pkm required Early Crossing non-existent once again. Is it even written into the code? I've never seen it.

[tarzanofmars]

For those that think it happens in the 3D match, prove it with video, and that means instructions set to early crossing and player instructions set to deep crossing, cross more and I want to see it happen multiple times in one match in the 3D engine. Even once and I'll be impressed.

Many teams use early and deep crossing as a major element of their tactics, but we cannot replicate that in FM, never have been able to. 

The last two years during beta, an early cross would happen occasionally. As soon as the full release update came out, boom, it's gone. I do not have proof of this, but myself and several others I know have experienced this. We were looking for the frequency and types of crosses from the start and noticed a change. This could mean it was directly tweaked or is a 2nd or 3rd order effect of some other changes between beta and full release.

My theory is that the SI ME code crew are well aware of this issue, and they use beta to see how allowing early (and more realistic crossing overall) crossing will affect the score lines. I think they are unable to get the defenders to defend good enough and aggressive enough to keep early crossing from running the scores up, based on data analysis they only have access to, not because I saw anything like a 100% scoring rate in beta from it. Again, this is a theory that has arisen from the issue not being dealt with.

This is the only team and player instruction that is uniformly ignored at all levels of the game, semi-pro to EPL.

To clarify for anyone that doesn't know what an early or deep cross is, it is a cross played from a wide position into the box, generally into the 6 yard box or the far post area, high or low, that is a ahead of the defensive line (early) and is played well before the crossing player is alongside the 18 yard box (deep). This is a cross that uses curve and swing and is harder to defend as the defender is facing and moving towards his own goal, and it's harder to execute for the crosser, but by no means is crossing early or from deep beyond the ability of the average Sunday league (accuracy, curl and pace of the cross is greatly increased as player level increases naturally), and it is seen in virtually any game of football played at a professional level. These types of balls are even played at the semi-pro and youth levels, it is not uncommon.

Except in FM.

PKMs: I could upload all 60 plus season PKM's from multiple teams/seasons so you can see it doesn't happen, or you could fire up a new game, any league, any team and see it doesn't occur.

Importance:
 Crossing from deep, especially when crossing early, towards the penalty spot area, is the second highest effective type of cross, behind only crossing from within the 18 yard box or within a yard of the 18 yard box, towards the penalty spot.

I've brought this up before (this is the first FM21 mention) and have never seen a response from SI development staff.  At this point it'd be better to hear SI just confirm: "Yes we have reduced its appearance because it causes high score lines" or something.

Many ME improvements have been made since last year's debacle, but there still remain some huge gaps between FM 3D match engine and realism. 

(Fair warning for those who are happy with their level of immersion and haven't paid attention to early and deep crossing: What has been seen cannot be unseen. You will start noticing how often it occurs when watching real footy and how it never occurs in FM)

[tarzanofmars]

That cross by TAA to assist Liverpool's 4th was an early cross on floor from deep. 

NEVER HAPPENS IN FM and apparently isn't a bug.



 

[h3nrique_SEP]

nice topic mate 

 

FM's match engine may be as good as people say, but it's still veeeeeery far away to be a little bit realistic

[FreezingTable]

Great post man!
It’s not only crossing from deep, but cross types doesn’t either seems to be different from each other. Crossing in general is just random and there’s no logic behind them.

[pejocho]

Great post and nice explanations. I hope SI could see it and give their opinion. 

[upthetoon]

Crossing is fundamentally broken i think. i get a ridiculous amount of corner kicks almost every game. wingers don't cross until they are closed down and then kick it to the defenders for a corner. 

[damjanovski]

Agree in this. Wingers and wide players in general do not cross the ball when they should. I mean they make too many return passes and frequently they just stop with the ball and not cross.

I must note that there is improvement from the last year when the crossing was broken but still it is not as it should be.

[Englishhammer]

Excuse me for being slow, but have I interpreted this correctly? So what are we saying about formations, don’t bother having Wingers? Use IF or IW instead?

[FreezingTable]

Winger are pretty much useless when the wingbacks are so overpowered with the ball. But it’s very frustrating when wingers or wingbacks don’t cross the way the TI says. 

[tarzanofmars]

4 hours ago, FreezingTable said:

Winger are pretty much useless when the wingbacks are so overpowered with the ball. But it’s very frustrating when wingers or wingbacks don’t cross the way the TI says. 

I know what you are trying to say, but WBs are not overpowered, they're just as useless as anybody else in a wide position, well, except for winning corners over and over. If you use WBs and use the overlap instruction the winger will always come inside or hold the ball up for the WBs. Set your WBs to defend or use individual instructions to have them stay behind the wingers, set your wingers to stay and run wide etc.

Regardless of who is highest up on the wing, they will dribble towards the byline and smash it into the nearest defender for a corner. No amount of player traits+team instruction+player instruction will stop this hard coded repetitive event from happening.

[FreezingTable]

@tarzanofmarsThats true, and I hope SI will fix the wingback and the blocked and poor crosses ASAP!

[tarzanofmars]

Last night playing as Stuttgart, I won 4-0, but all the goals came from corners. I never use play for set pieces btw.

I won 25 corners total; 26 crosses blocked, 20 went out for a corner. The other 6 stayed in play. The other 5 corners were from deflected shots.

20 corners from wide players driving to the byline, against all instruction and traits, and smashing it into the defender a foot away.

This was a standard 4-3-3, positive, high press and cross deep, cross early instruction for team. 

[CaptCanuck]

Ah-ha! 'Glad' I found this.

This has been annoying me to no end. My RWB is Lamptey so he doesn't have the greatest nous yet, but he basically pegs it down to the touchline, takes a left and dribbles towards to box until the defender knocks it out for a corner. My LWB has crossing of 15 and decent mentals and does a slightly less exaggerated version of the same.

If I was set up to counter, a-la Wolves, as I was for a few seasons in FM20 this would make fast attacks with balls into a Jimenez'esque striker pointless. After the defensive line pause that has seemingly been added for through balls and makes long ball OTT... well OTT, this would be my #2 choice for gameplay fixes.

Edited December 8, 2020 by CaptCanuck

[themadsheep2001]

Kindly reminder that you need to be uploading PKMs in a bugs thread. The first thing any SI QA or dev is going to ask for when they come across this thread is a PKM, all the theories in the world be of little use to them, so if you want them to take a look at anything that's where you start

[tarzanofmars]

15 hours ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Kindly reminder that you need to be uploading PKMs in a bugs thread. The first thing any SI QA or dev is going to ask for when they come across this thread is a PKM, all the theories in the world be of little use to them, so if you want them to take a look at anything that's where you start

So they want PKMs that show an absence of something? It is self evident if they start up any new game on their own. I've put in a lot of free hours over the years helping them fix their game. I would normally charge $40 an hour for that. Sort it out SI.

[themadsheep2001]

7 minutes ago, tarzanofmars said:

So they want PKMs that show an absence of something? It is self evident if they start up any new game on their own. I've put in a lot of free hours over the years helping them fix their game. I would normally charge $40 an hour for that. Sort it out SI.

Yes, if you think something should be happening because you've given instructions for it, and they do something different, then timecodes of where they should have taken action are helpful because they can look at what the code was doing at that point. If you don't want to do this let me know and I can close this off

 

Thanks

[CJ Ramson]

18 minutes ago, tarzanofmars said:

So they want PKMs that show an absence of something? It is self evident if they start up any new game on their own. I've put in a lot of free hours over the years helping them fix their game. I would normally charge $40 an hour for that. Sort it out SI.

We always need PKMS. If it's an absence of something then examples of when a player should make the cross would be good. 

The ME is an incredibly delicate balancing act to try and replicate real life football. It's not as simple as making players cross the ball more.

We have looked at improving some off the ball runs which would in turn have a knock on affect which could improve this issue.

Are players making the off the ball runs for these crosses to be made? Which player roles are being used in the wide areas?

Lastly, the Beta theory is incorrect and it doesn't help spreading those ideas. There were minimal AI changes made between Beta and Full Release

Thanks

[damjanovski]

Napoli v Sampdoria.pkm

[damjanovski]

Just now, damjanovski said:

Napoli v Sampdoria.pkm 259.72 kB · 0 downloads

Here you can find how many times the players instead of crossing they return the ball outside the box, and instead of cross they pass the ball to the teammate.

[CJ Ramson]

8 minutes ago, damjanovski said:

Napoli v Sampdoria.pkm 259.72 kB · 0 downloads

We need timestamped examples. We don't have the time or numbers to rewatch every PKM from start to finish unfortunately. 

[tarzanofmars]

1 hour ago, CJ Ramson said:

We always need PKMS. If it's an absence of something then examples of when a player should make the cross would be good. 

The ME is an incredibly delicate balancing act to try and replicate real life football. It's not as simple as making players cross the ball more.

We have looked at improving some off the ball runs which would in turn have a knock on affect which could improve this issue.

Are players making the off the ball runs for these crosses to be made? Which player roles are being used in the wide areas?

Lastly, the Beta theory is incorrect and it doesn't help spreading those ideas. There were minimal AI changes made between Beta and Full Release

Thanks

So, are you saying that on your games, players are crossing from deep and early? 

[tarzanofmars]

Look, since you guys are actually acknowledging this, I will provide PKMs and timestamps, its just going to be instances of players crossing the ball like they always have. It will have to be later today or tonight in my free time. 

FYI, it has nothing to do with runs or run frequency, it's the ball carrier refusing to cross early/from deep.

Edited December 8, 2020 by tarzanofmars

[damjanovski]

Players do not cross early and from deep. That is the point. In the pkm 2nd highlight this is actualy shown. I do not know how to export saved replays otherwise I will upload it here.

[damjanovski]

PKM is provided. I think that this is important subject and the developers should listen to constructive feedback from the community. As for the subject, please just watch match in the champions league currently and compare it to FM 21 and see how many crosses from deep are there in the real life. 

[Duro]

It´s like damjanovski, tarzanofmars said! I experience the same issues with my team! Despite setting to early crosses and set the instructions of the full backs to cross often an to cross from deep, they and the wingers go to by the line, letting the defenders come closer and kicking the ball against them to win a corner.

Sure that this is an overrall problem to all the users, that need to be solved! A football macth whitout crosses, and deep crosses, early crosses, it´s not a football game!

[Milburn]

I was having trouble with this, but I've just started a new game with Hull in League One. Several of the players have the Crosses Early trait. I play with Wide Midfielders rather than Wingers, both having Cross From Deep and Cross More Often PIs (and same for both full backs on Support) and TI Hit Early Crosses. I'm seeing a lot of early crosses either directly resulting in a goal, or a goal is scored from a rebound or a header back across goal. AF has 10 goals in 10 games so far, with 7 from crosses. I've also seen my CM hitting early crosses if they are out wide.

[Roy Race 9]

On 07/12/2020 at 22:59, upthetoon said:

Crossing is fundamentally broken i think. i get a ridiculous amount of corner kicks almost every game. wingers don't cross until they are closed down and then kick it to the defenders for a corner. 

only just started my first save and this is pathetic really time after time I have players on their own with instructions to cross early and just wait for an oppo player to hit it at to get a corner lol its a joke once again