Wide Attacking Play: The Ongoing Disaster (video clip embedded in post)

[tarzanofmars]

Apparently FM 2020 is just not going to be unable to get this one right. 

I have not played since the end of December until tonight, though I had been playing and actively giving feedback since beta day 1 till then. I'm 46 and have been playing this game since the very first release of CM and this one has been the most frustrating ME I can remember, maybe because you can see the next level of immersion just over the hill and out of reach.

Here is an example of what I have been talking about. (I had to crop it down and record it playing in the media player to get it down from 4K  to get under the 9MB limit for the post)

It crashed not long after this, first crash I've had in FM 2020 (posted .dmp in bug forums)
 

First off, thank you for continuing to try to improve the ME.

Various Match Engine (version 2039) changes including (but not limited to):

- Improved one-on-one finishing
- Recalculations regarding clear-cut chances
- Tweaks to penalty kick conversion rates
- Lowered frequency of players overrunning ball and losing possession
- Improved realism of player recoveries from slide tackles
- Improved crossing variation and instruction behaviour  - You're having a laugh on this one mate!
- Improved defensive tracking from long balls
- Improved heading accuracy
- Improvements/tweaks to referee behaviour
- Throw-in positional adjustments
- Various other balancing tweaks/improvements

You know what is crazy? The best I have ever seen FM behavior from these positions was in the very first beta release of 2020!  Yet the very first patch changed it and they went back to smashing into the nearest defender. Why????

Look at the acres of space Mo and Trent have to go past and then cross, or drop the shoulder and drive in past them. Never will they do it, never. And then the Inter defender slide tackling his teammate for a corner kick. No words on that.
Especially Trent here when he picks the ball up, he's already at pace and the defender just gifts him the space beyond him with his poor initial movement, but oooh nooo Trent is already winding up for a blast, perfectly timed to HIT THE DEFENDER. My 11 year old nephew would've skipped right past that defender having read the space, the speed of everything happening and the options, seriously.

This isn't like an bizarre heliacal event that is hard to track down, fire the game up, play with two IF/RMD/IW and tell them to cut inside, or not, to sit narrower, or not, shoot more often, or not, cross more or less, or not, cross low, pre-match talk- cross low, individual personal instructions- cross low, and they will never cross low, or none of the former, and any other combination of instructions (channels, get forward, have a bevvy) and they just continue to blast the ball into the first defender that gets near them. They will even wait until they get close and then smash it into them.

I am using Liverpool not only because they are my team IRL (since '96!) but that they are the simply the best team on the planet at the moment. If I was using Rangers or Stuttgart (my other saves) one could use the 'the players just aren't that good' argument.
 

You can use the slider and go frame by frame since I rerecorded it at 30fps and you can see the defender begin his slide tackle before Salah begins his cross attempt, so Mo should have easily skipped past him. Or, has the game already calculated that Salah will cross and the defender gets the jump on him by being able to 'see the future'? 

Edited February 7, 2020 by tarzanofmars

[sorrenmills]

I played the updated match engine for a few hours last night and remain unimpressed. I agree with you, the crossing intelligence is awful. I lost count of the amount of times wingers and fullbacks smash a cross into a defender’s legs. I can’t help feeling this year’s version is a massive step backwards, ME-wise. Enough to make me seriously consider whether I want to keep buying and investing time into this series. 

[Pasonen]

1 hour ago, tarzanofmars said:

Apparently FM 2020 is just not going to be unable to get this one right. 

I have not played since the end of December until tonight, though I had been playing and actively giving feedback since beta day 1 till then. I'm 46 and have been playing this game since the very first release of CM and this one has been the most frustrating ME I can remember, maybe because you can see the next level of immersion just over the hill and out of reach.

Here is an example of what I have been talking about. (I had to crop it down and record it playing in the media player to get it down from 4K  to get under the 9MB limit for the post)

It crashed not long after this, first crash I've had in FM 2020 (posted .dmp in bug forums)
 

First off, thank you for continuing to try to improve the ME.

Various Match Engine (version 2039) changes including (but not limited to):

- Improved one-on-one finishing
- Recalculations regarding clear-cut chances
- Tweaks to penalty kick conversion rates
- Lowered frequency of players overrunning ball and losing possession
- Improved realism of player recoveries from slide tackles
- Improved crossing variation and instruction behaviour  - You're having a laugh on this one mate!
- Improved defensive tracking from long balls
- Improved heading accuracy
- Improvements/tweaks to referee behaviour
- Throw-in positional adjustments
- Various other balancing tweaks/improvements

You know what is crazy? The best I have ever seen FM behavior from these positions was in the very first beta release of 2020!  Yet the very first patch changed it and they went back to smashing into the nearest defender. Why????

Look at the acres of space Mo and Trent have to go past and then cross, or drop the shoulder and drive in past them. Never will they do it, never. And then the Inter defender slide tackling his teammate for a corner kick. No words on that.
Especially Trent here when he picks the ball up, he's already at pace and the defender just gifts him the space beyond him with his poor initial movement, but oooh nooo Trent is already winding up for a blast, perfectly timed to HIT THE DEFENDER. My 11 year old nephew would've skipped right past that defender having read the space, the speed of everything happening and the options, seriously.

This isn't like an bizarre heliacal event that is hard to track down, fire the game up, play with two IF/RMD/IW and tell them to cut inside, or not, to sit narrower, or not, shoot more often, or not, cross more or less, or not, cross low, pre-match talk- cross low, individual personal instructions- cross low, and they will never cross low, or none of the former, and any other combination of instructions (channels, get forward, have a bevvy) and they just continue to blast the ball into the first defender that gets near them. They will even wait until they get close and then smash it into them.

I am using Liverpool not only because they are my team IRL (since '96!) but that they are the simply the best team on the planet at the moment. If I was using Rangers or Stuttgart (my other saves) one could use the 'the players just aren't that good' argument.
 

 

You can use the slider and go frame by frame since I rerecorded it at 30fps and you can see the defender begin his slide tackle before Salah begins his cross attempt, so Mo should have easily skipped past him. Or, has the game already calculated that Salah will cross and the defender gets the jump on him by being able to 'see the future'? 

You forgot .pkm with time stamps! (Not kidding... mmm some kidding but post them anyway. I want this fixed) ;D

[FrazT]

@tarzanofmars  You have clearly done a lot of work in presenting your post, but I would suggest that you raise this in the Match Engine subforum of the FM 20 Bugs forum if you really want the developers to have a look at this.  A .pkm of the match and a note of the times would also be good. 

[fmjonek]

and that's part i find hard to understand. why does developers need pkm and time stamp for situations that are having place ALL THE TIME, every single match, 90% of situations they're are doing such things. that shouldn't require any pkm. some thing are present since fm18,19 and still not fixed in fm20. just make list of well known issues so we at least know you work on it, instead of repeating ourselfs about same things.

[FrazT]

@fmjonekHaving specific examples of issues that users are seeing and having a .pkm of the match to accurately find the code that is causing the issue, greatly helps the developers, which is why that is what they request with a bug report.  I am sorry that you find this hard to understand

[Tyburn]

Players do “miss” crossing opportunities sometimes IRL. Defenders DO cut out crosses too IRL.

The way the game SHOWS us this, I agree, could look better. But it’s a sim. If every cross was perfect that would create a whole load of other gripes.

My players are making crosses and cut backs on a regular basis since latest ME update. Not all the time. The balance is about right.

But I do agree that the way the ME shows us these “missed opportunities” with crossing could look prettier.

[Pasonen]

I think players are thinking too much who they are going to cross. They should think more getting ball past defender and put more curve on it. Little too mutch forcing in crossing attempts. Winger attack, FBA and WBA  should have crosses optionally set. Not cross often

Edited February 7, 2020 by Pasonen

[Mr Tonio]

2 minutes ago, sidslayer said:

Players do “miss” crossing opportunities sometimes IRL. Defenders DO cut out crosses too IRL.

The way the game SHOWS us this, I agree, could look better. But it’s a sim. If every cross was perfect that would create a whole load of other gripes.

My players are making crosses and cut backs on a regular basis since latest ME update. Not all the time. The balance is about right.

But I do agree that the way the ME shows us these “missed opportunities” with crossing could look prettier.

 Though I admire your dedication to your own logic, this is not a matter of "pretty" it's a matter of feedback. A player deal with the feedback the game is giving him. This is bad feedback because it's unreadable. Your player should cross and he does not. There's no explanation to this, no conclusion that can be drawn. In previous ME version, the winger should cross to the free player in the middle, but he does not, and it's not a matter of how good he is. Or the winger should not aim a shot at the side netting, but he does... In fact a lot of the problems of the successive FM 2020 ME were just this: bad feedback. And a game with bad feedback is not a good game. Because you have to adapt randomly. You just throw things and see where it falls. It's very frustrating. I don't know how it came to this this year, we, as consumers, are not used to this (i played for more than 20 years also) from SI, but, yeah. Bad game, bad year. I don't think it can be saved now. The successive ME made a mockery of what is usually a pretty darn good game. So yeah, to conclude, the new ME is still bad, different bad, but bad.

[Tyburn]

14 minutes ago, Mr Tonio said:

 Though I admire your dedication to your own logic, this is not a matter of "pretty" it's a matter of feedback. A player deal with the feedback the game is giving him. This is bad feedback because it's unreadable. Your player should cross and he does not. There's no explanation to this, no conclusion that can be drawn. In previous ME version, the winger should cross to the free player in the middle, but he does not, and it's not a matter of how good he is. Or the winger should not aim a shot at the side netting, but he does... In fact a lot of the problems of the successive FM 2020 ME were just this: bad feedback. And a game with bad feedback is not a good game. Because you have to adapt randomly. You just throw things and see where it falls. It's very frustrating. I don't know how it came to this this year, we, as consumers, are not used to this (i played for more than 20 years also) from SI, but, yeah. Bad game, bad year. I don't think it can be saved now. The successive ME made a mockery of what is usually a pretty darn good game. So yeah, to conclude, the new ME is still bad, different bad, but bad.

It’s a simulation. The ME has to show a failed cross somehow. How it shows it, I agree, could be done better. But it does have to show a failed cross.

When has FM not had quirks? It’s always had them. For me, it’s actually part of its charm. As frustrating as it can obviously be.

[Mr Tonio]

Just now, sidslayer said:

It’s a simulation. The ME has to show a failed cross somehow. How it shows it, I agree, could be done better. But it does have to show a failed cross.

When has FM not had quirks? It’s always had them. For me, it’s actually part of its charm. As frustrating as it can obviously be.

The ME, to the player, is not only a simulation, it's a feedback tool. The mere only one a player have in FM. It has to do its job better. It used to.

[sporadicsmiles]

The problem is exacerbated, I find, by the proclivity of central players to spray the ball out wide. Granted this is where the space is most of the time, but it feels like it happens too much.

I find the thing that annoys me the most with this is a player getting the ball in acres of space on the flank. And then running directly towards a defender before crossing. Now this behaviour is not in itself bad, because if you commit a defender and can pass the ball you have another player in space. It is why a FB(A) and IF(A) paired can be deadly at times. And you do see this. But you also see players moving away from space and into pressure and then crossing. Far more often than such players will hit crosses from their space when they have time to set themselves. In this situation a defender should close them down, and if they block the cross fine.

The video the OP posts is a nice example of this. Arnold would be better off hitting that ball from where he picks it up. He has space and thus time to set and deliver a cross. The dribble into the defender here makes little sense to me.

We should spend the time to post bug reports though. I have posted a couple last night that I found in a single game. Moaning about bugs while not reporting them is like complaining you hate the government but not voting. It does not take up a vast amount of time to do it, and it is helpful.

[fmjonek]

4 hours ago, sidslayer said:

It’s a simulation. The ME has to show a failed cross somehow. How it shows it, I agree, could be done better. But it does have to show a failed cross.

When has FM not had quirks? It’s always had them. For me, it’s actually part of its charm. As frustrating as it can obviously be.

the problem is, it's not schowing just bad crosses from time to time. it's most of them. irl crosses are blocked ofc but a lot less often in situation like brought in this topic. ME must give player clear picture was it cross blocked in tight situation or cross messed up with loads of open space. when 2nd option IRL almost doesn't happen.

[Hazpro]

On 07/02/2020 at 08:38, Pasonen said:

You forgot .pkm with time stamps! (Not kidding... mmm some kidding but post them anyway. I want this fixed) ;D

Maybe it's me but I don't see a problem, Perfectly timed tackle 

[Pasonen]

16 minutes ago, Hazpro said:

Maybe it's me but I don't see a problem, Perfectly timed tackle 

The other crosser Trent came in with good speed and still crossed from the same spot and didnt utilize his speed to take ball byline. After that defense tackled own player and 2 man went for the ball. Maybe worst is 2 man going same ball.

[Icy]

The root problem is that wing players, specially wingbacks are always uncovered when close to the sidelines as teams defend too narrow, that is why center played always pass to the wings instead of trying through passes, because they see a totally open man open all the time.

A single problem creates all these issues in a cascade of events.

 

[Rashidi]

I have one tactic where the emphasis is quick vertical play using anchors in the middle, and I have another tactic which emphasises quick direct play through the middle, granted the latter is much harder to pull off when teams are playing with a stacked defence, so I normally set my tactics to do either and hopefully the players pick the right option.