What is the definition of 'exploitating the match engine'?

I've been meaning to find out exactly what this term means for a long time. I do not wish to take any advantage of it, if it actually exists. Having a re-read of a reply to one of my posts of November last has provoked my interest now.

In it I asked for comments about a flat and narrow 4-3-3 formation/tactic that I was trying to set up. That is, a flat back four, a flat narrow middle three and a flat front three. In fact, it is one of the Tactics Creator's in game default formations/tactics. One of the responses I got back suggested that my 4-3-3 exploited the ME because the ME was not designed to play against my tactic. Now I haven't any idea why this should be the case because I haven't any idea how the ME works or how to exploit it. Nor do I wish to.

I am thinking of resurrecting the original 4-3-3 but only if it does not fall into any kind of 'cheat' category. So, if any of you people out there has the truthful and bona fide answer to my question, please would you enlighten me?

Basically it means the tactic may have taken advantage of an ME flaw. So in FM12 if you set everyone up to play through balls to quick strikers you would score lots of goals as the AI could not cope with that set up.

I personally feel it gets banded around too much on here. I really wouldnt worry, just make a tactic, if your happy with how it plays, just play it. Dont go looking for what could be wrong with it or the ME. People get too hung up on these kinda things.

Exploiting the match engine is your job as a manager. Much like real life managers get paid to exploit the match engine of reality. If you're not getting better results than expected what is the point of your continued employment?

I've been meaning to find out exactly what this term means for a long time. I do not wish to take any advantage of it, if it actually exists. Having a re-read of a reply to one of my posts of November last has provoked my interest now.

In it I asked for comments about a flat and narrow 4-3-3 formation/tactic that I was trying to set up. That is, a flat back four, a flat narrow middle three and a flat front three. In fact, it is one of the Tactics Creator's in game default formations/tactics. One of the responses I got back suggested that my 4-3-3 exploited the ME because the ME was not designed to play against my tactic. Now I haven't any idea why this should be the case because I haven't any idea how the ME works or how to exploit it. Nor do I wish to.

I am thinking of resurrecting the original 4-3-3 but only if it does not fall into any kind of 'cheat' category. So, if any of you people out there has the truthful and bona fide answer to my question, please would you enlighten me?

Play the 4-3-3. There was a point way back (FM12?) where it couldn't handle the central striker. But its not an "exploit". As Milner says people get too hung up on the whole thing. Personally If I felt that the ME was acting unrealistically towards it, I'd just raise it as a bug.

Exploiting the match engine is your job as a manager. Much like real life managers get paid to exploit the match engine of reality. If you're not getting better results than expected what is the point of your continued employment?

No, your job is to beat the AI, not take advantages of weaknesses in the match engine itself, which is what exploiting the match engine tends to mean. These are things like the near post corners on FM11, big target men on FM10 or the famous Diablo of years ago (was it CM03/04?). These are issues with the ME and not the ability of the AI.

As for the OP, exploitating is not even a word :o

Exploiting the match engine is your job as a manager. Much like real life managers get paid to exploit the match engine of reality. If you're not getting better results than expected what is the point of your continued employment?

No, I think there's a big difference if a challenge and some base of near reality was your bag rather than learning to 'play' the game, there were real exploits (cheats if you like) where you could win a lot more games with any old team/tactic you put out. The corner bug was one where it could get 20-30 goals per season for free in an old version if you set corners up in a certain way. There were some plug and play tactics that made not much logical sense but were game winners also.

Not to knock anyone who plays that way (it's tempting when you're desperate ) but exploits like that killed the game for me personally.

EDIT - Kenco beat me to it. But yeah, what Kenco said basically.

No, your job is to beat the AI, not take advantages of weaknesses in the match engine itself, which is what exploiting the match engine tends to mean. These are things like the near post corners on FM11, big target men on FM10 or the famous Diablo of years ago (was it CM03/04?). These are issues with the ME and not the ability of the AI.

As for the OP, exploitating is not even a word :o

When you get to my age a slip of the keyboard is normal! Hee! Hee!

To me the tipping point into exploiting flaws in the ME is when the tactic ceases to be realistic in Real-life footballing terms. If SI create a match engine that is weak at handling crosses and you have great success with a winger-based formation that's fair enough - it's SI's problem. If you are building some weird asymmetric overload tactic with 5 strikers that would never work in the real world against any opponent, then you're exploiting the ME and whether you want to play that way is between you and your conscience.

I'm not sure I agree with what has been said above.

Exploiting a flaw in the ME is all well and good in my book, just so long as you worked it out and didn't search the internet and download what other people had rated as the best tactic. I know it's really common, but I just can't for the life of me get my head around it.

I have created a defensive corner tactic which has me keeping 3 players up top, (one wide left, one wide right and one pretty central), with someone else lurking outside the box. It cause the AI to keep 5 players back to defend against them. This is ALWAYS both centre-backs, so that gives me an advantage in a few ways.

1. I don't have to deal with the opposition centre-backs attacking the delivered corner.

2. When the ball is cleared it rarely goes down the middle and always always always goes down the flanks, (where my speedy wingers will usually scare the life out of whoever is trying to mark them.

3. Where the ball is usually cleared to, is about equidistant between where my wide attackers will be and where the AI lurker will be. Everyone else further up the pitch is basically out of the game if I get to it first. I don't always score, (far from it), b ut at the very least it does lead to me attacking the opposition in a highlight when I really should be defending my own goal.

Now you can't just set keep the 3 players forward and immediately have this success, but once you have created the right framework for them to be in the right position, then it certainly makes me view defensive corners differently. I have 3 players particularly suited to this tactic, (actually I have 6 now but you get what I mean). My SC for example is NOT one of the 3. He is back in the 6 yard box often beating my centre-backs to the clearing header. I didn't read about this anywhere and the idea behind it was based in the real Rugby World rather than the FM World of dots and graphics. To my mind that makes it.... realistic and therefore ok.

If the AI can't work out that I am creating miss-matches at both ends of the pitch to suit me, then that's their problem. My big centre-backs, DM and TM can usually deal with just about anything that is not delivered inch perfect on a plate for the attacker, and at the opposite end, their big lumbering centre-backs have to deal with my little willo-the-wisp flair players in the wide open spaces on the counter.

Had I downloaded this tactic from someone else then I would consider it an exploit. As it is..... it's MY exploit.

Good luck trying to replicate it.

For me "exploiting the match engine" is what the definition of a PC game is.

Unless you have access to the code how can you possibly know whether your tactics are successful because you're a tactical genius or because the engine doesn't work quite right. The same can be said for transfer and contract negotiations.

For me "exploiting the match engine" is what the definition of a PC game is.

Unless you have access to the code how can you possibly know whether your tactics are successful because you're a tactical genius or because the engine doesn't work quite right. The same can be said for transfer and contract negotiations.

There's a massive difference between exploiting it and beating it, especially in a game like this. I could use a formation that caused the ME to throw up all over itself, and I would win, but that wouldn't be the definition of the game. Creating a very good tactic which wins fairly would be though. Big difference.

You don't need to have access to the code to see it, but then I would say the only true ME exploits are clear and obvious ones - like Diablo in the old CM games, or 4-1-2-3 in FML. They were so successful because they touched part of the ME that simply couldn't cope. With the former, the late arriving CM would never be tracked, and with the latter, the defenders behaved erratically when faced with three strikers instead of two. Those are exploits, found by people who look for this kind of thing, and then publicised. After that, SI acknowledge them as exploits and close them out. The corner bug - at its worst - would also be in this list, as it was a definite weakness in the ME.