Very slow reactions?

[DamianJMcGrath]

In one of my recent games, I scored a goal, where a long ball was cleared from a corner I was defending, and it reached my lone striker. He nodded it on to no-one (as no-one was in front of him, and he was about 30 yards away ahead of everyone else), and the ball rolled through to about 5 paces in front of their goalkeeper.

For some reason, all of their players stopped moving, including their goalkeeper, and my player just turned, ran towards the ball, and scored. Great for me, but it seemed ridiculous.

There's a video below of my player chasing it (the bit before where he heads on, and everyone else stops is unfortunately not recordable) but you can that the goalkeeper could blatantly get the ball but chooses to stand still and look at it, and wait for my striker to reach it. Is there any reason for this?

In fact, if you watch it, their goalkeeper actually looks at the ball, and then takes a few steps BACKWARDS! What is he doing?

[GazTheDoood]

Something similar happened in the Women's FA cup final.
But it is a one-off, and ridiculously annoying.

[DamianJMcGrath]

Is it just a slight graphical bug or is it down to their goalkeepers bad anticipation, decision making, pace, etc?

[Barside]

It's a flaw in how goalkeepers are coded to behave, unless you have them set as an attacking sweeper keeper they will never intentional leave the penalty area & will follow this instructions so rigidly that they will stop at the 18 yard line & ignore the ball a few yards away

As for the OP clip at a guess I'd say that the keeper has a 'defend' mentality setting allied to very low mental attributes.

Hopefully it will be address on any new ME & we will finally see a keeper like Neuer behave correctly in FM.

[johnhughthom]

I think this one is even worse than the op's. He is set as attacking sweeper, though his stats are pretty woeful.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

It seems to be a graphical misrepresentation of what's going on. I mean there's tons of highlights I've seen where the ball is bouncing ever so slowly to a player and he just dallies there like a pillock and someone else nips in.

Or a cracking one for me when the ball got cleared to the halfway line and my closest defender (five yards) decided to run to it then turn around and run all the way back to the RB position leaving the opponent player a 30 odd yard run to get the ball and create an attack. I just put it down to the 3d engine putting the players in the wrong place and what we see is a very late 'fix' of whats happened.

So for a nod-on and no keeper challenge like in the above two videos, I assume he's not meant to have headed the ball THAT far up the field or something. Annoying I know.

[jayahr]

This is ridiculous. And it's not only affecting keepers. Obviously if goals like these are scored, the issue becomes very clear, but this happens as often in midfield.
Players who could easily reach a ball are just stopping to chase it or are even backing up and leave it for the opponent. Major flaw in the ME

[DamianJMcGrath]

If it is just a graphical misrepresentation then that's fine, to a degree. I can accept the answer of the graphics not being realistic because it obviously doesn't look as polished as FIFA and that's fine.

However, how am I meant to know what stuff is graphical misrepresentations and can be ignored, and which stuff is "real" and requires a tactical tweak from me?

[jayahr]

I'd say that the positions of a player and the ball cannot be graphical misrepresentations. Defo a bug with respect to the 'awareness' of the players in the ME.

[Cougar2010]

IMO its a mixture of three things:

A) Graphical representation.
B) Orders/Instructions.
C) Player attributes.

Its certainly much better than it was in previous versions and personally I very rarely see it. The few times it does occur I can understand it based on the attributes or orders.

[jayahr]

IMO its a mixture of three things:

A) Graphical representation.
B) Orders/Instructions.
C) Player attributes.

Its certainly much better than it was in previous versions and personally I very rarely see it. The few times it does occur I can understand it based on the attributes or orders.

However, no matter what instructions a player has and no matter how low some attributes may be (mind, I'm seeing this in EPL games!), no 8th tier player would irl back away from a ball which he would comfortably reach before an opponent.

[Cougar2010]

However, no matter what instructions a player has and no matter how low some attributes may be (mind, I'm seeing this in EPL games!), no 8th tier player would irl back away from a ball which he would comfortably reach before an opponent.

I've seen it happen many hundreds of times in real life over the years at all levels of the game so its certainly right that you see it occasionally on FM.

Why does it happen IRL? Poor decisions, lack of confidence?, poor judgement?, nerves? This is all represented in FM through attributes and orders.

[marty78]

IMO its a mixture of three things:

A) Graphical representation.
B) Orders/Instructions.
C) Player attributes.

Its certainly much better than it was in previous versions and personally I very rarely see it. The few times it does occur I can understand it based on the attributes or orders.

However, no matter what instructions a player has and no matter how low some attributes may be (mind, I'm seeing this in EPL games!), no 8th tier player would irl back away from a ball which he would comfortably reach before an opponent.

These things happen rarely in the match engine but they do happen. The instances in this thread could perhaps be a mixture of B or C in cougar's post or could just be a bug. The match engine is not perfect and all we can do is report believed bugs in the correct place. If it is just graphical representation then it still needs improving.

I have seen worse things happen anyway but I play a lot and would be more surprised if I didn't see any "bugs" given the complexity of the match engine.