Sunstrikuuu

I'm fine with it being a thing if you're, like, Real Madrid and you're bringing Mbappe off the bench up 3-0 in an early-round Copa del Rey game. When it's a youth player? Or a guy who wants more playing time? Or a forward coming off the bench at 0-0 in the Champions League final? Seriously?

Yeah, Pathfinder generally was built on the 3E chassis, which doesn't have bounded accuracy. Owlcat's build their game for more of a high-op rules-focused specialized audience rather than a general gaming one, and it shows.

That was probably the motivation but the 5E rules aren't that complicated in cRPG terms. You make the number go up. 5E is designed around bounded accuracy, so even small increases to static numbers have large effects. And Larian missed the memo when they started tinkering with items and at what level they're available; the enemies are basically balanced to tabletop rules but players are given something like 10x the magic items, both in number and in amplitude, that they should. Player characters are enormously more powerful than they ought to be, so I struggle to believe that avoiding miss strings is the actual effect of Karmic Dice. When the game is balanced around a +3 bonus but obtaining a +8 or +10 is trivial, misses pretty much stop being an issue.

Karmic dice annoyed people (and the standard, correct advice is to turn it off) for reasons that specifically have to do with D&D rules. There's not a clear parallel to FM. In D&D 5E, the ruleset BG3 is based on, skill checks -- what you'd use to persuade people or pick a lock or identify something -- are handled by picking a random number from 1-20 and adding a modifier. Generally speaking, the threshold that the number plus modifier needs to reach is between 5, for a very easy task, and 25, for an extremely difficult task. In some cases, a player can have Advantage or Disadvantage; with Advantage, they roll two 20-sided dice and use the higher of the two numbers. Disadvantage uses the lower of the two. Because the d20 roll's range is so large compared to most static modifiers, skill checks are approached in two ways: either avoid making the roll at all or boost your modifier to such a high level that failure is impossible. BG3 implements a very bad variant rule that screws up the math. In combat, d20 rolls are used for a bunch of things, and a roll of 20 is an automatic success while a 1 is an automatic failure. This rule does not exist for skill checks. Larian, in their oh so infinite wisdom, decided that it should. That means every character, no matter how skillful at a particular task, fails that task 5% of the time on a roll of 1. Karmic dice are outcome-based dice; they exist to prevent strings of successes or failures. So if you build a character who happens to be Johnny Persuadesalot, a guy who's so persuasive and convincing that he can argue night into day and lions into lambs, and you go through dialogue trees convincing people to help you or not oppose you, talking your way out of combats and into rewards, you'll be succeeding at a lot of checks. And as you do, karmic dice increases the chances that you'll roll a 1 to balance your successes and failures. The FM equivalent might be doing a youth-only save and having your regens' PA artificially deflated because you were sending too many youth products into the first team. Karmic dice also does in-combat balancing, which hurts people who know how to use the rules to build characters. See, Larian don't understand the 5E rules and, in particular, the principle of bounded accuracy they're built upon. They've added a lot of ways to increase defensive and offensive modifiers, and it turns out that without some monkeying in the backend it's possible to just build a character that's only hit 5% of the time. Karmic dice flattens out some but not all of the differences between highly-optimized and poorly-optimized character builds, meaning people who don't use the rules well can still progress through the game and people who do still face some jeopardy. There are also a whole bunch of bugs related to sources of Advantage incorrectly applying and rolls of 1 not being discarded correctly in Advantage situations, but those are, at least, bugs and not deliberate, shortsighted design decisions. (They're the root of some of the conspiracy theories about rigged RNG, too, because players see a Critical Fail on a roll with Advantage and think "that's the third time this particular event has happened in an hour, I am suspicious", when what's actually happening is that the source of Advantage isn't being correctly applied, so it's a 5% chance not a 0.25% chance, as it should be.) Unrelated to FM, I know, but worth clarifying here because Karmic Dice is actually a situation where the developer is putting their thumb on the scale. It's not entirely unlike the Super-Keeper conspiracy -- if you build a great attacking team in FM and the AI can't handle you, the keeper will get some insane boost and yadda yadda yadda. Karmic Dice in BG3 is like the keeper getting a little boost, not huge, just enough that your 5-0 win becomes 2-0.

Lotta negotiations like "I would like 5." "Well, how about 3?" "Actually I would like 10." "Wait why not 4?" "I'm never speaking to you again."

wallace asks for a new contract, wallace's agent asks for a specific wage, i agree to that wage, wallace's agent asks for more money than what we agreed on two seconds ago in the negotiations, wallace rejects a contract offer, wallace's agent will not come to the table again, promise reminder: wallace is expecting to be offered a new contract, can't offer him a new contract the option doesn't even exist in the menu, can't tell him his agent is preventing talks because managers aren't allowed to talk to their players i guess, please dear sweet mother of god KILL THIS WHOLE SYSTEM WITH FIRE. Agents are bad and pointless, promises are bad and actively damaging to your game, just get rid of all of this garbage.

Hell of a month. 26-0 aggregate score in a three-games-in-six-days run.

With my luck they'd keep being the same.

That's also how wage negotiation works. The agent says £30,000/week, but what he means is £30kpw, plus a 10% annual wage increase plus kicker clauses that double his wage at 5 and 15 club appearances, and if you tell him you'll pay £30kpw he'll close negotiations.

In the screenshot above, my right attacking midfielder is assigned to tightly mark the right of two DMs. As Atletico play out from the back, you can see that he's there. Nice. My CAM, though, is wide right, but is assigned to tightly mark the left of the two DMs, so he's on the wrong side of the pitch. The LAM is assigned to mark tightly the left of the two centerbacks, and he's way too deep, marking another player entirely. And then we get that classic passing move where the ball goes tap-tap-tap down the pitch as players 'mark' their assignments by standing behind them. When the ball gets into the final third, the Atletico attacker turns into an idiot and trips over the ball, letting a defender take it away.

Even the way the game has you speaking with coaches is over-aggressive. If you ask a coach to teach a player a PPM that's critical to your tactic -- let's say a technical DM/CM with high passing, and you want to teach them to come deep to get the ball and to dictate tempo -- and the coach doesn't think it will work, your options are 'don't start the training', 'what do you think we should do?' or 'shut your absolute hole you complete incompetent, just do what i tell you'. Seriously, imagine being a manager with, like, Daniele de Rossi as your coach and saying "I have much greater experience of what benefits a player's game". And then imagine that coach saying 'ok but it's going to be a waste of time'.

They sound like children. Not like 'teenagers are children' but like five or six year olds. And you're right, it's not just player interactions. Your board will deny you something tiny -- an extra scout, say -- then tell you they'll listen if you 'put forward a compelling case', then whatever you say they'll tell you not to waste their time in the future. Waste your time? I've won the first European trophy in the history of the club! I've gotten you promoted five times! I built your stadium! What the fork do you mean, don't waste my time? You shouldn't be wasting my time!

In Arsenal's last three matches IRL, they've conceded six goals from 2.5 xGA and scored 1 from 6.47 xG. It's super frustrating but does happen.

"I'd rather get what I want without much of a discussion about it" yeah that's cool, that's nice, my player is a six year old. Who thought this was a good idea?

I haven't found one.

That's interesting. After starting a new Real World save and holidaying to September 1, Raya comes in as First Choice. Nelson is a Regular Starter (maybe a consequence of his contract renewal? I'm not sure). Kieran Tierney has Important Player status too, though he goes out on loan in the Real World game mode. Saliba, Gabriel, White, Zinchenko and Timber are all Regular Starter or higher. Kiwior, Vieira and Smith Rowe all have Regular Starter agreed future playing time as well. Looking at playing time expectations for the next five matches, both Raya and Ramsdale expect to be first-choice; Zinchenko, White and Saliba expect to be Important Players, with Tomiyasu and Gabriel expecting to be Regular Starters; Rice expects to be a Star Player, Odegaard and Partey expect to be Important Players and Havertz and Jorginho expect to be Regular Starters; Saka expects to be a Star Player, Martinelli and Jesus expect to be Important Players, and Trossard expects to be a Regular Starter (Reiss Nelson has Regular Starter agreed playing time but expects to be a Squad Player, and Vieira and Smith Rowe are Squad Players who expect Squad Player playing time, but have future agreements to become Regular Starters). Eddie Nketiah is the only player with Squad Player agreed playing time who expects to remain one, as far as I can tell.

@Zachary Whyte All of these are the defaults when the game is started. At game start, Arsenal has two GKs with First Choice+ squad status, seven defenders with Regular Starter or higher squad status, and at least five AML/AMR players -- possibly six -- with Regular Starter or higher squad status. This is an issue with the game, not with promises the player has made. Dan Ornsby said in the Data forum that he thinks those starting statuses are set automatically 'based on a combination of factors' as everything is, and that they are not assigned manually by the research team. Is the expectation that the player is going to come in and have a day-one squad revolt by manually adjusting all these playing time expectations that are set on your end?

I don't understand why this is considered impossible to resolve in this cycle. Shouldn't you just remove his injury in the starting database? He was injured during the season, not in pre-season. He didn't arrive injured. Hard-coding his injury doesn't seem any more appropriate than hard-coding the match result from that first game. What is the argument for keeping his injury in place?

What I always get is the player being transfer-listed for the same asking price, then the player and the manager kiss and make up six months later and they're removed from the transfer list.

I'll be honest: I have never seen this happen. I've seen unhappy players get transfer-listed, but I've never tapped up a player and had their price drop as a result.

All of those players are on contracts to 2030 or 2031, so 4 or 5 years. It's not obvious to me which way it's contributing to valuation. In terms of performance... who knows? It hasn't seemed to affect things in the past with the AI being interested in buying players who outperform their CA/PA.

Are there really? Or is it uh kind of swamped by one factor in particular? Let's look at a few players, all of whom play LAM or RAM. Player A is CA 178 and PA 180. He makes £400kpw and has Important Player squad status; his contract expires in 2031. He plays in the highest-reputation league in the world for the second-highest reputation team worldwide. He's 25 years old. Player B is 178 CA and 178 PA. He makes £350kpw and has Regular Starter squad status; his contract expires in 2030. He plays in the second-highest reputation league in the world for the highest reputation team worldwide. He's also 25 years old. Player A and Player B have similar Home and Current reputations, but Player B has 1400 more World Reputation. Player C plays for #2 rep worldwide in the #1 league. He's under contract through 2030 at £275kpw. He's 25, with 186 CA/PA. Here's his Reputation: Player D plays for #1 rep worldwide in the #2 league. He's under contract through 2031 at £450kpw. He's 26, with 184/184 CA/PA. Here's his Reputation: Player E plays for what I think is the #3 reputation worldwide team, in the #1 league. He's under contract through 2031 at £525kpw. He's 23, with 185 CA/PA. Here's his Reputation: Player F plays for a top-10 reputation team in the #2 league. He's under contract through 2031 at £325kpw. He's 19 with 175 CA/183 PA. Here's his Reputation: Player G plays for a top 20 reputation team (maybe towards the bottom of the top 10? Not sure) in the #3 league. He's under contract through 2031 at £200kpw. He's 25 with 171 CA and 177 PA. Here's his Reputation: Player H plays for the #3 reputation worldwide team in the #1 league. He's under contract through 2031 at £325kpw. He's 23 with 175 CA/PA. Here's his reputation: OK so. In terms of ability, pure CA/PA, all of these players are stars, but players A-E are a small step above, with 180+ CA/PA. All of the players are in a similar contractual situation, with C and G making significantly less money and E making significantly more. A and B are in similar World Reputation positions to players E and C respectively, and we can see that B, C and D are all absolute creme de la creme superstars from a reputational standpoint. Player F is the outlier in age, as he's only 19. In valuation, though, one of these players is valued at £300m. Four are valued between £200-299m. One is valued between £150-199m. Two are valued between £100-149m. Can anyone guess which is which, and what the common factor is for the players with the lowest valuation? Answer is in the spoiler. Other than the factor I've identified in the spoiler, any clear trends to explain the valuations?

It happens to me pretty frequently when dealing with renewals. The match engine definitely needs improvement, but as it's been for a while now the major focus needs to be on all the other stuff. Scouting, player development and regression models, transfers and negotiations, and especially player interaction and promises ought to be the primary focus. I'd also love that, and I'd love a public list of everything that's been tagged as 'known issue'. And even just hitting the thumbs-up reaction to show that a bug report has been read would be a nice change. It is very demoralizing putting an hour or so into a bug report and having it go without acknowledgement for weeks or more,

There are a lot of kind of strange design decisions. For example: Why does not being part of the media coverage also mean making an affirmative announcement that I will not make sales or signings? Why are these two things linked at all, and if they aren't actually, why is it phrased this way in the inbox?

Again, what we're talking about is why star signings succeed in FM more reliably than they do in real life. Yes, in real life if you had Lionel Messi you'd want to set your system up so he doesn't have to press. You'd need to, because he doesn't press no matter what instructions you as the manager give him. You'd do that by surrounding him with players who press for him, and as you noted France do this for Mbappe. He gets a big physical target forward to take the duels with the centerbacks, and he gets to play in free space. The lesson of PSG and Barcelona is that when you have too many of those stars your defense breaks. And the whole point of this conversation is that that doesn't happen in FM. You can have as many non-pressing stars as you want and they'll obey the instructions they are given in the tactics screen. You actually can play Messi, Mbappe, Neymar and, I dunno, Ronaldo together, even though that would be suicide IRL. And no, it's not semantics. There are very few midfield players capable of the defensive workrate and quality required by a low-workrate front three plus the sort of technical level necessary to supply that forward group and control games at the sharp end of the Champions League. They're not freely available resources. PSG had a perfectly competent midfield within the constraints they imposed upon themselves, and that's the point! Real-life squadbuilding involves tradeoffs and compromises that FM squadbuilding does not, making it easier to fit stars into existing structures without difficulty.