Match Engine Update 13.2 - ME feedback here please.

[nonleague]

Funny really because in FM11 I think along with FM12 to an early extent fluctuation in form and inconsistent results were put down to a flawed morale system rather than a tactic that exploited the ME. How times change!!!

Re : I still don't think shouts are the be all and end all. I'm now doing ok with a classic tactic set of three tactics and just adjust to each formation or strategy as per how the game is going. On the odd occasion I may adjust a defensive line slider. 6th in Prem at the moment with West Ham so doing ok. Suspect though if I make the Champions League without reading the 12 step guide and using shouts I'll be told I have accidentally found a ME exploit and my success is worthless!!! ;-)

I'm already looking forward to the next patch! Cannot wait to read what the prosecution/defence teams have to say!

Oh yes, the 12 step guide, well that's FM's 'Holy Grail'.

Well for xmas I am going to treat myself in FM. First I am going to read the 12 step guide, have a good giggle, close the page and then load up a new game, buy virtually a whole team of dribbling maniacs with the 'runs with ball' PPM and 2 long-shot specialists, sit back, have a few brandys and watch us destroy the Premier League. 442 with 6 dribbling maniacs and 2 long shot specialists.... my mouth is drooling at the prospect!

[Neil Brock]

SI is aware dribbling is overpowered and scores are too high? Please tell me you guys are also aware of the problem of 4-5 defenders all closing down the same person all the time. It doesn't cause players to lose games, so there are fewer histrionic complaints about it, but it's a huge weird problem.

This isn't as common as the other aforementioned issues, but yes, it's one we're aware of and looking into. Thanks.

[nonleague]

This isn't as common as the other aforementioned issues, but yes, it's one we're aware of and looking into. Thanks.

it is quite common Neil in my game. I am experiencing it at a rate of virtually once every 2 matches.

[leopnkr]

Just to clarify from an SI perspective, yes we're aware dribbling is overpowered, yes we're aware the goal per game overall is slightly too high at the highest levels and yes of course we're looking into this.

Thanks for letting us know that SI is aware of the issues.

Just hope won't take too long to solve them...

[Leon_fogo]

Well friends ... I thought I had improved, improved, but here I saw a grave mistake! I just do goal keeper in the first game of my season (friendly) it slightly behind the midfield and kicked the ball bounced hid goalkeeper! Next patch gotta fix!

[lomekian]

I am sorry if I were in a game and I saw Messi running around skinning my players I would BRING him down HARD. Thats the reality. So thats adapting to the match..and thats what using the TC is all about. If you dont want to use the tools at your disposal in the form of the AI instructions, then noone can help you..

Its interesting that you say that despite the fact that that is exactly what teams tried to do in the 2011 & 2012 in Spain. It worked so well that he has be come the top scorer in a calender year in top class football history.....oops....;-)

[Charco]

Assuming the current ME is shot-happy and assuuming the ME is the same for the AI and the human user...

If your current tactic concedes less than 10 shots a game and it creates circa 12 shots a game does that mean that across all MEs your defence is awesome and your attack is decent?

[Zero Sea]

Is it a football game ?

[bieritarier]

yea, the amount of times you and the AI hit the woodwork couldn't be any higher even if they kicked each ball into the next forest

[Tubey84]

This isn't as common as the other aforementioned issues, but yes, it's one we're aware of and looking into. Thanks.

Gotta disagree Neil, this happens nearly every game. Very rarely against me though, usually for me.

Fellaini gets the ball to feet here, for example:

All players in the vicinity charge the ball, with the two centre halves completely abandoning the striker:

I appreciate that this can be a bizarre defensive error if it happens once or twice, but it's once every two games on average, as someone else above said, and can sometime involve four or five players suddenly charging at breakneck speed at the ball, disregarding tactical instruction.

[themadsheep2001]

Gotta disagree Neil, this happens nearly every game. Very rarely against me though, usually for me.

Fellaini gets the ball to feet here, for example:

All players in the vicinity charge the ball, with the two centre halves completely abandoning the striker:

I appreciate that this can be a bizarre defensive error if it happens once or twice, but it's once every two games on average, as someone else above said, and can sometime involve four or five players suddenly charging at breakneck speed at the ball, disregarding tactical instruction.

Tubey84, what set up are you using, havent seen this yet, interested to see if i can replicate it

[big daddy]

Tubey84, what set up are you using, havent seen this yet, interested to see if i can replicate it

If my player did that they would have been fired the next day.

against everton I would have tight marked jelvic as any other central attacker

[razielr]

how did this even make it pass QA? Can we please get a revert

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/560961672040427427/0D39FBE64C48A21C986819B64E3A710625D4D482/

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/560961672040464755/17228A2F9204531D6CB67289446BDE421B461CC9/

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/560961672040447391/0DD63FA0BE923C713E4AA9646E3DF7812860811B/

[big daddy]

it´s evuloution baby, it will take time to perfect, we are just suckers to have paid for a game that will not be balanced until 3 patches.

I would love a fm 14 where no whone will touch the game until it has been tested.

so perhaps this years , non feed back testing has been a mistake ?

[lomekian]

Interestingly, after a couple of months of gameplay time, my game has largely settled down apart from the excessive dribbling stats for players with the right PPMs and stats. Personally I am doing fine with a largely vanilla arsenal first team, and having realistic scorelines in most of my matches, I'm not having too many dribbles for or against me, and the ME improvements are for the most part making my games a better watch, whilst still being realistic. It seems every so often there is terrible bunching, wonder goals or wandering back lines, but not nearly as much as there was in the first few games after the patch for me.

In a wider sense the biggest impact is on what types of squad are successful. Spurs have become incredibly effective, as have man city, with both winning almost every match comfortably since the patch. Bale is the running man, but has got injured. it seems different types of players and different AI tactics are enjoying success. Torres has been transformed, Hazard is almost unstoppable, but RVP and rooney are less effective. what is very interesting is that Alex Ferguson is adapting to the patch by splashing out 35m on two wingers on the last day of the transfer window, both with rwb ppms. This is as impressive as the few new obviosu ME flaws are disappointing.

has anyone else experienced something similar?

[Cjie1979]

how did this even make it pass QA? Can we please get a revert

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/560961672040427427/0D39FBE64C48A21C986819B64E3A710625D4D482/

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/560961672040464755/17228A2F9204531D6CB67289446BDE421B461CC9/

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/560961672040447391/0DD63FA0BE923C713E4AA9646E3DF7812860811B/

These are the type of saves that SI are looking for and want. Just follow the instructions given by Neil Brock a few posts above and let them know the name of the save game uploaded.

[CityAndColour]

I think I actually preferred the beta versions of the ME for some bizarre reason (probably cos I didn't suffer as much from far post crossing).

Defending just gets worse and worse with each update.

[razielr]

These are the type of saves that SI are looking for and want. Just follow the instructions given by Neil Brock a few posts above and let them know the name of the save game uploaded.

unfortunately, i use rolling auto save and compression so i'm not sure if they will be of any use.

[Smac]

If the ME has problems that cause it to diverge significantly from reality (for example, vastly exaggerating the effectiveness of dribbling and tackling), its obviously going to have a significant effect on the principles of tactical design in FM's world as compared to reality. Certainly, if midfielders could fly around the pitch like gridiron players completing 10-11 tackles per game as they do in 13.2, football would be a very different game. Consequently, a player who designed a tactic in adherence with sound real world tactical principles will very likely be put at a disadvantage compared to, for example, an AI opponent whose tactical attributes happen to align with the skewed "reality" of the ME.

Your argument almost certainly applies to instances of players who go from winning every match by 5 goals to struggling to manage draws, but given that football itself is a game where small margins make all the difference, it is also certainly the case that a major and unrealistic alteration to the ME's simulation of football may very well cause someone using sound, real world footballing principles to suddenly find that a tactical system, squad and shout strategy that easily secured a top 4 finish in a prior version of the ME suddenly makes a top 4 finish quite difficult. And accordingly, this increased difficulty may not actually signify that the ME has actually been "improved" or that the player's approach was flawed.

Very well put THoG.

[gate]

After updating, my Dortmund is obviously horrible to watching. I had adapted a default 4231 for 5 years. 90% of my players played the same tactic since first day I arrived. We had some highs and lows but I completely lost ideal about what happened to my team after ME13.2. They played like 11 idiots that never play football. I am tired of spending so much time try to find out where went wrong.

For me, each ME update of fm13 brings very inconsistent user experience on game play, even you adapted default tactic and squad. As a paid customer, I did not appreciate it. Simply a poor deliver from SI, no excuse.

[sturvek]

This isn't as common as the other aforementioned issues, but yes, it's one we're aware of and looking into. Thanks.

At the League One/Championship level, I actually find it more common. Several times a game.

[Welshace]

Have to agree... even I'm scratching my head over the current build, not really sure how it got through the testing phase its current form.

[jay11118]

very frustrating that when you change tactics nothing changes????...ie playing attacking go a goal up,change to contain,retain possesion,time waste etc and nothing changes,players continue to take throw ins goal kicks immediately and play at fast tempo.....in fm 12 you could see the players trying to implement my instructions,on this version,no point changing tactics at all,might aswell throw a load of dice in a corner to generate a final result scoreline

[Hunter T]

We need to accept that we're going through an unusual stage in FM development i.e. the complex conversion of the ME to a newer better more adjustable version which eventually will far surpass any previous version.

Unfortunately the only people who can properly test and therefore enable that development are the users, because no developer can support a testing team capable of doing it, not even Microsoft.

For that reason I support the idea of either the option to delay upgrading or at the very least 24 hours notice of it.

I fully understand why SI want everyone on the same version but they can always add the proviso that only the updated version is supported.

So, we are like guinea pigs who paid some 30-40 euros just to have the privilege to be guinea pigs.

[Leon_fogo]

The Match Engine is far below fm 2012, really sorry!

The few things that improved were shots from outside the area and outputs, as well as small dribbles, but the moves are pretty bad in itself! The supporters are idiots, do not mark anything, are not aggressive, the team does not work passes, and bids periogo are few, it seems that the old is the prolonged best moments! I think I gotta see positive things that already had the game, and join with the new improvements, the dolls are like little robots!

Foul more passes, more contention ball, goalkeepers best defenses, and more passes and fewer kicks first! The ME has to improve anyway, is still very weak

[Kriss]

So, we are like guinea pigs who paid some 30-40 euros just to have the privilege to be guinea pigs.

All development of complex software is the same and for the same reasons, this starts with Windows itself and applies to ALL major software not just games.

No software developer is capable of testing all possible configs of application and/or hardware other software configs, which is why windows 7 is still being updated even after therelease of Windows 8.

The only difference between products is the willingness of the developer to continue fixing and supporting the application after release, imo SI are second to none in that respect.

So yes, every time you buy any major software you are a guinea pig, there isn't any other way for it to work.

If you feel so strongly about it wait until March before you decide whether or not to buy, though there are actually many who will always buy on release and a good few of those actually enjoy playing a part in shaping the gameand fixing the problems.

[Hunter T]

I dont want to have this debate again, i really dont.

If you think that's the norm and your advice is to buy the game in March (you forgot to mention it will be cheaper than) than, so be it.

I am buying 3-4 game titles per year, but i cant even dream that Total War series for example would release a title where a heavy cavalry unit would be routed by some peasants (an analogy to the dreadfull goalkeeping we had when FM13 was released), patch it and then say, well you could have waited before you bye it, or wait a few more patches until March. And actually present this as the norm.

[germaani]

People might think I'm out of my mind when I say that this is quite good ME. My tactics haven't "broken" when new patch came. I've just done necessary tweaks for my tactics so they work also with latest patch (for example reduced tackling aggressiveness due set pieces are more dangerous).

So my points:

- Game is more balanced. No more braindead defendertos letting attackers make easy runs for through balls

- Goalkeepers make a lot less stupid mistakes

- No more heaps of own goals

- A lot more shots but most of them are unrealistic weak. Hope long shots will be updated in next patch

- Very few through balls. Players prefer to shoot from 35 yards with their weaker foot towards corner flag than to pass player into breakaway. Decisions needs to be looked very carefully

- Pacey wingers dominate games too much sometimes. I know player like Ribery can do anything on a good day but it seems to me that in FM lower profile players have quite a lot "good" days

[Welshace]

I dont want to have this debate again, i really dont.

If you think that's the norm and your advice is to buy the game in March (you forgot to mention it will be cheaper than) than, so be it.

I am buying 3-4 game titles per year, but i cant even dream that Total War series for example would release a title where a heavy cavalry unit would be routed by some peasants (an analogy to the dreadful goalkeeping we had when FM13 was released), patch it and then say, well you could have waited before you bye it, or wait a few more patches until March. And actually present this as the norm.

Oh that's such a bad analogy... it really is..

As you can see from the last post I had in this thread, i'm not thrilled with the new build, but Kriss is right... game development is a work in progress, and bugs are ironed out properly after release... the issue is magnified considerably with a game as complex as FM of course.. but it's the same for all games...

You mention Total War games... they release every year with game breaking bugs.... and each patch or update creates more... I'd point you to the newest ikko ikko clan pack for instance which broke the game upon release... it broke Allied AI.. and meant allies would attack each other for no reason when such a thing shouldn't be allowed.... I'm using this as one example out of the hundreds in all versions of that game series... and it's the same for all games...

So, again... it's a process, and while I completely understand and mostly agree, in fact, with the frustration about the current update, which seems to have taken the game from one extreme to another, equally flawed state.. I can also fully appreciate the mountain of a challenge it is to get it right of the bat/after a few attempts, with a rewritten ME.

[velvetsky]

how did this even make it pass QA? Can we please get a revert

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/560961672040427427/0D39FBE64C48A21C986819B64E3A710625D4D482/

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/560961672040464755/17228A2F9204531D6CB67289446BDE421B461CC9/

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/560961672040447391/0DD63FA0BE923C713E4AA9646E3DF7812860811B/

I would like to agree With this - but not sure if its possible to do or if SI will give us the option

[d d]

Hello, the patch as made my game quicker and the fan is not so loud, and not is constantly on overdrive like it was before.

Has anyone else experience this?

[Welshace]

I have d d ..everything is much quicker, menu's loading, saving ... everything

[d d]

Your right Welshace, there is no lagging.

[Kriss]

I dont want to have this debate again, i really dont.

If you think that's the norm and your advice is to buy the game in March (you forgot to mention it will be cheaper than) than, so be it.

I am buying 3-4 game titles per year, but i cant even dream that Total War series for example would release a title where a heavy cavalry unit would be routed by some peasants (an analogy to the dreadfull goalkeeping we had when FM13 was released), patch it and then say, well you could have waited before you bye it, or wait a few more patches until March. And actually present this as the norm.

It is the norm, end of.

Can't believe you'd choose Total War as an example of unbugged software, jeeeeesh!! it's an ongoing disaster even compared with the likes of Civ and if you go on those forums ranting like people do here prepare to be banned immediately.

[BiggusD]

Oh that's such a bad analogy... it really is..

As you can see from the last post I had in this thread, i'm not thrilled with the new build, but Kriss is right... game development is a work in progress, and bugs are ironed out properly after release... the issue is magnified considerably with a game as complex as FM of course.. but it's the same for all games...

You mention Total War games... they release every year with game breaking bugs.... and each patch or update creates more... I'd point you to the newest ikko ikko clan pack for instance which broke the game upon release... it broke Allied AI.. and meant allies would attack each other for no reason when such a thing shouldn't be allowed.... I'm using this as one example out of the hundreds in all versions of that game series... and it's the same for all games...

So, again... it's a process, and while I completely understand and mostly agree, in fact, with the frustration about the current update, which seems to have taken the game from one extreme to another, equally flawed state.. I can also fully appreciate the mountain of a challenge it is to get it right of the bat/after a few attempts, with a rewritten ME.

I use classic tactics so for me it is easy to fix any obvious ME issue, for instance the lack of team play that I complained about early on in the thread; I just set the RwB slider of my wingers to Sometimes and adjusted the tempo so that the players didn't try to force the ball forwards at all cost (meaning they would run with it if they found no forward pass) while all other instructions remained the same. The TC users cannot do this. If they want to stop players from running too often with the ball, the changes they will have to make would be enormous and have far-reaching consequences for how the team plays football. In other words, some logical, realistic tactics were nerfed by 13.2 because any attempt at stopping dribbling raids from crippling other forms of chance creation would upset the balance of the tactic.

Apart from some bugs and balance issues, 13.1.3 worked fine for me and didn't seem to adversely affect the AI opponents. Yes one of those balance issues was a slight lack of willingness to dribble, and another was the direct free-kick impotency, but what we have now is too much in the other direction. Corner kick delivery has become too good, there are too few through-balls when movement is good, closing down decision making (mark vs close down) has taken a crack to the skull and too much randomness happens when both teams push forward.

So, if you follow FM's One Rule - if the other team pushes forward you should drop back - then you are unlikely to experience much of this. If, however, you don't do what you're told then you break the ME and will have to live with the consequences, which includes being told to conform.

The way I view football is:

A) At any point during a match there is a correct decision to make

B) Players should choose that correct decision

C) Players that are good at some things should succeed doing those most of the time, and thus choose accordingly

And that's what I try recreate using the tactical tools of FM.

[Welshace]

No-ones disputing there are ways to circumnavigate the issues with the current ME build... I have no doubt in my mind that it would be possible to stop my team scoring 4 goals plus every game... the issue people are having, is that there is a need to do such a thing in the first place, which is completely understandable.

All that I'd like, is for people to be aware that it will be addressed and just get on with it in the meantime... which is what I'm trying to do.

[Ackter]

So many people are so determined to blame their own tactical failings on the ME, and this forum then becomes like a support group where everyone tells everyone else it's never their fault. It's no wonder everyone is so annoyed and frustrated around here.

So far none of the ME bugs have been so fundamental as to make a big difference to tactical instructions.

[lunarsea]

Beyond the problems that I already posted about , I've also noticed that:

- Long shots seem to be taken far too often, even when the player taking them has creative freedom set as little and long shots set to rarely. Also, many of these shots will end up being closer to the corner flag than the goal, which seems a little unrealistic

- Through balls seem to have been toned down too much? As others have noted, goals seem to come almost primarily from midfield now, with forwards not really getting enough good supply even when you have great passers in your team with through balls set to often?

- For me anyway, the post/crossbar seems to be getting hit an unrealistic amount of times - like four or more times every match.

- The opposition doesn't seem to leave enough players at the back when taking attacking crosses. And not just when they are chasing the match, but when it's 0-0 in the 20th minute and the AI leaves only one player back at the half-way line and maybe another lurking outside the area, it's actually frustrating to score a counter-attacking goal this way.

- Injuries still seem to happen too often imo. First match of the season, had a first-team player out for 4-5 weeks from a dislocated jaw due to a late tackle (did he get tackled in the face?!), fair enough it happens, so I kept on playing. Before I even get to the 2nd match of the season, another first-team player picked up a 5-6 week injury in training. Reloaded the game, yet again a first team regular picked up another injury in training, this time 6-7 weeks! Same thing happened in the pre-season. Don't have training set to heavy either.

- Maybe once every match, my goalkeeper will save the ball, go to throw it to a full-back, but massively over-throw where it will almost end up in the stands! Can't say I've seen this happen in real life too often, let alone every single match. Poor Hugo Lloris, no wonder he didn't make the Tottenham first-team straight away in real life if his throwing in-game is any indication of what he was doing in training!

I seem to notice that a lot of players will ignore the tactical instructions set to them, which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole game. If I have a player set to run with the ball often, I would hope that he doesn't just pass it as soon as he gets it in the majority of cases, or when through balls are set to often decides to run with it or shoot with it more often instead, or when long-shots are set to rarely for him to blast it from 30 yards at the majority of opportunities, or wingers cutting inside all the time when they are supposed to hug the touchline etc, but this seems to be happening far too much in the game now.

Even if how we've set up our play is tactically rubbish from an objective standpoint, the players should follow tactical instructions to the letter unless you have their creative freedom set high, as this is the whole point of a football management game. But this doesn't seem to happen enough, and whilst it does seem to be improved from previous versions, it's still very frustrating when your team doesn't follow your instructions despite you putting all the settings correctly for them to do so.

[Kriss]

A) At any point during a match there is a correct decision to make

B) Players should choose that correct decision

C) Players that are good at some things should succeed doing those most of the time, and thus choose accordingly .

I have to disagree with B. the fact that they often don't is what makes rl football what it is, and of course the frequency of them making the correct decision should be subject to the factors which determine it irl.

[apalaxe]

No-ones disputing there are ways to circumnavigate the issues with the current ME build... I have no doubt in my mind that it would be possible to stop my team scoring 4 goals plus every game... the issue people are having, is that there is a need to do such a thing in the first place, which is completely understandable.

All that I'd like, is for people to be aware that it will be addressed and just get on with it in the meantime... which is what I'm trying to do.

I have to agree that that it is possible to change the player behaviour significcantely to match their skills and the choice of football style having spent several hours until 3:30 this morning changing up to half of the individual player instructions.

But the general player positioning and closing in attack and defend is how the ME has been set up and i don't think i can improve on that; i can work around it or with it to suit my purpose.

Before this second update i only changed roles and duties and used shouts to make the team play succesfull and to my standards enjoyable to watch football.

Just to be clear, i have no particular highly skilled player in this team, just good old hard working and reliable and i am in the third season in Serie A having just qualified to the ECC knock out fase.

[Kriss]

Before this second update i only changed roles and duties and used shouts to make the team play succesfull and to my standards enjoyable to watch football..

Me too, and that's the way it should be, anything which forces you into changing individual instructions means the balances are wrong.

[Ackter]

I haven't touched individual instructions since FM11.

[Chris21]

Chances of a hotfix by Xmas? My game is fine but I was thinking of starting a game in the PL but don't want too if this dribbling problem is a real issue.

[Sussex Hammer]

I've said this many times. If your success changes that drastically between patches then either your tactic was making use of a weakness in the engine, or the engine was covering a weakness in your tactic. Try reading this thread, which will explain to you how to easily set up a realistic system that will retain performance from patch to patch.

All night something was bugging me about this quote and then it hit me. I suspect I am one of the last few that still play "classic tactics" so probably around 80% of people now use the Tactic Creator. Now nothing is greyed out in the TC, if you want to play with two poachers you can play them. If you want to use two deep lying playmakers you play them. So the TC is there to offer tactics and strategies that are balanced and will offer potentially the best way forward when trying to produce a logical way of simulating real life football. (I assume!)

So the quote suggests that the TC itself may "have been making use of a weakness in the ME or the engine was covering a weakness in your tactic". I thought the TC was designed logically not to exploit weaknesses!!!!! Can understand the quote to cover "classic tactics" and major illogical tweaking of the sliders as I am sure I have accidently stumbled on something in the past. But the Tactic Creator?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Surely not!! (Please forgive my sarcasm!)

On the upside my Classic set seem to be actually producing quite good football now. Reducing most things to "mixed" seems to have players actually doing things mixed rather than just running up blind alleys, which I agree with, footballers do do things on mixed!! I use high closing down on attacking players and low closing down on defending players and it has sorted out the bunching and with wingers on mixed RWB but often crossing (my only often setting) along with roaming they now either put in a share of crosses or cut inside and shoot. It's quite brilliant actually seeing my wingers perform for probably the first time ever! And even Andy Carroll is grabbing a few goals with either head or feet after I turned off HUB. Long shots to rare on all players as well but they still put a few in.

I have also gone back to loose zonal marking. I did have some success with man marking and tight man marking on full backs to stop the volume of crosses in the previous patch but I found man marking in this patch seemed to be the issue (for me at least) with the bunching and aggressive predator like closing down some have seen. So loose zonal seems to have stopped that for the time being. Far from perfect but even IRL you can't mark players out of the game totally so it plays realistically. I must say though the aggressive three or four man closing down is not far off a Barcelona hunting in packs style closing down that was impossible to implement in FM12 so it may have it's uses in a high pressing game. So some might benefit from a bug there!!

Set up set pieces and get the odd headed goal from a free kick or corner which is nice but nothing unrealistic and have cut down on the AI's brilliant direct free kicks by plonking one more in the wall and leave two full backs on posts.

So not seeing the extremes right now and that may be down to players not being given extremes, like RWB Often, Shoot often etc although my tactics will probably become useless again after the next patch/hotfix!!!!

****Oh and I have lowered creative freedom to little for defenders and normal for others. I noticed the TC puts most strikers on a high creative freedom but you don't want players like Andy Carrol and Carlton Cole on a high CF.....

[apalaxe]

Beyond the problems that I already posted about , I've also noticed that:

- Long shots seem to be taken far too often, even when the player taking them has creative freedom set as little and long shots set to rarely. Also, many of these shots will end up being closer to the corner flag than the goal, which seems a little unrealistic

- Through balls seem to have been toned down too much? As others have noted, goals seem to come almost primarily from midfield now, with forwards not really getting enough good supply even when you have great passers in your team with through balls set to often?

- For me anyway, the post/crossbar seems to be getting hit an unrealistic amount of times - like four or more times every match.

- The opposition doesn't seem to leave enough players at the back when taking attacking crosses. And not just when they are chasing the match, but when it's 0-0 in the 20th minute and the AI leaves only one player back at the half-way line and maybe another lurking outside the area, it's actually frustrating to score a counter-attacking goal this way.

- Injuries still seem to happen too often imo. First match of the season, had a first-team player out for 4-5 weeks from a dislocated jaw due to a late tackle (did he get tackled in the face?!), fair enough it happens, so I kept on playing. Before I even get to the 2nd match of the season, another first-team player picked up a 5-6 week injury in training. Reloaded the game, yet again a first team regular picked up another injury in training, this time 6-7 weeks! Same thing happened in the pre-season. Don't have training set to heavy either.

- Maybe once every match, my goalkeeper will save the ball, go to throw it to a full-back, but massively over-throw where it will almost end up in the stands! Can't say I've seen this happen in real life too often, let alone every single match. Poor Hugo Lloris, no wonder he didn't make the Tottenham first-team straight away in real life if his throwing in-game is any indication of what he was doing in training!

I seem to notice that a lot of players will ignore the tactical instructions set to them, which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole game. If I have a player set to run with the ball often, I would hope that he doesn't just pass it as soon as he gets it in the majority of cases, or when through balls are set to often decides to run with it or shoot with it more often instead, or when long-shots are set to rarely for him to blast it from 30 yards at the majority of opportunities, or wingers cutting inside all the time when they are supposed to hug the touchline etc, but this seems to be happening far too much in the game now.

Even if how we've set up our play is tactically rubbish from an objective standpoint, the players should follow tactical instructions to the letter unless you have their creative freedom set high, as this is the whole point of a football management game. But this doesn't seem to happen enough, and whilst it does seem to be improved from previous versions, it's still very frustrating when your team doesn't follow your instructions despite you putting all the settings correctly for them to do so.

I have spent many hours yesterday watching full matches and tweaking player instructions on the fly.

From my experience i can tell you that the players only do what they are told if they have options:

Supposing i instruct a winger to run often and hug the line but he cannot get past the opposing FB he then will look to move in channel or cut inside or look to pass if there are free players around to support him. On this example to make him run with ball, hug the line and later cross i would give the FB the proper instructions to support him so that the winger can pass the ball back and wait for the pass past the opposition.

This is just a random, not necessarely good example of the kind od reasoning regarding the choices of the players in the ME and their individual instructions.

Unfortanately this update did not made our lives any easier but it is possible to an extent to change the play to suit your purposes

[lam]

So far none of the ME bugs have been so fundamental as to make a big difference to tactical instructions.

I think I'd have to disagree with you on this point. A players desirability to run with the ball is so overpowering to them that it seems that is all they want to do. I have read in here somewhere that throughballs have been toned down, which I don't think is the case, for me it's more the fact that all players want to do is run with the ball, this therefore causes problems when presented with clear throughball opportunities that are not taken.

I have a number of players in my team that are A) very good at running with the ball and B) have PPM's that encourage this. The only time these guys will make a pass is when there is NO OTHER OPTION. If they have been closed down into the corner or are being chased back towards their goal with little space to dribble, they will make a pass. However if they are dribbling towards goal and there is a small gap, they will ignore very clear through ball options in order to dribble themselves.

This is NOT down to my tactical failures, as I know how to play this game and am fairly adept at putting tactics together. As it stands now, my Inside Forwards have their RWB turned to RARE and their TTB's to OFTEN and even barely brings other players into the game.

I jokingly said to another moderator (tactical one) that my team played better in one match where I had a sending off and I subbed out the striker. The simple case was, with the striker off the pitch he wasn't getting in the way of the Inside Forwards.

For me, this RWB issue is causing most of the problems. The midfielders are running into brickwalls and thus starving themselves of options and when this happens it ends up in a long shot. Hence the reason why Longshots are up too.

The two saviours for me currently are "STAND OFF" as this tends to lower the strange amount of closing down we see and "play through defence" as this lowers the RWB.

Like Welshace said, it's all workaroundable, the only thing that upsets me is that my team now do not play like I want them too. Sure they'll go and get the win, but I feel like the team are simply doing what they want and are acting as a bunch of individuals rather than a team.

I love this game and because of that I am very active in the tactical forum where i am trying to help people learn but I am bemused by all this patching. Whether this is because of the demand of the players (as I have been reliably informed) or because SI feel the need to release lots of little patches rather than one big one..... I don't know.

<--------Sad

[Kriss]

Chances of a hotfix by Xmas? My game is fine but I was thinking of starting a game in the PL but don't want too if this dribbling problem is a real issue.

No point in asking, it won't be known until it's known, that will never change.

[Chris21]

No point in asking, it won't be known until it's known, that will never change.

Be nice to know whether something is being worked on though? I'd guess there is given how quiet SI have been the majority of the time.

Patch is fine for me in the Championship, seems like its the big leagues especially the Prem.

[apalaxe]

Me too, and that's the way it should be, anything which forces you into changing individual instructions means the balances are wrong.

In that case, it's the ME balance that was upset since the latest update because i started with a auto role and auto duty formation and could not get anything from the team. Again i am referring to a team which sum of the players would put it in the middle of the table but i manage to overachieve with, despite no individual with one particular high skill

I mean to say that my tactical choices have only improved the team performance regardless of the fact that they were good or balanced

I have little understanding of IRL football tactics but i am good at problem solving

[Bobble2002]

Sorry but the ball physics are horrendous

Ball still just rolling and rolling

The nearest i can describe the ball is like watching two teams play with one of those old plastic 99p flyaway balls .

The amount of curl is ridiculous and anyone knows that once a ball is rolling along the ground the trajectory does not still continue to bend like a banana .