Hey all, Max here. Apologies I am late to the conversation as I'm not usually active here. Appreciate all the comments and feedbacks. My responses to some of the issues raised:
1. If the main benefits of the Match Prep sessions are long-term and accumulative in nature (eg. boosting tactical familiarity / player attributes), then of course a single session conducted the day before a match won't produce any difference in terms of the win rate. But that's not why we all like to include a Match Prep session into our training regimen before an important match, is it? Match Prep sessions are presented to us gamers as having a temporary boosting effect for an upcoming match. This is suggested by:
a) the in-game description for the sessions mention "Upcoming Match..."
b) when we leave the training schedule to the AssMan, he will always include a Match Prep session the day before a match
c) Before an FA Cup final or a Champions league final, the AssMan will use one of the default training schedules "Big-Match Preparation" which includes multiple types of Match Preparation sessions.
d) When you conduct a Match Prep session, the match preview screen (just before starting a match) will say something like "for this match, special focus has been placed on Teamwork / Att Movement / Def Shape..." again reinforcing the notion that the Match Prep sessions have had a temporary boost just on that match.
This is why it is important the investigate whether a single Match Prep session has a one off, temporary boosting effect when conducted just before a match. Multiple Match Prep sessions conducted repeatedly over a season will boost a range of player attributes and this will of course raise the win rate of your team in the long run. But that was not the focus of my experiments.
2. What I said in the video (around 3:30) regarding Tactical Familiarity is slightly misleading. TF was maxed for both teams of the experiment (Team A/B) because it was important to make both teams identical in strength. It is possible that the Match Prep sessions boost TF of a team and raise the win rate of the team through a heightened TF. The effect that Match Prep sessions may or may not have on TF was NOT reflected in my results because TF was maxed out for both teams in the first place. However, again the focus of my investigation not the accumulative benefits of the boost in TF but the existence of any one-off boost, possibly hidden under the bonnet, in the performance of a team. It made sense to equalise the TF of both teams in my experiments so that any one-off boosting effect of the Match Prep sessions, if any, could be isolated from the effects of TF.
3. Both teams of the experiment (Team A/B) used a generic 4-4-2 tactic that I made myself and use for my FM experiments. This tactic uses generic roles (eg. Central Midfielder / Central Defender) and contains no fancy tactical instructions. It is a tactic designed to be as vanilla and generic as possible which makes it suitable for scientific FM experiments. This tactic is visible very briefly in the video (3:16). But at the end of the day the exact nature of the tactic isn't crucial - what is important is that both teams (Team A/B) use the exact same tactic during the experiments, and that the same tactic is used for the different samples (as I change the variables). The tactic being used will no doubt affect the performance of players on the pitch - but as long as that effect is held identical throughout the experiment, it doesn't matter.
4. I admit that 15 in all attributes was too high. I will change to 12-13 in my future experiments. But even with superstar players on the field, if the Match Prep sessions had a temporary boosting effect, it still should have created a difference in the win rate. Surely, Cristiano Ronaldo who studies and analyses a match the night before would perform better than just slagging off & playing FIFA the night before the match! (or.. not?)