*Official* Football Manager 2013 Constructive non-ME Feedback Thread

[bieritarier]

I am among the many having serious issues with the new ME. Perhaps I just need to read a tutorial or something but results seem incredibly random. Minnows seem to be able to shred defenses on the counter far too easily. I'm using Man United and just played Reading. I had 58% possession, 10 shots on target, and 3 clear cut chances. The result? A 4-0 loss. Reading scored 4 times despite only having 1 "clear cut chance", and all 4 of those goals were scored by a player with an 11/20 finishing rating.

I'd call this an aberration but I've found matches like this are commonplace in the new ME. It truly hurts the sense of realism (which is absolutely crucial for a game like this) to see so many cases of world-class players not marking, or seemingly behaving as if they have no idea where the ball is.

I'm really at a loss here. I've only been playing FM for a few years but this is by far the least enjoyable time I've had with it.

Could you explain your tactical approach? TC or Classic? Formation? Roles & duties? Strategy? Etc, etc?

I'm sorry, I fail to see how tactics explain that a team with one CCC scores 4 against probably the best defense in the prem while world class strikers fail to score from 3 CCC.

Yes, you can run into a counter attack because of your tactics, but it just seems like keepers become completely unable to save a ball when the shot comes at the end of a counter. And what'S really annoying is that you can completely dominate a game and create a ton of chances yet lose to a team having two or 3 lucky punches not once in a blue moon like it should be but as a regular sight.

[Welshace]

you are right of course.. it shouldnt happen as often as it does... but it does happen irl of course... only need go back to yesterday with the everton game...

[santacl]

Is there any official reaction from SI? I have to say I'm disappointed by this, your losing customers fast, at the end of the day, we as the consumer do fund a lot of this game! Please at least say something, a patch schedule, working on specific issues, reaction to problems with the ME?

What he said ! Are we just test bunnies or can we have some kind of respons to this ? Its not to much to ask for.

[Neil Brock]

What he said ! Are we just test bunnies or can we have some kind of respons to this ? Its not to much to ask for.

If you raise issues in the match engine forums with examples we'll look into it. No current update schedule has been announced yet but as always if an issue is raised we'll most definitely be looking into it. Thanks.

[santacl]

SI will sort it !? This is something what can't be done anymore.. You mean we need to wait for fm 14..

An example: They have fixed the corner bug from fm 12 right?

I see know how they did it .. He takes the corner kick and the ball goes in public..

Players are not running but skating hahaha ridiculous!!

Yeah looks more like icehockey, players are skateing and the boll moves like a icecube floating around, the realism of a boll does not look like that all!

[wwfan]

I'm playing the full game, not classic. I've been playing both a 3-2-3-2 (3 CBs and 2 CMs) and a 4-4-2 with advanced wingers. In the 3-2-3-2 case, I generally have RVP set to trequartista, Rooney as deep-lying forward, Kagawa as attacking midfield, some combination of Nani/Young/Valencia as wingers, and then Fletcher as a ball-winning midfielder and Carrick as a deep lying playmaker. I generally play the "control" strategy, but will switch to standard or attacking depending on opponent and context.

At first I assumed my 3-defender formation was the problem, but that formation has given me a couple of my best results of the season and the 4-4-2 doesn't fare any better in general. I'm sure I could get more clean sheets if I switched to an ultra defensive minded tactic, but as manager of United I'm not supposed to do that, and I don't really have the squad for it anyway. My problem really lies in the fact that I'm soundly beating opponents in possession and chances created. If I'm doing that, maybe I should lose 1 or 2 games unexpectedly but mostly the results should fall into place. What I'm seeing is the opposite. It seems like there is a much smaller correlation this year between dominating the flow of play and actually scoring goals and winning matches.

That's not a huge amount to go on. My best bet would be that your attack lacks bite because both RVP and Rooney are being given deep lying roles. That would be fine if you can rely on your wingers to drift laterally into the space they create and become goal threats. That type of front line is actually one of my favourite high level shapes. However, it requires aggressive full backs to provide the wide threats when the wingers drift inside. I can see your system getting bogged down in the final third because of a lack of genuine width and penetration.

I'm sorry, I fail to see how tactics explain that a team with one CCC scores 4 against probably the best defense in the prem while world class strikers fail to score from 3 CCC.

Yes, you can run into a counter attack because of your tactics, but it just seems like keepers become completely unable to save a ball when the shot comes at the end of a counter. And what'S really annoying is that you can completely dominate a game and create a ton of chances yet lose to a team having two or 3 lucky punches not once in a blue moon like it should be but as a regular sight.

All kind of things can result in that. Frustration, lack of respect for the manager resulting in little effort, a poor tactical setup, a badly gelled squad, a badly gelled tactic. However, as it has not, and has never, happened to me in any version of the game, including FM13, I can categorically tell you that it is not inherent to the ME. It is user related. Until people accept they are almost certainly doing something wrong when this happens to them, we're going to keep on going round in circles.

They say new ME is full of new secrets and new potential.

Well known to the Guru and developers.

After the expert explanations of the Guru, five people have it all figured out and they are happy.

Unfortunately I have not understood anything, even if I play since 2001.

Too bad that majority of common players can not understand the radical beauty of the ME, because obviously they are tactically very poor.

The real news is then that FM 2013 is designed to be played by the moderators and developers, who are happy about ME.

All the other people who would like to just have fun and paid money for this,

must begin to study hard and learn the new ME.

If you have a solid grasp of real life tactical ideas, you will have no problem in any of SI's MEs since FM06. I suspect most of the mods have read the discussions that were going on in those days, so all play in a similar way. My feeling is that nearly everyone struggling has tended towards tactics that, while able to 'beat the ME', had no coherent, logical, football realistic structure. If you keep it simple and do logical things, you will succeed. If you play around with multiple slider settings without being 100% sure of what you are doing, you won't. It is not rocket science. Took me 5 minutes to design a tactic that does everything I expect it to.

[pwr]

hello,

Is it normal that my reputation is national when i start: unemployed with sunday league experience with lots of leagues from all around the world (as low as indonesian third division) with swiss & french nationality?

thank you

Can anyone from SI answer about this please? Or should I write this somewhere else in the forum ?

Thanks!

[V50]

Can you tell us when the next update is planned for please? Thanks

(waiting to test the Trinidad and Tobago complete league structure thing I have, but editor problems make me a sad bunny)

[thermo]

From what I see, many people complain about how difficult it is to defend, or how tactics do not work, defenders fail to tackle, etc. And old-timers like wwfan or rashidi, with only good intentions, try to give advices about how to achieve success by modifying the approach to gameplay in order to "understand" the match engine. In my opinion, we are missing the bigger picture.

The match engine is totally unrealistic. Long balls keep bouncing, defenders clear the ball with their head from a corner, only with the ball ending up in the middle of the opposition's half, wingers literally break world records in sprinting, they keep making "L" shaped moves first on the touchline and then on the goal line to approach the goal, these are the sort of things that I am talking about. Speaking for myself, I was quite successful in my saved game when I decided to quit (played as Fenerbahçe, qualified for CL after two knock-out rounds, won the Super Cup against arch rivals Galatasaray, gathered 6 points out of 9 from the first three league games). It is not about one's poor tactical understanding whatsoever. The match engine is a huge step back from what we had in FM2011 or FM2012. Most of you may not be old enough to remember Fifa Manager 96. Well, I do, and the ME in FM2013 reminds me of what we used to call "state-of-the-art" more than 15 years ago. I really don't think patches can fix it, it seems beyond repair.

[DrIgz]

Can anyone from SI answer about this please? Or should I write this somewhere else in the forum ?

Thanks!

I'm doing the exact same thing. Many, many leagues from all over the world including the Indonesian third tier. I have done this before and always, my reputation was national.

However, you'll find that it's 'realistic' as it's not as high as you'd think. I'm pretty sure that if you got a job in England in the 6th tier, your rep would be local or regional at best. It's national while you're unemployed and probably if you take over in Indonesia in the third tier, it will be national too. But you shouldn't be able to get a job in the Indonesian 2nd tier, so that tells you what an unknown you are.

So nothing to worry about, your rep is quite low. All the best winning every continental comp. That's what i'm doing

[teodoro]

If you have a solid grasp of real life tactical ideas, you will have no problem in any of SI's MEs since FM06. I suspect most of the mods have read the discussions that were going on in those days, so all play in a similar way. My feeling is that nearly everyone struggling has tended towards tactics that, while able to 'beat the ME', had no coherent, logical, football realistic structure. If you keep it simple and do logical things, you will succeed. If you play around with multiple slider settings without being 100% sure of what you are doing, you won't. It is not rocket science. Took me 5 minutes to design a tactic that does everything I expect it to.

Thanks for tip!

May you point me to your working tactic or link it for download somewhere?

I'd be very grateful.

[mr arsenal]

If you raise issues in the match engine forums with examples we'll look into it. No current update schedule has been announced yet but as always if an issue is raised we'll most definitely be looking into it. Thanks.

No current update schedule has been announced yet That is joke Neil right

[Rhazmuz]

No current update schedule has been announced yet That is joke Neil right

If you read between the lines, what it means is that no updates have been ANNOUNCED, however if issues are reported they will be looked at and fixed as possible, which means updates will be released when fixes are ready. So I am quite certain we will have updates, as we have had for every FM release, however SI do now know when these are ready, nor what they will fix exactly.

[TSH]

All kind of things can result in that. Frustration, lack of respect for the manager resulting in little effort, a poor tactical setup, a badly gelled squad, a badly gelled tactic. However, as it has not, and has never, happened to me in any version of the game, including FM13, I can categorically tell you that it is not inherent to the ME. It is user related. Until people accept they are almost certainly doing something wrong when this happens to them, we're going to keep on going round in circles.

Nope, none of the above explain the CCC conversion problem, which has always plagued the series. (Is that still in?!)

But, if they do, that's really bad design because they do not apply to real life 'mechanics'. They can apply, sometimes, but it's not the norm, as it is with the game.

[craney]

Really enjoying the game so far but must admit im kinda getting annoyed with the GK constantly just booting the ball out of play under no pressure at all!

[pigfacemonkeyman]

The Steam one last year was tops tho, what a thread that was, i cant believe i didnt get an infraction!

Neither can I. That you didn't get an infraction I mean.

[davidallenxyz]

Match success is down to your players. As much as the tactical system teases that you can have an input in the results, I don't believe that many of the instructions outside of position actually have much effect. Perhaps none in some cases - wouldn't surprise me if some of the sliders aren't even connected to the game engine! Same as in previous versions of the non-arrowed game engine. Of course, that doesn't stop you from kidding yourself that one click on a slider is going to turn your team around...

From what I can see so far, the game VERY heavily favours a strong and physical team - perhaps even more so than before. There are a lot of aerial/tackling battles that need to be won in central midfield. Don't waste your time with ball-playing midfielders and full backs. A single DMC position seems less advantageous than in the past. Wingers and strikers need pace, aerial power is less important than before. Skill is not so important - hence the heavy defeats that "skilled" teams suffer to lower-ranked opponents.

[santacl]

Thanks for your quick answer Neil, much appreciated. Will follow your advise and do so.

[pigfacemonkeyman]

Yes miles on twitter was very happy because of the first day sales.

..........

[avex]

If you have a solid grasp of real life tactical ideas, you will have no problem in any of SI's MEs since FM06. I suspect most of the mods have read the discussions that were going on in those days, so all play in a similar way. My feeling is that nearly everyone struggling has tended towards tactics that, while able to 'beat the ME', had no coherent, logical, football realistic structure. If you keep it simple and do logical things, you will succeed. If you play around with multiple slider settings without being 100% sure of what you are doing, you won't. It is not rocket science. Took me 5 minutes to design a tactic that does everything I expect it to.

Well, it's not so easy. There are a certain amount of things that just can't be done in ME that work in real life tactics.

[craney]

Ahh another thing i would like to mention as well, i watch all my games in full and i playing as Chelsea drawing 1-1 at home to Newcastle, i decide to use 2 shouts in the 58th minute the ball has been out of play at least 5 times and i am now in the 66th minute and the changes have still not been made and i am unable to go into the advanced tactic menu as well! The game will be over before my changes actually come into play

EDIT

75th minute now and still all my menus are greyed out looks like im gonna have to just hope i can scrape a win but its not looking likely. I will be using 8 shouts in total if the ones i tried to add actually ever come alive dont know if its perhaps a bug or not or just bad luck

EDIT

Game finished 1-1 feel completed cheated really as i feel i could have won this game if my changes ever come into play!!

[aiston]

Any reason for poor attendances?

I have only twice in 2 (out of 14) home games as Newcastle had over 50,000. Most games struggle to even get over 44,000.

[deekRFC]

Any chance of sorting the Rangers Transfer Embargo/Receivership bug? Pretty major for me and disappointed it hasn't been resolved yet despite being highlighted soon after the Beta release

[WormboY]

[video=youtube;v6s4s5mPfV0]

LOL

[jimmertime]

If you have a solid grasp of real life tactical ideas, you will have no problem in any of SI's MEs since FM06. I suspect most of the mods have read the discussions that were going on in those days, so all play in a similar way. My feeling is that nearly everyone struggling has tended towards tactics that, while able to 'beat the ME', had no coherent, logical, football realistic structure. If you keep it simple and do logical things, you will succeed. If you play around with multiple slider settings without being 100% sure of what you are doing, you won't. It is not rocket science. Took me 5 minutes to design a tactic that does everything I expect it to.

thanks for taking time to give advice to people struggling with match engine (like I do), unfortunately mi main issue with ME is I can't seem to make my players do what I tell them which is something I had no problems with in FM12. Basically this is how I like(d) to play:

- Build the play from defence esp from goalkeeper distributing to fullbacks with short passes (huge amount of my goals started from goal kick actually) > in FM13 the keeper likes to kick long like an NFL kicker esp from goal kick even with instructions of shortest passing and least creative freedom. Was supposed to be solved with 13.1.1 but I don't see it honestly

- My beast CM's close down and tackle everything in the center of the park, and when having the ball they would look for our more creative attackers after holding up the ball a little > in FM13 supposed BWM's simply don't press and dont tackle, and when they have the ball they often go for a series of one touch, high tempo passes a la barcelona, and they do it quite well btw! Too bad that's not what they're supposed to do in my tactic...

- My offence typically relies on a trio of creative, agile attackers with good technique, dribbling and off the ball attributes. They must run with the ball, beat the defender and look for the killer ball at any occasion. That's plan A. Alternative plans would be: passing to the running full-back who is now free to cross (typically to far post to the opposite winger/inside forward); waiting for the side CM's to make a run without the ball; one of the attackers goes solo and beat 3-4 defenders to score a wonder goal (not overly frequent, but great players might do that once in a while) > not much of this is happening for me in FM13, esp attackers dribbling and beating their men when in more central positions. Most frequent pattern has been the Barcelona-like one-touch, high tempo tiki taka from CM's outside the box when opponents defend deep and then a long shot from attackers or mf's (please note all my players on long shots 'rarely')

Now all this worked quite well in FM12 (at the very least players TRIED to do those things), I dont know if these were 'exploits' of a flawed ME (they did seem reasonable footbal concepts to me, and resulted in a style of footbal close to my personal liking) but cant seem to be possible in FM13. Any advice appreciated!

EDIT: please note my results havent been bad so far in FM13, mostly close wins and very few goals allowed, I just feel my teams refuse to play according to my tactics and do pretty much what they want - which apparently is trying to be Barcelona esp in midfield

[DaveGLeeds]

[video=youtube;v6s4s5mPfV0]

LOL

I also had this. Utter madness.

[RMCF]

Sigh.....

[Yallii]

I am a bit surprised Directors of Football don't seem to have - at least a regional - bias towards staff they hire. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me that a Brazilian DoF at Shakthar seem to know every good Ukranian coach for example. I'd expect him to at least bring a couple of Brazilians with him.

[Lone Gooner]

That's just ridiculous.

WormboY have you posted this in the Bugs forum? They might want a PKM to be uploaded, but this had to be looked at by SI.

[avex]

thanks for taking time to give advice to people struggling with match engine (like I do), unfortunately mi main issue with ME is I can't seem to make my players do what I tell them which is something I had no problems with in FM12. Basically this is how I like(d) to play:

- Build the play from defence esp from goalkeeper distributing to fullbacks with short passes (huge amount of my goals started from goal kick actually) > in FM13 the keeper likes to kick long like an NFL kicker esp from goal kick even with instructions of shortest passing and least creative freedom. Was supposed to be solved with 13.1.1 but I don't see it honestly

- My beast CM's close down and tackle everything in the center of the park, and when having the ball they would look for our more creative attackers after holding up the ball a little > in FM13 supposed BWM's simply don't press and dont tackle, and when they have the ball they often go for a series of one touch, high tempo passes a la barcelona, and they do it quite well btw! Too bad that's not what they're supposed to do in my tactic...

- My offence typically relies on a trio of creative, agile attackers with good technique, dribbling and off the ball attributes. They must run with the ball, beat the defender and look for the killer ball at any occasion. That's plan A. Alternative plans would be: passing to the running full-back who is now free to cross (typically to far post to the opposite winger/inside forward); waiting for the side CM's to make a run without the ball; one of the attackers goes solo and beat 3-4 defenders to score a wonder goal (not overly frequent, but great players might do that once in a while) > not much of this is happening for me in FM13, esp attackers dribbling and beating their men when in more central positions. Most frequent pattern has been the Barcelona-like one-touch, high tempo tiki taka from CM's outside the box when opponents defend deep and then a long shot from attackers or mf's (please note all my players on long shots 'rarely')

Now all this worked quite well in FM12 (at the very least players TRIED to do those things), I dont know if these were 'exploits' of a flawed ME (they did seem reasonable footbal concepts to me, and resulted in a style of footbal close to my personal liking) but cant seem to be possible in FM13. Any advice appreciated!

That's the worst part, players not even trying what you told them to do.

Example: MP with runs with the ball always, holds the ball and team with slow tempo -> always tries to make fast-paced first touch passes. NO! That's exactly the opposite of what I want.

All my players have orders to tackle hard... and nearly no one does any tackle attemp. All have orders to rarely cross, and I end up seeing lots and lots of crossing. Crap, I prefer them to just stop and run back! At least that would tell me that I made them run out of options and try to fix it. Now I don't know what's not working, because they just do what they want. Do you imagine a Guardiola telling Pedro "Do not cross, if you don't have a passing line or a clear dribble, just hold it until someone comes", and Pedro crossing at every chance? That would never happen.

At least in FM12 players followed orders, even if the orders where wrong.

[Coen]

thanks for taking time to give advice to people struggling with match engine (like I do), unfortunately mi main issue with ME is I can't seem to make my players do what I tell them which is something I had no problems with in FM12. Basically this is how I like(d) to play:

- Build the play from defence esp from goalkeeper distributing to fullbacks with short passes (huge amount of my goals started from goal kick actually) > in FM13 the keeper likes to kick long like an NFL kicker esp from goal kick even with instructions of shortest passing and least creative freedom. Was supposed to be solved with 13.1.1 but I don't see it honestly

- My beast CM's close down and tackle everything in the center of the park, and when having the ball they would look for our more creative attackers after holding up the ball a little > in FM13 supposed BWM's simply don't press and dont tackle, and when they have the ball they often go for a series of one touch, high tempo passes a la barcelona, and they do it quite well btw! Too bad that's not what they're supposed to do in my tactic...

- My offence typically relies on a trio of creative, agile attackers with good technique, dribbling and off the ball attributes. They must run with the ball, beat the defender and look for the killer ball at any occasion. That's plan A. Alternative plans would be: passing to the running full-back who is now free to cross (typically to far post to the opposite winger/inside forward); waiting for the side CM's to make a run without the ball; one of the attackers goes solo and beat 3-4 defenders to score a wonder goal (not overly frequent, but great players might do that once in a while) > not much of this is happening for me in FM13, esp attackers dribbling and beating their men when in more central positions. Most frequent pattern has been the Barcelona-like one-touch, high tempo tiki taka from CM's outside the box when opponents defend deep and then a long shot from attackers or mf's (please note all my players on long shots 'rarely')

Now all this worked quite well in FM12 (at the very least players TRIED to do those things), I dont know if these were 'exploits' of a flawed ME (they did seem reasonable footbal concepts to me, and resulted in a style of footbal close to my personal liking) but cant seem to be possible in FM13. Any advice appreciated!

EDIT: please note my results havent been bad so far in FM13, mostly close wins and very few goals allowed, I just feel my teams refuse to play according to my tactics and do pretty much what they want - which apparently is trying to be Barcelona esp in midfield

I've had the same experience, having now spent some time watching games in full etc my biggest frustrations at the moment are:

- Defensive CM not actually doing any defensive work as far as I can tell, they don't seem to close down or tackle at all

- My other, supposedly attack minded/creative CM in a 4-4-2 constantly passes the ball sideways or backwards, e.g. I've just watched an entire half where he didnt play a single forward ball. I keep seeing the central midfielders just passing the ball around between themselves and the full backs, and then taking a shot from outside the box even though this is nothing like what I'm trying to tell them to do based on team and individual instructions. I've tried changing things with the forwards/wide midfielders thinking that I wasnt doing enough to give the attacking CM options to play in a more attacking way, but nothing I've tried seems to work.

Now I'm not doing badly in FM13 by any means, have taken a Championship team from midtable in the 1st season to 2 successive play off places in subsequent seasons, but it feels like I've got to the stage now where I'm hitting a brick wall in terms of taking the team any further, and it seems pointless spending hours watching games, analysing opposition scout reports and tweaking tactics if whatever I do seems to make no difference to how my team actually plays.

[pigfacemonkeyman]

Glad I could help.

I have to say that this backs up my thoughts about why people are struggling. I think a lot of people are relying on tactics that worked in FM12. A lot of these tactics "beat the ME" not the AI. The ME rewrite is, quite rightly, making these tactics play as badly as they should play. 90% of the screaming and ranting probably relates to people defending and attacking badly because they are employing tactics that would defend and attack badly in reality.

I've been using a very basic 4-4-2 and have scored circa 2.3 ad conceded 0.5 per game. Barely a foot wrong in defence and a razor sharp attack. I think that everybody struggling should KISS.

That's not to say the ME is perfect as pressing, long shot decisions etc need a lot of work. However, I think it is a number of steps up from FM12 in the overall structure of the football it produces. I also don't think it has changed the results I'd expect to see if you employ good footballing logic in your tactic construction.

Not sure why your central players aren't dribbling. I 'm not having that problem for forwards but don't really expect my central midfielders to RWB.

A couple of posts is hardly grounds for this. After all, what you suggested doing was pretty basic stuff. I would be surprised if this 90% of FMers who are "screaming and ranting" consists only of users who don't already know this! (probably)

I do admire your assumption that if you have a tactic that works in this game it will work in real life.

[Nastar]

Good day, guys!

I have some framerate issue. I bought beta version and try it at my old PC (7 years ago), and it was great at high settings. But my old PC rip and i bought new PC (i3 + gtx650), and now i have some strange framerate problem, during 3d match, my fps drops when at right side of pitch many players, hmm you can say : ok! cause there many players, but !!! in the left side of pitch in same situation fps very good and no problem. What do you think ?

[WormboY]

That's just ridiculous.

WormboY have you posted this in the Bugs forum? They might want a PKM to be uploaded, but this had to be looked at by SI.

No, I didn't. 'Cause this is not from my save... :\

[taylorsmen]

Didn't want to make a thread so may as well ask in here, is network games been played over Steam servers ? the blog Miles did suggests it is, but seen a post elsewhere on the forums saying it's not, can anyone shed any light on this ?

[bieritarier]

All kind of things can result in that. Frustration, lack of respect for the manager resulting in little effort, a poor tactical setup, a badly gelled squad, a badly gelled tactic. However, as it has not, and has never, happened to me in any version of the game, including FM13, I can categorically tell you that it is not inherent to the ME. It is user related. Until people accept they are almost certainly doing something wrong when this happens to them, we're going to keep on going round in circles.

My team is at over 90% of the bar in terms of tactic gelling, I haven'T added a lot of new players in, won league and champions league in season 1 so respect should not be an issue.

Anyway, you seem to be proving the point without knowing it.

So they show a lack of respect in playing brilliant football and then blasting it at the keeper? Or over? And goalie shows a lack of respect by letting everything in? I am not claiming my tactics are flawless but nothing can explain why world class strikers leave tons of CCC unused while on the other side it'S 30 yard screamer bang goal. If this is down to tactics then it's a bad and very frustrating way to respresent it in the match engine.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not having that problem every match, but I certainly see stuff like this happening too often.

Edit: Just had it again (2 matches after the Juve match)

CCC for me 6, half chances 3

CCC opponent: 1, half chances 1.

Scoreline 3-2

This is ridiculous, especially when you see the sort of freak incidents that lead to the other teams goals. one: my second centre back decides to leave his man to help double striker 2 who was clearly in check by defender 1.

second. cross comes off the bar, bounces back to the edge of the box where their midfielder is completely unmarked.

Tactics? Really?

[Gareth_S]

[video=youtube;v6s4s5mPfV0]

LOL

"it's your fault tactically that he's doing that"

[WormboY]

Yup, "i" put Rui Patricio training Karate in his free time XD

[Icecoldnoise]

Can you please stop trying to convince people into that there is nothing wrong with match engine since you can clearly see that goal keepers are doing amazingly stupid moves and defenders are not defending.

[pwr]

I'm doing the exact same thing. Many, many leagues from all over the world including the Indonesian third tier. I have done this before and always, my reputation was national.

However, you'll find that it's 'realistic' as it's not as high as you'd think. I'm pretty sure that if you got a job in England in the 6th tier, your rep would be local or regional at best. It's national while you're unemployed and probably if you take over in Indonesia in the third tier, it will be national too. But you shouldn't be able to get a job in the Indonesian 2nd tier, so that tells you what an unknown you are.

So nothing to worry about, your rep is quite low. All the best winning every continental comp. That's what i'm doing

Thanks for your answer mate =]

I did took over the indonesian 3rd and my reputation was still national indeed. I thought it was weird to have national but if it's like what you said (can't get a job in 2nd indonesian) i guess you are right it's okay my "real" reputation is low as it should be.

I love to start at the very bottom but damn indonesian 3rd is tough, good luck to you too

[bigdunk]

[video=youtube;v6s4s5mPfV0]

LOL

That just looks like it's played the wrong animation. In the match engine, the keeper's dived to his left and tipped it away with his fingers, but the 3D engine has played the 'dive to the right' animation for some reason. It looks a lot worse than it actually is.

[pigfacemonkeyman]

As in 'the tactic I'm currently using in that game'. But thanks for the constructive reply. I'll be thinking twice before asking for advice on here.

Tactics & Training forum has tons of constructive advice and many very helpful posters.

[Kriss]

Can you please stop trying to convince people into that there is nothing wrong with match engine since you can clearly see that goal keepers are doing amazingly stupid moves and defenders are not defending.

I don't think anybody is doing that, we're all well aware of some of the issues.

The problem as always is to differentiate between actual ME problems and those caused by the users themselves.

[Vladel]

Offsides on this game are pretty ridiculous when your team can have 2 goals a game disallowed and the computer team can score with 4 players blatently offside. Also the way keepers slide tackle across the line when penalties are taken are just laughable!!

[Flashboy]

Can you please stop trying to convince people into that there is nothing wrong with match engine since you can clearly see that goal keepers are doing amazingly stupid moves and defenders are not defending.

No-one is denying that there are some problems with the match engine, but SI are working their socks off in order to identify major issues and fix them. What wwfan has been trying to convey is that the ME has changed, probably for the better, and that SOME of the issues people are raising are user related. It's very easy to blame the game, especially when you're frustrated and can't figure out what to do (I know, I did exactly that), but if you follow wwfan's advice and really get to grips with the theory underpinning the match engine, things will fall into place. If you are failing to score and/or conceding too much, look first at your tactics as they are likely the problem (except in situations which are clearly bugs, like set-piece defending in open play).

[DaveGLeeds]

Anyone seeing a drop in the number of goals scored via direct free-kicks?

I'm playing as Wrexham and honestly can't remember scoring from a free-kick for about five months.

Anyway to check this in the stats?

[heath05]

can anyone tell me if the network game bug is true, about too start game with my mate and have heard that if you are not the host then you cannot sign players, cheers

[avex]

No-one is denying that there are some problems with the match engine, but SI are working their socks off in order to identify major issues and fix them. What wwfan has been trying to convey is that the ME has changed, probably for the better, and that SOME of the issues people are raising are user related. It's very easy to blame the game, especially when you're frustrated and can't figure out what to do (I know, I did exactly that), but if you follow wwfan's advice and really get to grips with the theory underpinning the match engine, things will fall into place. If you are failing to score and/or conceding too much, look first at your tactics as they are likely the problem (except in situations which are clearly bugs, like set-piece defending in open play).

One problem, if the ME changed so much, is they left exactly the same tactical instructions... but the game reads them in a different way. How do they expect people to understand them that way? Only thing left is try and error until people decipher them again, and lots of anger until that happens. If they don't mean the same, they shouldn't be named the same. There where some already badly named before, but now there are some that I don't know what they mean. In this FM to lower the actual tempo I had to make the tempo higher and time wasting lower. How does that make sense?

At least in FM12 to make the team play safer passes I had to lower the tempo and make time wasting higher. That made sense. Even if tempo at the end didn't affected actual tempo, but how "vertical" or "horizontal" was the style. Also players with the "hold the ball" instruction tend to hold the ball in FM12, but not in FM13.

[jujigatame]

That's not a huge amount to go on. My best bet would be that your attack lacks bite because both RVP and Rooney are being given deep lying roles. That would be fine if you can rely on your wingers to drift laterally into the space they create and become goal threats. That type of front line is actually one of my favourite high level shapes. However, it requires aggressive full backs to provide the wide threats when the wingers drift inside. I can see your system getting bogged down in the final third because of a lack of genuine width and penetration.

All kind of things can result in that. Frustration, lack of respect for the manager resulting in little effort, a poor tactical setup, a badly gelled squad, a badly gelled tactic. However, as it has not, and has never, happened to me in any version of the game, including FM13, I can categorically tell you that it is not inherent to the ME. It is user related. Until people accept they are almost certainly doing something wrong when this happens to them, we're going to keep on going round in circles.

Firstly, thanks for your time. Even though this is very frustrating for me, I want to avoid being adversarial about this.

I can give you more details about my tactics if you require them. Actually, I'm realizing now that in the 4-0 loss to Reading that had me tearing my hair out, I put Welbeck up front as an AF, moved Rooney back to AMC (Advanced Playmaker/Support) and moved Kagawa out to the wing while benching Valencia. So both Nani and Kagawa were set to Winger/Attack and should have been providing the additional goal threat you're referring to. However, with 10 shots on target and 3 CCCs, I don't really think my attacking tactics were the problem. Particularly not since the IDENTICAL tactic and personnel beat Ajax 3-0 in the previous game. The problem is that my defensive trio (Vidic/Ferdinand/Jones) were completely unable to stop any counters, and even the counters that seemed well dealt with positionally got scored on anyway because Hal Robson-Kanu had the game of his life and was able to score from absurd angles repeatedly despite his 11/20 finishing rating. Perhaps the problem was that Reading was an away game, while I played Ajax at Old Trafford? If so, it seems incredibly unrealistic for the home/away factor to have THAT much of an effect on player ability.

Now, I've always operated under the assumption that the ME does not "know" which is the player side and which is the AI side, that it's just accepting the same inputs from different sources. So I'm not really alleging that the ME is "cheating" in favor of the AI. However, I am alleging that the ME is one or more of the following:

1) Far too generous in the advantage given to home teams.

2) Unable to emulate realistic and sound defensive behavior. I have seen world-class defenders let balls float over their head, fail to chase balls down, and so on.

3) Either too random, or far too dependent on "morale" or "motivation" when determining finishing in the final third. A team that crafts twice as many chances should not lose by 4 goals. It simply makes no sense.

Ultimately it seems to me like this is leading to WILDLY divergent scores for me.

[manchester]

the match engine is shocking defenders still dont react to attacks or loose balls