Costav

I am just using your example to demonstrate that what you are trying to explain makes no sense. So, let's start again: @NineCloudNine says that "If you overachieve it’s because you’ve mastered the game and know all the ways to make it work right.", which implies two main things: 1. a person who has a lot of experience can be generally defined "a better performer" compared to somebody with less or experience at all. 2. The more you have experience, the better you know how to make things work right. Then you answered that the difference between a good player and a very experience player is resulting in 4% (based on what, exactly, we cannot know...) more in taking good decision, mentioning a model that you clearly made up and that is stated nowhere in the SI/FM universe. Moreover, you provide some calculation that make you say that an expert "can still be wrong in 8 out of 10 matches." I try to show you that your assumptions are too simple (using examples as the competitiveness of a player, the interaction between choices during a match, among others) and that nobody, luckily, can know how exactly the ME works, adding also an example about linear regression model to describe the fact that, if the model was tested, is presumably correct to say that the more experience you have the better you play and perform in FM (again, logical). In addition, I use your model to show the limit of it (less players you "control", higher the chance to win) and you tell me that I am wrong, because i need to hypothetically replace a player, making an example that is perfectly in contrast with you model. Your prediction model is static, you assume there is interaction only between controlled variables and % of making a good decision and using probabilistic calculus you say that over 10 matches, if you make 99% of correct decisions, you have only 20% of possibilities to make everything perfect. Being static, your model cannot include substitution decisions or similar (which are, by nature, based on the evolution of something that is happening), which are exactly what you've just brought as an example. In addition to this, something else: you don't need to do everything perfectly to overperform. You just need to perform better than the AI. As mentioned earlier (jointly with @Svenc), AI does not take every correct decision. You're confusing probability with likelihood. Another example using you model. A non-expert player (let's say 50% probability to control every variables, using your terminology) coaching Man City, in a match, will have 0.5^16*100=15.25% of possibility to be right. So, playing 8 matches, s/he will be wrong in 99.8% of the cases (because (0.5^16)^8matches*100=0.2%). Does it make sense? No. Does your model include strength of the opponents? No.

I am sorry, I thought that you had a bit of familiarity with statistics, given the fact that you used it to explain your point. The error term in a regression model is something that you cannot see/explain when conceiving the model, like the functioning of the ME. Nobody said that does not exist. Nevermind. My answer was based on the model that you made up based on assumptions that, although they seem to you very clear and reasonable, are completely out of sense. A short example is the following: So, if you play with only 11 players "without any mistakes" instead of making all 5 substitutions: 0.99^11*100 == 89.53% > 85.1%. If you play 10 matches (using your formula) == 33.1% of winning all the matches >19.7%. The trend is clear. In a very absurd way, if you play with only 1 player (you control only one variable) you have almost 100% of possibilities to win 10 matches. Does it make sense?

I believe (based on my experience) that this highly depends on the agent of the player (as in real life). I had players moaning about a contract that I renewed with a very small increase (considering bonuses and other things) because the agent description was "he's an agent that suggest players to stay in their clubs" (or something similar...), while some other players with harder agents wanted a rise that was not at all realistic. If you think about it, this happens in real life too. Very few players say "I want this amount of money", they rely always on negotiation with agents. And, sometimes, you have the chance to tell your players that the agent is not doing the right thing for him.

I am sorry, but I have the feeling that your assumptions are totally wrong. You based your calculations on things that are not even known (ME functioning, luckily, has not been revealed by any player/youtuber/video-money-maker). Beside the number of variables, your main point is that ME and the probability of overachieving is based on a scenario where everybody play with the same players, the same attributes, the same tactics (that's what you are stating: the only variables are the players and "their control", having the control of Messi the same "difficulty coefficient" of controlling a third-tier league striker), letting out differences in players' ability, and all interactions that are more complex than a simple probabilistic calculation. You may answer that, based on what I am saying, probability of success should be even lower. However, you are missing a very important point: AI does not master variables control (using your words). That's why (as in real life), you can win against better team and lose facing a "worse" team. That's why I believe your assumptions are waaay too simplistic. Said that, the vast majority of experienced players are stating that overachieving is possible and easy. If you would like to put this in statistical terms to see what overachieving is influenced by, you may want to use a linear regression model where y (the independent variable) is "good perform/overachieving" and some explanatory variables such as experience in playing FM, attention to the detail (highly-correlated to experience, but let's skip this part), tactic used, ability of your team, board goals etc...and an error term, where every non-visible effects are included. That's the point! We are discussing about the fact that, most probably (but we cannot be sure about it), SI made the game slightly easier over the years (for several reasons). This could be only captured in the error term, and is not visible to any of us.

Basically, you want to play Fifa!

Since I started to use a more challenging way to play FM yes (only scouting and observed players searching an no visible attributes for players and staff, just the octagon of ability and to rely only on comparisons and written report when selecting/signing players), it happened a couple of times that I was underperforming compared to the initial predictions. Before this change in the way I play, never happened before. Fun fact: every time I risked to be sacked I was coaching the team I am fan of!

First of all I would like to apologize about using this expression, it was not directly aimed at you but reading it now it sounds like a direct attack. Then... I experienced it several times, especially after winning trophies. Not only in my favor, also in opposite terms (I wanted a player from another team, they won something, the price went unbearable for my finances). The thing is that, as i read several times on this forum, AI bases its judgment like Human players (expected PA, scouting, etc...). The fact that is AI doesn't mean that they know the exact CA or PA value of a player. However, they may have decided that it was not worth to offer as much as you wanted for the player. That is, in principle, not reasonable, but you need to think about the new structure of AI transfer selection this year. SI stated that AI is paying more attention on performance and "momentum" when trying to sign a player. Now I cannot say if your players for which PSG made an offer had a good performance over the season or how this exactly has an impact on AI transfer decision making, however this could be part of the process why solder and less capable players transferred between AI clubs go for more. What I am trying to say is that even in real life you have cases when a club tries to get the best agreement. Arsenal first offer for Caicedo was 60M, half of the release clause (https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11670/12798879/arsenal-transfer-news-gunners-70m-bid-for-moises-caicedo-rejected-by-brighton) which means that eve IRL you have situations where the initial offer is around 50/60% of the asked price (in this case, release clause). Moreover, I don't know how PSG finances are on 2033. They may have financial issues (or they are not rich as now IRL). In this case, it's more than acceptable that they try to start from a lower bid. A part from Premier League clubs (who spend a lot and very badly), most of the clubs cannot go to a very rich club (as you are) and saying "i'll pay whatever you want for one of your players".

The market value depends on several things, not only the CA/PA of the player. For example, when you win a trophy (i.e. your reputation increases), market value of your players go sky rocket. This is not determined by a change in their ability, but just by the fact that your (and the players one) reputation is higher. This may be the case for your players as well. You won several trophies in a row, so your 21 old irish winger (who has almost achieved his PA, as you mentioned) increased his market value. However, other clubs may estimates that it's not worth to put so much money to buy him, so they try to reach a better deal. AI has some issue, but in this case at the end of the day everybody is trying to maximize their outcome, so don't blame AI for doing something that also human managers would have done.

Good thing to start with but please stop here if you're really enjoying playing FM. As stated in another discussion, the learning curve is brutal for new players, but once you understand how to master it is very easy to start winning and get slightly bored by the fact that, with a bit of patience, you very rarely underperform. That's why some of us started "personal challenges", in order to keep the game interesting and difficult. The more you watch youtubers the less you have space to test your own style, even passing through failures and bad results! At the end of the day you need to see it as a journey, there is not an objective to "beat the game" in FM. I remember (I read an article about it but never saw the video) that during covid some youtubers tested how to "hack" fifa (or PES/eFootball, call it as you wish). To me this is kind of breaking the fun of videogames, and watching too many youtubers' videos on FM sounds (in a smaller scale) a bit the same to me.

TBF, after the patch those two are mainly subjective. I saw a lot of complains about bad interactions, too much pressure on the manager, etc... but I never experienced something very bad or unlogic. Same thing for gegenpress: it's most probably the most powerful playing style, but you can definitely do well adopting other styles or variations on the theme... At the end of the day there are little things that were not cared enough and are worse than FM23, but ME objectively improved and the game, overall, is better than FM23 or 22.

Isn't it kind of normal? I mean, also IRL you have a lot of young players very promising that don't fulfil the expectations, has always been like this and will be always like this. The difference is that, most of the time, the Human manager make them reach their potential, while iRL you may make mistakes that bloc their growth.

Ok, maybe it's a very poor choice of word, I agree with it. Or maybe they should have codified the answers allowing for more diversity, although we should always remember that coding potential is in any case limited and there is balance to maintain between magnitude of the possibilities (i.e. diversification) and spec requirement to make the game smooth enough. What I mean is that some of the (neverending) complains are there just because some people want the thing perfectly at the nano millimeters as they have it in mind, and not trying to understand that, at the end of the day, it's better to (i) understand how the thing we don't like could be interpret from a different point of view, and (ii) accept that this is just a game and although we perceive it as the representation of the reality, reality will be aaaalways more complex than the game.

This is based also on club reputation (which is not only the historical success of the team but is based on level facilities and other hidden attributes too). If you have been just promoted, or they have been just relegated, Caprari could have perceived Troyes as a more valuable team for his career. Even IRL, some players decide to go to a lower league with the possibility of winning and having a great season instead of playing for a club that can be relegated (and the media prediction for Palermo shows that you can be involved in the relegation battle). Sometimes it happens, and I guess the game is structured in a way to take into account those situations.

I think that a very good idea, besides all the potential improvement on the tactical side of the game (i.e. a more realistic learning curve when a new tactic is trained, no OP tactics etc...) is to allow the possibility of choosing the player to press just as it is with the player to mark. Now, in the individual instruction panel for each player selected in the lineup, you can only define who to mark. This today has become unrealistic (or just a limited solution) because you want to trigger the pressing only when the ball arrives in selected zones or to specific opponents. To give the ability to your players to know who to press and then, in case the opponent doesn't have the ball anymore, to regain position will be a great improvement in the defensive/tactical side of the game!

One question: when you want to buy other players, do you usually make offers matching (or increasing) the transfer value or do you try to gain the best possible deal for you (even starting from a lower point to reach an agreement in the middle)?

I am pretty sure that every game since FM10 or similar had this issue as well. Basically if you set up a tactic (let's say 4411) and then you suddenly move the AM to the DM role, it will be listed in the original order, although you changed its position. It's kind of irritating, but I guess is a similar issue as the column width...last in the list of priorities...

I completely agree with this definition of the game. Once you know what is important to manage then your life as a manager becomes very easy. Additionally, sometimes I have the feeling that personality, tactics, and all those qualities that are supposed to be hidden (or at least not to have a direct identification of how they work) are useless. THE example is tactical knowledge for new players: in half a season can have a team with 100% tactical knowledge and, although this should be related to a lot of parameters (role, the interaction of roles within the line-up etc...) I've always found it easy to insert a new player and make it perform better (or as well as) players already in the team. In addition, in most countries if you have a series of negative matches you may start to be questioned by the board, players feel more pressure, and you may have problems with a part of the team, while in FM you may have two months of losses and, if you are still in the range to achieve the objectives the board assigned to you, you don't have to worry about. That is another big limitation of the game. Lack of pressure based on results and/or on the quality of your "football proposal". P.s. The only thing that helped me in the last years to regain interest and motivation in the only video game I play is to hide player attributes and rely only on reports and the octagon of quality. It, at least, allows you to make some mistakes in the market sessions and increases your "ability to fail" if you make errors in buying players, mainly because I feel that the scouting system for IA is different from the one used by human-manager. (you know tons of players you want to buy and make offers at the same time, while IA only buys one player per time, but the topic is too wide to be discussed in a single comment).

As far as I know it's still there. I used it yesterday.

No, I am sorry, I probably misunderstood your post or got confused with other remarks about the calendar. I was not referring to the back to back matches, but to the amount of difficult games in a row. Atalanta had this year Milan, Inter, Bologna (which is a competitor for the UCL) and Juve in a row. Roma had something similar in December/January. Regarding the back to back matches, this is a well-know method of calculation for calendars. It is the simplest method you can adopt (among the complex ones) and it has been used within other games too (I remember PES doing the same). Basically different teams have the same (or almost the same) order of matches. As XaW explained, you can change it in the editor.

See Rome, Atalanta and Napoli calendar in serie A this year....

IRL kits (at a lowest levels) are selected based on which kit the away team brings, i.e. the completely opposite from the what somebody would imagine. This is because home teams have (usually) their storage facility at the pitch (or stadium), so they can easily change their kit, while is unrealistic for away teams to bring all kits they have. At the professional and semi-professional level the logistic is much more "easier" to manage and more organize, they know in advance home/away kits for every team and they can bring more kits whenever it needs. However, kit decision is always managed by the teams AND by the referees, because there are several standards to comply with (for example, in European competitions they have chromatic standards within the same kit too) and kits needs to be adapted also to the kit of the referees.

Why exactly? Just assume some of them may recognize it but some other don't. Example: Philippe Mexes, season 2010. One of the best player in Rome. He did want to earn more, but he did not want to leave. The club offers up to its wage cup. He did not accept and, at the end of the season, he decides to leave. In negotiation, this happens.

In which year are you? It seems to me that rdf was in the first or the second year. There can be several reasons why Sporting has a higher wage cap. You can do comparisons only "Ceteris paribus", or in very similar situations.

Then I don't know why he asked for more...maybe he perceived you initial offer as an insult ahaha! I have the same feeling, and I also feel it should be like this. I mean, there are similar limitation in RL, and if you (a generic you) want a product that tends to replicate those, you should be able to accept things that are not under you control. Imagine the situation where you can offer as much as you want....then everybody complaining because it's too easy to buy any player ahah.