bartex55

This is not the case. For several years now, the FM-Arena community has conducted many tests showing that only speed, acceleration and, to some extent, jumping reach matter. It seems that this year dribbling has been boosted to the level of jumping reach, but the rest of the attributes have negligible or no effect. In these tests there is a control group with default attributes compared to other groups with +5/-5 in a given attribute across all the positions. Let's say a team with default attributes managed 60 points in a season. The group with -5 Pace has only managed 29 points and the group with +5 Pace has managed 81 points. But then we have groups like the one with -5 Passing that managed 57 points (only 3 points less over the season) and the +5 Passing group that only managed 59 points. Other attributes had no impact or at best 1-3 points. We are talking about +/- 5 in all positions throughout the season. The tests were repeated thousands of times. I think it is safe to say that speed, acceleration and jumping reach are all that matter in this game. No wonder even GK with decent pace can be a decent striker in this context. But there are still people on this site who are in denial about it. It's sad that a game you've been playing since CM 01/02 lies to you about 90% of its supposed features. But it becomes obvious when you realise that even basic functionality, such as squad building, scouting and the transfer market, doesn't work properly. Why would anyone believe that more advanced things such as player movement, decision-making, accuracy and other mental/technical aspects of match simulation would be taken care of when, in reality, even the most basic functions don't work? Back to attributes, however. There is always the argument that this negligible impact of attributes actually gains in strength when there are, say, 10 of them. You go from 1-3 points per season to 10-30 points. Now there is a big difference, yes. But players with -5 in 10 attributes are considered lower league players and shouldn't be able to compete with top league players. And with some speed/acc advantage they can even outplay them. I know I sound bitter and overly critical, so I want to end on a more positive note. I'm not saying that the developers are deceiving us in this regard by putting some placebo attributes in the game. Maybe it's just a massive balancing issue that has arisen after years of changing the match engine. Or maybe it's a database problem, mainly an unbalanced distribution of attributes by researchers, and perhaps there should be greater differences in mentals/technicals between players considered to be of different quality. Put simply, distribute more 1's and 20's in mentals/technicals. But the most important thing to do is to nerf pace, especially in players with the ball. Adama Traore, Dan James are not necessarily less talented in other areas. In reality, the faster a player runs, the less time he has to think and the harder it is for him to control the ball or make even the simplest pass. The game does not take this into account. Simple debuffs to other attributes when a player breaks the next speed thresholds would be sufficient. Then perhaps a high technique attribute could act as a counterbalance to prevent these debuffs from occurring, to take into account players like KDB who can do everything efficiently, even while at top speed.

Well, you chose the biggest scouting package that costs several hundred thousand a month. That's your 240k gone. A few years ago, it was possible to cheese the game like this without paying, because the game checked to see if the package had been selected only at the end of the month. However, this has been fixed and now you have to pay for each month you used it.

Oh, come on. That's just absurd thing to say. It's like claiming that AI has no problems with squad management currently just because I only managed to loan Bukayo Saka from Arsenal instead of getting him completely for free...

Did we watch the same video? Oh never mind, you stopped watching after 3 minutes and you are the one accusing others of good talking and making things up lol What is so unrealistic about the players and the things he asks them to do? If he used real teams and real players, you would criticize his work as based on RNG and chaos. His findings and claims in this video make sense and for the most part even put SI devs in a good light. Stamina, work rate, sharpness, etc. all have logical effects on player fitness and behavior. The only aspect where the logic falls short is tactics. Gegenpressing should be OP, but it should also be double-edged. You shouldn't be able to make gegenpressing work with any players you have at your disposal. At the moment it works as plug&play. Personally, I think gegenpressing should not require mainly physicality, but attributes such as teamwork, positioning, anticipation and tactical familiarity.

There is definitely some kind of rubberbanding in this game. But not in the Human vs AI way. I believe that different mentalities give some kind of buffs/debuffs, especially in the last third, to make the defensive mentality more playable and keep the player more engaged in the game. I'm sure we all remember the discussions about the useless defensive mentality. This has always been true. Defensive mentality made your team look handicapped, because defensive strategy always requires some kind of schemes and micromanagement to make it work (even in real life). The game doesn't offer that. The offensive mentality was much better in this game, because it never relied on some kind of patterns, but rather a simple strategy of mass attack and pressure, against which the AI would have to be much more advanced to cope, and especially to counter it. They have also nerfed offensive mentality, essentially disabling striker pressing against central defenders. Which led to another problem - CBs effortlessly passing to each other and wasting time against teams like Man City. On the other hand, I have to admit that a proper formation such as 4-2-4 naturally blocks most passing lanes and forces CBs to make mistakes more often than not. The problem is that we've gone from every gegenpress tactic that wins the ball high up the pitch regardless of the quality of the players and opponents, to only a particular tactic that AI coaches don't even use in the game. Back to the topic. I think that defenders with a lower mentality have buffs to anticipation (quicker reaction) and thus intercept more crosses. Well, you could say that it's simply a matter of defensive approach, and you shouldn't be surprised that teams that sit deeper and have more bodies behind the ball defend better. The thing is, it's not like that, because I noticed it when I tested corner routines and my team with a very attacking mentality looked like conceding every corner. And when I switched to a more defensive mentality, we won a lot more headers. So it's not simply a matter of more bodies in the penalty area or something like that. There is clearly a mentality bias in every individual duel. And the tactics tests done by the guys on the FM Arena forum confirm this. The best tactics this year are those with an offensive formation, but with a balanced mentality. In previous versions of FM, the best tactics were always those with an attacking or at least positive mentality. And why does this lead to the defensive mentality outperforming its xG? I believe it's related to that interception of crosses. I have always argued that crossing in this game was too black or white. Either your defender will win a given duel, or you will just concede. There are far too many, too accurate crosses in the game. And to make it even worse, every striker in the game hits the ball from every cross as if they have 20 in the first touch attribute. The game rates this as a relatively low xG, but it's basically execution on the GK every time, like a penalty. And defenders with a more offensive mentality are much more likely to concede this kind of opportunities.

This could be the problem. FM21 is all about pace. Especially in these ST vs CB duels. A fast defender is better at marking, tackling and intercepting crosses. Even a mediocre footballer like Tyler Magloire is the best defender in the whole game because of this.