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Football Manager 2016 16.3.0 Feedback Thread


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So far it looks the same with this update. Not sure if i will use my time to post bugs in the future anymore since they are ignored.

Crossing goals everywhere, had 4 in the same match in a 3-1 match just now. Out of 12 goals i scored in the last 5 matches 7 were from cross (i play exploit the middle) and out of 7 conceded, 5 were crosses.

Strikers are still useless and miss countless easy chances (for both me and AI), and then get angry when you say they missed many chances.

It's still impossible to negotiate a better contract with the board, my contract is 125k Euros p/w and 15% yearly rise, first offer of board is 125k p/w only. Best i could negotiate after many tries because they kept ending negotiations was 130k p/w with 5% wage rise. I even did a whole saga of declaring interest and going into interview with another club and then request a new contract when the team i'm at now wanted me to stay. Their offer didn't change doing this or not. I am a icon of the club.

EDIT: Also found out that the glove magnet bug (ball hits crossbar and GK catches it without turning around) is still happening, i reported this as well and it was not fixed.

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So, after a weekend spent with the new patch I find it to be refreshing.

I only have one thing that made be a bit worried (this might be a case of greedy players/agents):

Playing as Liverpool I started my second season looking for a new keeper, winger and a decent left-back to compete with Moreno.

I eventually got my bids accepted on the following players:

GK - Fernando Muslera (Galatasaray)

Winger - Demarai Gray (Birmingham)

LB - Jonas Hector (Köln)

Now all of these players demanded more then 5 times their current salary.

Fernando Muslera wanted 235K (pounds/week) - Had 44K in Galatasaray

Demarai Gray wanted 175K (pounds/week) - Had 20K in Leicester City

Jonas Hector wanted 200K (pounds/week) - Had 11K in Köln

I managed to decrease those slightly but in the end it was too much.

I found three new targets and for some reason all of the other targets: Timo Horn, Mohamed Salah and Marcel Schmelzer all demanded far less.

Anyone seen something similar? Was this just bad luck or some failure on my part?

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So, after a weekend spent with the new patch I find it to be refreshing.

I only have one thing that made be a bit worried (this might be a case of greedy players/agents):

Playing as Liverpool I started my second season looking for a new keeper, winger and a decent left-back to compete with Moreno.

I eventually got my bids accepted on the following players:

GK - Fernando Muslera (Galatasaray)

Winger - Demarai Gray (Birmingham)

LB - Jonas Hector (Köln)

Now all of these players demanded more then 5 times their current salary.

Fernando Muslera wanted 235K (pounds/week) - Had 44K in Galatasaray

Demarai Gray wanted 175K (pounds/week) - Had 20K in Leicester City

Jonas Hector wanted 200K (pounds/week) - Had 11K in Köln

I managed to decrease those slightly but in the end it was too much.

I found three new targets and for some reason all of the other targets: Timo Horn, Mohamed Salah and Marcel Schmelzer all demanded far less.

Anyone seen something similar? Was this just bad luck or some failure on my part?

If they ask for far more it pretty much means they don't want to come to your club. My guess would be it's generally because you are not in the champions league but occasionally it will be a young player who just doesn't want to move to a new country at their age.

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I'm seeing a ridiculous amount of shots hitting the woodwork for both me and the AI. I started my new season after downloading the patch and in 20 games we've hit the woodwork 22 times. I'm constantly getting the 'you saw your side hit the bar x number of times today...' question in the post-match press conference.

It may just be bad luck but injuries, especially long-term ones seem more frequent too.

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I'm seeing a ridiculous amount of shots hitting the woodwork for both me and the AI. I started my new season after downloading the patch and in 20 games we've hit the woodwork 22 times. I'm constantly getting the 'you saw your side hit the bar x number of times today...' question in the post-match press conference.

It may just be bad luck but injuries, especially long-term ones seem more frequent too.

It needs numbers and bug reports rather than just impressions from an indeterminate sample range to be any use :thup:

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If they ask for far more it pretty much means they don't want to come to your club. My guess would be it's generally because you are not in the champions league but occasionally it will be a young player who just doesn't want to move to a new country at their age.

Perhaps, but I doubt it. I'm the only club out of those that do play CL so it's not that. For Muslera I even got a news item telling me he was flattered and would find it hard to turn down a move to us.

All of the players was "Very interested" in the role they were being offered during contract talks.

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I actually tried to use this crossing stuff last night as my team hit a bad patch and my normal tactic wasn't cutting it due to too many injuries through the middle of the team. Didn't go well at all, once I got my central players back like Imbula & Bojan I had to go back to my 4-1-4-1. I have no doubt it can work, but its certainly not as foregone a conclusion as some say. Of course this is only a personal experience.

Although we did manage a full season of an FMT network game yesterday in the space of about 6 hours. Even without an auto-continue timer and we were mostly just watching TV shows/playing console games on the side which is a pretty good speed for the game to have been processing through in between games. No idea if this is purely anecdotal or not, but its much better for a network game when it can be done that quickly.

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To counter all those negative reviews: I don't have game crashes, I don't have problems with crosses, I don't have data issues. The game works perfect for me and I'm loving it.

To counter those who thinks the game wants them to lose: 3 times in a row (2 different games) I wasn't sitting on the champions spot/promotion spot before the last game. Then my concurrents lost that last game all 3 times against weaker sides and I became champion/got the promotion. I feel a little bit that the game wants me to win, but I accept it with pleasure.

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Thought I would have a bit of a more in depth look at my crossing/heading stats. In 30 games I've scored 21 times from crosses from open play. So 70% of games. I have about 30 crosses per game. This means i score about once every 42 crosses.

According to http://thepowerofgoals.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-case-for-crosses.html this would mean my team is more efficient at scoring from crosses than any in that season.

Yet only 11% of my goals come from headers (real life league averages seem around 18%). You would think that if you are very good at scoring from crosses a higher % would be headers. The crossing accuracy also seems lower than irl. So this suggests the major problem lies with the conversion rate of crosses which are volleyed home. Of course this is only 1 team/tactic so would be happy to hear other peoples findings.

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Personal info :

I've been a hardcore FM player since CM3.

I've just simulated half a season (until March):

All important leagues on FULL detail. Edited database by me.

What i don't like :

1). Barcelona, 3rd in La Liga. What baffled me is not their position, but their avg posession through all season : ~51% (62% IRL)

Same thing happened to Bayern (3rd). Again, avg possesion for Bayern was ~53% (66% IRL)

For me, this totally takes away all the immersion from me. For ages, SI can't make the AI get a proper possession tactic going.

2). In all important leagues that i have simulated, guess what position always finds places in the best average ratings ?

a). Highest AVR for Barcelona was Dani Alves (8+). Plenty of MotM for him. Highest AVR in the league.

b). Highest AVR for Arsenal was Hector Bellerin (8+). Most MotM for him also. Highest AVR in the league.

Monreal was in 4th place for Arsenal squad. Now, before doing this test, with Bellerin, i lowered some of his stats (ex: 11 crossing -11 passing). Nope. Still Arsenal's best player in FM.

c). Highest AVR for Man City was Zabaleta. Plenty of MotM for him also. 3rd in EPL.

d). Mosts assists in Premier League : Carl Jenkinson (!!!!!!!!!!!!) with 10 assists in late February.

In absolutely every other league, you will find one full back in TOP3, and at least 2 FB's in top 10 for Average Ratings.

Fullbacks also dominate MotM awards in every leagues.

Compare this kind of stats with any other IRL stats. You will be baffled to find out just ONE true Full Back (Luis Filipe) will be in the TOP 10 for each of those categories.

Yet we have Moderators defending this ME, while saying "i have only 1-2 fullbacks in top 10, there is absolutely no problem".

e). Whenever i have checked the stats, fullbacks also dominate the Key Passes department. This is probably causing the high ratings for them.

What i am very, very dissapointed about from SI: they had 3 months to, AT LEAST, solve the high ratings for fullbacks issue (they received lots of feedback for that matter). They did absolutely nothing about it. Moreso, I think this is the smallest 3rd patch in the history of FM's.Making me think that their priorities have changed over years ; eg. focus more on the next series rather than improving the current. I would accept this thinking. But not when you improve your next series with 0.00001%.

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So you went into Detail Level to select the top leagues to run on Full Detail?

Yet we have Moderators defending this ME, while saying "i have only 1-2 fullbacks in top 10, there is absolutely no problem".

Don't create something that doesn't exist. None of us said there is no problem. In fact, at least a couple of us acknowledged that (thanks to another user spotting it) it seems that Key Passes account for the high ratings.

The stats posted, is what we have in our games. It's not guessed. It isn't made up. All it shows is that not everyone experiences this issue.

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Personal info :

I've been a hardcore FM player since CM3.

I've just simulated half a season (until March):

All important leagues on FULL detail. Edited database by me.

What i don't like :

1). Barcelona, 3rd in La Liga. What baffled me is not their position, but their avg posession through all season : ~51% (62% IRL)

Same thing happened to Bayern (3rd). Again, avg possesion for Bayern was ~53% (66% IRL)

For me, this totally takes away all the immersion from me. For ages, SI can't make the AI get a proper possession tactic going.

2). In all important leagues that i have simulated, guess what position always finds places in the best average ratings ?

a). Highest AVR for Barcelona was Dani Alves (8+). Plenty of MotM for him. Highest AVR in the league.

b). Highest AVR for Arsenal was Hector Bellerin (8+). Most MotM for him also. Highest AVR in the league.

Monreal was in 4th place for Arsenal squad. Now, before doing this test, with Bellerin, i lowered some of his stats (ex: 11 crossing -11 passing). Nope. Still Arsenal's best player in FM.

c). Highest AVR for Man City was Zabaleta. Plenty of MotM for him also. 3rd in EPL.

d). Mosts assists in Premier League : Carl Jenkinson (!!!!!!!!!!!!) with 10 assists in late February.

In absolutely every other league, you will find one full back in TOP3, and at least 2 FB's in top 10 for Average Ratings.

Fullbacks also dominate MotM awards in every leagues.

Compare this kind of stats with any other IRL stats. You will be baffled to find out just ONE true Full Back (Luis Filipe) will be in the TOP 10 for each of those categories.

Yet we have Moderators defending this ME, while saying "i have only 1-2 fullbacks in top 10, there is absolutely no problem".

e). Whenever i have checked the stats, fullbacks also dominate the Key Passes department. This is probably causing the high ratings for them.

What i am very, very dissapointed about from SI: they had 3 months to, AT LEAST, solve the high ratings for fullbacks issue (they received lots of feedback for that matter). They did absolutely nothing about it. Moreso, I think this is the smallest 3rd patch in the history of FM's.Making me think that their priorities have changed over years ; eg. focus more on the next series rather than improving the current. I would accept this thinking. But not when you improve your next series with 0.00001%.

Did you actually read Neil's post on why they couldnt do anything? If not I suggest you go and read post 350

And stop with the disingenuous nonsense about moderators defending the ME as Hunt3r pointed out, we are not your punching bags, and we will start infracting if people continue down this road.

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It's all about tactics with full/wing backs. Playing with Tottenham Kyle Walker(FB A) has 7.5 AVR BUT no assist or goals. How this is possible then? Well he plays good passes make good tackles don't sleep in own box(unlike Danny Rose). Danny Rose (FB S) has AVR 6.8. And at the moment nobody full back dominate in AVR... And I'm concended only 2 goals from crosses and those two did came into one game against Man City where first Rose did fall into sleep and then did Chadli fall into sleep in own box and both times Navas was far post for tap in.

So it's all about player quality and tactics.

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It's all about tactics with full/wing backs. Playing with Tottenham Kyle Walker(FB A) has 7.5 AVR BUT no assist or goals. How this is possible then? Well he plays good passes make good tackles don't sleep in own box(unlike Danny Rose). Danny Rose (FB S) has AVR 6.8. And at the moment nobody full back dominate in AVR... And I'm concended only 2 goals from crosses and those two did came into one game against Man City where first Rose did fall into sleep and then did Chadli fall into sleep in own box and both times Navas was far post for tap in.

So it's all about player quality and tactics.

It may be exactly what I mentioned 2 posts up. Fullbacks seem to be getting a lot of their passes counting as Key Passes, which will push ratings up.

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It may be exactly what I mentioned 2 posts up. Fullbacks seem to be getting a lot of their passes counting as Key Passes, which will push ratings up.

Yeah sorry did go unnoticed for me.

Well I'm not sure how much Kyle has key passes but his passing accuracy is good.

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When it comes to player ratings, I think its definitely worth remembering that this is AI trying to impose a very 'human' judgement on players and their performance. We're very much used to player ratings with match reports but there is no defining point system or metric they're always opinion pieces from the author. I honestly don't see this being an area AI can ever develop to encompass - without some truly earth-shattering developments in AI in general. It's a loose construct for guidance, but always comes with the caveat that you look at outliers, work out for yourself why they happened and then decide whether or not you ignore this in the future when you do your own quick look over of players.

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I'm seeing a ridiculous amount of shots hitting the woodwork for both me and the AI. I started my new season after downloading the patch and in 20 games we've hit the woodwork 22 times. I'm constantly getting the 'you saw your side hit the bar x number of times today...' question in the post-match press conference.

It may just be bad luck but injuries, especially long-term ones seem more frequent too.

In terms of hitting the woodwork from your numbers it would appear that it is just over once per game. that would be par for the course in every FM game going back to at least FM10.

I don't know how this compares to real life but to me it does not seem excessive

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Did you actually read Neil's post on why they couldnt do anything? If not I suggest you go and read post 350

And stop with the disingenuous nonsense about moderators defending the ME as Hunt3r pointed out, we are not your punching bags, and we will start infracting if people continue down this road.

Neil said :

Okay, as you’re aware the staff here at SI read the forums so clearly we’re aware that some users are experiencing some issues with the way that crosses are defended. From the numbers we’ve had feeding back to us this only seems to affect a relatively small number players and largely depends on those player's tactics.

1). There are two cases :

a). In the simulated save i have mentioned you i had nothing to do with any tactics as i wasn't managing any team.And this fact disables Neil's comment regarding players tactics. It's the AI also who could suffer/take advantage of this.

b). In other save, where i have played Arsenal, Hector Bellerin and Nacho Monreal were my best players with Bellerin having close to 9 AVR. I wasn't using any "cheat tactic". Just a normal Overlap/Low crosses/Work ball into box Arsenal specific tactic with Normal Width.Nothing that would make you think a cross-fest will come.

I don't have the save anymore, but as many others users have reported, ~60% of my goals came from crosses. Especially from my right side (Bellerin). As of number of crosses attempt i was leading the stats charts way way way above 2nd place.

Now, the b). case is what Neil's comment is about. Well, in this case, we are speaking about an ME exploit. A thing that should get SI staff's attention and try to fix ASAP. At least that was in my head.... well, how wrong i was....

Now here i am, as a paying customer, having a not fully functional version of FM. And what SI says about that ?

You are only a small number, we don't care about you. But we promise you the next ME will be best ever. Story of FM since 2012.

And i am pretty sure, regarding the "only a small number of players complain of this problem" remark :

There are more. Just some of them are not playing every league on full detail like me, where another ME/stats are being simulated.

Other have absolutely no interest paying attention on stats.

Other have absolutely no interest of spending more than 1 min / game. So they probably watch in Key Highlights.

Other have absolutely no interest in signing-in to this forum.

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Another thing :

Post #1844 in 16.2.0 feedback thread.

Posted by a Moderator on 27/02/2016

Stop with the continual patch questions before infractions, commence and try applying a little logic?Transfer windows are only JUST finishing in certain places when they are ratified the DB work still has to be quality checked.

So, the next patch is delayed due to late transfer windows.

Well guess what ? NO TRANSFERS operated in 16.3 DB after 15/02/2016. Quality check takes half a month for a DB update, and still, there are lots of issues ? Really ?

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Just going to repost Neil's quote since some are not reading it/take parts out of context:

Okay, as you’re aware the staff here at SI read the forums so clearly we’re aware that some users are experiencing some issues with the way that crosses are defended. From the numbers we’ve had feeding back to us this only seems to affect a relatively small number players and largely depends on those player's tactics. Saying that, we did take a long, hard look at it and ultimately decided that given potential knock-ons and the major impact it would have had on user’s tactics that it wasn’t something we could tweak without unbalancing the match engine and worsening the user’s playing experience.

As anyone who’s played FM for a while knows, we’re constantly striving to make the match engine a 100 per cent perfect simulation of real football. While we’re still some way away from achieving this goal, we do feel that we’re getting closer and closer and this progress is helped enormously by the constructive feedback that we get here on the forums. We’re happy with the match engine which is included in version 16.3.0 and we’ve only been able to get up to this point thanks to everyone who has been involved in the game’s development, be it SI staff members, beta testers or those of you posting here on the forums.

Having spoken at length about this with the match team, there is some good news to report in that the work the team have done in trying to address this issue long-term has led to some other major improvements which, once they’re fully implemented, will make any future versions of the match engine better for everyone.

All I would add to that is that you should give the new update a thorough play-through and let us know what you think when you’ve had a chance to put it through its paces. That's what this thread is here for.

Many thanks.

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Alexi, its always better to take a step back and analyse these things in the grander scheme.

Ultimately the ME and AI in all games in general has weaknesses because its a computer system that follows the rules its programmed with. Variation can be programmed within how exactly it follows them, how it tries to go about it but ultimately its bound by those rules. That means that the odds are much like every game to date that has come out, if you hit the system hard enough, in an intelligent enough way, you'll find its weak point and you can choose to mercilessly punish it. On Skyrim I kept making iron daggers to boost my level up overall, a weakness in the levelling system. In Fallout 4 I kept building at settlements to level my character up. In world of warcraft I used a timing issue to tame a wolf that looked like a worgen. On FM2009 I came across the training system weakness (found by others) and was able to turn Keirrison into a 2000 goalscoring machine.

Just last year Mr Rosler on these forums developed a brilliant tactic, once your team passed a certain level of ability however, changing his formation to 3-4-3 was too much for the match engine. It brought about close to 100 goal a season strikers again, enough time and working around and enough people contributing extra ideas and ultimately a games AI can't stand up to that level of assault by the end users.

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Feedback tends to exaggerate issues quite significantly. People are more likely to post if there's an issue, yet oddly the "crossing is OP" crowd appears to still be the minority.

I'd say it's probably more an issue with how people are setting themselves up tactically. I know a friend who had real issues defending against crossing, pointed me towards some post on twitter going "look, it happens to other people", then upon looking he was effectively playing 4 strikers and an attacking midfielder, with two box to box midfielders behind that, with wingbacks instead of fullbacks leaving his "ball playing centrebacks" exposed.

Hi, thanks for responding. I don't debate that sometimes feedback can exaggerate things, effectively because you have a non-representative sample. But this is the only sample of people's views we have at the moment so it seems silly to dismiss it or assert it only affects a minority. However from what the mods have said, it looks like SI have done some more thorough testing to ensure this is only a small issue. I found that surprising because a). High fullback ratings seem to be extremely persistent, in all saves and even for AI controlled teams, and b). The goal variety is poorer than in most previous versions of FM, just from a user experience.

Which is why I asked for a bit more detail on how SI determined that this was only a minor issue: what they used to check (a large number of save games?), how they checked it (% of goals from crosses?). Every ME has issues but with this one there is so much back and forth and hurt feelings, it seems we still have not got to the bottom of it (and Neil's post also suggests that SI are yet to work out an appropriate fix).

Maybe when I come back to playing I'll have a go at a few different tactics again, to see if I get a bit more varied gameplay and maintain the good results. Btw sorry if this is going a bit off topic since I do not have new feedback at the moment, was just interested to find out a bit more about this crossing/fullback ratings issue. Prob won't post much more in any case.

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Hi, thanks for responding. I don't debate that sometimes feedback can exaggerate things, effectively because you have a non-representative sample. But this is the only sample of people's views we have at the moment so it seems silly to dismiss it or assert it only affects a minority. However from what the mods have said, it looks like SI have done some more thorough testing to ensure this is only a small issue. I found that surprising because a). High fullback ratings seem to be extremely persistent, in all saves and even for AI controlled teams, and b). The goal variety is poorer than in most previous versions of FM, just from a user experience.

Which is why I asked for a bit more detail on how SI determined that this was only a minor issue: what they used to check (a large number of save games?), how they checked it (% of goals from crosses?). Every ME has issues but with this one there is so much back and forth and hurt feelings, it seems we still have not got to the bottom of it (and Neil's post also suggests that SI are yet to work out an appropriate fix).

Maybe when I come back to playing I'll have a go at a few different tactics again, to see if I get a bit more varied gameplay and maintain the good results. Btw sorry if this is going a bit off topic since I do not have new feedback at the moment, was just interested to find out a bit more about this crossing/fullback ratings issue. Prob won't post much more in any case.

We run comprehensive tests with thousands upon thousands of matches to produce overall match stats. This deduces all sorts of statistics across a wide variety of teams, tactical setups etc which gives us an insight into the FM gameworld. We can see what the figures are say for goals from crosses down to pass competition percentage. Also we have a number of internal and external testers who are specifically tasked to look at every incarnation of the match engine.

Of course we take what people feedback to us seriously and as we said in the previous communication we're aware that some people are having issues with the way crosses are defended, but it was decided that given potential knock-ons and the major impact it would have had on user’s tactics that it wasn’t something we could tweak without unbalancing the match engine and worsening the user’s playing experience.

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My experience with 16.2 was very positive, and now with 16.3 I am struggling a little bit more which I appreciate!

The fact of the matter is that Football Manager is the only available 'football simulation' game out there which goes to show the difficulty of creating this game, I can only imagine if we were stuck with Championship Manager 10 which was the last version they created which was horrible! Thank you SI, I am sure FM17 will be even better :)

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When it comes to player ratings, I think its definitely worth remembering that this is AI trying to impose a very 'human' judgement on players and their performance. We're very much used to player ratings with match reports but there is no defining point system or metric they're always opinion pieces from the author. I honestly don't see this being an area AI can ever develop to encompass - without some truly earth-shattering developments in AI in general. It's a loose construct for guidance, but always comes with the caveat that you look at outliers, work out for yourself why they happened and then decide whether or not you ignore this in the future when you do your own quick look over of players.

Sorry to be harsh but what you've said is total nonsense. All it requires is simple maths- totally different to what you should consider replicating human like judgement are anything else AI related. It's exactly the same as the many websites which use formulas to calculate average ratings for players. If the formulas are bad, they need to be changed. It may not be easy but it should be a priority considering average rating effect so many other things in the game.

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We run comprehensive tests with thousands upon thousands of matches to produce overall match stats. This deduces all sorts of statistics across a wide variety of teams, tactical setups etc which gives us an insight into the FM gameworld. We can see what the figures are say for goals from crosses down to pass competition percentage. Also we have a number of internal and external testers who are specifically tasked to look at every incarnation of the match engine.

Of course we take what people feedback to us seriously and as we said in the previous communication we're aware that some people are having issues with the way crosses are defended, but it was decided that given potential knock-ons and the major impact it would have had on user’s tactics that it wasn’t something we could tweak without unbalancing the match engine and worsening the user’s playing experience.

I appreciate everything you have said here Neil, but surely the defending of crosses issues must have been spotted quite early in your test matches

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Sorry to be harsh but what you've said is total nonsense. All it requires is simple maths- totally different to what you should consider replicating human like judgement are anything else AI related. It's exactly the same as the many websites which use formulas to calculate average ratings for players. If the formulas are bad, they need to be changed. It may not be easy but it should be a priority considering average rating effect so many other things in the game.

You're confusing player metrics with player ratings. It is simply a fact that a player cannot be given a categorical, irrefutable score out of 10 for their performance in a game that is universally correct. All someone has to do is say "eh, didn't look that good to me" and that rating is then meaningless to that person. This is the whole basis of the game of football, opinions.

I seem to remember there was an Arsenal fan who posted using one of these websites and its formula to show that Coquelin was better than Matic. I then used that website also to show that Whelan was better than Coquelin. So if these ratings are so correct, then Whelan is actually one of the best holding midfielders in the league, or was last season.

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Okay, as you’re aware the staff here at SI read the forums so clearly we’re aware that some users are experiencing some issues with the way that crosses are defended. From the numbers we’ve had feeding back to us this only seems to affect a relatively small number players and largely depends on those player's tactics. Saying that, we did take a long, hard look at it and ultimately decided that given potential knock-ons and the major impact it would have had on user’s tactics that it wasn’t something we could tweak without unbalancing the match engine and worsening the user’s playing experience.

As anyone who’s played FM for a while knows, we’re constantly striving to make the match engine a 100 per cent perfect simulation of real football. While we’re still some way away from achieving this goal, we do feel that we’re getting closer and closer and this progress is helped enormously by the constructive feedback that we get here on the forums. We’re happy with the match engine which is included in version 16.3.0 and we’ve only been able to get up to this point thanks to everyone who has been involved in the game’s development, be it SI staff members, beta testers or those of you posting here on the forums.

Having spoken at length about this with the match team, there is some good news to report in that the work the team have done in trying to address this issue long-term has led to some other major improvements which, once they’re fully implemented, will make any future versions of the match engine better for everyone.

All I would add to that is that you should give the new update a thorough play-through and let us know what you think when you’ve had a chance to put it through its paces. That's what this thread is here for.

Many thanks.

Your moderators just closed a topic, were the majority seemed to have this issue (66.66%).

For half of those peoples, this issue made the game unplayable.

For other half, they prefer to simply ignore the problem.

Yet, we are a "relatively small number".

I'm done with this game, really and i'm really pissed off. I played it less and less over the years, but this is disgraceful from your part, simply ignoring, and trying to minimalize any negative feedback.

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Your moderators just closed a topic, were the majority seemed to have this issue (66.66%).

For half of those peoples, this issue made the game unplayable.

For other half, they prefer to simply ignore the problem.

Yet, we are a "relatively small number".

I'm done with this game, really and i'm really pissed off. I played it less and less over the years, but this is disgraceful from your part, simply ignoring, and trying to minimalize any negative feedback.

Did you even read why it was closed? It was turning into another feedback thread, and people were directed here instead. So cut out the nonsense about us trying to minimize anything. I've already spoken to you once, I won't say it again. It's getting tiresome.

The poll (though irrelevant) consists of 27 voters. It would at no point even left open to run, get remotely close to covering SI's work over the last 3 months.

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Your moderators just closed a topic, were the majority seemed to have this issue (66.66%).

For half of those peoples, this issue made the game unplayable.

For other half, they prefer to simply ignore the problem.

Yet, we are a "relatively small number".

I'm done with this game, really and i'm really pissed off. I played it less and less over the years, but this is disgraceful from your part, simply ignoring, and trying to minimalize any negative feedback.

I voted in that thread that I don't have the issue (with the greatest of respect, I'd back my knowledge/awareness of the FM series and its workings as being greater than your own). People are latching onto a term with an entirely different meaning (unplayable) in an attempt to embellish and emphasise something they dislike. It's fine to dislike things about the game, we all have those things.

Constructive feedback is welcome, but what are you doing here? There is nothing constructive about this here. Only 33% have said the game makes it unplayable in their opinion (which is automatically invalidated to an extent by the fact they're talking nonsense as they just mean they don't want to play, not that its actually unplayable) and that 33% was exactly 9 people.

Just to reiterate, 9 people. All of a sudden, your 66% which sounds like an enormous amount has been whittled down to 9 people.

Take a break from the forums and the game, you'll enjoy it a lot more afterwards than obsessing over what is ultimately a rather insignificant issue.

Ultimately you won't win this argument, and no one will remember you as a martyr for getting banned for getting increasingly wound up over it. Nor will it affect anything, when any potential issue with the game can be resolved without creating further problems, it is.

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We run comprehensive tests with thousands upon thousands of matches to produce overall match stats. This deduces all sorts of statistics across a wide variety of teams, tactical setups etc which gives us an insight into the FM gameworld. We can see what the figures are say for goals from crosses down to pass competition percentage. Also we have a number of internal and external testers who are specifically tasked to look at every incarnation of the match engine.

Of course we take what people feedback to us seriously and as we said in the previous communication we're aware that some people are having issues with the way crosses are defended, but it was decided that given potential knock-ons and the major impact it would have had on user’s tactics that it wasn’t something we could tweak without unbalancing the match engine and worsening the user’s playing experience.

Thanks very much for the detailed answer Neil. Was it the case that high full-back ratings were also not widespread, but only present in a small minority of matches? This to me seemed far more persistent than the cross-to-far-post issue itself. I'll have to look at the crossing stats from my games as well; I am wondering whether this is about crosses specifically or goal variety more generally. Additionally it may be the case that people can see something in the highlights that does not come through very clearly in high-level stats, but checking that kind of thing would probably be asking for too much! Still, I would be convinced enough if your simulations show that a). Fullbacks get on average the same rating as other outfield positions, and b). Fullbacks get the same numbers of assists and key passes as in real life. And not that you need to convince me anyway :)

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I voted in that thread that I don't have the issue (with the greatest of respect, I'd back my knowledge/awareness of the FM series and its workings as being greater than your own). People are latching onto a term with an entirely different meaning (unplayable) in an attempt to embellish and emphasise something they dislike. It's fine to dislike things about the game, we all have those things.

Constructive feedback is welcome, but what are you doing here? There is nothing constructive about this here. Only 33% have said the game makes it unplayable in their opinion (which is automatically invalidated to an extent by the fact they're talking nonsense as they just mean they don't want to play, not that its actually unplayable) and that 33% was exactly 9 people.

Just to reiterate, 9 people. All of a sudden, your 66% which sounds like an enormous amount has been whittled down to 9 people.

Take a break from the forums and the game, you'll enjoy it a lot more afterwards than obsessing over what is ultimately a rather insignificant issue.

Ultimately you won't win this argument, and no one will remember you as a martyr for getting banned for getting increasingly wound up over it. Nor will it affect anything, when any potential issue with the game can be resolved without creating further problems, it is.

With all due respect, your knowledge/awareness of FM series is more biased than mine it seems.

I can't start a new game, being obssesed with the fact that, one of the most important part of this game (stats and ME) are flawed. Because of this, i can't make my judgement based on flawed stats.Which makes the game UNPLAYABLE FOR ME..

27 people voted in .... 2 hours

Out of 27 people,18 have this issue.

What are you actually saying here is that you are simply superior and far more intelligent than those 18 people.

18. Not 9 (unplayable term). All of the sudden, 18 seems like a much bigger value than 9, isn't it ?

Again, with all due respect, i don't think you understand a poll logic like i do. Just saying that ONLY 9 people have voted "Unplayable" is a tiny number, makes me think that.

And even if ONLY 9 people had this issue, imagine that in next FM edition there will be the biggest bug of all bugs in all series of gaming affecting ONLY you.

And you will complain.

And someone will say, hell it's only affecting you. Get over it.

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Did you even read why it was closed? It was turning into another feedback thread, and people were directed here instead. So cut out the nonsense about us trying to minimize anything. I've already spoken to you once, I won't say it again. It's getting tiresome.

The poll (though irrelevant) consists of 27 voters. It would at no point even left open to run, get remotely close to covering SI's work over the last 3 months.

Largely disagree with this. There are different ways of gathering statistical information. Survey questions may have a smaller sample size than SI's simulations, but they allow to ask more detailed/nuanced questions, which can draw on actual playing experience that may not be obvious from headline statistics. And I will ignore the comment from santy001 who emphasised the 9 people figure: you always only cover a small part of the population with surveys, if you thought like this you would never able to trust an opinion poll or pre-election statistics etc. And it's not surprising that few people voted because the poll was closed so quickly.

So I think it would have been nice to keep the poll open. But equally asking the right question on this is also tricky, would need to focus on playing experience and what people can see in highlights, rather than headline stats which SI have a better grip of anyhow.

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You're confusing player metrics with player ratings. It is simply a fact that a player cannot be given a categorical, irrefutable score out of 10 for their performance in a game that is universally correct. All someone has to do is say "eh, didn't look that good to me" and that rating is then meaningless to that person. This is the whole basis of the game of football, opinions.

I seem to remember there was an Arsenal fan who posted using one of these websites and its formula to show that Coquelin was better than Matic. I then used that website also to show that Whelan was better than Coquelin. So if these ratings are so correct, then Whelan is actually one of the best holding midfielders in the league, or was last season.

I'm not saying it's simple to make a perfect formula. I'm saying it's simple to get the computer to use the formula in its intended way. You stated that it requires the computer to come up with a decision or judgement call about who played best (AI) which is not accurate at all. It requires 0 improvements in AI to fix the issue, only someone to come up with a much better formula than one which is in use at the moment (both in game and by websites).

Oh and it's absolutely not a fact that it's impossible to get a perfect rating system. It would require an incredible number of metrics to be objectively observed but it's not impossible. And one person incorrectly disagreeing with data does not invalidate it. If it did then we can't be 100% sure the Earth revolves around the sun.

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With all due respect, your knowledge/awareness of FM series is more biased than mine it seems.

I can't start a new game, being obssesed with the fact that, one of the most important part of this game (stats and ME) are flawed. Because of this, i can't make my judgement based on flawed stats.Which makes the game UNPLAYABLE FOR ME..

27 people voted in .... 2 hours

Out of 27 people,18 have this issue.

What are you actually saying here is that you are simply superior and far more intelligent than those 18 people.

18. Not 9 (unplayable term). All of the sudden, 18 seems like a much bigger value than 9, isn't it ?

Again, with all due respect, i don't think you understand a poll logic like i do. Just saying that ONLY 9 people have voted "Unplayable" is a tiny number, makes me think that.

And even if ONLY 9 people had this issue, imagine that in next FM edition there will be the biggest bug of all bugs in all series of gaming affecting ONLY you.

And you will complain.

And someone will say, hell it's only affecting you. Get over it.

One of the categories was 'Are you aware of it' - given this thread has posts like yours, it's quite difficult to read posts on this forum and not be aware of it. So to say '18 have this issue' is not strictly the case. But it's all semantics really.

As we've said a number of times, feedback would be appreciated. We've responded to those people who have raised this as an issue with the reasoning why it hasn't been addressed further and for fear of retreading the same ground over and over there's nothing further to add for this issue. Thanks.

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With all due respect, your knowledge/awareness of FM series is more biased than mine it seems.

I can't start a new game, being obssesed with the fact that, one of the most important part of this game (stats and ME) are flawed. Because of this, i can't make my judgement based on flawed stats.Which makes the game UNPLAYABLE FOR ME..

27 people voted in .... 2 hours

Out of 27 people,18 have this issue.

What are you actually saying here is that you are simply superior and far more intelligent than those 18 people.

18. Not 9 (unplayable term). All of the sudden, 18 seems like a much bigger value than 9, isn't it ?

Again, with all due respect, i don't think you understand a poll logic like i do. Just saying that ONLY 9 people have voted "Unplayable" is a tiny number, makes me think that.

And even if ONLY 9 people had this issue, imagine that in next FM edition there will be the biggest bug of all bugs in all series of gaming affecting ONLY you.

And you will complain.

And someone will say, hell it's only affecting you. Get over it.

You're making the claim of bias because I don't agree with you, I've just said its not affecting the game for me. I tried to actually make use of it to my own ends during a tough spell of games but it didn't work. So it's not as easily achieved in my eyes.

Then you move on to trying to distort my words because you're again trying to embellish and emphasise your own point. You're no longer contributing anything useful to the discussion or feedback process. What exactly are you aiming to achieve now? That's my main question, you've been given an answer and reasoning from SI that explains their process. You're unhappy and that's fine, but SI have a track record of annual iteration and improvement. Perhaps you feel you're right and just making this stand now, but it happens annually people make these anger-fuelled claims about the game. It doesn't help to progress the resolution of issues, and if anything probably detracts from helping as an awful lot of what is then thrown at SI is irrelevant and they still have to sift through it.

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Feedback is also given.

[under Review] Conceding Goals to Crosses thread in ME bugs section has the most Views and most Replies.

The fact that it wasn't fixed i can get over it, i work in IT and i can understand the complexity. Not pleased. But understandable to a degree.

But the fact that you minimize the proportion of this problem baffles me and i can't ignore it.

And i will end here.

You made me so angry that i will start a new season. And i will manage a team. And i will come back with some crazy stats/numbers.

And all that withouth using a 2-0-8 tactic or some other cheats.

God help me.

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You're making the claim of bias because I don't agree with you, I've just said its not affecting the game for me. I tried to actually make use of it to my own ends during a tough spell of games but it didn't work. So it's not as easily achieved in my eyes.

Then you move on to trying to distort my words because you're again trying to embellish and emphasise your own point. You're no longer contributing anything useful to the discussion or feedback process. What exactly are you aiming to achieve now? That's my main question, you've been given an answer and reasoning from SI that explains their process. You're unhappy and that's fine, but SI have a track record of annual iteration and improvement. Perhaps you feel you're right and just making this stand now, but it happens annually people make these anger-fuelled claims about the game. It doesn't help to progress the resolution of issues, and if anything probably detracts from helping as an awful lot of what is then thrown at SI is irrelevant and they still have to sift through it.

Indeed, and on that point we shall move on unless people something constructive to offer.

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Now we can't evaluate how many people are experiencing the same issues (out of 27 people who voted 66.66 have experienced the issues) that indicates that it's not a small spread of players experiencing it. Maybe a small spread of users feel it's game breaking, and game breaking is a matter of personal preference which isn't an accurate value for research purposes, (I'm a researcher for a living) research should always be based on facts and personal opinion should never be used as an overall method of gauging anything. However, the majority are experiencing the problem.

I don't really think any issue is truly game breaking, all of them together though make it unenjoyable. First FM ever where I've ever had so many issues left in the final game, and this is why I won't gamble on paying for a game that I worry won't please me next year again.

A lot of people who don't post on the forms are possibly casual gamers or just don't care about the net...I know a lot of my friends who still play it aren't as hardcore into the game as I still am. They play it but don't really pay attention to anything unless its a crash.

Unfortunately for me, the game is unplayable and it seems to be one of the best games in a long time which is even more frustrating for me.

None of the issues make it unplayable by themselves, but all added up. It's not a realistic game for me.

Issues I can't look past:

Crosses, I've adjusted my tactics as best I can, but it's still happening at times for both myself & AI....And then the AI games are crossfests...This I can ignore.

FBs ratings/assists, this is probably hand in hand with the crossing issues. In the PREM league. 4 out of top 10 are full backs, I holidayed for 10 years and a FB has one one of the end of year awards in every situation. As I don't have time to watch matches I usually just stick to key highlights and try my best to follow the commentary but I depend on the ratings for seeing if my players are having a bad day. In one game, Darmian cost my team 3 goals but assisted 1 (dodgy crossing) but still managed a 7.4 rating. I analysed this and the amount of times he was caught out of position, gave away the ball or missed a tackle / interception was incredible. I'd have subbed him out if the rating showed he was struggling as I was narrowly holding a lead....but as his rating looked good I kept him on and in the last 20 minutes he fell apart and cost us 2 goals which cost us the game. Having a broken rating system is a huge issue....but not surprising considering we have a flawed match engine also.

AI lack of Squad Rotation: So many players are playing the full 38 games a season in the league which is not common in this day and age even for smaller clubs (GKS aisde). One or two players at every club might make the full 38 games but most teams are having either half or over half play the full 38 games....This then leads to incredible stats for goals. Jamie Vardy played 38 times and scored 42 goals in the Premier League, Romelu Lukaku played 38 and scored 36, Vardy is having a wonderful season IRL, I looked into the game and he managed to score a few hat tricks /braces but he also went a lot of games without goals. If he didn't play every game his goal tally would have been more realistic and probably more closer to the 30 goal mark. Pretty much the same with Lukaku.

For me, the 1st one is an annoying pain which I shouldn't have to compromise my ideal playing style to address, but it's no big deal. The second two kill realism, having so many players playing full games which affect their goal tallys/development of other squad players as well then impacts on long term games.

For me, it's a sad day that I can't play my favourite game, but I've noticed a growing trend that every year the game has more and more issues which are not being addressed in final patches. I'm done with FM17 though, the whole we'll fix it for 2017 is a joke. I paid for FM16, telling me FM17 will be brilliant is a disgrace. Are you going to give me 17 free based on the fact I can't play 18... Even at that...FM17 is likely to have it's own newn problems that won't be fixed until FM18...

I understand they are complex problems. But perhaps they should have been more focused on improving what they have rather than adding a pointless feature like manager appearance. I long miss the days where all we had was text commentary."

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