Form decline - AI learning tactics or harder match engine

[fil.jasz]

Hi guys!

I recently started Manchester United career in FM2020. I chose big club to have very comfortable and easy game to rest after work.

I created nice tactics and got very good results. I was undefeated until late March (lost against Brighton in FA cup), but shortly after winter transfer window I noticed that my team started to struggle in every match. Now (April) I can hardly win even using save&load several times. My main tactic still obtains similar stats (shots, possession etc) but it doesn't convert to goals. Opposition GKs started to catch everything. Also I lost first set piece goal in March, in month and a half I lost 8 more.

What may cause that decline?

I heard some opinions that AI can learn your tactics and start to prepare better against you? But I even try save&load and I change my tactics and still cannot win.

I wonder if there is possibility that after some time on top the match engine gets harder. For example our players' shots are more inaccurate, opposition have higher chances to score a long shot or from set piece, and GK are improved.

I played the mobile game where you couldn't choose difficulty but after some games it adjusted to your performance. I believe that it's more probable in this case than AI learning my tactics. What do you think?

[IrrelevantLion]

Honestly this has always happened in FM, you just have to change things around a bit. Use younger, keener players from the reserves. Swap a position or two. Change how you interact with your squad. Criticise form, praise good performances. 

[XaW]

As far as SI have explained it, there are no artificial things to make it harder. The match engine does not care about you or the AI and doesn't separate. The AI doesn't "learn" tactics, but they do change their own based on how much chance they think they have of winning.

As for your case, I can only assume, but my guess is that your players got complacent and didn't bother to put in the effort after winning a bit. And that is quite realistic of the current batch of Man Utd players. They can beat anyone, but also lose to anyone, so I assume quite a few of them will have poor consistency or mental attributes to reflect that.

[Weed07]

Teams don't learn your tactics, thats a myth, however what i believe happens is that depending on how you are doing in the league and your form, then AI teams will react to that and adapt how they approach the game.

For example, a newly promoted team who are favourties for relegation will find AI teams will attack them as they are expected to win, if then January rolls around and you have found yourselves challenging and you are beating teams easily, other teams won't learn your tactics but would stop attacking you and maybe play more cautious as you have proven you're a better club.

Also fitness and fatigue comes into play the further a season goes on which means more rotation which leads to less team coheasion as players are in and out of the team more often, add in late stages of cup games and it can soon become more of a problem late in the season.

You may also find that if you are favourites all the time your players may think games will be easy so won't be up for it as much as they otherwise would have been and get complacient.

[zyfon5]

If you are struggling late season, you are definitely doing something wrong. Any decent human manager will be able to easily roll over the AI late season due to how poor the AI is at managing squad fitness.

Maybe modify your tactics a little bit as the AI gives you less space to attack. A quick check if your tactics are working or not is to pay attention to the results of your youth team. If your under 18 and under 23 are doing well, you can be assured that you have a good tactic. Constantly make sure that your players are not complacent as morale now plays a bigger factor. Also manage player fitness from the start of the season. You will want to make sure that your first team have good match sharpness across the entire squad. This will give you a huge advantage against the AI.

[Sloak]

I think there is going to be a disagreement among the community about whether this FM is easier or harder. I think the changes to decisions and movement are really noticeable and great changes. The midfield feels more realistic, offensive players seem to move into dangerous spots a lot more, and defenses actually intercept balls rather than waiting for the player to overkick it and cut them off.

My impression is that a lot of tactics with holes that the previous games match engine stopped from being exploited will be more obvious in FM21, but well balanced tactics will be more effective as in real life.
 

Just as an example, I think having both Fullbacks on anything more aggressive than a FBa is going to kill you way more this year due players being able to move into the space better and passers making faster decisions. This is going to neuter the “slap a gegenpress on it and call it a day” strategy I often see employed on these forums.

 

Not saying your tactic is bad, you could have a brilliant tactic and be suffering from any other number of things like morale, fatigue, bad luck, or even complacency as Man Utd, but I think looking at your tactic and maybe adding more offensive movement or defensive cover will really help you in this years game versus last years if they’re not already fully there.

[sporadicsmiles]

17 hours ago, fil.jasz said:

I heard some opinions that AI can learn your tactics and start to prepare better against you? But I even try save&load and I change my tactics and still cannot win.

I wonder if there is possibility that after some time on top the match engine gets harder. For example our players' shots are more inaccurate, opposition have higher chances to score a long shot or from set piece, and GK are improved.

Neither of these things are in football manager. The AI definitely does not learn tactics. I wish it was advanced enough to do that! And the ME is the ME. It simply is what it is.

Typically there are a couple of reasons why you could struggle late in a season. 

1. You are a supposedly weaker side who is doing very well, so the AI has decided to take your poor seriously and defend a bit tighter against you. That means you are not being gifted space, and your players have to make chances more. If they are not the best players, they can struggle. 

2. You have won a lot, and your players are complacent and put in a bad performance. Which spirals out of control. 

3. You are at the end of the season fighting for the title (or promotion, or against relegation, or for something). This adds extra pressure to games, and this has not been managed properly so the players are nervous and it leads to bad performances.

In your case I would guess number 3. I typically find that number 2 only lasts for a game if you spot it and call your players out on it. And it can be managed via team talks and press conferences. Number 3 has to be managed the same. A typical example will be we struggle against a poor team, game is quite close, then we score and everyone chills out and we win easily. Or they get a goal back and it all goes to hell again. This is managed by taking pressure off the players are critical times in the season.

Number 1 is regression to the mean, and the only way to really combat it is to make sure your tactic is able to work when you have to create space. And ultimately capitalise on your success to sign better players who can better unlock defences. 

[andu1]

Try FM21 beta, i heard it's easier than FM20.

[zyfon5]

14 hours ago, Sloak said:

I think there is going to be a disagreement among the community about whether this FM is easier or harder. I think the changes to decisions and movement are really noticeable and great changes. The midfield feels more realistic, offensive players seem to move into dangerous spots a lot more, and defenses actually intercept balls rather than waiting for the player to overkick it and cut them off.

My impression is that a lot of tactics with holes that the previous games match engine stopped from being exploited will be more obvious in FM21, but well balanced tactics will be more effective as in real life.
 

Just as an example, I think having both Fullbacks on anything more aggressive than a FBa is going to kill you way more this year due players being able to move into the space better and passers making faster decisions. This is going to neuter the “slap a gegenpress on it and call it a day” strategy I often see employed on these forums.

 

Not saying your tactic is bad, you could have a brilliant tactic and be suffering from any other number of things like morale, fatigue, bad luck, or even complacency as Man Utd, but I think looking at your tactic and maybe adding more offensive movement or defensive cover will really help you in this years game versus last years if they’re not already fully there.

Sorry to disappoint you but judging from the saves I see from YouTube I think attacking tactics are at least as good as if not better than FM20.

[ATV]

I find that keep tweaking tactics is the best way to get out of a slump.

[Sloak]

7 hours ago, zyfon5 said:

Sorry to disappoint you but judging from the saves I see from YouTube I think attacking tactics are at least as good as if not better than FM20.

While I’d say you’re not wrong, I think it’s very hard to define them as better. I think well created attacking tactics will preform better because of improved attacking movement and decision making as I said. However, I don’t think you can say it’s better when both teams on the pitch benefit. As I said, I think there will be a divide in the player base. Players who don’t use these improvements as well as the AI will feel it’s harder, and players who use it better than the AI will feel the game is easier.

 

As a side note, I could never get a counter attacking tactic to work as well as I wanted it to in Fm20 even after an 8 season save, so I used one for my first tactic in FM21 and 13 games later at 9-4-0 I feel pretty solid. I don’t think anything gets better or worse when it benefits the human and ai, your perception of it depends on how it benefits you vs them. 

And attacking tactics are the best choice, which is why you’ll very rarely see a team in the tactics forum on anything lower than balanced, and even that’s rare. Attacking football is the best choice in FM because of how tactics and reputation work. When you play on the front foot you can catch superior teams off guard because they’ve based their tactic off of your reputation, not the actual team, and you need to play attacking against inferior teams in order to secure an extra 2 points.

Now that counterattacking is more effective due to awareness of space and more fluid decision making, I actually think more defensive football will be more viable.

[zyfon5]

9 hours ago, Sloak said:

While I’d say you’re not wrong, I think it’s very hard to define them as better. I think well created attacking tactics will preform better because of improved attacking movement and decision making as I said. However, I don’t think you can say it’s better when both teams on the pitch benefit. As I said, I think there will be a divide in the player base. Players who don’t use these improvements as well as the AI will feel it’s harder, and players who use it better than the AI will feel the game is easier.

 

As a side note, I could never get a counter attacking tactic to work as well as I wanted it to in Fm20 even after an 8 season save, so I used one for my first tactic in FM21 and 13 games later at 9-4-0 I feel pretty solid. I don’t think anything gets better or worse when it benefits the human and ai, your perception of it depends on how it benefits you vs them. 

And attacking tactics are the best choice, which is why you’ll very rarely see a team in the tactics forum on anything lower than balanced, and even that’s rare. Attacking football is the best choice in FM because of how tactics and reputation work. When you play on the front foot you can catch superior teams off guard because they’ve based their tactic off of your reputation, not the actual team, and you need to play attacking against inferior teams in order to secure an extra 2 points.

Now that counterattacking is more effective due to awareness of space and more fluid decision making, I actually think more defensive football will be more viable.

My counter attacking tactics all work perfectly fine in FM20. And also you seem to imply that attacking tactics are mostly of higher mentality which is not true. Mentality does not define what type of tactics you have.

[fil.jasz]

Thanks guys for replays. I was just wondering and tried to gather any rumors that I heard. I think there is a problem with my players motivation or pressure because the goals for this year were a bit lower than I perform.