''Dominating matches and still losing''

[brawla123]

I've seen some threads about people dominating matches and shots and still losing or conceding even though the opponent didn't have many shots and so on. People have come to the conclusion that this shows the game is biased to the opponent but I want to prove you wrong.

This is what people complain about except this time it is me who is getting dominated and not getting much shots off. We still win and keep a clean sheet at the Allianz Arena. Hopefully people won't think the game is so biased now.

[podunkboy]

Ruthless efficiency. I beat Celtic the other day 2-0 on only 3 shots and 35% possession, and I was even a man down for the last 12 minutes. Neil Lennon was not pleased.

[andyinuk]

This is what people complain about except this time it is me who is getting dominated and not getting much shots off. We still win and keep a clean sheet at the Allianz Arena. Hopefully people won't think the game is so biased now.

That's the thing. When it's happening to the player's favour, it's their genius. If it's happening to AI's favour, then the game is broken

[forameuss]

I'm playing in Gibraltar, and having real trouble in the Champions League qualifiers, given we're absolutely terrible. I faced some Eastern European side, and managed to scrape a 1-1 draw in the first leg away from home. They came back to Gibraltar, and I played an innovative 4-3-3 formation (flat back four, 2 wing backs, a DM and three CMs...uber-negative!) and got absolutely pummeled. But, it was 0-0 at the end and we went through. Yass!

[brawla123]

That's the thing. When it's happening to the player's favour, it's their genius. If it's happening to AI's favour, then the game is broken

Yeah, exactly. We need to stop this mentality.

[Dedinho]

No it's not my genius, I don't like it when cases like this happen, the point that some fail to grasp however is this:

Have games like this happened to me? Yes they have, in a 8 season long save it has happen 3, maybe 4 times to me. The AI dominates, and I win. You know why it doesn't bother me? Because it happens so seldomly. I would have no problems with me dominating the game, and the AI winning it, if it would be happening as seldomly as it happens the other way around. It doesn't. It happens to often. Way to often. Against teams that have significantly weaker player both in defence (they can keep a clean sheet despite having bad defenders) and in attack (their attackers score from 80% chances they get, despite the fact that they couldn't play in my reserve team).

[BiggusD]

No it's not my genius, I don't like it when cases like this happen, the point that some fail to grasp however is this:

Have games like this happened to me? Yes they have, in a 8 season long save it has happen 3, maybe 4 times to me. The AI dominates, and I win. You know why it doesn't bother me? Because it happens so seldomly. I would have no problems with me dominating the game, and the AI winning it, if it would be happening as seldomly as it happens the other way around. It doesn't. It happens to often. Way to often. Against teams that have significantly weaker player both in defence (they can keep a clean sheet despite having bad defenders) and in attack (their attackers score from 80% chances they get, despite the fact that they couldn't play in my reserve team).

That's because it is easier to score in acres of space than in a crowded telephone box.

[Dedinho]

Well, we can still hope for the 14.3.1. patch that will save this game, I understand from some posts in this forum that they're still looking into some problems within the game, hopefully they're looking into ME also, and they intend to release another patch in the next weeks...

[Omnissiah]

Yeah, we've all seen this happen a few times. And we've all seen this happen the other way around hundreds of times. So what?

Your anecdotal outlier doesn't change what is a really, really obvious pattern.

[Flohrinho]

That's because it is easier to score in acres of space than in a crowded telephone box.

That's true but doesn't it mean that generally speaking it's a much better choice in FM14 to play negative and hope for one or two fast breaks with loads of space instead of attacking your opponents with loads of players?

At the moment it really looks like the match engine favors negative football and that pressing is rather counter productive because you will condense the space in the final third of your opponents half even further if you consistently press them in like that.

In essence the general thinking of "they are weaker then me I'm going to attack" seems to cause a lot of the problems we have against weaker teams or am I seeing this wrong?

[HUNT3R]

That's true but doesn't it mean that generally speaking it's a much better choice in FM14 to play negative and hope for one or two fast breaks with loads of space instead of attacking your opponents with loads of players?

At the moment it really looks like the match engine favors negative football and that pressing is rather counter productive because you will condense the space in the final third of your opponents half even further if you consistently press them in like that.

In essence the general thinking of "they are weaker then me I'm going to attack" seems to cause a lot of the problems we have against weaker teams or am I seeing this wrong?

You can be successful with both a counter tactic and a possession/dominating tactic. Especially with 14.3.

A lot of people are struggling against teams who are parking the bus because their tactics aren't very good at all going forward. Combine that with leaving themselves very vulnerable on the counter and they will get hammered by the small teams.

[HUNT3R]

Well, we can still hope for the 14.3.1. patch that will save this game, I understand from some posts in this forum that they're still looking into some problems within the game, hopefully they're looking into ME also, and they intend to release another patch in the next weeks...

The ME won't get touched even if there's an update released. The only way there will be an update, is to address serious issues like people unable to start up the game etc.

Bad tactics will be bad. No update will save that.

[brawla123]

Yeah, we've all seen this happen a few times. And we've all seen this happen the other way around hundreds of times. So what?

Your anecdotal outlier doesn't change what is a really, really obvious pattern.

If that's your opinion then isn't it obvious this thread wasn't aimed at you?

[brawla123]

Well, we can still hope for the 14.3.1. patch that will save this game, I understand from some posts in this forum that they're still looking into some problems within the game, hopefully they're looking into ME also, and they intend to release another patch in the next weeks...

The game is perfectly fine, a 14.3.1 patch would solve nothing if you think the ME is still bad.

[BiggusD]

That's true but doesn't it mean that generally speaking it's a much better choice in FM14 to play negative and hope for one or two fast breaks with loads of space instead of attacking your opponents with loads of players?

At the moment it really looks like the match engine favors negative football and that pressing is rather counter productive because you will condense the space in the final third of your opponents half even further if you consistently press them in like that.

In essence the general thinking of "they are weaker then me I'm going to attack" seems to cause a lot of the problems we have against weaker teams or am I seeing this wrong?

You can still push forward but you'll need to do so without raising the hidden Mentality instruction too much, which is what you do if you set the strategy to Attacking. I consider that the new Overload now, and Control the new Attack. So if you really want your players to be patient and not rush it, you should try with Counter or Balanced and then add instructions like Hassle/Push much higher up/play wider - and if you think that the players are a little too reluctant to try "10 percent passes" near the box you can still fix that by switching Support roles to Attack or individually tell them to try more risky passes, or the team instruction Play Through Defense (or whatever it's called).

[Flohrinho]

You can be successful with both a counter tactic and a possession/dominating tactic. Especially with 14.3.

A lot of people are struggling against teams who are parking the bus because their tactics aren't very good at all going forward. Combine that with leaving themselves very vulnerable on the counter and they will get hammered by the small teams.

Possession yes. But not hard pressing attacking styles like Dortmund for example. To a certain extend I think it's fair because we see Dortmund struggle in real life when ever they face a very defensive opponent that doesn't allow them much space. So in essence you need to play more like Bayern who are dominating but also have a lot of possession and can make the game slow or fast if need be.

[Kick Wilstra]

I'm very successful with a possession/domination based tactic in FM. If I would be as efficient with my chances as my opponent, 1 out of 4 shots on targets is a goal for them, I would win on average with 8-1 instead of the 3-1 I'm averaging now. I'm not sure whether the game would stay fun if winning would be that easy...

Edit:

My standard starting tactic is 4-2-3-1, as in:

FB - support

BPD - defend

CD - defend

FB - attack

CM - support

DLP - defend

IF - support

AP - attack

W - attack

F9 - support

(started with Complete wing backs and a midfield pair of Box-to-box and DLP - support, but made some changes to make it a bit more solid defensively)

Mentality: Attack, Very fluid

Team instructions:

Shorter passing, work ball into box, play out of defence, pass ball into space, much higher defensive line, more roaming, be more creative, lower tempo, look for overlap, hassle opponents ( had stay on feet, but somehow that produced more fouls, so dropped it)

Weaker teams can park the bus all they like, they'll break anyway. For CL away games against top teams parking the bus like Chelsea I have a second variant with control instead of attack, higher defensive line, and retain possession, combined with pre-match training of attacking set pieces. A bit more solid defensively, hoping for a moment of brilliances of one my players or a good corner or free kick. At home I use my normal attacking tactic.

Aggressive pressing, attacking, possession, dominating, it's all very possible in FM. Sure, 2 or 3 times a season I have a game where I'm hitting the woodwork 6 times and lose 2-1, against a team that had 3 shots at goal in total, but that happens in real life as well.

[Flohrinho]

Attacking + hassle opponents always seems to result in a huge number of fouls for my team with stay on feet on or not usually doesn't matter, especially the against weaker teams hassle opponents seems suicide approach. Whenever I use this combination I find myself rapidly on top of the yellow cards stats.

It's sometimes funny how the game can be such a different experience for different players.

[brawla123]

Attacking + hassle opponents always seems to result in a huge number of fouls for my team with stay on feet on or not usually doesn't matter, especially the against weaker teams hassle opponents seems suicide approach. Whenever I use this combination I find myself rapidly on top of the yellow cards stats.

It's sometimes funny how the game can be such a different experience for different players.

I use hassle opponents with be more disciplind and it works fine for me.

[hluraven]

I did have one hilarious game as Celtic v Chelsea. I had 22% possession, lost the shot count 40-2 and won 1-0. I thought at the time that it would have caused forum implosion if it had happened the other way round, but I genuinely played for exactly that. Of course, I tried the same in the re-match and lost 5-0.

[Kick Wilstra]

Attacking + hassle opponents always seems to result in a huge number of fouls for my team with stay on feet on or not usually doesn't matter, especially the against weaker teams hassle opponents seems suicide approach. Whenever I use this combination I find myself rapidly on top of the yellow cards stats.

It's sometimes funny how the game can be such a different experience for different players.

Actually I had a lot of fouls during the first two seasons. Lot's of warnings and fines rocked up my handing discipline bar at my profile, and my players apparently learned to have better judgement... Maybe the personalised player instructions to tackle lighter I've used for my heavy offenders helps as well.

However I must admit, usually my team scores quite easily, during those few matches we don't, I see my fouls rocketing up in the second half, as my playes become fired-up or frustrated.

[Flohrinho]

Actually I had a lot of fouls during the first two seasons. Lot's of warnings and fines rocked up my handing discipline bar at my profile, and my players apparently learned to have better judgement... Maybe the personalised player instructions to tackle lighter I've used for my heavy offenders helps as well.

However I must admit, usually my team scores quite easily, during those few matches we don't, I see my fouls rocketing up in the second half, as my playes become fired-up or frustrated.

I noticed this as well of late the number of fouls seems to go down the longer your players get used to hassle opponents it seems even past the point of full fluidity. The other point seems also quite true the number of fouls is always going up if my lads not having the best day anyways but I sometimes think the fact that we aren't playing that well may also be down to the fact that we commit so many fouls. I watched a few of these games in full length and what I always noticed is that those fouls start to rise when I play an opponent that plays very defensive and very slow.

[BurghBear]

I found this stopped after the latest patch for me. Constantly losing by a single goal or two mainly due to rediculous errors by my players, maybe 20 goals in under 20 games and I would have a huge number of shots on target etc. Now there is a good balance, I lose games at times but the frequency has gone and is no longer an issue.

[M.U.F.C....TSVR]

I was sorta having this issue but after several tactical adjustments I found a really good system, for me anyway.

FB - support

CD - defend

CD - defend

FB - support

DM - defend

DM/DLP - support

W - attack

AP - attack

W - attack

AF - attack

That's attacking/fluid - retain possesion, run at defence, shorter passing, look for overlap, stick to positions, hassle opponents, higher tempo, tighter marking. That works really well for me, the AI seemed to be playing better against my other system so I adopted this and it has changed thing's significantly.

[Svenc]

I'm very successful with a possession/domination based tactic in FM. If I would be as efficient with my chances as my opponent, 1 out of 4 shots on targets is a goal for them, I would win on average with 8-1 instead of the 3-1 I'm averaging now. I'm not sure whether the game would stay fun if winning would be that easy...

Going by that logics, if shot conversion ratio was all the same regardless of approach (just cause), Bayern would have won 10-1 against Chelsea in that CL final of 2012. What BiggusD said, essentially. Most human players rarely even consider employing a more negative tactics and focus on dominating a few key statistics which in isolation mean zilch. Ackter set up an entire save build on negative tactics, and his conversion rate was immense (and he conceded far less than a goal per match, not even the fraction of this). This is all true in real football, where the correlation between keeping possession and winning is less than 60%, and in between getting more shots and winning still no more than about 70%. In FM such is exaggerated by some statistics not being reliable (CCCs) and arguably, as you could probably expect from a computer sim, some poor (shooting) decisions. Also CCCs (and one on ones) equally aren't all the same, and you have an influence over what they might look like when they appear, as was evident from ca. FM 2009 where due to a marking issue and CBs split some found that you could create a ton of one on ones through the center. Their conversion, which in real football is less than 40% on average, was very poor though, as it often meant the forward was forced to beat the keeper from no distance and the pass was played from no angle, making things even more difficult for him.

Whether this looks exactly the same in FM would be an interesting research, however sometimes (not always) faulty human approaches have to be taken into consideration. Plus, if you go simply by "gut feeling" rather than fact that can evidently prove very misleading, in particular if the most you filter of football is match of the day style highlight presentations once the match days have wrapped, and if your perception is skewed by games such as FIFA or PES, which apart of their TV-like presentation are mostly really far off football as they have to be by definition (the human player have an overview of the pitch the likes of Xavi could only dream of, matches are cut dramatically short and still EA and Konami are targetting realistic results). These are some examples of the last two weeks of PL action, and in Bundesliga, La Liga, etc. you will easily find likewise.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/26502628

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/26493219

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/26300994 (technically Everton still managed to win this, but notice that the goal came late, and West Ham were able to fully frustrate the hell out of them until they finally cracked... in a low scoring game such as football that means game over mostly by then. But what this crucially also means is that the scoreline could have been level until the final whistle. West Ham had the chances to nick this themselves: "West Ham occasionally threatened on the counter-attack, and Deulofeu was called into action at the other end of the field to prevent Matt Taylor running through on goal." No number of shots guarantees anything, and rather than merely looking at numbers, it's the quality you should be targetting for, be it if you're approaching things in negative fashion or in a proactive way, which will more often see you on the "losing" end in terms of shot conversion due to the reason BiggusD outlines so beautifully.

But even if you would be the "dominatgin" side in real football for every match of the season, that is really every match, going by statistics, you could expect to come out the loser or at least not winning in quite a few of those. If Bayern hadn't bottled some sitters in Munich in Mai 2012, nobody would be talking about Chelsea's tactical masterclass or a triumph in organization and dedication (for which they deserve credit, don't get me wrong). But the general consensus would be: "Well we saw that coming, didn't we." Such is the way of football. In retrospect, everybody saw it coming. But the extremely low scoring nature of it means that matches in which such thought can really apply are very rare. Remember when Bayern were playing at City and made them look like being the away team for 80 minutes through? In the end, it threatened to not have mattered any. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24354473

[forameuss]

For me, possession based tactics are one of the easiest things to create in FM. And I'm absolutely dreadful at tactics. I've managed to create a few tactics where I see at least 60% of the ball every single game, and sometimes over 70%. BUT, just having the possession is the easy part - the tough part for me is doing something with it. I've lost count of the number of games where I couldn't turn the dominance I had into goals.

Is this a bad thing? For me, absolutely not. I like that you can't just build either a great tactic or a terrible tactic. I would say my possession stats showed I had made a "good" tactic, but it was far short of being great because there was that one crucial piece missing, as I struggled to really be dominant in terms of goals scored. I had turned into Barcelona-lite - a giant in my country, who kept the ball for the vast majority of the time, but sometimes just had no answer to teams.

[Svenc]

For me, possession based tactics are one of the easiest things to create in FM. And I'm absolutely dreadful at tactics. I've managed to create a few tactics where I see at least 60% of the ball every single game, and sometimes over 70%. BUT, just having the possession is the easy part - the tough part for me is doing something with it. I've lost count of the number of games where I couldn't turn the dominance I had into goals.

Is this a bad thing? For me, absolutely not. I like that you can't just build either a great tactic or a terrible tactic. I would say my possession stats showed I had made a "good" tactic, but it was far short of being great because there was that one crucial piece missing, as I struggled to really be dominant in terms of goals scored. I had turned into Barcelona-lite - a giant in my country, who kept the ball for the vast majority of the time, but sometimes just had no answer to teams.

So you're Swansea and Southampton, teams that play keep ball like no other team in their league but still are nowhere near top of the table any. Except this one:

http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/3853/Stages/7794/TeamStatistics/England-Premier-League-2013-2014

[forameuss]

So you're Swansea and Southampton, teams that play keep ball like no other team in their league but still are nowhere near top of the table any. Except this one:

http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/3853/Stages/7794/TeamStatistics/England-Premier-League-2013-2014

I think the first time I really got the hang of possession football was with Red Star Belgrade. I was around the top of the table for most of the season, but never really making that step up to absolutely cuffing teams. A few disappointing draws, a few inexplicable losses and a lot of uninspiring wins. But yeah, pretty much like you said. Keeping the ball is great, but the smug old adage of "If you keep the ball, they can't score" is pretty limited. You can have 90% of possession in a match, but if the opposition uses their 10% to go up the field and score from one set piece, you stand the chance of losing.

Ideally I'd like to play a style with a lot of possession, but quick and direct when it needs to be. Yet to properly crack it though. I guess I'll just keep bludgeoning.

[brawla123]

For me, possession based tactics are one of the easiest things to create in FM. And I'm absolutely dreadful at tactics. I've managed to create a few tactics where I see at least 60% of the ball every single game, and sometimes over 70%. BUT, just having the possession is the easy part - the tough part for me is doing something with it. I've lost count of the number of games where I couldn't turn the dominance I had into goals.

Is this a bad thing? For me, absolutely not. I like that you can't just build either a great tactic or a terrible tactic. I would say my possession stats showed I had made a "good" tactic, but it was far short of being great because there was that one crucial piece missing, as I struggled to really be dominant in terms of goals scored. I had turned into Barcelona-lite - a giant in my country, who kept the ball for the vast majority of the time, but sometimes just had no answer to teams.

I recently created a possession based tactic but I wasn't creating enough good chances. I think even if you can get the Barca-style play or even Bayern-style play, it still requires the kind of players they have to make it really work.

[smp20]

Every year I normally create a possession tactic that gets me to where I want to go, but nothing ever beats my counter-attack, wing/target man based tactics which can turn an underdog into a favourite. I thrive on having 40% possession, having 6 shots to 16 but having better quality opportunities and finishing them off.

[Kick Wilstra]

I recently created a possession based tactic but I wasn't creating enough good chances.

My experience is that a possession based tactic doesn't create more full-chances than a counter tactic, maybe even less. It does create a lot more half chances though and long shots though. May of those will be for a midfield player, so it's more important that you have some goalscoring potential in your midfield than it is with a counter tactic. My AMC playmaker has been my club-topscorer twice in the 5 year I employ my current tactic.

I think even if you can get the Barca-style play or even Bayern-style play, it still requires the kind of players they have to make it really work.

The kind of players Barca has is quite different than those of Bayern though, as is their approach to possession based football. I don't think you need the kind of players they have to be successful with a possession based tactic, unless you really try to copy them, but you do need to adept your tactic to the strengths and weaknesses of the players you have at your disposal.

[Dedinho]

The kind of players Barca has is quite different than those of Bayern though, as is their approach to possession based football. I don't think you need the kind of players they have to be successful with a possession based tactic, unless you really try to copy them, but you do need to adept your tactic to the strengths and weaknesses of the players you have at your disposal.

I strongly agree with that, but I still can't shake the feeling that this years ME is "allowing" only certain tactics to flourish, no matter how many world class players you have on your team. Like I said, it was just the feeling I got playing the game, I could be totally wrong.

[Svenc]

Well, whilst Barca are being critized for having but one plan, they certainly don't pass it about completely unchanged when they really need a goal, which from my experience is what some possession based players are doing. You've got to carve open opportunity from somewhere, and with each instruction meant to encourage possession based play you are lessening the likelyhood of defense splitting passes played from deep, diagonal balls likewise and the ball being switched from flank to flank.

Bayern, whilst being able to keep possession, were a lot more direct under Heynckes, and most recently it was Beckenbauer who publicly critizised the endless passing about against Arsenal, and Guardiola's supposedly encouragement he gives to players which means that they'd shy away from long shots (in particular Schweinsteiger). According to Beckenbauer, Bayern would be on the way to be " unwatchable like Barcelona". http://www.goal.com/en/news/15/germany/2014/03/17/4689433/guardiola-accepts-beckenbauer-criticism-hes-the-bayern Occasionally this is more than just aesthetics (Barca would proabably be booed off the pitch by some for much of their play should they play in the Premier League or Championship), such as in games in which you struggle to break oppositions down and still insist on passing it all about all through. Whilst passing the ball around obviously needs great technique, the irony is that there's a defensive thinking fueling it if you go far enough: "If we have the ball, they cannot score*." Which is actually the kind of thinking that fuels Barca's setup, and Spain's alike. For all their recent titels, Spain's matches hardly were end to end kind of stuff in any of the tournaments they recently entered, but then there are many ways to win football tournaments, and none more right than the other: you can argue aesthetics, but not results. But then the entire youth development and training regime prioritizes keeping the ball above all else.

* The actual quote from Cruyff, who installed the roots of it all at Barcelona from where it spread, is: “If you play on possession, you don't have to defend, because there's only one ball”

[aderow]

I've found that a lot of people who have struggled to score goals and subsequently lost is down to them playing too aggressively; try to operate where there wasn't an space to operate.

I was the same way and it was a 2-0 loss against Arsenal, when I have 75% possession and 15 more shots than them, that was the final straw for me.

That's when I learned about creating and exploiting space. So now I play much less aggressive than I did in the past. I'm less susceptible to counter attacks because of it. It's funny actually. The less attacking I've played, the better my attack has gotten.

And by no means do I play defensively. I don't sit back waiting for the counter. In fact, I dominate possession most matches despite being a lesser team. My team isn't defensive; it's just more patient. And that helps against teams that park the bus.

[Kick Wilstra]

I strongly agree with that, but I still can't shake the feeling that this years ME is "allowing" only certain tactics to flourish, no matter how many world class players you have on your team. Like I said, it was just the feeling I got playing the game, I could be totally wrong.

I'm curious, what kind of tactics you try to employ that gives you this feeling? It could be that I'm just lucky that my tactics are usually allowed to flourish by the ME so far, and when they didn't, I was usually able to figure out why not and tweak accordingly, or try a few tweaks until it worked and then suddenly understood why it didn't earlier.

A player might be world class, sometimes a slightly less talented fellow is still better for a certain job, maybe because of a beneficial combination of certain attributes and PPM's. The star ratings can be very misleading, usually it's better to ignore them and use your own judgement. As an example, my 3 star back up midfielder turned out to do a much better job than my 4 star first choice. His technical attributes were on average a about 2 points less, but the key ones still decent, and he had very good off the ball, positioning, anticipation and decisions. In the end he turned out to be a more solid choice for my tactic, as his intelligent movement meant he was often in a position to receive the ball, so we kept possession better, which turned out to be more important than those few defence splitting though balls or dribbles, and actually his PPM's of Dribble Less and Play-

One-Two's worked nicely with his intelligent movement to compensate his lack of dribbling skills and still give some dynamism to his play.

Once you learn to look at attributes and PPM's like this and how they fit in your tactic, it usually possible to analyse why a tactic doesn't work, and tweak a player role, duty or personal instructions so that it does. Usually it are just a few small things, swapping the defence-support duties of your ball-winning midfielder and deeplying playmaker can suddenly give a much better balance.

[f0rward]

The fact is, this should happen occasionally and not 3 in 5 matches.
The game outcome is completely random.

I've been out for 2 years, fm wise, but this year I don't like the game much so far.
Most of the boring repetitional elements are still there, but I won't go into detail about those.

Back in the days when I use to play FM a lot each year, I always hoped that someday the devs would be able to create a very challenging AI in terms of squad management. Also  effectively detecting and holding on to huge potential players.
Now after my FM break of 2 years I was curious to see what they did with the AI.
I haven't played enough yet to really get a clear picture on AI squad management, but it feels like they took the short route: just let the AI cheat the hell out of the game simulation.
I seriously can't believe what I'm watching most of the games.

Yes it happends in real life now and then, maybe 2 games in a whole season.
In FM, it happends 3 out of 5 games.

[HUNT3R]

Just now, f0rward said:

The fact is, this should happen occasionally and not 3 in 5 matches.
The game outcome is completely random.

I've been out for 2 years, fm wise, but this year I don't like the game much so far.
Most of the boring repetitional elements are still there, but I won't go into detail about those.

Back in the days when I use to play FM a lot each year, I always hoped that someday the devs would be able to create a very challenging AI in terms of squad management. Also  effectively detecting and holding on to huge potential players.
Now after my FM break of 2 years I was curious to see what they did with the AI.
I haven't played enough yet to really get a clear picture on AI squad management, but it feels like they took the short route: just let the AI cheat the hell out of the game simulation.
I seriously can't believe what I'm watching most of the games.

Yes it happends in real life now and then, maybe 2 games in a whole season.
In FM, it happends 3 out of 5 games.

If it's happening that often for you, I would suggest posting in the tactics forum for advice. The AI doesn't cheat as the ME doesn't even know the difference between human and AI and the AI has the same tools available that the user has.

[toffee71]

On 15/03/2014 at 12:34, brawla123 said:

I've seen some threads about people dominating matches and shots and still losing or conceding even though the opponent didn't have many shots and so on. People have come to the conclusion that this shows the game is biased to the opponent but I want to prove you wrong.

This is what people complain about except this time it is me who is getting dominated and not getting much shots off. We still win and keep a clean sheet at the Allianz Arena. Hopefully people won't think the game is so biased now.

I agree, the gaME will always do a balancing act otherwise we would all win 10-20- nil each game then people would moan saying its do easy ME is ****, I'm quite happy with ME, I've given some hidings taken a few aswell, and I've lost games should have won and vice-versa, some bad ref calls too, but hey thats FOOTBALL.and I love it.

Not quite same scenario but mine was last pre-season friendly, both almost full strength teams, and I managed to stifle Barca and they didn't score from their 1 shot on target, we should have done better, don't let my shots fool you, I have a player I love to take long shots, wasn't his day in this game, but right tactic + training for opposition and you can get the results.

[pembehasan]

It's happening too much with Gegenpressing. 

[f0rward]

8 hours ago, HUNT3R said:

If it's happening that often for you, I would suggest posting in the tactics forum for advice. The AI doesn't cheat as the ME doesn't even know the difference between human and AI and the AI has the same tools available that the user has.

I just tried one more game but I think I'm done with the game. I tried a couple of different tactics already. But its so unrealistic it makes me laugh.
In real life, even if my players would go on the pitch without coach or tactics, they would still beat this team with at least 5 goals difference.
The individual quality difference between players is so enormous, tactics wouldn't mind that much. Oke, I know this is not real life scenario, but they claim to be so realistic every year, so I expect a certain level of realism.

I lost this game btw on penalties. Leading with 2 penalties (they missed the first 2) haha. Yes I know, it can happen, once in a life time maybe. Not every other match.


 

[FrazT]

@f0rward  You have been advised above about how you can get help with tactics if you want it, so I will close this now.