Is FM a simulator or an illusion?

[Svenc]

I'm sure you have some kind of explanation for this as well. But as with religion I think we are better off keeping our conclusions to ourselves.

It's okay to end the debate. But there is no reason to snap. Still, because the ME makes for fun experiments, I'll bite. People aren't stupid. They want to know if their time spend on the game is worth their while or not either. You aren't stupid either, you just have a couple misconceptions both related to the in-game instructions as well as football in general, which with you persist. About the instructions, to paraphrase: Pushing single buttons in the TC doesn't equal setting up wildly different tactics. If you want to test whether your input has any massive influence, you need to put up tactics, not push a single button and expect there to be a wildly different result and play by definition. That's how oldschool manager games like "On The Ball" used to be like with their text sims, push "all out attack" and there was an increased chance of goals being scored on either side of the pitch, close it out, vice versa. Simply setting formations roles and duties you determine the shape of your team, attacking options if you truly want to overload, and retaining options deep if you want to truly contain. Your change in formation qualifies for a start to produce a truly "overloading" tactics, how flawed your logics and how limited it may be and how easily caught out it can be when applied against teams that have defenders capable of dealing with them (in my attempts, as seen, it occassionally produced really wild results with Bayern, but this is Bayern, with Ribery, Gomez, Mandzukic and Müller up-front). No reload of a dozen ever saw a match with less than two goals, and that is only on Bayern's side.

Equally, pushing "contain" does barely qualify if you want to try the extreme opposite. It alone won't encourage players mightily to stay deep rather than make runs, pass to feet, stop dribbling, etc. I'm not claiming this to be some kind of great tactics (it isn't), but as a stark contrast to the marauding four up-front, you'll see what mean: http://www.pic-upload.de/view-20785183/cont3.png.html Additionally, shouts such as "pass to feet", "take a breather", "play even safer" were applied. Ribery was benched as his traits make him prone to breaking away and engaging in attacking moves regardless. A radical change in formation may not be necessary to turn this into something else, in this case changing duties, a couple roles and shouts you could quickly make this a more forward pushing one -- though trying to defend with four forwards as in your "overload" setup obviously is not such a great idea. Still, that is setting up a tactics, in this case with the sole aim of seeing the rest of a match out taken to the extreme. Pushing a single button isn't. Yes, text descriptions of the "strategies" are unfortunate, in which they make you believe to do all of these things for you. But if you get to grips with that, of course you'll see a difference. Such as your side barely penetrating the box. Or all but two of the few attempts here on goal being headers after an indirect free kick was awarded. If there ever is Bayern goal, it tends to be a single one. The result is plenty of lateral and backwards passes, and barely any attacks at all. The most prominent result being a 0-0 so far, and Bayern not hitting the back of the net in successive matches is not an oddity. Again, we know these test methods are flawed. Just to reiterate the point.

As for players being out of position: Some have payed loads of attention to what might actually be going on inside the ME for years. It's already been found out that as long as the attributes are okay, players can do a reasonable enough job even if they're not familiar with their position at all. In world-class teams, that can mean their key players out of position might be as effective as first teamers of mediocre sides played in their familiar position. Whether that is realistic or not is up for debate. They won't suddenly become hockey players when put someplace else, and the important attributes will still reasonably make them perform their duties, that is how the ME is set up. Do the same over the course of a couple of matches, months, and rather than reloading against the exact same opponent and you will find your side drastically underperforming (and players complaining being played out of position). I once did this too and was on course to mid-table obscurity with Bayern, the Bundesliga's stalwart and constant at the top, and was sacked come October. That's usually borderline impossible unless you do something stupid. And doing so is.

If yout want to go more drastic, field the first-teamers worst at winning headers and marking in the CB position, the worst in exposing the space on the flanks at the flanks, the worst in finishing up-front. Look at the statistics, and if you will, the performance on the pitch. The results. And beware the wrath of your board as your CBs will struggle to win half of their headers, as your side once reknown for utterly dominating possession will frequently not be able to dominate even relegation fodder, and as a league that usually proves a cakewalk with such a gulf in class (3rd place and below is almost impossible) turns catastrophe: Tbh, I was more surprised that I lasted this long, sort it out SI. I know this wasn't supposed to be a serious test before, but no matter how complex or simple the ME actually calculates, it's equally as simplistic and flawed a prospect as what has gone before. The lacking documentation of SI does already prove a challenge enough for players. The many myths going around sadly don't make it any easier, and there's no need for feeding new evidently unfounded and unreasonable ones. Fair enough?

Can you please help the non hardcore player understand which settings to change then. I understand the fun is in figuring out those settings ourselves but I don't thinnk the game provides any tools since even replaying the same match five times tells you nothing.

So how am I supposed to figure the settings out then ?

Having seen your freshman thread in the tactics forum, for what it is worth, you're apparently going way more into detail than me. You certainly spend much more time on elaborate planning. Also just following wwfan's lose guidelines you quoted by the letter arguably already sees on you on top of what the AI managers are capable of doing. Could it be that you expect too much of your sides in terms of results in relation to their quality? Or are your problems related to a specific kind of opposition? Ackter's reply here suggested as such. I think it also doesn't say in the thread what you do in-match. In previous iterations there often were ways that saw endless streaks of good results to be more likely, not all I think related to an ME or AI weakness.

[playmaker]

You complain that no-one is giving you advise on how to test the effectiveness of tactics, but we have... repeatedly. You have to consider shape and use of space before you will be properly testing the match engine's response to tactics. You have consistently chosen to ignore this and devise ever more extreme tests.

You have also been advised that because the match is played out kick by kick you first need to observe the impact on style of play to further understand how you can influence the result. Again, this has been repeatedly ignored.

We are also trying to show you that your tests are flawed.

Your last test tested a scenario outside the normal bounds of reality. You may have proved that the match engine does not deal well with an unexpected input, but that doesn't anything about it's ability to cope with a reasonable input.

The previous test (with the 3-3-4 formation) failed to produce results because you had no full backs. It's like having a hammer without a handle - the end may be heavy but you've got no leverage. Your wide forwards are pushed hard up against the defensive line, which means they are easy to close down and force back into midfield. Without full backs you have no-one to change the angle of attack. Which was reflected in the lack of goals. Instead of proving the ineffectiveness of tactical changes you merely proved the ineffectiveness of that tactic, which is not the same thing.

The last piece of advise is that good tests observe behaviour with impartiality. You have started with pre-conceptions which no weight of evidence can shift.

You need to create a basic tactic with no tweaks and watch a full match so that you can understand how players behave and what their normal patterns of play are. Identify where they are failing and identify where you can exploit space and make changes. Accept that there is no guarantee your changes will work and your players may not have the attributes to succeed. Keep observing your pattern of play and see how you can affect the small things. Ignore the score. Ignore statistics.

When you can affect the small things, only then you can then begin to consider how you are going to use that information to win games. Judging success is subjective - success may not be over-achieving it may just be maintaining the team's natural level.

[wwfan]

To put it simply, YES!

The whole meaning of the concept OVERLOAD is to maximize the possibility to score an offensive goal in the shortest period of time possible! And now I'm talking about the real world concept of overload, not the FM concept which clearly is something completely different.

You've already proved that there is roughly a 30% greater chance of a goal being scored in a match when you employ Overload than when you employ Contain. I'm not sure what else you expect such a limited test to illustrate.

[Ackter]

You've already proved that there is roughly a 30% greater chance of a goal being scored in a match when you employ Overload than when you employ Contain. I'm not sure what else you expect such a limited test to illustrate.

He wants that 30% to be for him. He's discounting it because the opposition goals count towards it and, as is clear to everyone by now, he's only interested in the most overlysimplistic, nonsensical and limited results. He wants a win button.

[Svenc]

He wants a win button.

Wouldn't say so. He's already acknowledged that trying to overload an opponent might also backfire. Where he's going wrong is insisting an overload tactics to always maximize his team's chance to get a sniff on target. That the opponent might be able to cope with such a battle-ram approach, kill the likely little space he's targeting right there, mop up any attempts, that it could be skilled enough to dominate the game in the undermanned midfield he is exposing when going four up-front, denying him much of the ball straight away – all of that should not matter. He doesn't understand space and shape and/or how to influence them in the TC. Unless you consider the entire output (2d, 3d, text) to be "rigged to produce a calculated score": The ME, if you watch it, even on highlights, reveals that it models such, as did any football game in existence, straight back to the Commodore 64 and Atari 2600 era, to no surprise. It is a fundamental part of football. Players move back and forth, teams advance and pull back, open spaces, deny spaces, that kind of thing.

He doesn't want a win button. He expected "overload" to be a button that always maximizes his team's scoring opportunity, always, no matter what. The ME might not be a 100% simulation of football proper, it might not even be a 60% simulation of football proper. It does not matter. But some of those utmost basics you'd expect it to cover, I guess.

[Ackter]

I was deliberately simplifying

[Svenc]

I was deliberately simplifying

Well, I thought it that wouldn't be much help given that the OP already announced to back out. The logics may have been flawed, but I don't know why that'd be a reason to chase him straight away.

Does anybody know Footstar, by the way? It sports an ME that appears to have taken a couple cues off FM, if you could say so. At least its ME appears to be set-up similarily a little. There are match viewers, the calculations, sliders, the attribute groupings, it even looks like oldschool FM (

). And the devs gave a little insight into the thing. http://footstar.gr/blog/2011/03/16/questions-about-the-me-here-are-the-answers/ It's interesting they simulate home bonus by giving morale boosts to players, but only if the frequent case a match takes place in a player's city of birth.

[jjglvz]

He wants that 30% to be for him. He's discounting it because the opposition goals count towards it and, as is clear to everyone by now, he's only interested in the most overlysimplistic, nonsensical and limited results. He wants a win button.

You really are the most shameless troll/flamer on this forum, Ackter.

[Ackter]

I just don't pander to people who are wrong and insist they're right.

[milnerpoint]

You really are the most shameless troll/flamer on this forum, Ackter.

Never a truer word spoken.......