What exactly have I paid for here?

[lomekian]

Realism seems to be the driving force for FM at the moment, if something happens in real life SI instantly mimic it in the virtual FM world. The problem is, all these little accumulations are really starting to sour the game. Realism is a good thing but FM is not real, it is a game.

The more they try to make it real, the more they polarise the outcome of any response you give as a human player. Leaving a right or wrong answer. A pre determined computer outcome with only one result. FM has become about finding out what the game wants you to do. Not imitating real life football. oh and your players cannot hit a cows back side with banjo even after after 40 plus shots in a game over the bar hits the post hes round the keeper but by a miracle its been cleared /gone wide/ blasted overand the you defender makes a howler and there forward with the crappy stats scores a worldy lob but its not you its your tactics .... uninstall the game and don't waste your money buying it next year

Funny, as I have never found that and never try to work out 'what the game wants'. I just play the formation my team does in real life, with slight tweaks to individual instructions, and a few extra squad faces. The ME is still screwy, as teh strikers conversion rates are terrible and the corners are knackered and one or two other things, but on the whole, my team in the game plays much like real life, except with less through balls. Its far from perfect, but its not that bad.....

[Georgik]

Does that carry over their existing contracts? If so, surely some would technically have been with the club for some years.

Yes, they have the same contracts as they had at their previous clubs.

I'm halfway through the season, this is what the table looks like, i'm not performing as great as i should be :

I'm also in the semifinals of Carling Cup and yet to play in the FA.

Varane scored 9 goals in 18 matches so far, seems to be scoring easily.

[akkm]

That's kind of why i say this isn't in anyway a serious test. As they have been placed into that team in the editor then the game probably won't reflect that they are unhappy. I'm pretty sure IRL they would be though.

Test of the match engine is what it is and to see if players abilities are being properly reflected consistently and that tactics/deficiencies in the ME are not overpowered to negate significant differences in talent which results (just scanning these posts) suggest is the case

[Georgik]

Now i saved the game and i'll resign and remain unemployed until the end of the season, in the meantime i'll pick a team and play against them. After this i'll resume my save and see after i'll finish this season how they'll perform in EPL.

[milnerpoint]

I was more on about you asking us to guess what team you were managing by looking at the screenshot.

Next you will be asking us to guess your second name........... Mr Milne.

Haha, not that my user name hints at it in anyway

[Georgik]

Steve Clarke has been hired as Nottm Forrest manager.

[YKW]

Would you quickly add a new manager, take over that same cub again, load up your saved tactics and check how the familiarity levels compare between the two. Would really like to know if it still resets as in previous games.

[Georgik]

Would you quickly add a new manager, take over that same cub again, load up your saved tactics and check how the familiarity levels compare between the two. Would really like to know if it still resets as in previous games.

I'll do this, in the meantime Steve Clarke, with all the talent at his disposal, chooses to play a flat 4-5-1 with ML and MR, outrageous ! ) Won the first match 4-3 away at Norwich in FA Cup.

[Georgik]

Would you quickly add a new manager, take over that same cub again, load up your saved tactics and check how the familiarity levels compare between the two. Would really like to know if it still resets as in previous games.

Confirmed, the familiarity resets.

[Georgik]

I see that their next game is in the league Cup at Everton, hmm , should i take over Everton and see how i'll do against them ?

Also noticed that the finances are deteriorating at Nottingham, from 700 mil, now they have 400.

Shouldnt the merchandise sales (mostly shirt sales) be through the roof ? I guess the editing doesnt affect that.

[YKW]

Confirmed, the familiarity resets.

Thank you very much, perhaps that's a thread on it's own.

[OxfordUnitedFC]

Entirely agree with you there, OxfordUnitedFC.

When you say "would be a more worthwhile test" are you talking about my suggestion test or this thread? Because the happiness of the players doesn't seem to be a relevant factor as it can be made the same for both teams, especially just for a one-off match.

The more of a worthwhile test comment was aimed at the odd 2 games that the OP has done. Your test would be more interesting though, as in theory tactical familiarity and the teams understanding shouldn't be so much of an issue as it is transferring an entire team. I also agree with you that i don't actually think that, that would be the case and that you would have to build tactical familiarity up from scratch.

One other suggestion of yours is to play against this team and see how you get on which could be interesting too although the game doesn't distinguish between human and AI teams.

[Butters76]

Some interesting fact, none of my players were listed for international individual awards

@butters i didnt set a specific date, i just added the players to my teams

Then its auto set to 1.7.2013 , its under contract in the editor.

[Georgik]

Seems the fans dont realise what players the club has, i made a mistake, i shouldnt have just added the players to Nottm Forrest, instead i should have set in their contract info "future transfer agreed" and picked a date , then take over Forrest and wait for them to sign. I think it would have been a different impact on the club and on their morale.

[Georgik]

Steve Clarke managed to lose at home against Everton, even though they won 3-0 away, and got through to the final, he plays 4-4-2, with Messi MR and CR ML, Aguero and Benz upfront.

Took over Huddersfield to play against them, will take a defensive approach, 4-5-1.

[Georgik]

Played against them, this is the screen :

I was 1-1 at HT )

It really seems that the game doesnt make a difference between human and AI, because they missed alot of shots aswell At least i didnt offered any clear cut chances

[Svenc]

Haha, this. Although some interesting stuff is in this thread, essentially this.

Maybe, but historically the ME certainly used to be robust enough for funny little experiments like this. I had Messi edited into a 5th divion squad and witness him toring the league apart (both when simulated in full details and quick simed). I also had Ronaldo, Robben and Messi edited to Augsburg, and them alone got them from relegation fodder to EURO League ASAP (both same). The statistics as well as the play reflected their superiority in the areas you'd expect them to, in particular in the 5th division, nobody could really catch Messi once he had accelerated and was through.

From my experience, player quality is the driving force behind FM, and that was surely reflected: It's borderline impossible to finish outside the top two in La Liga with Barca and Real unless you field Messi as CB etc. where none of their key traits are valuable and they lose most of their crucial challenges and one on ones due to their attributes or unless you build a team that is wide open to counter attacks every time when going forward, but even then the superb CBs are still occasionably able to lessen the damage on that level. Player quality being this important is one of the reasons why human players are always overachieving in their longterm career saves unless they get the sack (player squads get better each season, AI squads not so much). And secondly they're also the reason why generally FM tables during the first couple of seasons are this "realistic", e.g. they mimic the real standings or predictions this decently. That's not to say that man management and tactics don't have an influence, it's easy to build something really crappy and underachieve (see some of the shots highlighted above), but in general, the better team outperforms the worse one, and that is reflected by the game, always has been. Still you can leave someone like Kroos completely isolated and short of options, he's likely to still do something, like hitting a screamer from yards out.

That said though, multiple users appear to have outed themselves as hurting their performances more than a reasonable manager would already, so yeah.

The claim of having found the evidence that the AI would need fewer shots to score is completely drawn obsolete by this test as it means firstly that:

- all/most AI opposition tends to be dominated on all accounts anyways

- all/most AI opposition tends to sit/get pushed deep and defend whilst trying to snatch one on the break, which when actually going through naturally has a much better chance of hitting the target (simple numbers game and football logics, really)

[Georgik]

Maybe, but historically the ME certainly used to be robust enough for funny little experiments like this. I had Messi edited into a 5th divion squad and witness him toring the league apart (both when simulated in full details and quick simed). I also had Ronaldo, Robben and Messi edited to Augsburg, and them alone got them from relegation fodder to EURO League ASAP (both same). The statistics as well as the play reflected their superiority in the areas you'd expect them to, in particular in the 5th division, nobody could really catch Messi once he had accelerated and was through.

From my experience, player quality is the driving force behind FM, and that was surely reflected (it's borderline impossible to finish outside the top two in La Liga with Barca and Real unless you field Messi as CB etc. where none of their key traits are valuable and they lose most of their crucial challenges and one on ones due to their attributes or build a team that is wide open to counter attacks every time when going forward, but even then the superb CBs are still occasionably able to lessen the damage on that level). Player quality being this important is one of the reasons why human players are always overachieving in their longterm career saves (player squads get better each season, AI squads not so much). And secondly they're also the reason why generally FM tables during the first couple of seasons are this "realistic", e.g. they mimic the real standings or predictions this decently. That's not to say that man management and tactics don't have an influence, it's easy to build something really crappy and underachieve (see some of the shots highlighted above), but in general, the better team outperforms the worse one, and that is reflected by the game, always has been. Still you can leave someone like Kroos completely isolated and short of options, he's likely to still do something, like hitting a screamer from yards out.

That said though, multiple users appear to have outed themselves as hurting their performances more than a reasonable manager would already, so yeah.

Spot on.

[SiLarcs]

Not a bad read this

[Dagenham_Dave]

Not a bad read this

Haha, well done mate.

[xtradj]

Just goes to show top players money tactics Etc don't work it's all random generated in terms of results based on club quality ie coefficient. Silly really

[ViG1980]

Really are some laughable responses here. The typical ignorant comments of "It's just your tactics" - are people typing with their eyes closed?

Let's get this straight we aren't talking about the 5 time Ballon'D'Or winner Connor Sammon or Stuart Parnaby the next Bobby Moore, it's Derby County with an average Championship squad.

If you seriously think Ronaldo, Messi & Falcao rocking up at Pride Park & losing 2-1 because of their "managers tactics" you really need your head tested. I can understand how morale / pitch / player positions matter playing a team with similar quality but comments like "you should've played a defensive midfielder" wouldn't really matter with that super elite XI.

This.

Effing hilarious how anyone can try and say this makes sense - unless of course the OP is doing something stupid during the game (e.g. putting 11 up top).

All of the example (Cardiff vs. City) are not comparable. This team would hammer Blackburn and Derby 90+/100.

[Sir_Ming]

How do you do that?

[Svenc]

Due to occasional stats like this, and the ME simulating teams getting frustrated when not putting one away, so far i don't think the FM 2014 ME is yet reliable for long-term tests like this. Also some defensive issues still are yet to be resolved, no doubts contributing to shot counts like this, and making defending too passive in FM 2014 in general (from my limited playing experience).

I did grant Hull City pretty much the same squad in FM 2012, though. I really like experiments, and none ever completely broke the logics of the game so far. I didn't take over myself, but let Hull Manager Nick Barmby have his say and fun. I did however ensure that the detail level was set to full match details on Cup competitions as well as Championship games, naturally. If you want to find curiosities, you'll find them in the fact that Earnshaw had a higher pass completion rather than Iniesta (and that wasn't because he came on once and completed the 1 pass he had the opportunity to complete all season). Also Ronaldo "being pleased to have joined a Championship side" would make you chuckle. And come December I expected there to be a little bit of a fallout, such as players "wanting to move to a bigger club", which according to their status ain't the case yet. But other than that...

Final standings: http://www.pic-upload.de/view-21240398/finalstand.png.html

League stats (December 2011, mid-season): http://www.pic-upload.de/view-21240184/stats.png.html

Results: http://www.pic-upload.de/view-21240186/fixtures-.png.html

Final results (note the FA Cup victory including a 5-0 away thrashing of Chelski): http://www.pic-upload.de/view-21240372/result.png.html

[valehannes]

This.

Effing hilarious how anyone can try and say this makes sense - unless of course the OP is doing something stupid during the game (e.g. putting 11 up top).

All of the example (Cardiff vs. City) are not comparable. This team would hammer Blackburn and Derby 90+/100.

Considering Ray and George both got acceptable results with sub-par tactics and comfortable results when we switched to acceptable ones, I think op might've done something completely unthinkable like playing with his only central midfielders going out wide.

[Georgik]

So i made a new experiment and have signed Messi, Cristiano, Neuer, Hummels and Fabregas, but differently from the first time as i set in their contract future transfer arranged and waited to see what impact the transfer will have on the club and on the players :

What's strange is the fact that they are completely happy that they joined a far more inferior side, in an inferior league, without european football and on inferior wages, as i set their wage below what they were gaining at Barca and Real ... Don't know what to think about it.

But without a doubt, if i didnt use the Editor, they would have never in a billion years joined me.

[Svenc]

What's strange is the fact that they are completely happy that they joined a far more inferior side, in an inferior league, without european football and on inferior wages, as i set their wage below what they were gaining at Barca and Real ... Don't know what to think about it.

But without a doubt, if i didnt use the Editor, they would have never in a billion years joined me.

Has always been the case, that is players being "plaesed to have joined their new club". It's almost a default.

It'd be easy to code something into the game, I guess, but naturally, when the game is "on" rather than edited manually, such would never happen anyway. That is, Ronaldo even moving there.

There is something similarily questionable in terms of international team selection by the AI. And that is that player/club reputation is factored into this. If you move Messi to a lower league side, there's fat chance he soon won't see another start for Argentina. Again, would never happen in a running game.

For fun I manually relegated my above Hull City side (FM 2012) into the Blue Square Bet Premier, and they don't lose any points: http://www.pic-upload.de/view-21240474/bsq.png.html Double digit results have always been a rarity in FM, though. Naturally, we don't know whether such would regularly happen in real-life, though. More important is the actual record, which is an andisputed 24-0-0 and 147 goals scored and 6 conceded respectively.

[Govnar1]

M. De Paola and V. Scoppa: The Effects of Managerial Turnover: Evidence from Coach Dismissals in Italian Soccer Teams

The authors use sports data to study the effects of manager replacement on firm

performance. Using match results of the major Italian soccer league (‘‘Serie A’’),

the effects of coach (manager) changes on team performance are analyzed. To

control for the ‘‘Ashenfelter dip’’ and to compare similar teams facing similar

opponents two alternative econometric strategies are undertaken: the estimation

of a number of team-season fixed effects models and the use of a matching estima-

tor. From team-season fixed effects estimates, it emerges that changing the coach

does not produce a positive effect on team performance, with the exception of the

number of goals scored. Matching estimates confirm that changing the coach does

not affect team performance neither when considering as dependent variable the

number of points per match nor when looking at the number of goals scored or

conceded.

[milnerpoint]

Just goes to show top players money tactics Etc don't work it's all random generated in terms of results based on club quality ie coefficient. Silly really

Infact it proves the exact opposite, it shows that good players with awful tactics will still fail, however with even a basic set up, still not great, the good players will shine through and win.

All of the example (Cardiff vs. City) are not comparable. This team would hammer Blackburn and Derby 90+/100.

Which has been shown, so far the OP is the only one unable to win games or score goals with a superstar team.

[Georgik]

If i remember correctly, in previous versions, players with worldwide reputation would get angry if the training facilities didnt matched their ability or smth like that (also smth with the poor staff at the club), i'm sure this is also into this version, just i didnt see it on my game

[Graham206]

Infact it proves the exact opposite, it shows that good players with awful tactics will still fail, however with even a basic set up, still not great, the good players will shine through and win.

That's certainly what I felt about my trial. I threw 11 great players in with basic tactics and they won. Not spectacularly but they won and I suspect given time to get used to playing together and tweaking the tactics according to what was and wasn't working they'd have been winning 5 or 6 nil every week after a month or two.

[Macshimmy]

This.

Effing hilarious how anyone can try and say this makes sense - unless of course the OP is doing something stupid during the game (e.g. putting 11 up top).

All of the example (Cardiff vs. City) are not comparable. This team would hammer Blackburn and Derby 90+/100.

90 times out of a hundred still equates to one time in ten when they don't.

[milnerpoint]

Even 99 times out of a 100 still leaves the chance of what happened to the OP.

I love threads like this, where people try and prove the game is broken, when they only thing they prove is they need to get better at the game. Its like one of those "i have reloaded 10000 times and cannot win, this game is broken" kinda threads.

[Macshimmy]

So i made a new experiment and have signed Messi, Cristiano, Neuer, Hummels and Fabregas, but differently from the first time as i set in their contract future transfer arranged and waited to see what impact the transfer will have on the club and on the players :

What's strange is the fact that they are completely happy that they joined a far more inferior side, in an inferior league, without european football and on inferior wages, as i set their wage below what they were gaining at Barca and Real ... Don't know what to think about it.

You 'decided' for them by adding a future transfer. There is nothing strange about this, you have bypassed the decision making process.

[milnerpoint]

There wont be anything coded into the game for a player being unhappy at arriving at a club, because players dont sign for teams they really dont want to play for, so there is no real reason to code something like that into the game. This means any player signing for any team will be happy to do so as the only thing coded will be players being happy at arriving at a new club. The rest is just sematics really, Ronaldo is only happy signing for a Championship club because he has signed for a Championship club, not because he is happy joining the league. If you have a team of world class rep players its likely they will stay happier a bit longer because of them, im sure there will also be something coded that if the players are playing, playing well, winning and being successful, you will probably get a bit more leeway in terms of them realizing what level they are playing at.

Again tho, this is stuff the game isnt really set up to deal with, because its completely impossible to happen in real life.

[BiggusD]

I just want to point out that most gelling and tactical familiarity problems will be gone by mid-November, so what I do when testing a tactic (or anything else) is to set up tactics and training, and then holiday until 15th of November telling the assistant to keep to my tactics (and removing autosave).

When returning, having been fired is a good indication of a faulty tactic

If the club is performing okay in the league, being placed roughly where we are tipped to be at the end of the season, I discard the tactic - but others might not.

I suspect that doing this in this experiment will put Nottingham Forest on top of the table, and that it will not tell us much about the quality of the tactic. This then leads to the question; are the AI clubs NOT suffering from the tactical familarity and gelling issues that human managers experience? Are they not suffering from the morale sapping issues? I think it is clear that the OP has been debunked, but there are still interesting questions to ask about the difference in efficiency seen in so many saves.

[milnerpoint]

What moral sapping issues?

[Riz Remes]

This then leads to the question; are the AI clubs NOT suffering from the tactical familarity and gelling issues that human managers experience?

Tactical familiarity and team gelling is handled the same way for all teams. Like the match engine, it does not make a difference between who is in charge of the teams.

[Butters76]

What moral sapping issues?

There are tons of them. Bad teamtalks, bad performances, injuries, unhappy with training +++

[Butters76]

Tactical familiarity and team gelling is handled the same way for all teams. Like the match engine, it does not make a difference between who is in charge of the teams.

Oh btw Riz. Its time you convince Miles that it's time to start working on a new Eastside hockey manager, right ?

[milnerpoint]

There are tons of them. Bad teamtalks, bad performances, injuries, unhappy with training +++

They are not moral sapping issues, they are just normal issues you have to deal with, handle them right, and moral is not an issue.

[Butters76]

They are not moral sapping issues, they are just normal issues you have to deal with, handle them right, and moral is not an issue.

I know that. But they are still potential moral sappers if you do it wrong. His question was if the things that lowers morale for human controlled teams didn't effect AI controlled teams. Bad performance does lower AI teams morale. Don't know about teamtalks, think the AI managers pretty much nail it every time. Not sure how they do training. But pretty sure they do that well too.

I don't often or ever see AI controlled players being upset at managers over teamtalks and training setup.

[Dagenham_Dave]

I don't often or ever see AI controlled players being upset at managers over teamtalks and training setup.

When would you ever see that anyway?

[BiggusD]

Morale stays at fairly poor, poor and okay even through winning streaks in some cases. If the morale has been built up, a loss sometimes lead to a dramatic drop in morale. This has been reported many times in the feedback thread.

Regarding team gelling and familiarity, I'm thinking that it is strange how people struggle to get into saves and have good starts - so I thought that maybe the AI teams had good familiarity and gelled teams by default. It is at least a documented issue that familiarity rise very slowly for the human managers; what it is like for the AI managers is "under the hood" so it is a fair question. I am not sure if this was what Riz Remes answered.

[HUNT3R]

I have certainly seen AI managers mess up team talks. Players complain in the media after the match. Doesn't happen often though. Then again, it is pretty difficult to mess up a team talk that badly anyway.

[milnerpoint]

Morale stays at fairly poor, poor and okay even through winning streaks in some cases. If the morale has been built up, a loss sometimes lead to a dramatic drop in morale. This has been reported many times in the feedback thread.

Regarding team gelling and familiarity, I'm thinking that it is strange how people struggle to get into saves and have good starts - so I thought that maybe the AI teams had good familiarity and gelled teams by default. It is at least a documented issue that familiarity rise very slowly for the human managers; what it is like for the AI managers is "under the hood" so it is a fair question. I am not sure if this was what Riz Remes answered.

Perhaps the AI is better at making a tactic right away, rather than have to tweak things about to find the right balance.

The thing is tho, for every person who has a bad start, there is someone who has a good start, its just the people who are doing badly want to post about it, there is no need for people doing well to publicise it, partially because they will be fobbed off as a defender or fanboy or whatever rubbish word is being used that week.

[BiggusD]

Perhaps the AI is better at making a tactic right away, rather than have to tweak things about to find the right balance.

The thing is tho, for every person who has a bad start, there is someone who has a good start, its just the people who are doing badly want to post about it, there is no need for people doing well to publicise it, partially because they will be fobbed off as a defender or fanboy or whatever rubbish word is being used that week.

Well, I have only tried the Demo yet, but my experience with it was that all 22 players were so passive that both defenses dropped back to a cluster in front of the goal and I thus thought that the best idea would be to play a counter or defense strategy with 5 at the back and stand off, retain possession etc. That worked well but most big chances were miraculously saved so I stopped playing. No wonder attacking tactics produces many, but poor chances given the nature of the ME and the behaviour of all 20 outfield players.

So in other words, what almost ALL the complainers have in common is that they have tried to dominate games, succeeded in doing so but failed at winning. This is not strange at all, because the ME favours tactics that denies space in front of goal and then goes on a counter-attack, which by default is using space left by opponents not yet camping in front of the goals. If you set out to do this in the first place, it is only logical that you would find no fault with the game - because that is what your team will end up doing anyways, even if you try to do the exact opposite.

Instead of assuming everything is fine with this ME, start a game as Barcelona and TRY to create 40 shots per game and 75% possession. You will likely succeed at it but not necessarily at winning.

[Butters76]

When would you ever see that anyway?

On the players profile, like on your players. says upset with manager comments and so on. You can see them upset for other things on AI teams, like wants to move to a bigger club.

[Butters76]

Well, I have only tried the Demo yet, but my experience with it was that all 22 players were so passive that both defenses dropped back to a cluster in front of the goal and I thus thought that the best idea would be to play a counter or defense strategy with 5 at the back and stand off, retain possession etc. That worked well but most big chances were miraculously saved so I stopped playing. No wonder attacking tactics produces many, but poor chances given the nature of the ME and the behaviour of all 20 outfield players.

Yeah on my Arsenal save all my matches end 3-2, 2-2 or 4-3 and I play a 4-5-1/4-3-3 with DM. Luckily I usually win, but so many goals both for and against.

[Butters76]

I have certainly seen AI managers mess up team talks. Players complain in the media after the match. Doesn't happen often though. Then again, it is pretty difficult to mess up a team talk that badly anyway.

My ass man is of a different opinion as he totally mess it up on a regular basis. most commonly is "nothing to say really" after something like a 3-1 win. Then 90% of the players gets pissed and unhappy with teamtalks. Doesn't seem to happen to AI teams and I would think they did pretty much the same decisions as your Ass man.