Analysis of the match engine - with some moaning but trying to be constructive!

Hi all,

I have been playing the game for almost a week now. It is as addicting as ever, some of the new features are absolutely fantastic. My graphics card is not a particularly good one so I play the game without the 3-D. But watching the games in 2-D TV view is quite exciting to me. Also, the match engine seems much realistic now but there are still a few points which I believe need revising. Here they go:

1- First and most important of all, strikers getting low ratings: I have had countless games in my one save-game (3 teams) and the following end-of-match ratings came up more than 30 times like this: all other players with ratings higher than 7.0, both strikers lower than 6.0. I regularly check the tactics & training tips forum, some people come up with what they believe to be very effective tactics. I tried those and also created a few of my own. And to no avail. With each day passing, I am more and more inclined to believe that this is a bug. Please, for the love of god, fix it. And if it is not, then show me a method that can prevent this (and no, switching the strikers' position to midfield to instantly change their ratings doesn't count).

2- Too many shots hitting the bar: An average of 2 in my game, which I believe to be a bit high.

3- Wingers and attackers running towards the goal line to make a cross but usually end up hitting the ball too late. Either they can't make it and the ball crosses the line for a goal kick or the curled ball comes back into play after going out and therefore, goal kick again. Those of you who play the game with the highlights mode set to "key" won't experience this but for those like me who prefer the full highlights must be experiencing this annoying situation a lot.

4- Too many back passes and too many assists from goal kicks. Especially the latter is a very rare situation in today's football.

5- (after seeing Wakers' post) Strikers often get the ball in a very promising position (almost one on one) but don't run towards the goal, instead they wait. I know this is common when the time-wasting is set to high, but my attackers do it all the time. And of them is Robinho, so when he gets the ball clear off the defenders, he should run towards the goal for a clear-cut chance, I believe there are only a few defenders in the game capable of stopping him. He doesn't make the run, and his settings is forward runs and running with ball set to high!

If I push I am sure I can find a few more things but these are the ones that come to my mind for now. Any comments?

....and too many longs shots going in the net.

These have all been talked about a lot on here and I am sure most of them will be fixed in the next patch.

These are my thoughts on the match engine (and the game in general, this is just pasted from another thread, so forgive the extra stuff ). Its pretty extensive, and there are a few things on there that i might add to later;

Match Engine gets worse the more games you play - goalkeeper assists, incompetent defenders - goalkeepers can't seem to move sideways, too many long range shots from the AI, too many long range shots from the AI going in from people who have long shots of 5, crossbar/post hit way too often, at least 2 or three times every game, sometimes up to 8 times in a game (and that's not a rare occurrence)

Stupid, boring, repetitive press conferences that I could well do without. Would send my assistant to them but he always manages to upset my players.

Transfer system that still hasn't been fixed - Arsene Wenger spending £35 million on Owen in one season and then £20 million on Skrtel the next.

All of my regens had either 19 flair or 17 jumping.

Low detail matches always have an injury/red card (or more) which creates some really unrealistic seasons. to counter this, you have to run major competitions in full, which slows the game down a lot.

The game randomly freezes on high spec machines, including mine.

The game randomly slows down to a crawl and becomes very unresponsive. This happens on some match days, but not every match day.

The 3D engine looks shoddy, and has almost exactly the same graphics as the premier Manager 99 highlight system, but somehow requires relatively high specs.

The 2d representation once again does not run smoothly on AMD machines, despite this being fixed in 8.0.1 (AMD x2 6000+ - 2x 3Ghz).

Players with forward runs get tired much too quickly. I can no longer save my subs (even in the premier league_ for poorly performing players, because even players with 15 natural fitness and 15 stamina end up below 70% after 75 minutes.

Strikers who are clean through on goal will sometimes inexplicably stop and wait for defenders to catch up to them. Or instead of running onto goal, will stop and pass back to the half way line.

My goalkeeper had 17 assists in his first season, despite being told to give the ball to my fullback.

I have a feeder club in England but my youth players refuse to play there.

My midfielders keep running into each other or belting the ball at each other.

If you have a defender with good jumping and good heading, he will score 10+ goals a season (Samba) - without using the corner cheat.

Tactics are overly complicated and only certain methods allow the creation of a good tactic - i.e. global mentality settings tend not to work, meaning you have to spend hours tweaking each individual instruction.

The IGA. Disable the god damn hyperlinks.

I'm sure i've forgotten a few more things.

There are way too many fouls by AI teams in dangerous areas.

My free kick taker (set pieces 17) gets about 1/10 free kicks on target and scores about 1/20.

3. I would agree on this one. I've noticed a lot of shots hitting the woodwork which, in itself isn't a problem providing you only get the odd game like that. However it does happen a bit too often for my liking and maybe needs addressing in the patch.

These are my thoughts on the match engine (and the game in general, this is just pasted from another thread, so forgive the extra stuff ). Its pretty extensive, and there are a few things on there that i might add to later;

Match Engine gets worse the more games you play - goalkeeper assists, incompetent defenders - goalkeepers can't seem to move sideways, too many long range shots from the AI, too many long range shots from the AI going in from people who have long shots of 5, crossbar/post hit way too often, at least 2 or three times every game, sometimes up to 8 times in a game (and that's not a rare occurrence)

Stupid, boring, repetitive press conferences that I could well do without. Would send my assistant to them but he always manages to upset my players.

Transfer system that still hasn't been fixed - Arsene Wenger spending £35 million on Owen in one season and then £20 million on Skrtel the next.

All of my regens had either 19 flair or 17 jumping.

Low detail matches always have an injury/red card (or more) which creates some really unrealistic seasons. to counter this, you have to run major competitions in full, which slows the game down a lot.

The game randomly freezes on high spec machines, including mine.

The game randomly slows down to a crawl and becomes very unresponsive. This happens on some match days, but not every match day.

The 3D engine looks shoddy, and has almost exactly the same graphics as the premier Manager 99 highlight system, but somehow requires relatively high specs.

The 2d representation once again does not run smoothly on AMD machines, despite this being fixed in 8.0.1 (AMD x2 6000+ - 2x 3Ghz).

Players with forward runs get tired much too quickly. I can no longer save my subs (even in the premier league_ for poorly performing players, because even players with 15 natural fitness and 15 stamina end up below 70% after 75 minutes.

Strikers who are clean through on goal will sometimes inexplicably stop and wait for defenders to catch up to them. Or instead of running onto goal, will stop and pass back to the half way line.

My goalkeeper had 17 assists in his first season, despite being told to give the ball to my fullback.

I have a feeder club in England but my youth players refuse to play there.

My midfielders keep running into each other or belting the ball at each other.

If you have a defender with good jumping and good heading, he will score 10+ goals a season (Samba) - without using the corner cheat.

Tactics are overly complicated and only certain methods allow the creation of a good tactic - i.e. global mentality settings tend not to work, meaning you have to spend hours tweaking each individual instruction.

The IGA. Disable the god damn hyperlinks.

I'm sure i've forgotten a few more things.

There are way too many fouls by AI teams in dangerous areas.

My free kick taker (set pieces 17) gets about 1/10 free kicks on target and scores about 1/20.

I'm waiting for the digital Mac download here in the US but I certainly hope you are exaggerating as that sounds like adding the 3D has taken the match engine back a long way!!

1- First and most important of all, strikers getting low ratings: I have had countless games in my one save-game (3 teams) and the following end-of-match ratings came up more than 30 times like this: all other players with ratings higher than 7.0, both strikers lower than 6.0. I regularly check the tactics & training tips forum, some people come up with what they believe to be very effective tactics. I tried those and also created a few of my own. And to no avail. With each day passing, I am more and more inclined to believe that this is a bug. Please, for the love of god, fix it. And if it is not, then show me a method that can prevent this (and no, switching the strikers' position to midfield to instantly change their ratings doesn't count).

Is the strikers receiving low average ratings likely to be the way SI have linked in the individual player consistancy ratings? I've noticed that over the course of my season my players will only get low ratings if they don't score, which happens probably 2 or 3 out of 5 occasions. (baring in mind i play lower league)

Looking at it over the course of the season my players average rating usuually evens itself out at a more respectable 7 +. Purely because they'll score and gain a near 8 rating 2.5 times out of 5. (Obviously, that's just an estimate)

It is definitely noticeable this year that player consistancy figure seems to be a far larger influencing factor on strikers average ratings.

the one i find funny is your striker picks the ball up on the edge of the box beats the offside trap then instead of running towards the goalie to go one on one he runs towards the corner flag and then cuts the ball back or tries to cross it

I’m noticing too many back passes. If my defender is in possession and has no forward passing options then I don’t mind them passing it back to the goalkeeper, but on too many occasions my players will be in possession in the opposition half and play the ball directly back to my goalkeeper. Even if there is no attacking pass on I would expect them to pass it back (or sideways) to another defender rather than all the way back to the goalkeeper.

Goalkeeper assists is pretty bad as well. I thought my keeper getting 4 assists in a season was bad enough but 17 is just absurd.

or a gap appears in defence with striker facing it with ball after turning a CB and always always taking a long shot. never moving into the area and scoring!

I love the people who think your strikers getting bad match ratings is down to your tactics....... no the match engine is ***** thats why.

I love the people who think your strikers getting bad match ratings is down to your tactics....... no the match engine is ***** thats why.

How do you know this?! Are you an insider at SI?!

It is mostly down to your tactics.

It is mostly down to your tactics.

Not true.

It's down to the jumping stat.

Seriously.

17 Jumping = good rating no matter what they do in a match.

I said mostly not completely

How do you know this?! Are you an insider at SI?!

Its pretty obvious if you play the game.If it was my tactics i wouldn't be creating 25 shots a game and getting 17 on target.My Tactics are working hence the amount of shots i have,its not my fault the strikers cant score from 2 yards.Theres no individual instruction for a player not to score from 2 yards jesus.

the one i find funny is your striker picks the ball up on the edge of the box beats the offside trap then instead of running towards the goalie to go one on one he runs towards the corner flag and then cuts the ball back or tries to cross it

I'm beginning to find it less and less funny. There's only so long you can put up with seeing abnormalities like this

It's incredibly frustrating having a player like Ronaldo running past players, only to then decide to run towards the corner when the route into the penalty area is the most obvious and direct one

A lot of these things have been looked at or will be looked at in our ongoing 9.2 beta phase.

Is the 9.2 patch in beta testing then Mr C?

I'm beginning to find it less and less funny. There's only so long you can put up with seeing abnormalities like this

It's incredibly frustrating having a player like Ronaldo running past players, only to then decide to run towards the corner when the route into the penalty area is the most obvious and direct one

If you tell him to cross the ball rarely, he won't do this anymore.

Unfortunately he won't do anything else either

The thing that annoys me the most is that strikers "switch" ratings with other players if you swap them in tactics. For example if Walcott has 7.5 playing on the wing and vela has 5.8 playing as a striker and you swap them so that vela plays on the wing and Walcott plays up front, suddenly Vela has a rating of 6.9 and Walcott 6.4. This happens the second you swap them and if you swap them back later in the game then suddenly the winger has a good rating again and the striker a sucky one.

This bug is really limiting my options in tactics during matches and is the only bug i've seen (so far) that makes me want to stop playing and wait for a patch. Anyone knows if this is being fixed in the patch also, cause if it isn't i might as well go back to playing nhl 09 sooner rather than later.

That would be to bad though, cause i really love the rest of the game.

Funny stuff happening on the pitch!

Players just standing perfectly still waiting to get tackled. Players will snatch the ball from someone - without falling - then just stand there. Like they were destined to lose that ball in the end...

Longshot-o-mania!

Players getting a through ball, then stopping. It doesn't look like this is just because of poor skill.

Goalkeepers not diving.

Goalkeepers not diving.

I've had goalkeepers not moving. Opposition defender passed a very slow ball back to his goalkeeper and and the ball bounced from the GK half a meter away. Both the defender and the goalkeeper just stood there, allowing my forward to run 15-20 meters and pass the ball into the net...

On many occasions they slow to crawl and allow opposition player to get to the ball even though they (GK's) had 10-15 meters advantage and the ball was moving in their direction.

Anyone else getting games of "head tennis" that are longer than most claycourt rallies?

A lot of these things have been looked at or will be looked at in our ongoing 9.2 beta phase.

9.2 beta phase ongoing! ThankSI.

Anyone else getting games of "head tennis" that are longer than most claycourt rallies?

Yes, but I refer to it as ping pong. But I guess head tennis is a good term!

Another frustrating thing is too many own goals from backpasses, whether it's the human or AI team. It happens very rarely in real life and a bit too often in FM09, and the distance that they score these own goals from is ridiculous, my strikers can't even score from there!

I can't wait for them to iron out all the bugs. It will be amazing then!

The press conferences are a bit too repetitive.

The press conferences are a bit too repetitive.

match engine