling them that their 2-0 loss at home to the bottom team was 'unlucky', and that they should play the next match without pressure.

Absolute rubbish.

There is nothing in the coding that makes you lose, in fact the ME doesn't even know if a team is AI or human controlled when making the calculations.

Every match is winnable and depend on the many choices & inputs you make.

its not rubbish at all.... IF every game is calculated as you say then how does a div 2 side beat a team who won everything and clearly has the best team in the world at that time / instance.. SURELY by your idea the game should calculate your the better team and win ... nope it doesnt... the game AI always throws in curveballs to knock you off your stride..... while YES I agree for the most part the best or better teams tend to win more often but the game does throw in matches where there is pretty much nothing you can do.

An example being . With Man UtD I had a game where I think it was season 2019.. by then I had EVERY one of the worlds best players in the team, including Messi and got Ronaldo back etc etc.... i'm sure you can inagine the side I had.. After winning every single game for several seasons and every competition.. I lost against Dagenham n redbridge in the FA cup.

So .. replaying it over and over and changing tactics and formations... despite a world 11 that I had dagenham beat me 6 games of the trot before eventually I won the match on the 7th or 8th time or replaying......

Your telling me the game wasnt trying to purposely knock me out the cup seen as I had won the fa cup every season.?

It's simple. Complacency is massively over-weighted in the ME. It turns Barcelona into Aldershot Reserves, over-riding quality, tactics and logic.

The weaker the opposition, the more complacent your team becomes.

And it's been demonstrated time and time and time again that no result is "fixed" in advance.

its not rubbish at all.... IF every game is calculated as you say then how does a div 2 side beat a team who won everything and clearly has the best team in the world at that time / instance.. SURELY by your idea the game should calculate your the better team and win ... nope it doesnt... the game AI always throws in curveballs to knock you off your stride..... while YES I agree for the most part the best or better teams tend to win more often but the game does throw in matches where there is pretty much nothing you can do.

An example being . With Man UtD I had a game where I think it was season 2019.. by then I had EVERY one of the worlds best players in the team, including Messi and got Ronaldo back etc etc.... i'm sure you can inagine the side I had.. After winning every single game for several seasons and every competition.. I lost against Dagenham n redbridge in the FA cup.

So .. replaying it over and over and changing tactics and formations... despite a world 11 that I had dagenham beat me 6 games of the trot before eventually I won the match on the 7th or 8th time or replaying......

Your telling me the game wasnt trying to purposely knock me out the cup seen as I had won the fa cup every season.?

It is rubbish.

I'm not really bothered whether you believe me or want to continue to think that the ME/SI has something against you but you've even proved it yourself in your above statement:

So .. replaying it over and over and changing tactics and formations... despite a world 11 that I had dagenham beat me 6 games of the trot before eventually I won the match on the 7th or 8th time

If the ME was coded to knock you out of the cup you wouldn't have won on your 7th or 8th attempt!

It's simple. Complacency is massively over-weighted in the ME. It turns Barcelona into Aldershot Reserves, over-riding quality, tactics and logic.

The weaker the opposition, the more complacent your team becomes.

And it's been demonstrated time and time and time again that no result is "fixed" in advance.

exactly.... so the GAME... instead of taking your team and players and form into the algorythm to work out who should win decides every so often that becaus your teams stature it extremely high and theirs is low. the outcome is a game lose 9 times out of 10...for that game...... its not like real life where CAOS effect has a random factor.. this is a game whereby a person sat at a cooputer and coded situations where you'd find it difficult to win games and the reasons behind it....

It is rubbish.

I'm not really bothered whether you believe me or want to continue to think that the ME/SI has something against you but you've even proved it yourself in your above statement:

If the ME was coded to knock you out of the cup you wouldn't have won on your 7th or 8th attempt!

I don't belive you.. simply because i've been in the games programming business all my life and I know what goes into the coding behind these games... see previous reply to anothers post..

This isnt REAL life... in other words of course there will be situations where you will win on the 9th or 10th attempt in the game... however the game has been programmed to add realism or the fake effect of realism into the game..

EG as previosuly said or for want of a better word "giant killing" situations in cup matches.... to replicate what happens in real life and the CAOS effect of humans... this cant be replicated acurately in a GAME programmed to replicate it.

So there will be instances where the game feels you need to lose to try to introduce the effect of none invunnerability..

I do understand what you are trying to say i'm not dismissing your opinion ... but I know for a fact games are designed to try to even up certain aspects at certain times whether that is to make a certain character harder to kill , whether its to add more characters in other games... whether its to change the statistics temporarily or introduce krit or critical instances of random factors to giev the effect of CAOS.

Its the same here.... all you have to do is think of injuries in FM ... Injuries in real life are based on CAOS theory and real world events which can never ever be predicted.

Yet THIS GAME... casually throws in injuries to your players from time to time ... sometimes several at once.. sometiems hardly ever... they are based on the players stats whether hidden or not but the concept is to try to recreate random real world events... However this is CODED... so in which case there will be times where the randomness goes too far to try to prove the point.

I'm mearly stating that the game mechanics does throw you curveballs on purpose and sometimes you cant avoid them.

You are mainly correct with injuries - in terms of training injuries but in match injuries are slightly different.

However I'll say it again, the ME does not use any sort of rubber banding in anyway. It simply takes all the inputs (Without knowing if a human or the ai has given them) and makes all the calculations.

I am in the exact same situation as Sparkle! I took Fleetwood out of the blue square premier in my first season, then when it came to League 2 promotion, I lost in the playoffs, but ever since, I can't be consistant.

For example, I started the season with a 6 game unbeaten run, then suddenly, out of nowhere, it stops. I lose 5-0 at home to Newport County who were bottom of the table. I have a great squad, I would say it is one of the better squads in the league (I am biased though ) and.....I despair.

I don't think it is coded in the game to "keep the balance", I used to believe that, BUT could it be a side effect of this dynamic league reputation? Where the game recognises that a lower rep team is trying to get instant success and it goes "NO! Wait a bit" lol. Maybe not like that, but you get the picture. I have some knowledge in computer programming and it would seem a waste of SI's time if they ever did add that in.

The only advice I can give you sparkle is, just keep playing, it will happen eventually! If not, leave the club and go somewhere else. I usually resign in a situation like this but I am determined to stay on and get promotion.

I am in the exact same situation as Sparkle! I took Fleetwood out of the blue square premier in my first season, then when it came to League 2 promotion, I lost in the playoffs, but ever since, I can't be consistant.

For example, I started the season with a 6 game unbeaten run, then suddenly, out of nowhere, it stops. I lose 5-0 at home to Newport County who were bottom of the table. I have a great squad, I would say it is one of the better squads in the league (I am biased though ) and.....I despair.

I don't think it is coded in the game to "keep the balance", I used to believe that, BUT could it be a side effect of this dynamic league reputation? Where the game recognises that a lower rep team is trying to get instant success and it goes "NO! Wait a bit" lol. Maybe not like that, but you get the picture. I have some knowledge in computer programming and it would seem a waste of SI's time if they ever did add that in.

The only advice I can give you sparkle is, just keep playing, it will happen eventually! If not, leave the club and go somewhere else. I usually resign in a situation like this but I am determined to stay on and get promotion.

Good advice...

In your quote though dont you see when you said "Where the game recognises that a lower rep team is trying to get instant success and it goes "NO! Wait a bit" lol. Maybe not like that, but you get the picture."

That is exactly what I was saying... The GAME.. recognises patterns and form etc that might be OTT for the stature of the club and tries to even it out . You basically said it yourself.

It's not that there is any magic " they have won 5 games so i'll make him lose now" .. thats not what I mean by the game ballancing things out... but more the fact that the Match Engine or Game Engine sees a team either overperforming or underperforming and trying to keep to real world situations tries to either make it harder for the team or easier.. depending...

That in itself is the ballancing act...

Its an extremely hard thing to code. As i'm sure your aware with your programming background but thats where the reason why things like this happen..

teams go on 10 or 20 game winning streaks to then get thumped by a lesser opponent... The Game should technically equate the best team and make them win based on team form, players skills etc etc but it doesnt work like that all the time.

For want of a better word they always introduce an X factor that changes things up and keeps people guessing.. throws a spanner in the works so to speak.. otherwise the game would be too easy.

hope that makes sense... it's hard to describe what you mean in a couple of paragraphs

Good advice...

In your quote though dont you see when you said "Where the game recognises that a lower rep team is trying to get instant success and it goes "NO! Wait a bit" lol. Maybe not like that, but you get the picture."

That is exactly what I was saying... The GAME.. recognises patterns and form etc that might be OTT for the stature of the club and tries to even it out . You basically said it yourself.

It's not that there is any magic " they have won 5 games so i'll make him lose now" .. thats not what I mean by the game ballancing things out... but more the fact that the Match Engine or Game Engine sees a team either overperforming or underperforming and trying to keep to real world situations tries to either make it harder for the team or easier.. depending...

That in itself is the ballancing act...

Its an extremely hard thing to code. As i'm sure your aware with your programming background but thats where the reason why things like this happen..

teams go on 10 or 20 game winning streaks to then get thumped by a lesser opponent... The Game should technically equate the best team and make them win based on team form, players skills etc etc but it doesnt work like that all the time.

For want of a better word they always introduce an X factor that changes things up and keeps people guessing.. throws a spanner in the works so to speak.. otherwise the game would be too easy.

hope that makes sense... it's hard to describe what you mean in a couple of paragraphs

There is just another example, Played a few more games with fleetwood and decided to change the tactics, surprisingly, it worked.....for 2 games scoring 15 goals between them!.lol I then am currently on 1 7 game without-a-win streak. Its frustrating. But I will give it to the end of the season and if i don't get promoted, then I will resign and go somewhere else. Its just soooooooo annoying.