Morale on the game is far too sensitive!

[jlawlor91]

Successive promotions and after 3 games - 1W, 1D, 1L my team's morale is dreadful.

Do you agree morale is far too sensitive and changes like nothing??????

[coady]

I wouldn't say morale is too sensitive in the game, I do feel it has far too much of an impact on matches though in fm14. It's highly unrealistic that strong teams with prolonged success will suddenly lose all morale after one defeat, at least it is less often than happens in FM.

I personally think the match engine is a mess in fm14, particularly compared to last years where good football was finally played. Skill & player quality doesn't bode much impact on this years matches, with awful scrappy goals aplenty, many goalkeeper glitches & the appalling wingers and lack of delivery to name a few. I hope with the January update, a huge ME update will all also appear, as it should fix many of these sensitivity issues in other areas of the game.

It's a shame because outside of the ME this game is a huge step forward from last year, which is why it's all the more frustrating.

[HUNT3R]

Successive promotions and after 3 games - 1W, 1D, 1L my team's morale is dreadful.

Do you agree morale is far too sensitive and changes like nothing??????

No idea based on the lack of information you're giving. I haven't had unreasonable drops in morale in my save at all.

[Kazza]

It depends on a number of circumstances.

Take my team in RL Newcastle United...a week ago we were flying high. should beat Norwich even though we knew Cabaye might be going, played really well. Cabaye goes and the home match against Sunderland the "local big derby" for us, is probably one of the worse we have played. Loic suspended, Guffran injured, Cisse want away and allegedly injured and no strikers that are effective and bang we lose, get hammered 3-0 at home.

Morale will be rock bottom after that game.

So as I said it depends on the circumstances as to the morale of the players.

Players are fickle and quite simple re their mentality in FM and react to results thus:win=happy, depending on draw=happy to ok, depending on lose = ok to low.

[borobadger]

Football Manager may as well be called Morale Manager, if your morale is low you have no mission of beating even the worst teams, but if your on a good run you can beat anybody

[Jibby123]

For morale, firstly I never sign a player with less than 10 in Det, Teamwork or Work Rate and the higher the better. That seems to work well in getting players who are less likely to fall apart on sulks etc. I never sign a player who is described on his information screen as 'volitale' or 'outspoken' etc.

With that framework I use a calm approach to team talks, be a little soft/fluffy when things aren't going well. Praise players in private for good performances and good runs of form. Be calm in victory and defeat.

Use the individual team talk of "you have faith" in the player (whether you do or not) when starting a match or when they are coming on as a sub. You can use the latter one all the time with usually positive responses, but I think the effect of the former does drop off is overused. I save it for when I really need it.

I give them the best contracts I can afford and always renew if they ask to (assuming it's a player you want to keep obviously). Every player in my 25 man squad will play 20-30 games per season, nobody will play more than 35-40 ever. If they have the hump, when I can I let them play for the reserves and hopefully play well which can also boost morale.

Obviously winning games and morale go hand in hand though.

[coady]

For morale, firstly I never sign a player with less than 10 in Det, Teamwork or Work Rate and the higher the better. That seems to work well in getting players who are less likely to fall apart on sulks etc. I never sign a player who is described on his information screen as 'volitale' or 'outspoken' etc.

With that framework I use a calm approach to team talks, be a little soft/fluffy when things aren't going well. Praise players in private for good performances and good runs of form. Be calm in victory and defeat.

Use the individual team talk of "you have faith" in the player (whether you do or not) when starting a match or when they are coming on as a sub. You can use the latter one all the time with usually positive responses, but I think the effect of the former does drop off is overused. I save it for when I really need it.

I give them the best contracts I can afford and always renew if they ask to (assuming it's a player you want to keep obviously). Every player in my 25 man squad will play 20-30 games per season, nobody will play more than 35-40 ever. If they have the hump, when I can I let them play for the reserves and hopefully play well which can also boost morale.

Obviously winning games and morale go hand in hand though.

This rarely happens IRL though, and the point surely must be that a superb team who win everything constantly are going to suddenly all have woeful morale after one narrow defeat (except from exceptional circumstances such as a team mate getting a serious injury during the match or first match with a new manager after continued success with previous). Morale is affected far too greatly by matches. It doesn't often swing that drastically IRL, with most teams having 1 or 2 wins and same for defeats in a row at most. You think Palace will suddenly have woeful morale after losing 2-0 to Arsenal yesterday? NO, they're beating their rivals and still probably as confident as before that game.

The other point that may be connected:- On FM, fan confidence is always at least 'slightly concerned' when you lose a game. For example, in the TSN as Stockport, I drew Spurs away in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. I lost 2-0 and fans were concerned by the result & lack of chances creates by their side! How realistic is that!

[Nix]

I think the changes in morale are about right, however morale has far too much of an affect on the players performances during matches. Get down to poor morale and your players can't be bothered even jumping for a ball, you lose every open ball in midfield. It's all a bit silly really, these are professional athletes they don't suddenly lose all ability because they have had a few losses in a row.

[tomtuck01]

I see people are once again putting far too much emphasis on morale. It really doesn't effect things anything like as much as some seem to think. It is one of many factors, and a small one at that.

[Johnyfooty]

As long as we're not back to FM11 morale swings, I'm happy.

[Beestonite]

I don't think there is an issue with morale. It's pretty straight forward. If your team is in good form their morale is high or goes higher if you continue that form. I think we'd have to admit that we're all happy then. However if your forms slips and the morale goes down gradually, it's easy to look at that and blame it. Thing is, your team's morale is going to go down if your in poor form isn't it? It's then your job to get it back up. Not too difficult really.

I tend to find that there is underlying morale and quick change morale. For example, if I went on a twenty game winning streak and had superb morale throughout the squad, two losses couldn't really affect that too much. However, if my form was patchy and I had just lost 6 games in a row, then won two games in a row after the 6 lost to get morale back up to good, I find that if I lose the game after the two victories, the morale can drop much quicker as it's not 'established' good morale. It's more fragile. Which to me makes sense really.

[milnerpoint]

What i always find with these threads is the people who claim that when moral gets poor there is nothing you can do to win a game, and yet they will eventually be able to turn it round?!

Moral plays a part, but you can win with very poor moral, and lose with superb moral. Its not the be all and end all of the game. Although to be honest, i think its still far too easy to keep a team at top moral all the time.

[Vetinari]

My main issue is that dropping players sometimes causes their morale to instantly turn to abysmal. I could understand this if they had been in good form and without warning you just drop them even though they're fully fit. But in preaseason, why does my player have to go from Superb to Abysmal just because I'm trying to get match fitness of everyone else up. I know you can tell players you're dropping them, but I shouldn't have to go to that level of micromanagement.

[vlobben]

The issue I have with morale is that it seems too easy to reach the highest (and lowest) points of the scale. Seems to me that having most of the team on "superb" morale should only happen on very rare occations, and the same with "abysmal". Most of the time morale should be "okay" or "good"

[brawla123]

It's annoying when a players drops morale due to an injury because it never recovers well!

[tomtuck01]

My main issue is that dropping players sometimes causes their morale to instantly turn to abysmal. I could understand this if they had been in good form and without warning you just drop them even though they're fully fit. But in preaseason, why does my player have to go from Superb to Abysmal just because I'm trying to get match fitness of everyone else up. I know you can tell players you're dropping them, but I shouldn't have to go to that level of micromanagement.

Never, ever seen this happen. Not once. Reckon it must be something else you're doing.

[Vetinari]

Well if you have any suggestions? I started Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain one friendly, subbed him off but at the end of the match his morale was still superb. I think by the start of the next friendly it had dropped to very good, but the second I go to the match with him on the bench, his morale becomes abysmal. Again, I can understand why it happens during the season, but really there's no need for that in a friendly!

[brawla123]

Well in my save I've noticed that the higher the morale the better they will play. I think morale beats average rating in last 5, consistency and all those other stats in terms of the player doing well so if you constantly have high morale then matches will become easier, in terms of your players already being motivated. So just try to make use of more private chats and anything else that can possibly boost morale and if there's a chance that you could decrease it then maybe don't take that risk.

[Rob4590]

Well if you have any suggestions? I started Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain one friendly, subbed him off but at the end of the match his morale was still superb. I think by the start of the next friendly it had dropped to very good, but the second I go to the match with him on the bench, his morale becomes abysmal. Again, I can understand why it happens during the season, but really there's no need for that in a friendly!

Then there is something else going on that you haven't mentioned - does he want a new contract for example (even if it is only mentioned a couple of times by your ass man in backroom advice)? Has he just been tutored and it ended badly? Have you just sold someone that he is friends with? What teamtalk did you give the team (and to him individually) at the end of the previous match etc?

[Nix]

I've been running experiments in the editor, the effect of increasing 'Poor' morale to 'Superb' morale is worth about 30 CA. 30 CA is roughly equivalent to two attribute points in each attribute, so your defender would have marking 15 at poor morale and marking 17 at superb morale etc etc.

Too much in my opinion.

[milnerpoint]

Well that is not true at all. How would you even work that out. How does the ME show a player with 17 marking? How are you able to decipher the difference between 15 marking and 17 marking in the ME?

[HUNT3R]

I've been running experiments in the editor, the effect of increasing 'Poor' morale to 'Superb' morale is worth about 30 CA. 30 CA is roughly equivalent to two attribute points in each attribute, so your defender would have marking 15 at poor morale and marking 17 at superb morale etc etc.

Too much in my opinion.

You brought some proper info to the table. Well done for that. I have no idea whether what you said is actually true or not as I have zero experience with editors.

If you're right about the CA and attributes findings, it makes sense to me. You checked the extremes of morale and two points difference, isn't that much. I'd imagine that a player who is down on confidence, motivation and morale in general will be worse than a fired-up player. What you're saying is that the defender will be 10% better at marking, tackling etc when morale is high and he is fired up compared to when he's down on the floor. Sounds about right to me, but as I said, I have zero experience with editors and CA abilities etc.

[tomtuck01]

I've been running experiments in the editor, the effect of increasing 'Poor' morale to 'Superb' morale is worth about 30 CA. 30 CA is roughly equivalent to two attribute points in each attribute, so your defender would have marking 15 at poor morale and marking 17 at superb morale etc etc.

Too much in my opinion.

Simply not true. I hope no one has been dumb enough to believe this.

[HUNT3R]

I've been running experiments in the editor, the effect of increasing 'Poor' morale to 'Superb' morale is worth about 30 CA. 30 CA is roughly equivalent to two attribute points in each attribute, so your defender would have marking 15 at poor morale and marking 17 at superb morale etc etc.

Out of interest, how did you find this out?

[dazbowski]

What i always find with these threads is the people who claim that when moral gets poor there is nothing you can do to win a game, and yet they will eventually be able to turn it round?!

Moral plays a part, but you can win with very poor moral, and lose with superb moral. Its not the be all and end all of the game. Although to be honest, i think its still far too easy to keep a team at top moral all the time.

........................................

[Nix]

Out of interest, how did you find this out?

I created 10 teams of identical players with attributes adjusted from 200 down to 160 CA with identical facilities and staff. I took over a 170 CA team and ran through 45 game seasons using the IGE to set the morale to 'superb' or 'poor' before every match. With morale at superb the 170CA team was doing about as well as 185CA teams. With morale at poor the 170CA team was doing about as well as the 160CA team.

There are factors of luck etc still involved so there are still different variances on the results, but I try and eliminate all the different factors that I can.

I have taken the idea from the tactic testing league at fm-base.co.uk and adjusted it for my own database that I can use to test tactics.

Here is a screenshot of a test I am part way through at the moment :-

[Vetinari]

Then there is something else going on that you haven't mentioned - does he want a new contract for example (even if it is only mentioned a couple of times by your ass man in backroom advice)? Has he just been tutored and it ended badly? Have you just sold someone that he is friends with? What teamtalk did you give the team (and to him individually) at the end of the previous match etc?

Nope, no new contract wanted, this is the first preseason and I've not sold or bought anybody and not started tutoring. I don't remember exactly, but I know that literally just before I chose the team every single first team player had at least good morale, and I know his was superb. Then the second you get to the match he's suddenly abysmal. It happens quite a bit which is why I know that that's the problem, I'll get a screenshot next time I get a chance.

[Beestonite]

I created 10 teams of identical players with attributes adjusted from 200 down to 160 CA with identical facilities and staff. I took over a 170 CA team and ran through 45 game seasons using the IGE to set the morale to 'superb' or 'poor' before every match. With morale at superb the 170CA team was doing about as well as 185CA teams. With morale at poor the 170CA team was doing about as well as the 160CA team.

There are factors of luck etc still involved so there are still different variances on the results, but I try and eliminate all the different factors that I can.

I have taken the idea from the tactic testing league at fm-base.co.uk and adjusted it for my own database that I can use to test tactics.

Here is a screenshot of a test I am part way through at the moment :-

While I applaud you for what you're trying to do here, the results are hardly documented scientific evidence are they? There are no figures quoted here, just opinion. Stating that one team 'is doing about as well' as another means very little if you take into account the amount of factors at work during any game. If football was simply a case of Team A has a CA of 180 and therefore should beat Team B who have a CA of 150, then there wouldn't ever be any FA Cup shocks etc would there? Man City should have won the league last year by your reasoning but an average Man United team with a superb Manager won instead.

Then if you take the FA Cup scenario, where for example a team with an average CA of 80 could beat a team with an average CA of 180, where does that leave the experiment? Even if you take into account morale, the CA balance would still be massively in favour of the team with the higher CA, yet they can still lose.

Unless you can actually quote visible numbers/figures here, there are too many variables at play to believe that what you say is actually true.

[milnerpoint]

Yeah exactly, there are far too many factors that come into play to make a decision as you have done, its a flawed experiment.

[Nix]

Yep there are still random factors in play as I mentioned. This is why you run it multiple times and try and eliminate all the randomness you can control.

With regard to your criticism Beestonite you have constructed a bit of a straw man argument above (misrepresenting my experiment to discredit it). You are implying that because the result of a single game can vary greatly, that a whole season worth of results is invalid. This is untrue, over a whole season of games (45 in my case) the luck of individual games is largely taken out of the equation. This is especially true if you then run multiple seasons.

Feel free to constructively list how the experiment could be improved, just saying 'this is a flawed experiment' isn't helpful.

If a team with superb morale consistently does better than a team with poor morale, when morale is the only factor that differs, then I think we can still draw meaningful conclusions from the results. Just because it isn't a perfect experiment doesn't mean it's a flawed one.

[tomtuck01]

Yeah exactly, there are far too many factors that come into play to make a decision as you have done, its a flawed experiment.

I's not the experiment that is flawed, but the very notion to begin with. The very thought that attributes basically change in the ME from what we can see in a players attribute screen depending on morale is quite preposterous.

[milnerpoint]

Yep there are still random factors in play as I mentioned. This is why you run it multiple times and try and eliminate all the randomness you can control.

With regard to your criticism Beestonite you have constructed a bit of a straw man argument above (misrepresenting my experiment to discredit it). You are implying that because the result of a single game can vary greatly, that a whole season worth of results is invalid. This is untrue, over a whole season of games (45 in my case) the luck of individual games is largely taken out of the equation. This is especially true if you then run multiple seasons.

Feel free to constructively list how the experiment could be improved, just saying 'this is a flawed experiment' isn't helpful.

If a team with superb morale consistently does better than a team with poor morale, when morale is the only factor that differs, then I think we can still draw meaningful conclusions from the results. Just because it isn't a perfect experiment doesn't mean it's a flawed one.

You cannot eliminate the random factors, no matter what you do. Even if you run the games 100000 times, you will still have to deal with the random element, that is why the experiment is flawed. You can never remove the luck factor from the game, ever.

How can you say for certain a player is playing with 20 more CA points when his moral is high? How is that quantifiable from watching the ME or looking at the results?

[Beestonite]

You cannot eliminate the random factors, no matter what you do. Even if you run the games 100000 times, you will still have to deal with the random element, that is why the experiment is flawed. You can never remove the luck factor from the game, ever.

How can you say for certain a player is playing with 20 more CA points when his moral is high? How is that quantifiable from watching the ME or looking at the results?

This was going to be my next point. How are you quantifying the CA points? From what I can see it is no more than guess work.

[GabrieleGallagher]

Recently I learned a better way to use team talks and in that way I managed to achieve some great green arrows before matchdays.

I also learned to praise players when necessary during weeks so their performances improved a lot.

I think FM14 needs a different approach to the game and if you can find the right way you can have some fun. I missed FM13 last year, that's why I had some troubles adapting myself to the new way of playing the game, FM12's approach used to be a lot different from this one.

[Nix]

If you ran the games 100000 times you could get excellent results to high probability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability

You have singularly failed to understand some very basic concepts in science here milnerpoint / beestonite.

[Beestonite]

Personally, I prefer fact, rather than a second rate option.

[milnerpoint]

If experiment is run for numerous seasons (say 30 for example) luck, randomness will pretty much clear out and what you will get is the pretty clear picture how teams with given CA and morale are doing.

To quantify exactley how much ratings differ in a match engine is another thing. But again over 30 years of experiment you will be able to get percentages and apply that to attributes to have at least a vague picture how morale influences the game.

That being said, it is not perfect experiment (and there can hardly be one) but it is better than nothing.

kutgw

Personally, i would argue its worse than nothing, as it proves very little, whilst making wild assumptions as to how things work.

Its just one persons opinion, based on set up observations, to me its proven very little in the grander scheme of things.

[Nix]

Please state the assumptions that I have made so that I can improve the experiment then... otherwise you are just filling the forum with hot air.

One of the things I wonder about is if there is another 'hidden' system, separate to morale, that SI uses to feed current player performance / form into the Match Engine. If this was the case then it would add extra variance into the results outside of my control, forcing the need to run more games before meaningful results could be drawn with any meaningful statistical significance.

[Nix]

there is - it is dice roll or randomness. but simulating 100000 matches should take that out.

Man I wish I could get access to the pure black box of the match engine only. You could write a testing harness around it to run 100000 games and really get precise results. Unfortunately at the moment it takes around an hour for me to sim each 45 game season. If I could automate it and leave my machine running... ahhhh. At the moment I would estimate the variance of final results over the season is at about +/- 5 pts which is acceptable enough for my purposes.

[Beestonite]

Please state the assumptions that I have made so that I can improve the experiment then... otherwise you are just filling the forum with hot air.

One of the things I wonder about is if there is another 'hidden' system, separate to morale, that SI uses to feed current player performance / form into the Match Engine. If this was the case then it would add extra variance into the results outside of my control, forcing the need to run more games before meaningful results could be drawn with any meaningful statistical significance.

You can't improve the experiment because you will never be able to see the actual figures you are currently guessing.

The simple fact is, with football there are an infinite amount of variables. Off days for players, poor referee decisions, injuries, fluke goals, poor linesman decisions (not the same as ref), bad management, players not liking each other, players being nervous in certain situations, teams gelling because of new signings, boardroom problems....the list is endless. All of which can affect team/individual performance. You're being very simplistic to say that the outcome of a league table (albeit played 100000 times) is based on CA linked to morale.

What has happened to Man United this season? What has happened to Newcastle since last season? Arsenal even. I'm happy in the knowledge that you'll never be able to prove your point with figures. If you can't do that then due to the fact there are so many random occurrences, it's all guess work.

[milnerpoint]

Please state the assumptions that I have made so that I can improve the experiment then... otherwise you are just filling the forum with hot air.

One of the things I wonder about is if there is another 'hidden' system, separate to morale, that SI uses to feed current player performance / form into the Match Engine. If this was the case then it would add extra variance into the results outside of my control, forcing the need to run more games before meaningful results could be drawn with any meaningful statistical significance.

Your assuming a player on superb moral is always playing to his CA, whilst a player on very poor is not playing to his CA. You have no real way of proving that is the case.

You then have the change in moral that occurs as soon as the team talk is given, change in moral after a goal, in game incident, half time team talk, effect of subs ect. None of which you seem to be accounting for. You cannot say a player on very poor moral will play 20 points below his CA, because its extremely unlikely he will be on poor moral from the kick off to the end of the game, it will fluctuate. The same goes for superb, a striker misses an easy chance with superb moral and his moral will drop, how are you accounting for these in game changes of moral when deciding the distriubtion of CA points?

You then have ref mistakes to take into account, how are you accounting for them in terms of how the teams are performing?

Thats just three things that could wildly change the result of a game.

I would question the point of this test. You can beat a team on superb moral with your entire team on very poor moral, just like you can lose when the opposite is applied. This really makes no real sense, there are just too many factors for this to be taken seriously.

What i do hope is that no one reads that post, and takes it as gospil, misinformation is too easily spread about this game.

Its also worth noting that what you claim, completely opposes what SI say, that moral plays a small part of performances. 20 CA points is a pretty big change, there is no way it works that way.

[Nix]

You can't improve the experiment because you will never be able to see the actual figures you are currently guessing.

The simple fact is, with football there are an infinite amount of variables. Off days for players, poor referee decisions, injuries, fluke goals, poor linesman decisions (not the same as ref), bad management, players not liking each other, players being nervous in certain situations, teams gelling because of new signings, boardroom problems....the list is endless. All of which can affect team/individual performance. You're being very simplistic to say that the outcome of a league table (albeit played 100000 times) is based on CA linked to morale.

What has happened to Man United this season? What has happened to Newcastle since last season? Arsenal even. I'm happy in the knowledge that you'll never be able to prove your point with figures. If you can't do that then due to the fact there are so many random occurrences, it's all guess work.

All of the random variables you have listed balance out over time when enough games are run. The key is that the randomness effects every team equally, so we can then isolate it out of the experiment by running enough games.

Let me reverse the logic for you and see if that helps you understand.

- If the experiment is consistently showing that a superb morale team performs better than a poor morale team, what could be causing this?

- If 10 identical teams with the players adjusted at 200,195,190,185,180,175,170,165,160 CA play out a league, and the results consistently show the CA 200 player team at the top and the CA 160 team at the bottom wouldn't that show that there is a relevant CA scale we can judge our morale results against?

[milnerpoint]

All of the random variables you have listed balance out over time when enough games are run. The key is that the randomness effects every team equally, so we can then isolate it out of the experiment by running enough games.

Let me reverse the logic for you and see if that helps you understand.

- If the experiment is consistently showing that a superb morale team performs better than a poor morale team, what could be causing this?

- If 10 identical teams with the players adjusted at 200,195,190,185,180,175,170,165,160 CA play out a league, and the results consistently show the CA 200 player team at the top and the CA 160 team at the bottom wouldn't that show that there is a relevant CA scale we can judge our morale results against?

Again no, because as soon as the game starts, moral can change. Moral fluctuates during games, unless your accounting for that fluctuation, the results are relatively meaningless.

[Beestonite]

Your assuming a player on superb moral is always playing to his CA, whilst a player on very poor is not playing to his CA. You have no real way of proving that is the case.

You then have the change in moral that occurs as soon as the team talk is given, change in moral after a goal, in game incident, half time team talk, effect of subs ect. None of which you seem to be accounting for. You cannot say a player on very poor moral will play 20 points below his CA, because its extremely unlikely he will be on poor moral from the kick off to the end of the game, it will fluctuate. The same goes for superb, a striker misses an easy chance with superb moral and his moral will drop, how are you accounting for these in game changes of moral when deciding the distriubtion of CA points?

You then have ref mistakes to take into account, how are you accounting for them in terms of how the teams are performing?

Thats just three things that could wildly change the result of a game.

I would question the point of this test. You can beat a team on superb moral with your entire team on very poor moral, just like you can lose when the opposite is applied. This really makes no real sense, there are just too many factors for this to be taken seriously.

What i do hope is that no one reads that post, and takes it as gospil, misinformation is too easily spread about this game.

Its also worth noting that what you claim, completely opposes what SI say, that moral plays a small part of performances. 20 CA points is a pretty big change, there is no way it works that way.

milnerpoint, you can take a horse to water....

[Kazza]

I am never quite sure what people are trying to prove when they head off into experiment land in FM games. As many have said; it's like trying to predict real life football, almost impossible, Too many variants as milnerpoint has illustrated. If you want the game to be programmed a certain way, then maybe running tests might prove something but given the type of game FM is, it would appear to have no real point. FM is not and cannot be judged by scientific analysis.

Sure there are bugs and flaws but other than that Football is what it is - a weird game that throws many sets of hares running off in all directions. Though I suspect we will always have people who believe in conspiracy theories!

[Nix]

Your assuming a player on superb moral is always playing to his CA, whilst a player on very poor is not playing to his CA. You have no real way of proving that is the case.

You then have the change in moral that occurs as soon as the team talk is given, change in moral after a goal, in game incident, half time team talk, effect of subs ect. None of which you seem to be accounting for. You cannot say a player on very poor moral will play 20 points below his CA, because its extremely unlikely he will be on poor moral from the kick off to the end of the game, it will fluctuate. The same goes for superb, a striker misses an easy chance with superb moral and his moral will drop, how are you accounting for these in game changes of moral when deciding the distriubtion of CA points?

You then have ref mistakes to take into account, how are you accounting for them in terms of how the teams are performing?

Thats just three things that could wildly change the result of a game.

I would question the point of this test. You can beat a team on superb moral with your entire team on very poor moral, just like you can lose when the opposite is applied. This really makes no real sense, there are just too many factors for this to be taken seriously.

What i do hope is that no one reads that post, and takes it as gospil, misinformation is too easily spread about this game.

Its also worth noting that what you claim, completely opposes what SI say, that moral plays a small part of performances. 20 CA points is a pretty big change, there is no way it works that way.

Again the straw man argument that the large variation in a single game means that the overall results of multiple games are flawed. This is simply not the case.

Similar to beestonite you have also listed a lot of factors that effect the result of a single game. All very valid points for a single, and again points that are irrelevant in the larger experiment as they balance out over the course of many games (ref mistakes etc).

You are correct that morale changes during a game due to team talks etc. However this occurs within the experiment as all players start with 'superb' or 'poor' morale. Over the course of a season (I can't stress this part enough!) starting every game with 'superb' morale will be worth around 25 CA more than starting every game with 'poor' morale.

[HUNT3R]

All of the random variables you have listed balance out over time when enough games are run. The key is that the randomness effects every team equally, so we can then isolate it out of the experiment by running enough games.

Let me reverse the logic for you and see if that helps you understand.

- If the experiment is consistently showing that a superb morale team performs better than a poor morale team, what could be causing this?

- If 10 identical teams with the players adjusted at 200,195,190,185,180,175,170,165,160 CA play out a league, and the results consistently show the CA 200 player team at the top and the CA 160 team at the bottom wouldn't that show that there is a relevant CA scale we can judge our morale results against?

I applaud you for actually trying an experiment, instead if the usual guessing and making up statistics. Unfortunately, there are too many variables over the course of a season for this to prove anything.

Asking everyone involved in the thread so far : What about just simulating the same game over and over? Wouldn't that maybe eliminate a lot of the variables?

[milnerpoint]

Again the straw man argument that the large variation in a single game means that the overall results of multiple games are flawed. This is simply not the case.

Similar to beestonite you have also listed a lot of factors that effect the result of a single game. All very valid points for a single, and again points that are irrelevant in the larger experiment as they balance out over the course of many games (ref mistakes etc).

You are correct that morale changes during a game due to team talks etc. However this occurs within the experiment as all players start with 'superb' or 'poor' morale. Over the course of a season (I can't stress this part enough!) starting every game with 'superb' morale will be worth around 25 CA more than starting every game with 'poor' morale.

Again you just cannot make that assumption as you have nothing at all to back up your claim that you will gain 25 CA points because of moral. Your experiment is not showing that all, you've just shown that a team with high moral will most likely win more than a team with pooer moral, which we already know. The factors of one game play a huge part in the outcome of that one game, you cannot just discount them and say it all evens out, because again, you cannot prove that to be the case. Moral fluctuations cannot even out, as you would have to assume that moral has gone up and down by a square value, over the course of a season, yet again, you cannot prove that to be the case.

[Nix]

I applaud you for actually trying an experiment, instead if the usual guessing and making up statistics. Unfortunately, there are too many variables over the course of a season for this to prove anything.

Asking everyone involved in the thread so far : What about just simulating the same game over and over? Wouldn't that maybe eliminate a lot of the variables?

Simulating the same game over and over would also work, and is probably a better approach. The problem with this approach is that you then don't have a 'CA scale' to judge the morale changes against.

Consider the following (completely hypothetical) results :-

Team A (superb morale) vs Team B. W:150 D:100 L:50

Team A (poor morale) vs Team B. W:100 D: 100 L:100

What have we proved? Well we can say that the superb morale results are better than the poor morale results. We can also say that Superb morale results give you a 50% extra probability of winning a game. We can't however quantify the results down to any specific attribute increase as we have no way to judge that.

[Beestonite]

What have we proved? Well we can say that the superb morale results are better than the poor morale results. We can also say that Superb morale results give you a 50% extra probability of winning a game. We can't however quantify the results down to any specific attribute increase as we have no way to judge that.

Genius. And it took you how long to work that out? Isn't that what milner and I have been saying? You can't quantify it, yet you are still claiming YOU can attribute a 25 point increase in CA. There is no way to correlate the morale and CA as it isn't visible.