Cup Draw Fixing Scandal?

Does anyone else suspect that cup draws don't actually happen when the game says they do?

In the course of experimenting with reloading save games to draw different opponents (admittedly with the highly morally dubious purpose of easing my own team's progress through the cup), I noticed that if you reload the game just from the point at which the "draw is made today" message is displayed, the cup draw is fixed and you get the same team over and over again. However, if you reload the game from a point just before that message comes up, you actually do get random teams.

For example, I've got one game saved at 10:15am on the day of the cup draw, and another game saved at 12pm when the cup draw message comes up. With the latter save game, I *always* draw Nottm Forest -- even if I view a "live" draw. With the former save game, the draw throws up different teams as you would expect. It seems like there's some delay right before the "draw is made today" message comes up. I think this is actually when the draw is made.

Note that I've only experimented with this in the FA Cup because my team isn't in European competitions...

I'm not sure what you're getting at, it's always been known that you can randomise the cup draw/regens/etc. by saving right before you get the message?

Yeah, you are pretty much spot-on in your investigations. I happened to find this out in a previous edition of FM, it was FM 2007 I think.

I had accidentally clicked on a wrong option and decided to reload a save game to restore the mess. The save game was made when I had received the 'view cup draw' message for the FA Cup and when I viewed the draw, it made exactly the same pairings as it had done so previously before I had reloaded my game.

By the time you receive the 'view cup draw' message, the game would have already drawn the clubs and you viewing the draw would actually just be you viewing a playback of it, instead of you viewing the draw being made 'real-time'. However, I do not think there is much wrong with this since it matters little to us in the end. Regardless of the timing of the draw, the 'view cup draw' option still achieves its purpose in providing us with some thrills and suspense.

By the way, I thought you had meant to bring up the FA Cup regional draw bug that was fixed by patch 9.2.0 when I read your thread title. Now that was more of a scandal indeed!

i have found that in the fa cup none of the big clubs get blue square or below teams. i have never been drawn to any of the "minows" and this does happen. by big clubs i mean prem and championship. probs jsut me thou tbh

There is nothing suspect here. The draw takes place whilst the game is processing (ie. when you hit continue), then once it has happened, you are given the option of viewing it. I guess the news item makes it look like the draw is not yet determined at the time of reading, but it doesn't really matter does it?!

In one season with my team i drew rotherham in the conference cup, fa trophy and fa cup.

I beat them in all competitions only to draw kidderminster in each competition in the next round.

Is that a coincidence or is that a bug?

By the way, I thought you had meant to bring up the FA Cup regional draw bug that was fixed by patch 9.2.0 when I read your thread title. Now that was more of a scandal indeed!

What bug was this?

yeh what bug was that? and big teams have an equal chance of drawing small teams - its just not many small teams make it to the 3rd round

What bug was this?

This is the bug where FA Cup draws past the qualifying rounds were reported to yield a large number of local rival ties. The qualifying rounds are regionalised to reduce the travel costs for smaller non-league sides, but once into the first round and thereafter, the regionalisation of the draws is eliminated.

However, a last minute addition to the release game code caused the regionalisation to spill over into the first and subsequent rounds of the FA Cup, and SI have since fixed it with patch 9.2.0.

Interesting, I was thinking about posting just yesterday because I'd now drawn Nottingham Forest in the 1st round of the FA Cup for the last 3 years in a row and in the League Cup the year before that (playing as Notts County)

Yes it does happen.

I play as Newcastle and and out of the first 18 seasons

i drew Sunderland in the F.A. cup 16 times!

You can't tell me that's random.

There was an issue with localisation of cup draws that was fixed in 9.0.2 unfortunatley people had to start new games for it to work afaik.

This may be why you are still having these issues. Ive started a new game since this patch and its no longer localised now!