NineCloudNine

No-one has sought to prove this. You have created a strawman, the doubled down on it. You took too literally the statement of mine that you quoted. I have expanded on this above. 'Success' in this context also does not mean winning every match, it means outperforming the expectations of the club the player is managing, which might well mean merely avoiding relegation - and no-one in this thread has said otherwise. You are correct to point out that the number of variables involved in a football match is enormous and cannot possibly be fully controlled. You are also correct that this means the margin between bad, ok, good and great managers is surprisingly small statistically. However, these conditions do not apply to FM because of the disparity between what the player knows and what the AI knows. While much remains unknown or uncontrollable, the ability gap between an experienced FM player and their AI opponent is vast and can easily overwhelm the element of unpredictability and randonmess which remains.

Neither of these things are necessary. Football is far too complex to be modeled with the precision you are demanding here and the need for that precison is a strawman you've created. As @Costav said you are conflating probability and likelihood. Your initial response to me was also based on taking literally a comment that was obviously not intended to suggest that an experienced FM player has complete knowledge or control of every variable. I have expanded on that in my post above.

I was wondering if someone who actually knows a bit about modelling would chip in . Let me expand a little on the original statement of mine that triggered this debate: Firstly that's obviously hyperbole because "know all the right ways to make it work" implies a degree of omniscience that none of us have about how the ME works. A better way to put it might be: An experienced player knows which variables have the biggest effect on performance in FM and which can be ignored/delegated (eg, morale is vital, role stars can be ignored, training can be delegated) An experienced player knows things that the AI doesn't know (for example, wonderkids are a great transfer policy) An experienced player won't make rookie errors (like making promises you can't keep or clicking the 'wrong' option in a player interaction) @GreenTriangle's model is actually an interesting starting point for understanding a real football match. There are dozens or even hundreds of variables, all available to both managers (and indeed players). Football is a low-scoring game, which adds a large amount of variation in outcomes. The margin of 'success' here is very small. Pep Guardiola, widely considered one of the greatest managers of all time, has a career win rate of 'only' 73% despite always having managed at clubs with title-winning ambitions and quality. So the small margin between a 'good' manager and an 'expert' one might indeed only be a few percent. That model doesn't apply to FM though, because the expert player doesn't just know how to control variables, they know which ones can be entirely ignored and which are crucial. The margin over the AI is substantial. 'Success' here is also not a win/lose binary, but (as @Costav says) relative to the expectations of the club and the strength of the opposition.

I think that’s right and Saka would definitely be one who does both, even if he is (even) more dangerous cutting in onto his left foot.

That was what I was thinking of. On the face of it having Ben White as an IFB-d doesn’t make sense, given his marauding down the touchline. But if the aim is to have him combine tucking in with overlapping runs then that role combined with a gets forward PPM could he really strong. On Saka and Martinelli, I think they are best recreated as Wingers with cuts inside PPMs. This will push them higher and wider and cutting in later than an IF role. PPMs like moves into channels and gets into opposition area would also change the way they play.

One thing often overlooked in specific tactical recreations like this is PPMs. A FB with ‘gets forward whenever possible’ will play differently to one without, whatever role they are given. Same with a W with ‘cuts inside’, who will play differently to one without. I find PPMs really powerful in recreating particular styles, especially when the style in question is IRL very dependent on particular players, which I think is true of Arteta’s Arsenal (but perhaps less so of Guardiola’s Man City).

There’s a big thread in the Editor Downloads section here, with links. It’s a lot of different files and you don’t have to use them all. I’ve never had any problems.

There’s a thread right now in the Tactics forum from a new player who can’t make anything work and is on the point of quitting. The vast majority of players who struggle won’t even make it that far, they’ll just quit and do/play something else. The regulars here have persevered through multiple FMs, learned to navigate a mindblowingly complex UI, studied Rashidi tutorials on what ‘mentality’ means (clue: it’s not what you’d think it means), learned what to do when players throw tantrums, worked out how to buy all the wonderkids. And so on. We’re the weird ones. I trust SI to have a much better grasp of the experience of the playerbase than we do. They have actual data, research, patterns. If you overachieve it’s because you’ve mastered the game and know all the ways to make it work right. Well done, you can now /flex on the forums about how easy it all is.

I have seen nothing on this either way. Given the strength of the modding community here and the tools SI have consistently made available for free it would be stunning to discover that editing wasn't possible - or was limited - in FM25 That would also mark the end of my FM playing days because I have never, ever, even once played a save with an unmodded version of the game.

Although it might seem the club is "no better" than yours in current achievement/position terms, in fact it will likely have a higher reputation which is why the player is willing to alter his demands. Reputation is far too blunt a tool in FM and has been so - as @jozza800 implies - for ever.

No-one is suggesting that active development of academy/young* players should happen all the time, or with every club, or with every prospect. You are right that it is fiercely difficult to break through to a top team, but it does sometimes happen when a gem emerges. Alexander-Arnold, Saka, Foden, Rashford and Lewis Miley (to pick some examples) did not come out of their academies as ready-made first team regulars, they were actively developed. There are some clubs and some coaches who never prioritise young players. There are also some situations where clubs or coaches who once did, don't do so now, and clubs or coaches who never used to, starting to. The point is that this is dynamic - there are clear preferences and differences in coaches and club culture, both long-standing and evolving. That is simply not the case in FM. I agree it should be hard to do and I agree it should not always work, but those preferences and philosophies (which do exist in the game) should mean something in the game world. * These two things are often conflated but they are different. Your point about smart talent identification and use of data is correct - IRL Brighton use this to find and excellent young players around the world and actively develop them for sale upwards. FM Brighton, on the other hand, make the exact same transfers as everyone else.

It’s possible - though fiddly - to change competition squad selection rules to be as restrictive as you want on homegrown (club and nation) players and foreign players. The AI does adapt over time because AI clubs/managers do ‘know’ about registration restrictions. You can also add youth team development to club culture and board preferences. As mentioned these seem under-tuned and should act to differentiate clubs, but used widely would presumably make some difference. This shouldn’t be necessary though. The tools are there in the game, they just don’t make much or any difference.

It’s hard to answer this definitely because only SI know the weighting and potency of all the variables. Traits mean a player will do that thing more often than if they didn’t have the trait. How much more and how often that is depends on a vast number of things, including their mental stats, your tactics and the nature of the trait. Same with tactical instructions. If you tell a player to do something more or less then they will do it more or less. How much more or less and when they do it depends on the same variables as above. If you give a player an in instruction which conflicts with a trait, you’ll get a warning about it on the tactical screen. If you give them an instruction which matches a trait they’ll be happy about it. So the game clearly thinks it matters. How much? Who knows! Not all traits are alike. Most are multipliers (do X more often) but some are characteristics (dictates tempo, shoots with power). Some change the way a role operates (eg a B2B with gets forward when possible is different to one with dives into tackles). tl;dr No one knows for sure! Personally, I like telling players to do more of the things they like to do and I put them in roles where I want those things to happen.

I have never, ever had a problem rotating a star player out of the team for the odd game. Mind you, I have never managed Mo Salah...

No because if the game thinks they are a ‘star player’ then they are very likely to be better than everyone else in your squad.

There’s a big world outside the EPL . There are entire leagues - Brazil for instance - where developing young players for sale is the econonic model. There are big clubs - Benfica for example - who fund their annual budget selling players from their academy. There are famous clubs - Ajax for example - where use of the youth team is deeply rooted in the cultural identity of the club. Even in the PL there are clubs - Man Utd for example - who take pride in their academy players. Every club sometimes gets a gem who can be nurtured into a star with care. None of these are reflected in the game. As another poster said above, every club makes the same transfers. The variety and cultural difference does exist in the form of club culture and chairperson preferences and expectations, they are just not given any consequence.

This is brilliant

I do this. I have a very strong PC. Huge game worlds. AI still sucks at developing young players. Large game worlds produce more players from more places, but AI managers still don’t develop them. Young player development needs to be an active process. AI managers play kids/newgens with high CA, but they do not take low CA/high PA players and actively develop them.

Sounds fun! That’s interesting - I’ll go and take a look at how that’s set up because I’ve not had a Board enforce its preferences before, though I don’t recall ever managing a club with a mandate to sign players of a specific nationality.

I do similar things, though not to the extent of actually being a famous ex-player. I am currently managing Barcelona with Xavi as my DoF, Carles Puyol as Technical Director, Sergio Busquets as my Assistant, Sergi Barjuan as HOYD and Albert Ferrer & Victor Valdes on the coaching staff. I’ve undone every paid transfer in since 2020, replacing them with free transfers who Barcelona were strongly linked with IRL. I’m bringing through youth and am only allowed free transfers, with one exception… …Marcos Leonardo, who I have turned into a recreation of the original Ronaldo and who tore up records in Brazil before I bought him in Jan 24 with a ‘bank loan’. FM is one of the best role-playing games I have played, and I have a history of role playing gaming going back to tabletop Dungeons & Dragons at school in the 1980s! .

I suspect it is harsh to blame the keeper entirely. If he got a 5.5 conceding 8 goals, the game doesn’t think he was at fault for all of them!

This is exactly right - it clearly doesn’t work correctly. In fact it’s not easy to see how it is calculated at all - I’ve rooted around in the editor and there’s an option for ticking on or off ‘club specific salary cap’ but no indication of how that cap is arrived at. In the end I just took the salary cap out, it just messes up La Liga saves.

I think this is a really good point. Some clubs have youth development deeply embedded in their culture, others are known for buying stars. Managers similarly differ. This is absolutely not reflected in the behaviour of clubs or managers in FM, even though those culture and preference tendencies are indicated on club and manager profiles. Chairperson (and thus club) objectives also allow for a wide range of transfer preferences, none of which are ‘enforced’ in the game. It does seem that dialling up the importance of these already existing tools would go a long way to making youth development stronger, as well as providing significantly greater variation in AI club/manager behaviour overall and offering a wider range of challenges for players.

It’s just you

Holy #walloftext !