ME loophole

[Loversleaper]

3 hours ago, callamity said:

Give me a tactic that walks the league with swansea conceding very few goals and then I will believe that fm18 can be properly exploited. 

 

I am not sure why Swansea has to be the only team to make you believe anything...? What do you have against, for example, Barnsley? They are predicted to end 23rd in the league:

 

 

 

Or, how about a double whammy...?

 

 

 

[callamity]

1 minute ago, Loversleaper said:

 

I am not sure why Swansea has to be the team that would be the only one to believe anything...? What do you have against, for example, Barnsley? They are predicted to end 23rd in the league:

 

 

 

Or, how about a double whammy...?

 

 

 

 

 

swansea does not have to be the team, but they are very poor

 

the idea of using them is that you can upload the "exploit" tactic to any team, go on holiday without touching anything else and do extremely well. If you have done this with those teams and got those results then well done too you, but in around 20 test seasons I have not gone over 9th using this test bed. So far I have not seen anything that outperforms a well balanced well thought up tactic.

 

Just to be fair I did test with everton too, again a real exploit should see everton storm the league, a good tactic atleast top 4

 

 

If the tactic you have used is neither of the above then please give me a link and I will try the same thing for that too, and see just how good it is. 

 

[Svenc]

4 hours ago, callamity said:

Just to be fair I did test with everton too, again a real exploit should see everton storm the league, a good tactic atleast top 4

I've rarely seen such a toned performance with such. Even taking into account that the EPL is the most competitive league at the start, with 5, 6 teams being a cut above. If you went holiday on prior releases, the assistant would oft fiddle with stuff. But I think that's out of of the game, not sure. I still always was on commentary and max speed to make sure -- no substitutions.

@shirajzl Thanks, thought as much! My experience with such too -- "exploiting" doesn't merely lead to weird results, but weird stuff across the save. We can make the argument that the reputation system should be coded to handle such miracle rises. After all, there have been numerous teams that walked the leagues. Darmstadt in Germany fairly recent. Watford in the 1980s most prominently too. The transfers are another factor -- the AI clubs "see" those players for the "bad" players they are. Which also is about their ability. They may score tons of goals .. but only thanks to the exploit.
 

7 hours ago, shirajzl said:

I was thinking about this yesterday. The line between "good tactician" and "ME exploiter" on FM could be finer than we think.

Excellent point! I consider some things I did kind of exploiting too. Such as playing endless keepball to see out leads, which is typically easy to do due to a long-term flaw. You could even argue that many of the more "advanced stuff" in the tactics community is exploiting of a different kind -- namely the fact that the AI is unable to replicate what's being discussed. However, the above is naturally on a different level.

Quote

Making them do the mistakes in human-like way is difficult.

@MBarbaricWhat's perhaps even more difficult is making them acceptable. This already goes for the attacking phase: OMG Why does my forward not hit the target here??? I think one of the SI coders once argued he would first make sure that the bread and butter action would "work". And then he would gradually infuse the human errors into the mix. In researching any such, he's may be heading headfirst into a territory that at times is at odds though with how football is presented on television. I think we had that recently with Ted Knutson and his rant about football pundits.

[masno]

2 hours ago, Svenc said:

 

@MBarbaricWhat's perhaps even more difficult is making them acceptable. This already goes for the attacking phase: OMG Why does my forward not hit the target here??? I think one of the SI coders once argued he would first make sure that the bread and butter action would "work". And then he would gradually infuse the human errors into the mix. In researching any such, he's may be heading headfirst into a territory that at times is at odds though with how football is presented on television. I think we had that recently with Ted Knutson and his rant about football pundits.

I think the "human mistakes" made by the players are quite realistic nowadays,they don't simple score every second and also don't miss all shots. The problem is this annoying long shots hitting the corner flag, I've never seen Messi,Sanchez,Suarez or Coutinho doing this bad, this could happen? of course. But like 5 times in a season? Obviously not.

I see some players asking why direct free kicks are not going in, I played 3 seasons on FM 17 with barça, in this time, Messi scored 6 free kicks, Suarez scored 1 and Neymar/Rakitic 3. After my second season in FM18, No one in barça or in the opposition have scored a single free kick, to much strange for me.
SI tweaked some things in the ME, not in the right way IMO.

[alanschu14]

I think one thing that is always important to remember is that the match engine is a simulation and the visualization we see is superbly not perfect.  It also helps explain all those "he passed right to the opponent wtf" when it's easier to just imagine "the defender intercepted the pass."

It'd be nice for that stuff to improve, and I think it has over the years. But yeah the kicks to the corner flag are simply "player missed the shot" and ultimately not any different than if it was inches away from the post. It'd just be more palatable to see that.

Maybe I'm incorrect in seeing things this way and for some reason the players in the match engine are all "yeah I'm gonna boot it at the corner flag" but it makes it easier to just laugh at the absurdity for myself

[dcu223]

I am very surprised that SI are not aware of the 3 st loophole. In 2 clans I know all the dominating teams play it and score well over 100 goals each season. I am sure it wouldn't take much for the ME team to look at it and counter it.

I would like to say that no one in Prem play 3 at top but looking at Liverpool recently maybe I'm wrong.

 

 

 

[shirajzl]

25 minutes ago, dcu223 said:

 I am sure it wouldn't take much for the ME team to look at it and counter it.

 

Judging by past experience, they would counter it by accidentally opening up other exploits. Like when they fixed crossing issue from FM 16 by keeping wide players too wide and enabling exploity narrow formations.

[dcu223]

6 hours ago, shirajzl said:

Judging by past experience, they would counter it by accidentally opening up other exploits. Like when they fixed crossing issue from FM 16 by keeping wide players too wide and enabling exploity narrow formations.

If a team is playing 3 up front then they will likely be outnumbered else where such as Mid so maybe this area needs adjustment. The ME team know better than me on the details but surely they must know about the issue.

[Loversleaper]

The situation surrounding Swansea is a little bit like a "trick question" because they start without an Assistant and they only have 4 center backs, but 1 of them is out for at least half a year - so without transfers you might struggle if you get a few injuries there. But regardless, it is easy to get Swansea into Champions league with absolute no transfers:

 

 

Squad:

 

The reason I think a couple of these tactics are in fact in the same realm as the Diablo is that if you go to the other leagues, you even walk those leagues with a near 100% rate. Just to show the situation:

 

Eupen is one of the lowest rep teams in Belgium and this was the outcome:

 

 

 

So, where do you kind of go from here? Only way is to find an even more poor team than that one - which is the most lowest one, Mouscron:

 

 

[Loversleaper]

And the pattern persists in other leagues, like in Switzerland with poorest squad there (Lausanne):

 

 

 

The star striker (iirc) went out for months and they probably would have done better because they were really bossing the league until the injury occurred - but it didn't stop them...

 

 

How about the lowest rep team in Austria, Polten rated bottom:

 

 

 

In this squad I used two wingers up front due to the lack of strikers and it didn't effect anything either, one winger I used as a striker was on loan and went home for some reason before the screenshot...

 

But there is a clear pattern...

 

 

[callamity]

58 minutes ago, Loversleaper said:

And the pattern persists in other leagues, like in Switzerland with poorest squad there (Lausanne):

 

 

 

The star striker (iirc) went out for months and they probably would have done better because they were really bossing the league until the injury occurred - but it didn't stop them...

 

 

How about the lowest rep team in Austria, Polten rated bottom:

 

 

 

In this squad I used to wingers up front due to the lack of strikers and it didn't effect anything either, one winger I used as a striker was on loan and went home for some reason before the screenshot...

 

But there is a clear pattern...

 

 

 

 

That is a good bit of going there, which tactic did you use and did you pick the team? or play the save on your own in any way?   

very intrigued by your results. I did not deny the pattern in every test apart from the 1 the manager was fired the strikers alone scored over 60 goals between them finishing at a high of 9th

[Svenc]

12 hours ago, Loversleaper said:

But there is a clear pattern...

Pretty epic stuff, in particular if that was all on the first attempts. I think even at SI Towers they called certain ways of playing "space bar mode". Basically, start the game, press the space bar (continue), off you roll. Did you holiday? Still unsure about the assistants on current iterations, as prior they on occasion would fiddle with stuff. What specific kind of tactic was this? 

You should try a top side next. If the AI could break all-time records with somewhat similar (3 central forwards assistant back on FM16ish -- apply to Barcelona, and on the first day just "go holiday"), you can easily top that likely (the all-time scoring record in La Liga for realz clocks in at 121 goals, go for it).  Barca should be a good pick, no less as the three up front then are the likes of Neymar-Messi-Suarez! rather than Crap-Meh-Who? (but each still scoring a goal a match regardless).

Stuff like this is rarely reported in the bugs forums to investigate. Which may be because this goes all to the player's benefit, rather than overly much adding to a possibly frustration. A forward missing a couple of decent shots in sequence? Unrealistic! Broken! I demand a patch! Swansea breaking all the records first season by me pressing continue? Awesome game! This is similar to injuries: If they'd be consistently too low, that's never reported. It's only if they are perceived too high that it gets reported -- even though consistently too few injuries always go both ways. After all, you're less likely to pull off an upset, as the AI has all its key players available at any time too. I think this goes for many a game area. In tendency, the more likely an issue is to trigger player frustration, the more likely it may pop up somewhere. Maybe also a reason why anything such may not be SI top priority, and as long as players are enjoying their game... I am empathic and supportive, I actually think the game could allow a "fantasy mode" by design rather than exploit (I sometimes start fantasy saves myself thanks to the editor). But the following is also a bit cynical on that end: Anybody who's ever played exclusively by exploiting (start the game, press continue 500 times and win), still pays the same money, even though in a sense he has the least from it -- it's rather unlikely that SI spend most of their year and budget coding deliberately flaws into their game that can be exploited to hell and back, after all.
 

[penza]

4 hours ago, Svenc said:

Pretty epic stuff, in particular if that was all on the first attempts. I think even at SI Towers they called certain ways of playing "space bar mode". Basically, start the game, press the space bar (continue), off you roll. Did you holiday? Still unsure about the assistants on current iterations, as prior they on occasion would fiddle with stuff. What specific kind of tactic was this? 

You should try a top side next. If the AI could break all-time records with somewhat similar (3 central forwards assistant back on FM16ish -- apply to Barcelona, and on the first day just "go holiday"), you can easily top that likely (the all-time scoring record in La Liga for realz clocks in at 121 goals, go for it).  Barca should be a good pick, no less as the three up front then are the likes of Neymar-Messi-Suarez! rather than Crap-Meh-Who? (but each still scoring a goal a match regardless).

Stuff like this is rarely reported in the bugs forums to investigate. Which may be because this goes all to the player's benefit, rather than overly much adding to a possibly frustration. A forward missing a couple of decent shots in sequence? Unrealistic! Broken! I demand a patch! Swansea breaking all the records first season by me pressing continue? Awesome game! This is similar to injuries: If they'd be consistently too low, that's never reported. It's only if they are perceived too high that it gets reported -- even though consistently too few injuries always go both ways. After all, you're less likely to pull off an upset, as the AI has all its key players available at any time too. I think this goes for many a game area. In tendency, the more likely an issue is to trigger player frustration, the more likely it may pop up somewhere. Maybe also a reason why anything such may not be SI top priority, and as long as players are enjoying their game... I am empathic and supportive, I actually think the game could allow a "fantasy mode" by design rather than exploit (I sometimes start fantasy saves myself thanks to the editor). But the following is also a bit cynical on that end: Anybody who's ever played exclusively by exploiting (start the game, press continue 500 times and win), still pays the same money, even though in a sense he has the least from it -- it's rather unlikely that SI spend most of their year and budget coding deliberately flaws into their game that can be exploited to hell and back, after all.
 

Is that the AI assistant manager’s tactic on holiday?

[Rashidi]

17 hours ago, Loversleaper said:

But there is a clear pattern...

 

Finally a proper test after my own ❣. If more people can provide these kind of tests with saves like that, SI might take notice. What would be interesting would be a network save where two managers used similar systems, and one manager changed his tactic to counter it against that specific team, much like how Mourinho countered Klopp.

I have heard of network saves where people use similar tactics but it’s always the team with the “perfect” players in the right positions that always outperformed.

I only have personal experiences where the AI would switch to a 433 or a 523, forcing me into an attempt to counter with a low block. I won all those matches but they were far too few to make a proper conclusion from. And if, more people start playing this way we could very well see that SI are back in the same corner needing a match engine rewrite. To be fair, in versus mode these 523 systems fall short. 

[DiStru_]

2 hours ago, Rashidi said:

What would be interesting would be a network save where two managers used similar systems, and one manager changed his tactic to counter it against that specific team, much like how Mourinho countered Klopp.

You keep going on about adapting to such tactic, but do you not understand that the issue is that the AI can't adapt properly? I even saw you switching to a 4-3-3 when you needed a goal in one of your YouTube episodes, so you should know where the issue is. I'm sure a human can adapt to such tactic just fine, but the AI can't.

[Rashidi]

1 hour ago, DiStru_ said:

You keep going on about adapting to such tactic, but do you not understand that the issue is that the AI can't adapt properly? I even saw you switching to a 4-3-3 when you needed a goal in one of your YouTube episodes, so you should know where the issue is. I'm sure a human can adapt to such tactic just fine, but the AI can't.

I am getting tired of repeating myself to death, for the last time: I agree that the AI has an issue with 3 man attacks.  And I am pretty certain the issue lies in how the AI sets itself up. So this might affect network matches  and definitely solo gameplay, only as far as the human is able to reproduce the conditions necessary for a 3 man attack to work all the time.

In Human vs AI its an advantage providing certain things happen. I am more interested if this advantage extends to versus mode if it does then this raises a serious problem about all the FM Cup competitions that happen in vs. mode because then its an exploit which cannot be handled.  Maybe next time become familiar with my point of view before making flippant and totally irrelevant statements. You want something fixed? Then show that this game is not viable as an esports game because of an exploit that not only works in solo gameplay but in a "live" environment like vs mode. There are a few competitions that are going to be held in "vs mode" with some large cash prizes, can you imagine the furor if the guy who wins it does it via an exploit? The game will lose credibility, and I for one love it when a game is busted wide open. 

And by the way, if I am a goal down why wouldn't I want to switch to an attack with 3 strikers, have you seen the episode where I play with 4? 

[Toonrock]

The one on the left plays Deep-Lying Forward..! 

[Loversleaper]

I personally use the ones with Attacking strategy because that kind of ensures that you keep pushing forward even if the AI decides to retreat due to your team's very good result form. In the situation between two human users is one that I haven't had time to go into, but I am sure there are plenty of people who have tried it and have a better knowledge of how that works. Would be interested to hear any observations of course - more minds are better than one as always...

 

And I would also kindly ask people not to jump on each other's back about the situation because I am certain that a guy like Rashidi is just as interested in having these things fixed (if they need to be) as the rest of us... Thanks in advance...

[juusal]

3 hours ago, Rashidi said:

And by the way, if I am a goal down why wouldn't I want to switch to an attack with 3 strikers, have you seen the episode where I play with 4? 

Personally, I never do this because it is an exploit and using those makes me feel like cheating. I don't mind others using those though, although if they then start holding press conferences how they are the greatest manager in the world it can get annoying =D

Anyway, it is actually possible to see in the matches what goes wrong. Besides the issues with center backs running backwards and turning like like the BP oil tanker instead of turning quickly and sprinting after long balls, there are a lot of issues the way the fullbacks play. They just don't know how to defend. I often played as a left back as a junior, and when their winger sometimes came really narrow (like the strikers in narrow three striker formations in FM do) I was delighted as it made my life so much easier. As a fullback, you can just get really narrow yourself and the striker has nowhere to go. If he tries to run through, there is me and two center backs blocking and covering that run. If he starts running outside of me, I can see his run and the ball easily, and his run goes away from goal. There is a reason why width is such an important concept in football (which is also why FM17 was tactically the worst one in years as wide players did not know how to defend so narrow formations were really dominant) as it forces fullbacks to make decisions on where to position. Indeed, narrow three striker formations similar to those in FM are pretty much non-existent in real football buy pretty common and powerful in FM.  Do you stick tight and create gaps between yourself and the center backs? Do you stay narrow and allow the player to receive the ball out wide and run at you? What if the ball is on the opposite side and he makes a run? He has much more space to accelerate and run in behind with pace than he would if he started from a narrow position, he comes from your left (right) and the ball is on your right (left) so it is difficult to follow both, and as he comes with pace and you aren't tight blocking the run becomes much much more difficult. In FM18, the fullbacks just happily stay too far outside and allow the strikers to exploit the channels. This coupled with the inability of the defenders to shift over to cover the wide areas means that defences get wildly exposed.

Another issue with the fullbacks is that they leave the outer ST they are supposed to mark to close down other players, leaving the striker wide open. It is possible to (partially) counter this by setting them to close down much less, but it still highlights the problems in a) defence against a front three and b) the issues the closing down mechanism in FM brings. Players tend to have really poor positional awareness, especially when they have a player to mark. They are too happy to leave their marker to close down someone else, and not even close them down in a way that tries to prevent a pass forward.

Oh and another thing that helps these narrow three striker formations is that FM players are not very good at taking advantage of 2v1 situations. Wide midfielders and fullbacks don't realise very well when the opposing fullback leaves too much space behind, so formations like 4-3-3 are much more comfortable defending with just a fullback and the strikers staying upfront rather than tracking back.

[callamity]

43 minutes ago, Loversleaper said:

I personally use the ones with Attacking strategy because that kind of ensures that you keep pushing forward even if the AI decides to retreat due to your team's very good result form. In the situation between two human users is one that I haven't had time to go into, but I am sure there are plenty of people who have tried it and have a better knowledge of how that works. Would be interested to hear any observations of course - more minds are better than one as always...

 

And I would also kindly ask people not to jump on each other's back about the situation because I am certain that a guy like Rashidi is just as interested in having these things fixed (if they need to be) as the rest of us... Thanks in advance...

sorry to be a pain, can you please let us know which tactic you used in those tests above? if you used holiday mode with full Assistant control? or if you intervened in any ways.  

This is more to get a better grasp of if the Assistant is changing things that shouldnt be changed ie ti's if he thinks the team needs changed in anyway during a match

I am keen to see issues fixed and I quite enjoy running test beds with certain things and this might just moot all my previous testing.  

[Loversleaper]

4 minutes ago, callamity said:

sorry to be a pain, can you please let us know which tactic you used in those tests above? if you used holiday mode with full Assistant control? or if you intervened in any ways.  

This is more to get a better grasp of if the Assistant is changing things that shouldnt be changed ie ti's if he thinks the team needs changed in anyway during a match

I am keen to see issues fixed and I quite enjoy running test beds with certain things and this might just moot all my previous testing.  

 

I didn't just use one, that's kind of the point. You want to use one of the tactics that implement Attacking strategy - I am sure a user like @knap will be able to tell you which of his very well thought out 5-2-3 formations that can do the trick (don't know if he wants to get involved or not). In regards to using the Assistant then it doesn't really make a difference if you use him or not. You can tick the two boxes (use tactic & use these players) in holiday mode - or you can decide to do slightly better and take @Svenc's advice and go through the games where you manually pick the team before the match and run it through on full commentary speed... 

[callamity]

Just now, Loversleaper said:

 

I didn't just use one, that's kind of the point. You want to use one of the tactics that implement Attacking strategy - I am sure a user like @knap will be able to tell you which of his very well thought out 5-2-3 formations that can do the trick (don't know if he wants to get involved or not). In regards to using the Assistant then it doesn't really make a difference if you use him or not. You can tick the two boxes (use tactic & use these players) in holiday mode - or you can decide to do slightly better and take @Svenc's advice and go through the games where you manually pick the team before the match and run it through on full commentary speed... 

ok thats fair enough. i will have a look through see what i can find

[Toonrock]

4 hours ago, juusal said:

Personally, I never do this because it is an exploit and using those makes me feel like cheating. I don't mind others using those though, although if they then start holding press conferences how they are the greatest manager in the world it can get annoying =D

Second this  

[Loversleaper]

8 hours ago, Rashidi said:

 I am more interested if this advantage extends to versus mode if it does then this raises a serious problem about all the FM Cup competitions that happen in vs. mode because then its an exploit which cannot be handled.  

 

So, to kind of get a better picture of what you are saying here, in layman terms, is that as long as you can counter the tactic on the ME gameboard - then you figure that SI are totally content with the ME in it's current state? So, to further that then the only option is that the AI has to get better (much better) at making tactical decisions & maybe some (more) of the instructions will be removed from the User's finger-tips...

 

The thing that kind of lingers in the air, though, are a few of the concerns that some of the others mentioned about how players (on both sides) react in certain areas - not picking up players or covering zones or a two man situation bossing a midfield dominated numerically by the opposition. If the AI can't cope with that with the standard formations and instructions, then I can't really see how we are going to be able to do that. Maybe you can get around it by placing a whole bunch of players strategically to counter it, but having to do that as the better opponent is kind of magooo...

 

Before I was going to have my beauty sleep I was thinking about taking a little stab at it and created a savegame where I thought I could take over two teams and create a friendly between them. Although there is plenty of time for both teams to have that friendly - it keeps rejecting the option. I can make friendlies against other teams, but the game won't let me create a friendly between the two human teams...  

[Svenc]

On 12.3.2018 at 18:17, Loversleaper said:

And I would also kindly ask people not to jump on each other's back about the situation because I am certain that a guy like Rashidi is just as interested in having these things fixed (if they need to be) as the rest of us... Thanks in advance...

Agreed. It's interesting to see it from different perspectiv's also. Meanwhile, I found the "rising reputation would harm tactics" / "defensive AI was overpowered" myth is still strong amongst exploit communities, just as it was the last year. When it is quite clearly to huge degrees the fact that defensive AI is plain better to cope with the traditionally front-loaded exploits. Keeping full backs in check and/or fielding defensive formations stacked at the back tends to do this. As argued, if AI was intelligent, it would have added spare men back to cover any such by default. The three fishermen just aren't quite the same three fishermen when they come up against a retreating opponent that never moved the full backs forward rather than begging to be hit. And even what MBarbaric documented from normal play rather than counters isn't the same if there may be an additional man to cover in the backline. The way AI works on FM though is -- well, AI doesn't work like that. Rising reputation means you are taken more serious, and that's when opponents are getting more defensive relative to their own reputation. That's how that myth comes about.

I personally wouldn't enter FM competitions unless I knew the players competing. The game isn't primarily set up for competitive multiplayer, which arguably was already a part of FM LIve's downfall. As far as I remember, it was demonstrated that you could defend some of the then engine flaws for sure if they were targeted. But it also oft took some awkward measures (in particular during the time when the Farrows/Barrows were still in). And that's the key thing. There is only one specific type of tactic you have to specifically react to/watch out for, and that's always this type... as it's always more than shifting the odds a few, but exploiting genuinelly space on every move. As AI can too play a bit similar... With proper zonal defending, that arguably was no more. Btw. multiple aggressive AMCs or very narrow wide forwards naturally have a similar effect.

[Mr U Rosler]

In my experience 3 Striker set ups remain a good option for strong/mid-level teams. (relative to level).

My Weston Super Mare team with default squad finished 2nd in season 1 (National League South), lost play-off final before winning the League season 2.

Scored 100+ goals but conceded 70, not that convincing actually, 80 points is not a great total and never felt 'safe' in a game even with a 2 goal lead.

We were a flat track bully, could see off weak teams but any team with quality would give us big problems, I didn't have much hope of coming through the play-offs.

Very unrealistic football.

However there are limits, following the move up to the National League i'm getting gubbed, conceded 60 goals in my first 20 games, changing to a more defensive 4231 saw me steady the ship and move out of trouble.

Admittedly i'm doing an academy challenge so hanging on following promotion whilst your young team steadily improves is normal but at this point playing 3 Strikers is suicidal and I was just getting overrun.

I was actually very pleased to see this.

It can certainly work, but its a horrible way to play the game and I was glad to see the limitations of this approach exposed albeit in conditions that the average user could probably avoid (buying players etc).

Anyway, its not for me, I've restarted and will stick to the 4231 and variants taking more pleasure out of a solid 1-0 win than a crazy 5-4 win.  

 

 

[Loversleaper]

17 hours ago, Svenc said:

Agreed. It's interesting to see it from different perspectiv's also. Meanwhile, I found the "rising reputation would harm tactics" / "defensive AI was overpowered" myth is still strong amongst exploit communities, just as it was the last year. When it is quite clearly to huge degrees the fact that defensive AI is plain better to cope with the traditionally front-loaded exploits. Keeping full backs in check and/or fielding defensive formations stacked at the back tends to do this. As argued, if AI was intelligent, it would have added spare men back to cover any such by default. The three fishermen just aren't quite the same three fishermen when they come up against a retreating opponent that never moved the full backs forward rather than begging to be hit. And even what MBarbaric documented from normal play rather than counters isn't the same if there may be an additional man to cover in the backline. The way AI works on FM though is -- well, AI doesn't work like that. Rising reputation means you are taken more serious, and that's when opponents are getting more defensive relative to their own reputation. That's how that myth comes about.

I personally wouldn't enter FM competitions unless I knew the players competing. The game isn't primarily set up for competitive multiplayer, which arguably was already a part of FM LIve's downfall. As far as I remember, it was demonstrated that you could defend some of the then engine flaws for sure if they were targeted. But it also oft took some awkward measures (in particular during the time when the Farrows/Barrows were still in). And that's the key thing. There is only one specific type of tactic you have to specifically react to/watch out for, and that's always this type... as it's always more than shifting the odds a few, but exploiting genuinelly space on every move. As AI can too play a bit similar... With proper zonal defending, that arguably was no more. Btw. multiple aggressive AMCs or very narrow wide forwards naturally have a similar effect.

 

I wasn't really sure if I should post onwards because my assessment of the situation maybe would result in me coming across quite harsh depending on which side of the fence you have positioned yourself on... Of course, in the last week I have gone through the works and I am convinced that there is a major, if not critical, flaw/bug in the ME that needs immediate attention. No doubt that you and probably others have looked into the matter over a longer periode of time than little old me has done.

 

But here is a little look into the matter from my perspective: first of all, I looked into what formations do better than worse from the AI's standpoint - looking at the fixtures and how they line up kind of gives you at least some ideas... especially what really doesn't work =

 

 

So, apparently the 4-2-3-1 formation really struggles against the 5-2-3 WB and in that season - Bournemouth regularly knocked 6-7 goals past that formation. Bournemouth went on to score 125 league goals with absolute no adjustments - but that is besides the point. The point is to find out why...

 

I naturally tried all the different formations in various scenarios to see what matches up by trying some of the AI formations that actually did well result-wise against the formation. In the human vrs human scenario it's virtually impossible to cope with the two side forwards - especially with the running wide instructions implemented. I went on to the bottom heavy formation - the notorious 5-4-1 Diamond that was incredibly hard to beat back in the day - but results/match stats didn't really make any difference after extensive tests... Then you kind of go onto "let's try conventional wisdom" which I think a lot of people playing the game will probably use to deal with issues during games. There are not that many options, so it's not going to be rocket science. You can man mark specific players, tight mark them, hard tackle - and that's basically it, so there are not going to be huge complex scenarios to test out.

 

This is where things become really dire, because putting 5 men at the back and using "conventional thinking" turned out to be even more hazardous result-wise where loses really got close to going into double digits. I played the real life game as well, and sometimes if the opponent had a really strong player the coach would instruct one of our defensively strong players to try and mark him out of the game - it worked a lot of times as I remember it. When looking at the situation with Bournemouth then you would hardly expect that their front three are incredibly talented if you compare them to many other players in the game, so by using a vastly superior team with much higher quality center backs to mark their front three would (in a purely logical sense) be able to cope with them. As mentioned, it turned out to have the opposite effect and the Bournemouth trio ran riot - it was a lot better to actually give them no instructions at all, so in that sense, "conventional wisdom" went straight out the window. You are going to have a lot of people playing the game that simply wont understand that at all...

 

Now, I have played enough games that I did zoom into what works better against the 3 man attack - when I say better, I mean in terms of general match stats:

 

 

But here is the reality, most of the games I lost anyway where the opponent using the 5-2-3 would score at least three goals regardless - so the trick is to kind of out score them because keeping the narrow wide strikers under wraps cannot be done consistently. A 4 man defense where the full backs stay back and sit narrow seems to have the best effect in dealing with them, but that is until you get that 'artificial' unstoppable goal against you where it basically comes out of the blue. I can't even count how many 3+ goal loses I encountered where "they strike lucky" - that is a huge red flag in my book...

 

Yeah, you can argue that it can be dealt with - using bottom teams will usually result in around 6-9 defeats per season while using the 5-2-3 WB formation. That translates to around 20% of the time they will lose and I have got to the point where I can win against that 'super-tactic' at around that rate - which is the best I have been able to do with 'conventional tactics/formations'... But here is the problem with that, this is with the vastly superior team...

 

There is no doubt in my mind, that this should be categorized as a critical flaw and requires SI towers to really address the problem pronto... 

[MBarbaric]

I've been banging on this for so long I am boring to myself already so I can imagine how others feel. However, you really don't need to look further than your screenshot to see what is so fundamentally wrong. It isn't only 3 striker formations that profit from it. It affects all formations, 3 strikers formations are only the most exploitable.

Look at positioning of yellow team wingers. They are so wide and high, they contribute nothing to defending phase. Two central midfielders are alone defending the center and we saw from rashidi's videos how they defend the center. In the end, you have back four that constantly have to play in numerical parity defending whole defensive third. That is huge space to defend for only four men. Everything that is wrong in this regard is all in that screenshot.

 

1. poor positioning of the wingers. They don't provide support in the center.

2. poor implementation of physicality, pressing and closing down in central corridor. Even if this was done better, it would be of little help as long as those wingers stay so detached from the defensive unit.

The result of this is:

1. central midfielders unable to cope with the opposition in the central corridor

2. back line overwhelmed by opposition numbers.

Just imagine these wingers would position themselves where those yellow arrows are pointing. How much harder would it be for the red team to reach the central zone above the box?

This doesn't occur always, but the point is, it occurs far too much compared to real football. 

you can't make a simulation of football match without implementing zonal marking. 

[Domathon]

When will SI fix this exploit?

[pheelf]

14 hours ago, Domathon said:

When will SI fix this exploit?

In order to resolve this issue completely, you are probably looking at a rewrite of the code of the match engine given that previous attempts to patch the underlying issue haven't been very successful. As a result, depending on how far they are into developing the next-gen match engine possibly a few years?

[forameuss]

16 hours ago, Domathon said:

When will SI fix this exploit?

Earliest FM19, maybe not then either.  If it was easy to "fix" I'd imagine they would have.

[RBKalle]

16 ore fa, Domathon ha scritto:

When will SI fix this exploit?

FM19, but the "fix" will likely create another exploitable scenario as a result...

3-strikers formation will become woefully ineffective, while leaving room for a new (old?) ME inbalance. Unfortunately the current ME needs to be rewritten from scratch to eradicate some of the long-standing issues that, at the moment, can only be mitigated in a delicate and almost unattainable balance.

Basically the ME's only way to work fine is by stumbling across the "Three Stooges' Syndrome" scenario, where all the bugs cancel eachother out...

[forameuss]

It's not necessarily the case that fixing this one in particular would cause an exploit, it might just be creating in imbalance.  But it's fair enough and completely realistic to always expect that there will always be some kind of exploit, big or small, in any edition of FM.

[westy8chimp]

Looking over the data in this thread there is definitely an issue. However, i dont know if its limited to 3 striker formations. Im seeing much better stats from my attack in a standard 4231. 

The points tallies in this thread arent particularly great.. Just the fact its achieved with lesser teams? Im PSG and had 3 consecutive unbeaten seasons playing 4231. 

 

Laptop screwed cant access web so some grainy phone pics attached... Look at the numbers from my right winger more than a a goal per game AND more than one assist per game. Mbappe as an AP consistently scoring almost a goal per game. A striker with 37 in 26 and he only plays league games... Add in cup and europe where the games are even easier his ratio would be nearer 2:1 goals per game. Vini Junior IF almost a goal and assist every game. Playing standard mentality

 

[pauly15]

Stuff like this (ridiculous formations dominating rather than being crushed) sucks the enjoyment out of the game for me. Delegitimises the whole experience... turns it into something arcade-y at best

[forameuss]

8 hours ago, pauly15 said:

Stuff like this (ridiculous formations dominating rather than being crushed) sucks the enjoyment out of the game for me. Delegitimises the whole experience... turns it into something arcade-y at best

So have you ever enjoyed an edition of FM or CM?  Because there have always been stronger formations in every edition.

[Scrench]

At least this years exploit is a pretty ridiculous and unlikely to be seen in real life.

In previous years narrow formations and attacking wing backs dominated which are perfectly viable and often used tactical measures that make sense on their own, so those ME flaws caused a much bigger problem as they were regularly used by both the AI and user even without the intention to overpower the ME. The 3 narrow strikers is specifically used to do just that and make no sense in real life context, hence you encounter it less in game (unless you actively use this exploit). I think it's better that these nonsense formations are counted as the exploit rather than the "normal" tactics. Of course there are fundamental flaws in the ME which can be used to gain an advantage with regular measures but certainly not as "alien" as the 3 striker formations.

[westy8chimp]

25 minutes ago, Scrench said:

At least this years exploit is a pretty ridiculous and unlikely to be seen in real life.

In previous years narrow formations and attacking wing backs dominated which are perfectly viable and often used tactical measures that make sense on their own, so those ME flaws caused a much bigger problem as they were regularly used by both the AI and user even without the intention to overpower the ME. The 3 narrow strikers is specifically used to do just that and make no sense in real life context, hence you encounter it less in game (unless you actively use this exploit). I think it's better that these nonsense formations are counted as the exploit rather than the "normal" tactics. Of course there are fundamental flaws in the ME which can be used to gain an advantage with regular measures but certainly not as "alien" as the 3 striker formations.

agree to an extent... but for me personally I've always gone to a 343 type formation when in desperate need of a goal or two. This year I haven't played much FM and avoided the GD and tactics forum like the plague to avoid finding any exploits ... but now i've checked it's like ... ah poo that's why I had a couple of miracle come backs in my save...losing 2-0 to Barca in CL final with 20 mins left and I win 5-2 :) !

Feels like ME is constantly playing catchup ... fixes last years problem and creates a new problem. As others have pointed out the history pattern. i.e. FM 16 wingbacks ruled the earth so in FM 17 crosses were rubbish and strikerless formations dominated the golden zone... so this year instead of strikerless it's striker overload.

[RBKalle]

34 minuti fa, Scrench ha scritto:

The 3 narrow strikers is specifically used to do just that and make no sense in real life context, hence you encounter it less in game (unless you actively use this exploit). I think it's better that these nonsense formations are counted as the exploit rather than the "normal" tactics.

The 3 "narrow" striker isn't all that unrealistic IMO.

I set one up (4-3-3) long before the first "Fisherman's Friend" thread was created, and while it wasn't as successful and almighty, it still allowed me to overachieve (even more than usual).

4-3-3 is a rather standard formation, and when, as it's often the case, you end up with 3 good CF, it becomes a viable option as you may want to try to use them all at the same time. Of course the more logical option would be having the middle one playing as AF or P, while the other two are on a support duty. (On paper, more like a more attacking take on 4-3-2-1).
Then you factor in the Green Circles, and you end up with 3 AFs killing the opponents and the game's "realism"

[Scrench]

5 hours ago, westy8chimp said:

Feels like ME is constantly playing catchup ... fixes last years problem and creates a new problem. As others have pointed out the history pattern. i.e. FM 16 wingbacks ruled the earth so in FM 17 crosses were rubbish and strikerless formations dominated the golden zone... so this year instead of strikerless it's striker overload.

I would bet next year long shots gonna be pretty powerful

[pauly15]

Maybe they should just prohibit certain formations in the same way they've limited player instructions. Problem solved, no re-write needed :S

[pheelf]

On 3/24/2018 at 01:44, pauly15 said:

Maybe they should just prohibit certain formations in the same way they've limited player instructions. Problem solved, no re-write needed :S

That wouldn't solve the problem though given that the issue isn't the 3 striker formations (they are just a symptom) but the underlying way in which players behave when defending which players can't fully control as it stands. What you propose is also a bit of a slippery slope in the sense that it 'papers over the cracks' by ignoring the problem rather than solving it, I also don't think players would be very happy to not be able to use multi striker formations. 

[Svenc]

You can achieve similar effects with aggressive AMCs, narrowed wide forwards anyway (plus a combination of any of the above). This is a long-term issue at its core, and goes back many releases. I've just recently seen a few of the more popular exploit  tactics at around ca. FM 2014ish. 3 shadow strikers, etc. for the instawin.

[Neotropolis]

And here's me thinking that my 4-2-3-1 formation that I've used since way back in FM14 (before that I'd played CM 2006 for more hours than I could possibly remember, though in that, I did have a broken formation) was me being clever, but it turns out it could just be an exploit. Either way, I tweak it year on year, sometimes I also tweak it depending on the team I am, but I thought it was a really good tactic.

[dannysheard]

In my last four seasons with Liverpool, I've managed 103, 98, 96 and 102 points with a pretty basic 4-1-2-3 with two W(a) and an AF (a) up top. This must be exploiting the ME, even though I haven't set out to do that.

Gonna start a new game and ban the wingers, which I think are what is overpowering it.

[Svenc]

21 minutes ago, dannysheard said:

In my last four seasons with Liverpool, I've managed 103, 98, 96 and 102 points with a pretty basic 4-1-2-3 with two W(a) and an AF (a) up top. This must be exploiting the ME, even though I haven't set out to do that.

I wouldn't overly worry. As outlined, the lines can be a bit blurred. To me  personally the telltale signs of an "exploit" are pretty clear, you should try it with weaker teams thus too.
 

Quote

It's luckily very easy to estimate if you hit upon an exploit, though. That's been the same since CMish, and it's the same now.

- You consistently get below average sides competing for top spots without any kind of contribution / rapid back to back promotionss included
- You consistently get below average attackers competing for the top in the scoring charts, same.
- You consistently break the all-time scoring records in your league, in particular with any of the game's starting squads

 

They key word being consistently. Any of such from my end has always relied on inherently ME or AI flaws, which, in one way or other, affect everyone, but are always brought to the forefront if "exploited".

[herne79]

1 hour ago, Neotropolis said:

And here's me thinking that my 4-2-3-1 formation that I've used since way back in FM14 (before that I'd played CM 2006 for more hours than I could possibly remember, though in that, I did have a broken formation) was me being clever, but it turns out it could just be an exploit. Either way, I tweak it year on year, sometimes I also tweak it depending on the team I am, but I thought it was a really good tactic.

 

1 hour ago, dannysheard said:

In my last four seasons with Liverpool, I've managed 103, 98, 96 and 102 points with a pretty basic 4-1-2-3 with two W(a) and an AF (a) up top. This must be exploiting the ME, even though I haven't set out to do that.

Gonna start a new game and ban the wingers, which I think are what is overpowering it.

A consistently successful system is not an exploit, you're just good at what you're doing.  "I tweak it year on year"; "a pretty basic 4123" doesn't exploit anything.

[Preveza]

Would it not be a better idea If people logged their save game files and relevant PKM's in the bug's forum in order to give SI the best possible chance to improve the ME in future versions?

[Svenc]

2 hours ago, herne79 said:

A consistently successful system is not an exploit

Depends on the kind of success, naturally. But yeah, slightly imbalances etc. or anything aren't technically an exploit necessarily. Which naturally, isn't the topic of this thread at all -- nor was it last years "wide midfielders", etc. etc. A 4-2-3-1 CAN achieve a similar effect, as you'll also note around the relevant communities. However, it depends. You can make such a front three behaving a bit similar to the three central forwards.There's no reason to be paranoid about it that way, though! An exploit achieves effortless miracle results with lesser teams, which is pretty much the telltale sign if you wanted to stress test. On that front, when I holdayed with such tactics, I don't merely manually pick the team, I let the assistant simply pick it. I literally don't do anything (including no substitutions), but by going through text commentary simply ensure that the assistant wouldn't switch a thing, which on older iterations he did.

@Preveza SI are likely pretty much aware of any possible issue. However, it also depends on how they see it. As highlighted by this thread, this can be seen from multiple angles. I personally lean strongly torwards the MBarbaric angle, though, as seeing it that way seems the only one for long-term robustness. As highlighted by Shirajzl too, the temporary fixes applied during the last couple iterations have in tendency all opened up different holes. When the flanks were vulnerable on FM 16, SI replied by coding the wide midfielder to cover out wide, severely weakening the centre of the pitch. That may end in a repeat cycle unless teams were able to shift/defend some as units proper, as I see it. In that sense, exploits can be both a bane and a blessing, in that they always highlight possible flaws strongly.

[Neotropolis]

On 25/03/2018 at 16:17, herne79 said:

 

A consistently successful system is not an exploit, you're just good at what you're doing.  "I tweak it year on year"; "a pretty basic 4123" doesn't exploit anything.

That's very pleasing. Thank you for that. 

It's good to know that I have actually come up with a successful tactic of my own doing.