What's the 'best' FM Match Engine?

[shirajzl]

Santa Claus may be on to something and this other quote perfectly sums up the apparent division of users regarding the quality of FM 14.

For those that always played this way, it's no problem, but it's a big curve to get over for people like me.

It'll be interesting to see how SI plan to tackle current dissatisfaction of a significant portion of player base.

[Lawlore]

I also think there's a lot of truth in Santa Claus' analysis. Good post.

[Skarasne]

CM 0102 by far. But like you said, if we look past CM 0102 engine i must say FM 12. Not because FM 12 engine was that good, but because it lacked less unrealistic problems

then all the other FM engines from past or after FM 12. I would imagine if the SIgame crew could sort out the corner bug and central striker bug in FM 12, they would have a

pretty playable engine.

When that said, it is my opinion. Haven't played FM 14 that much - nor have i played much of FM series from start til FM 12. So my judgement is simply from limited knowledge. Anyway i hope they can sort out whatever problems they come across and hopefully they will not mess up as much as they did with the FM 13 engine. Lesson learned i hope for the SIgames crew.

[Luckz]

How about an accidental intentional own goal?

http://gyazo.com/73a9416422c644ae5b6fa868b5d4fd96

(click the MP4 button to view it fluidly)

P.S.: As I'm typing this, my friend is in a penalty shootout that's at 19-19, with one pen missed each.

The end: http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/3281185307622565801/EE9FE9886141354B87F6D8A250F4A2B25918BEB2/

Is that some all time world record? Nah, just your typical FM14 match.

[Brick_Tamland]

However, despite these bugs, the nuts and bolts of a more robust ME are firmly in place and you should expect future developments to produce an ME as polished as FM11/12.

Here is where I get a little lost. I log a TON of time on FM (way to much to be blunt) .... if this statement is true wwfan (which by the way I love your work on all the versions and what you added to the community in the earlier years is amazing stuff) .... Why then was it released as a full blown game? If the ME is in "place" to be better than previous versions ...why release it? If people (including myself) are paying their hard earned money for a NEW release one would think it is better (as it should be) than the previous .... so this statement above clarifies what "most" (not all) people have been complaining about (of which I see as well) .. the niggling little misses, the odd decisions here and there, the random messed up positioning of a defender etc etc etc .....

Why release it then as a better and improved version if the ME (which is the heart and soul of the game) is "still being polished" to match that of earlier releases? It does not add up for me.... Just my 2 cents ...

[HUNT3R]

It's already better than FM11/12. Maybe not as polished, but it is better.

[David91]

No, it isn't.

[forameuss]

It's already better than FM11/12. Maybe not as polished, but it is better.

No, it isn't.

Well I'm convinced.

Technically, it is better, there is absolutely no arguing that. Subjectively and personally, it's whatever you think it is. But you cannot even begin to argue that it isn't technically better.

[HUNT3R]

No, it isn't.

First let me ask you this. When last did you play FM12 and FM14 respectively?

[David91]

FM14 - a month ago. FM12 - today. I installed FM12 again somewhere in april, when it became obvious that FM14 is a dissapointment.

[HUNT3R]

Then honestly? If you cannot see the major improvements in FM13/14, stick with FM12.

If you can't see:

The overpowered dribbling from the wing in FM12.

The lack of support from teammates for anyone on the wing.

The utterly robotic forward/back movement, with hardly any lateral movement from player not asked to move into channels.

The ease at which very fast poacher/advanced forward strikers run through defenders onto through balls, even if you have a weak tactical setup.

The lack of goals and general usefulness from Target Men. Fast strikers rule everything along with high agility wide forwards.

What do I see in FM14 that's missing in FM12? Movement. Intelligence.

A lack of robotic movement. Players still make runs, but toward space rather than just straight forward.

Movement from playmakers, especially from midfield, namely DLP, Regista and AP. They're brilliant. They way they move toward the ball carrier, trying to be an option for the pass is great to see. They're always looking to be in space.

Movement by supporting players to come and support the wide player with the ball is, again, lateral and intelligent movement you don't see in FM12. Wide players there are left all alone to fend for themselves.

Movement from other players in relation to the ball carrier in general. As soon is the ball is passed to a new player, you see players moving in relation to this player. Some move closer to support, while others move away into space. Much more intelligent and fluid.

Unique movement from certain roles. I already mentioned playmakers. Add half-backs to that. You'll change the whole system, just by introducing one of these players.

[David91]

What I don't see in FM12

Moronic defenders.

Moronic goalkeepers.

Top strikers constantly missing great chances.

"He never meant it" goals from the wing.

What I do see in FM12? Possibilities.

In FM12, poachers were overpowered. I agree. I don't use them, since I like to experiment with tactics and try different approaches. Now CWBs look quite overpowered and nobody complains. Why? In FM14, utterly borring tiki-takanaccio is unplayable, AI teams (for example Bayern) do not even remotely play like they do in RL, too low possesion percentages, too many misplaced passes. 3-man defences were way better in FM12 and 13 than in FM14.

And yes, I am playing FM12, because I find it less buggy than FM14. Let me put it this way - maybe it is not more realistic, but it definitely is less unrealistic than this year's edition.

[Svenc]

I was a player who could always just throw together some players, click continue, and I'd be fairly confident of knowing how things would go. That just isn't possible anymore, and you have to be much more savvy about things, and know your squad (and the strengths and weaknesses) inside out. For those that always played this way, it's no problem, but it's a big curve to get over for people like me.

I know this gets repeated often, and it's to an extent subjective as it depends on the goings on each save to a degree. However, I did multiple tests throughout and cannot confirm. If you want to test how wrong you really are, sign to a club, don't do anything and just go on holiday straight away. Do these multiple times with various clubs. From the second season onwards, you're in advantage and settled anyway, as the AI's squad building isn't that great. That's not claiming that each save is going to be a success. Suffice it to say that I don't agree still.

It is debatable as to whether every AI manager would be as in-depth with tactics anyway, as different managers excel and achieve (or fail) in different areas of their trade in real football likewise. On FM 2013, I tested what would happen with totally rigid setups that completely isolated attacking players, narrowed play and players' options and invididual skills and performances (successful dribblings, long shots, clinical finishing that doesn't rely on many chances being created, etc.) could still make for somewhat decent results. If somebody like Kroos was out of options, he might have just taken a shot and scored or taken a pot shot at the keeper and providing an opportunity for a forward to tap the ball in. And Neymar's runs are always good for creating space and opportunity in and on themselves, be it by the many successfull runs past his marker or by being hacked down in the box and the ref awarding the penalty that settles what was a dire 0-0 up to that point. Meaning that it's never just tactics anyway, you can still excel by mastering transfers and squad development too.

Back when FM Live was released, SI giggled at FM players claiming to be tactical experts, as FM Live was going to be for many FM players their first time they would ever come up against managers that were freed of the then very simple AI tactics. Those tactics might have improved a lot, but not nearly to the extent, which SI likely would and probably should confirm. As argued, it remains debatable if very AI manager should be as in-depth with tactics and analysis anyway, as managers in real football aren't necessarily masters in all tools of their trade likewise. This is from wwfan's guide, right from the opening, and that's totally legit still, as it arguably needs to be.

There are many ways in which we interpret football. Some people believe that a team should always employ the same tactic, no matter the opposition, conditions, and match situation. Others believe that a tactical approach should be altered to take into account absolutely everything, giving instructions to play the ball more direct in wet weather, specific marking oppositional threats, changing formation in relation to the opposition's strengths and weaknesses, etc, etc. FM allows both playing styles, and all those in between, to achieve.

If you want to keep it simple, keep it simple. If you don't like a specific area of the game, trust your assistants, they're there for a reason. However, do all of that in a somewhat logical somewhat coherent way, and one that doesn't reach for panic button with each defeat or slump.

[Luckz]

"He never meant it" goals from the wing.

Today the enigmatic finisher Phil Jones scored a hat-trick for me, including a freak goal from the wing. Whatever a CB is doing on the wing anyway (it was after a set piece and he was too lazy to hobble back into defense).

Speaking of that, a few games before he scored a brace against Barcelona.

That never happened for me in, say, FM10

[wwfan]

Here is where I get a little lost. I log a TON of time on FM (way to much to be blunt) .... if this statement is true wwfan (which by the way I love your work on all the versions and what you added to the community in the earlier years is amazing stuff) .... Why then was it released as a full blown game? If the ME is in "place" to be better than previous versions ...why release it? If people (including myself) are paying their hard earned money for a NEW release one would think it is better (as it should be) than the previous .... so this statement above clarifies what "most" (not all) people have been complaining about (of which I see as well) .. the niggling little misses, the odd decisions here and there, the random messed up positioning of a defender etc etc etc .....

Why release it then as a better and improved version if the ME (which is the heart and soul of the game) is "still being polished" to match that of earlier releases? It does not add up for me.... Just my 2 cents ...

As an earlier poster said, polished doesn't equal technically better. FM14's ME is leaps and bounds ahead of FM12's in a technical sense. It has collision detection, reworked ball physics, reworked distance calculation, and masses of improvements to player decision making and AI tactical nous. It might not be as shiny as FM12 yet, but it provides a deeper and, in my opinion, better experience, despite the lack of fine tuned polishing. The development cycle that was initiated with FM13 will eventually produce a highly polished and well balanced ME. At which point, the next stage of serious technical innovation will begin to push the game even further forward.

To push FM forward, you need to have the entire user base using the current ME, even if it is not as perfectly polished as you'd like, or everything will stagnate.

[forameuss]

What I don't see in FM12

Moronic defenders.

Moronic goalkeepers.

Top strikers constantly missing great chances.

"He never meant it" goals from the wing.

What I do see in FM12? Possibilities.

In FM12, poachers were overpowered. I agree. I don't use them, since I like to experiment with tactics and try different approaches. Now CWBs look quite overpowered and nobody complains. Why? In FM14, utterly borring tiki-takanaccio is unplayable, AI teams (for example Bayern) do not even remotely play like they do in RL, too low possesion percentages, too many misplaced passes. 3-man defences were way better in FM12 and 13 than in FM14.

And yes, I am playing FM12, because I find it less buggy than FM14. Let me put it this way - maybe it is not more realistic, but it definitely is less unrealistic than this year's edition.

No mention of players physically running through others? I wonder why...

[smp20]

Ok well I guess I speak as a true addict here...

FM11 - 807 Hours

FM12 - 1448 Hours

FM13 - 3012 Hours

FM14 - 3346 Hours

FM12 Was an enjoyable game but you didn't have to work very hard to build a decent tactic. FM13/14 have evolved from that and certainly FM14 in terms of tactics is much more like 'real football'. In previous editions of FM there were exploits and methods that were so far away from real football that people who don't really understand football can trial and work out. Now, you need an in depth understanding of football and also how to extract that into the tactic and also as a match goes on. In FM14 I've spent hundreds (thousands) of hours developing tactics, tweaking them and getting them to where I want and now I can pretty much plug and play with several tactics that I use in different situations.

The bad, of course, is that the match engine itself is a lot buggier than say FM12 which was a smooth operation. However I see FM12 as a flashy car that looks great but under the hood theres some serious flaws. Whereas FM14 is a flashy car that sometimes just doesn't drive right and it needs some mechanical work to have a smooth ride. But, when it does it get these carefully developed tweaks it will far better than FM12. I'm talking about FM15/16 here.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

No mention of players physically running through others? I wonder why...

He covered it earlier... and I don't see you picking on Hunter not mentioning the defensive "issues" etc?

Really, the 'collision' detection issue is a flawed point, it wasn't even common knowledge until after 13 came out. People weren't knowingly 'exploiting' that particular part of the engine and even so, it still doesn't detract from the point that 12 was one of the more polished versions of the engine.

There's too many people who want to poop on the party, just accept that a considerable size of the fanbase enjoyed and preferred 12. And instead of trying to play it down, start considering the reasons WHY people enjoyed it and think about faciliating that enjoyment in future versions (as opposed to 'killing' the enjoyment.)

WWFAN touched upon the point quite well actually, if 11 and 12 were the same engine and weren't refined that much then it allowed players to 'learn' and continue as oppose to 'learn, then learn it all over again.' - FIFA/PES (whatever really) do that, the same basic gameplay, the same basic concepts, but each year a new feature or ability is drip-fed through (that works) in order to allow the players to adapt to the feature - they have the advantage of making some of these optional though.

I just saw .

Then I noticed that the Metacritic user score from 2010 to 2014 points downward sharply: 9.2, 8.4, 7.9, 6.7, 5.1.

But weren't they known for being very biased in terms of wide play and optimal striker choices? Or do you find that to be an untrue assumption?

Metacritic is only really held as the 'gold standard' for devs thesedays, hang around any gaming forum and most/some gaming websites (or jump over to neogaf if you'd like) and the majority of gamers/fans acknowledge Metacritic as a flawed concept already taken over by faux-reviews from critics either bumping up the scores to please the devs or being outright paid for it. Or critics completely ignoring any real issues (See: Rome 2: Total War / SimCity, various other stuff Company of Heroes and whatnot.)

Likewise, it's also acknowledge that due to this fan response tends to be brutal if the metascore is undeserved which, is why you see a lot of lower user scores.

That said, it's also generally accepted that the user critic score would be roughly where the critic score should be if they weren't so inflated so, in other words you can put FM firmly in the 60-70 bracket and no higher.

-Feel free to verify those comments though

[Cougar2010]

There's too many people who want to poop on the party, just accept that a considerable size of the fanbase enjoyed and preferred 12. And instead of trying to play it down, start considering the reasons WHY people enjoyed it and think about faciliating that enjoyment in future versions (as opposed to 'killing' the enjoyment.)

Its clear for a lot of users enjoyment is directly linked to winning and when things don't go their way the toys come out of the pram.

They aren't interested in learning what they are doing wrong, they just want a game where they can press continue & win trophies every season with minimal effort.

This obviously conflicts with the direction SI are taking with FM and tbh SI will never please these users.

[HUNT3R]

He covered it earlier... and I don't see you picking on Hunter not mentioning the defensive "issues" etc?

Which defensive "issues"?

I didn't mention Goalkeepers' momentum carrying the ball over the line for a corner and the "he never meant that" crosses, because they're bugs and I'm sensible enough not to let that cloud my judgement of the ME overall. I didn't even mention collision detection or any of the other technological improvements wwfan did, which is a big plus in the FM14 column.

I also stayed away from generic comments like "better attacking" and "moronic defending" because it's worthless and doesn't say anything really. I tried to actually describe why something is better.

[forameuss]

He covered it earlier... and I don't see you picking on Hunter not mentioning the defensive "issues" etc?

Really, the 'collision' detection issue is a flawed point, it wasn't even common knowledge until after 13 came out. People weren't knowingly 'exploiting' that particular part of the engine and even so, it still doesn't detract from the point that 12 was one of the more polished versions of the engine.

There's too many people who want to poop on the party, just accept that a considerable size of the fanbase enjoyed and preferred 12. And instead of trying to play it down, start considering the reasons WHY people enjoyed it and think about faciliating that enjoyment in future versions (as opposed to 'killing' the enjoyment.)

WWFAN touched upon the point quite well actually, if 11 and 12 were the same engine and weren't refined that much then it allowed players to 'learn' and continue as oppose to 'learn, then learn it all over again.' - FIFA/PES (whatever really) do that, the same basic gameplay, the same basic concepts, but each year a new feature or ability is drip-fed through (that works) in order to allow the players to adapt to the feature - they have the advantage of making some of these optional though.

A flawed point because it wasn't "common knowledge"? Well, it is now, and it's now easy to see. Are we supposed to go back to FM12 times and try and compare it to a game that didn't even exist as a concept? It doesn't matter if people intentionally exploited it, and I have always said that most didn't. But for me that makes it even worse. You couldn't help but exploit it. The only way you couldn't was by deliberately not buying players with big numbers in certain stat areas. Bought a quick striker? Exploiting. That is not a good system. Also, and I may have mentioned this before, players could RUN STRAIGHT THROUGH other players. It's easy to say that the FM12 engine was balanced when you think that it was 22 players that may as well have been on different pitches for all it mattered. It was not realistic.

All you're really doing is saying that anyone who disagrees with you should just accept that people like it, when you can't accept that there's people out there who don't think it's the greatest thing ever. People can like what they want, and for whatever reason. It doesn't make it a technical masterpiece (because it wasn't, and definitely isn't compared to FM14 (or 13)) but I can understand plenty of people had fun with it.

As for "not picking on HUNT3R", I happen to agree with most of what he said, and it was fairly balanced, whereas the other post missed out the main reason why the previous engine can't be compared. But I guess I'm just wrong. Bad, bad me.

[Lawlore]

I am not aware of any developer ever paying a games journalist to provide a positive review, be that directly or indirectly.

The Jeff Gerstmann case springs to mind, the Editorial Director released from GameSpot for providing a less-than-complimentary review of "Kane & Lynch" after pressure from Eidos, who'd been advertising on the site. Granted, a lot of the detail is still rumour, but the basic story does seem to be pretty much true.

[Beestonite]

It's all relative. If you enjoy a certain version then that's the game for you. There are no right and wrongs, everyone has their opinion. Of course faults in the game are factual. FM14 seems to be riddled with them. I avoided at all costs. Shame as I did want to enjoy it, but I couldn't.

I seriously hope FM15 reduces the ice hockey effect. All my opinion of course.

[Brick_Tamland]

It might not be as shiny as FM12 yet, but it provides a deeper and, in my opinion, better experience, despite the lack of fine tuned polishing.

Thank you. I misunderstood you original post/statement.

[Guest Giovi]

FM 12 was the last good version. FM 13 and FM 14 are so poor that made me not to buy FM 15.

[PhroX]

I think the thing with the ME of 11 and 12 in particular is that while overall, it was not that realistic, it was coherent. It was easy to suspend your disbelief at the unrealistic aspects because the overall gameplay flowed nicely, and the flaws didn't suddenly leap out at you in a "WTF????" manner. Though not nearly to the same extent, it's a bit like FIFA - at times when playing that game, you wonder if the developers have ever even seen a real game of football, as it bares only a passing resemblance to the beautiful game, but overall, it doesn't impinge on the enjoyment of the game, because, in the game universe, it works.

FM 13 and 14 on the other hand, are, at the core, much more realistic. The problem is that when something unrealistic happens, it really stands out. So you get a passage of play with the kind of features HUNT3R listed above, followed by the GK catching a simple cross then unneccesarily backing over the line giving away a corner. Several times a game. And this is immersion breaking.

[Dagenham_Dave]

followed by the GK catching a simple cross then unneccesarily backing over the line giving away a corner. Several times a game. And this is immersion breaking.

As an aside, I've still yet to see this once in well over 2000 hours of gameplay. Surely if this was happening 'several times a game', people's corner counts would be insane?

[CityAndColour]

As an aside, I've still yet to see this once in well over 2000 hours of gameplay. Surely if this was happening 'several times a game', people's corner counts would be insane?

Might be worth uploading your save to the bugs forum? If you're doing someone or have a certain set up which is preventing this issue then SI would probably want to see it. Might help them fix it for '15.

[Cougar2010]

As an aside, I've still yet to see this once in well over 2000 hours of gameplay. Surely if this was happening 'several times a game', people's corner counts would be insane?

Are you sure you are watching the matches Dave?

I really don't understand why you aren't seeing this :confused:

Even if people overstate how often it happens I know from my own saves it at least happens a couple of times every match and thats watching on comprehensive highlights.

[Dagenham_Dave]

I mostly watch in 2D, but I'd surely still see this happening.

Maybe it does happen and I'm just not noticing it. Would be pretty hard to miss though. Strange.

[Cougar2010]

That might explain it.

I could see it being not as obvious when watching on 2D.