Beating the match engine

[Joz24]

I read a lot of threads on here about tactics, frustrations, match engine and faults with the game. A lot of peoples frustrations seem to be that they are pummelling the opposition with CCCs and shots on target but lose to the two shots on target that the opposition have. Pre-determination of the match engine is often something I see blamed but also dismissed most of the time with statements such as "you just need to beat the match engine" or "it's your tactics". However I sometyimes find it hard to dismiss the thought of pre-determination. If I'm having 20 shots, 12 on target and 7 CCCs, 60% of possession and far superior tackling and passing percentages then I'm sorry to upset some of you but I have beaten the match engine and my tactics are spot on.

I just had a game where I adjusted my tactics perfectly after using my scout reports. The opposition plays a passing game but has a low work rate and poor fitness. So I kept my usual formation but decided to play a high tempo possession based game high up the pitch. Dominated them. They had two shots on target 1 goal from a corner and the other from a long ball forward from there CB put their striker one on one. From my 6 CCCs the keeper saved them all, I did ended up losing 2-1. My goal was an own goal late in the game.

I can accept when this happens every now and then but it happens at least 1 in every 3 matches and it's getting a little old. In my 5th season with the same team and still just languishing in mid table every year.

[FrazT]

Welcome to the forums.

Not sure from your post what you are looking for- if you are looking for tactical help, then head over to the Tactics forum, read their guides and then open a thread with as much detail as you can and the regulars will offer advice.

If you are just looking to comment on the game and the state of the match engine, please post in the FM 16 feedback thread where it will be noted.

[Draakon]

Underdogs win in real life too. That happens. If you concede two stupid goals - how can you say that you beat match engine? Your set piece defense should have been better and you let yourself to be carved open by long ball behind defensive line. That's poor defending.

Having said that, there are matches that you should have won on paper, but didn't. Either because of poor finishing, bad luck or individual errors in defense (about what I think that my defensive tactic is OK, it was just an individual mistake by player).

What it gives you is knowledge that you don't have to make any big changes in your gameplan. Gameplan works as planned, your players just failed to deliver. If you wasted 6 CCC-s, perhaps you chose wrong striker to this match, or your team talk put too much pressure on your players. Football, even in FM, is much more than just tactics. It's squad selection, man management, motivating and good substitutions in right moments.

[Guest]

Underdogs win in real life too. That happens. If you concede two stupid goals - how can you say that you beat match engine? Your set piece defense should have been better and you let yourself to be carved open by long ball behind defensive line. That's poor defending.

Having said that, there are matches that you should have won on paper, but didn't. Either because of poor finishing, bad luck or individual errors in defense (about what I think that my defensive tactic is OK, it was just an individual mistake by player).

What it gives you is knowledge that you don't have to make any big changes in your gameplan. Gameplan works as planned, your players just failed to deliver. If you wasted 6 CCC-s, perhaps you chose wrong striker to this match, or your team talk put too much pressure on your players. Football, even in FM, is much more than just tactics. It's squad selection, man management, motivating and good substitutions in right moments.

Excellent post, neatly sums up the often forgotten areas of good management/coaching.

[Svenc]

The aforementioned match sounds unlucky. Still that aside, you can have 60% of possession, and barely struggle to break down anyone, simply playing keepball ad nauseum.

Have multiple clear-cuts (which at best would represent a 1 in 3 conversion) and none of them actually being that good chances (the stat algorithm is flawed, watch this stuff)

Have 12 on target, each of them being easy saves due to absolutely no space in those boxes (tends to happen if you're the favourite as those teams don't advance anybody if they are in possession such as this side... if you're confused, simply count the numbers in yellow that just stay back).

And additionally, and simply out of luck, those opponents may manage to hang on in there, and make a late switch to a more attacking set-up which could completely cause your side to get hit on the break easily, such as this.

Bottom line is it's still the play from minute 1 to 90 making those numbers, and unless you are able to field 15 outfield players, there's always going to be space to exploit. You can exploit perhaps some weaknessess in AI and defending, but every decision still has some trade-off. In particular as unlike really old versions, such as the central defender split in FM 2009ish which you could exploit and always have chances/goals even if your side was totally outplayed. Or the corner exploits gifting additionally goals, which would grant you leads (and cause the AI to be more attacking), which further rubbed off on it being easier prey on the counter, etc.

Simply dominating statistically isn't "beating the ME" anyway. The aim of some of your opponents is to actually LET you dominate. And then hit you hard if you push forward too many or with a bit of luck score from a set-piece.

[Guest]

We should post Leicester City's match stats at the end of the season, by popular modern standards they should have lost most of their matches.

[Mitja]

Joz can you post your tactical setup please? Creating such big number of CCCs is something I rarely see in my games (me or the AI) and I win mostly. There must be smth about your tactics.

[Guest]

tbh the way that the ME calculates CCC is rather iffy so I would ignore that stat & rely more on what you actually see during the match.

[Draakon]

In addition to the stats that FM offers you, I keep my own stats as well, some based on what ME says and some of my own interpretation. For example I can say that in my save in 11 league games played so far we've had 24 CCC-s (according to ME) and our conversion rate is exaclty 50% (12 goals, 12 missed). This number includes one scored penalty.

Half chance conversion rate is around 10-20%. Roughly 1 in every 6 half chances results a goal at best. Some of the players are more wasteful though.

I agree that interpretation of chances is rather iffy. In fact, roughly 50% of the goals come from what ME counts as "no chances" (those obviously including opponent own goals, free kicks and long shots). While CCC calculation is more less OK (two things I've notices - sometimes obvious CCC is counted as half chance and sometimes an opportunity from very narrow angle is counted as CCC which is more of half chance), calculation of half chances is way too random. Often an ambitious long shot from outside of box is counted as half chance. Easily blocked attempt by marker is counted by half-chance. That's not quite correct.

And in certain situations it is very difficult to determine yourself - what about those 1-1 situations when your striker is through and against goalkeeper, but GK comes out very well and your striker has very little time and space to shoot, so he just has to blast the ball against GK's frame and shot gets easily blocked. How good of a chance it really is? Yes, it's 1-1 situation, but is it a CCC?

[qwerty22]

Set up your team to spam the deep crossing bug and youll win everything

[Silver Twilight Sparkle]

The big problem here is that strikers are useless at finishing easy chances (unless its from crosses) regardless of their attributes. It looks as if finishing and composure are totally irrelevant stats.

So you have to rely on the crossing spamming (which the AI does a lot in their formations) to compensate for these misses, making the match engine almost impossible to enjoy.

And in certain situations it is very difficult to determine yourself - what about those 1-1 situations when your striker is through and against goalkeeper, but GK comes out very well and your striker has very little time and space to shoot, so he just has to blast the ball against GK's frame and shot gets easily blocked. How good of a chance it really is? Yes, it's 1-1 situation, but is it a CCC?

This sort of reminds me of another problem with the finishing, that PPMs are rarely used so players are equally inept at scoring. There is another option which is to dribble the GK, but this never happened in any FM, the max that can happen is that striker reaches a through ball and the GK also run to it, and then the striker goes through the GK (who doesn't jump or anything) and scores, i guess this is what FM considers dribbling.

Places shots? Who cares about it? Its only used maybe 15% of the time the striker tries to finish.

[Dagenham_Dave]

The big problem here is that strikers are useless at finishing easy chances (unless its from crosses) regardless of their attributes. It looks as if finishing and composure are totally irrelevant stats.

So you have to rely on the crossing spamming (which the AI does a lot in their formations) to compensate for these misses, making the match engine almost impossible to enjoy.

.

Utter nonsense, as per usual.

[Silver Twilight Sparkle]

Utter nonsense, as per usual.

Not really, just what i noticed in the 5 seasons i played in FM16 so far.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/447320-One-on-Ones-barely-never-go-in?p=10702450&viewfull=1#post10702450

[Dagenham_Dave]

Not really, just what i noticed in the 5 seasons i played in FM16 so far.

First of all, given that almost every post you make is criticising the game in some way, I'm astonished you've lasted five seasons. I'd never a play a game I clearly hate for that long.

But the main point is this. What YOU noticed doesn't make it fact, does it? And it's more the way you're claiming that all strikers are useless at finishing, when it's clearly not the case. I have a player who's scored over 130 his career with my club, with only a small percentage coming from crosses.

Now, I'm a million miles from being a tactical genius, so if I can manage it, so can anyone else.

[Silver Twilight Sparkle]

First of all, given that almost every post you make is criticising the game in some way, I'm astonished you've lasted five seasons. I'd never a play a game I clearly hate for that long.

But the main point is this. What YOU noticed doesn't make it fact, does it? And it's more the way you're claiming that all strikers are useless at finishing, when it's clearly not the case. I have a player who's scored over 130 his career with my club, with only a small percentage coming from crosses.

Now, I'm a million miles from being a tactical genius, so if I can manage it, so can anyone else.

I like the other areas of the game, it's just the match engine that is really bad, which is what most of my complaints are about. Sadly things like the useless strikers have a big effect on the other areas.

Tactics aren't the problem, the problem is the dudes up front. If the tactic didn't create the high number of chances and the crossing wasn't OP i would be in really deep trouble with these stooges upfront. The AI strikers being bad was also saved me.

Here is their history, it doesn't show yellow on the team name because i moved to another team.

http://postimg.org/image/xgmadz5rp/

http://postimg.org/image/f65609r21/

http://postimg.org/image/a4xrywjll/

http://postimg.org/image/lvbpgace1/

[Dagenham_Dave]

"Useless strikers", then posts a pic of a striker who has scored 87 goals in 115 games. And the other two aren't too shabby either.

Aye, 'useless' right enough.

You neither need to create a high number of chances nor rely on solely goals from crosses to get your strikers to score. If that's the case, then you're doing something wrong. It's that simple. Is there an issue with crosses in the game? Possibly (My own take on it is that there's actually too many crosses attempted in game, rather than the crosses themselves being overpowered. Slightly dodgy defensive positioning doesn't help either mind). But from my experience, as long as you're sensible tactically, it's really not that much of an issue at all. FM16 has without question been the best game so far for exposing poor tactics, whether that be resulting in loads of goals conceded and poor results, or a ton of goals scored the exact same way. Gotta remember it's a game, where the output, for the most part, relies on your input.

[Silver Twilight Sparkle]

"Useless strikers", then posts a pic of a striker who has scored 87 goals in 115 games. And the other two aren't too shabby either.

Aye, 'useless' right enough.

I had to threaten to loan/transfer list, fine and then criticise previous games of that guy countless times. He cost me a lot of points with his missing. Most of the time he barely scored but when he did he got 2 or 3 goals in the same match which isn't important on the league. Much more important is to win more matches with low scores than win few matches with big scores. There was even one match i subbed him off at about 12 minutes on the first half because he was missing so much.

So yeah, useless, glad i don't have to use him anymore.

You neither need to create a high number of chances nor rely on solely goals from crosses to get your strikers to score. If that's the case, then you're doing something wrong. It's that simple. Is there an issue with crosses in the game? Possibly (My own take on it is that there's actually too many crosses attempted in game, rather than the crosses themselves being overpowered. Slightly dodgy defensive positioning doesn't help either mind). But from my experience, as long as you're sensible tactically, it's really not that much of an issue at all. FM16 has without question been the best game so far for exposing poor tactics, whether that be resulting in loads of goals conceded and poor results, or a ton of goals scored the exact same way. Gotta remember it's a game, where the output, for the most part, relies on your input.

They are the ones doing something wrong not me, i'm not the one kicking the ball. Also it's not just my strikers that are bad, the AI also misses loads of easy chances against me (not counting the crossing ones for me or them).

I agree about the game exposing the poor tactics thing, my tactic may not even be good or decent, but it is good about creating chances at least. But now that you mention it i should have tried the tactics forum to see if people had some ideas on how to sort these useless guys out. But too late now since i changed teams, let's see if i run into the same problem here and if i do then i can see if people on the tactics forum have any ideas to help.

[Guest]

I had to threaten to loan/transfer list, fine and then criticise previous games of that guy countless times. He cost me a lot of points with his missing. Most of the time he barely scored but when he did he got 2 or 3 goals in the same match which isn't important on the league. Much more important is to win more matches with low scores than win few matches with big scores. There was even one match i subbed him off at about 12 minutes on the first half because he was missing so much.

So yeah, useless, glad i don't have to use him anymore.

Sounds like he was a flat track bully who had a low important matches rating, maybe even low ratings for pressure & consistency.

Personally I've found that strikers are far too effective, even the mentally weak ones can score 20+ a season.

[Silver Twilight Sparkle]

Sounds like he was a flat track bully who had a low important matches rating, maybe even low ratings for pressure & consistency.

Personally I've found that strikers are far too effective, even the mentally weak ones can score 20+ a season.

Just checked right now, it seems he is not being used since i left and now wants out, nice to see he keeps failing. Also, you were right about his pressure & consistency, just checked right now.

http://postimg.org/image/796l1rllx/

http://postimg.org/image/4cjk1hfs5/

[Guest]

Performances look about right, talented enough to look world class when he's on it but not mentally strong enough to perform at peak level anywhere near often enough.

A couple of early fluffed chances in a match would be enough to see him being a waste of space.

Do you use the body language widget when watching matches & how much attention do you give to player report cards?

Report cards are particularly important when weeding out weak players from your shortlists, player interactions & individual teamtalks.

Edit: His horribly low adaptability rating would have automatically seen me disgard him as a signing, I never sign a foreigner that my scouts say will struggle to adapt in another country.

[Silver Twilight Sparkle]

Performances look about right, talented enough to look world class when he's on it but not mentally strong enough to perform at peak level anywhere near often enough.

A couple of early fluffed chances in a match would be enough to see him being a waste of space.

Do you use the body language widget when watching matches & how much attention do you give to player report cards?

Depends on the skin, i don't like to use many widgets because my laptop resolution is 1920x1080 and sometimes too many widgets makes it difficult to see the ball. On some skins there are more options to see more screens when there isn't any highlight. On those i usually left my player body languages. However right now i don't anymore, i might install those extended views for the match widgets between highlights. I don't remember what his was for most matches.

The report card i use to know the hidden attibutes of the player like consistency, big matches, injury prone etc and his personality. I prefer looking at the attributes than the star rating the scouts give, since that is what matters the most.

On my formation i use two strikers, one AF and one DLF. Onovo was the main DLF, Fatai the main AF and Bevi the backup AF. So i used him mostly against lesser teams and in rotation when Fatai needed to rest. But this was broken several times because i threw him in when Fatai was failing, which happened frequently. I also did the opposite.

Also both him and Fatai were already in the club when i arrived, so i didn't buy any of them.

Here is his full card the day i left the club:

http://postimg.org/image/7zrgexlx5/

[Guest]

To add to my post above & based on how effective you say your tactic is my personal opinion is that your main problem is likely not taking time to fully review a player & you're signing players based on their visible attributes & CA/PA values.

If you pay more attention to the whole package you might find that you see a dramatic improvement in team & player performances.

Edit: Either the coach giving that report has made a mistake in not picking up on the adaptability rating or a bug has blocked it from being displayed. As you have the IGE it might be worth check for any other obvious errors & if you see a pattern raise it as a potential bug.

Edit 2: That player does highlight one of my biggest annoyances with how the AI goes about transfers, it can't make judgements on those hidden attributes & will often buy players that we would never sign because of an abvious flaw. Once the AI is capable of looking beyond CA/PA & rep squad building will see a massive leap forward.

[Silver Twilight Sparkle]

To add to the above & based on how effective you say your tactic is my personal opinion is that your main problem is likely not taking time to fully review a player & you're signing players based on their visible attributes & CA/PA values.

If you pay more attention to the whole package you might find that you see a dramatic improvement in team & player performances.

I don't look at CA or PA, just on that pic to see his hidden attributes that you said could be low. From his report card however his mentals seem good so i don't see how i could take a conclusion that they were bad based on it.

As for buying and scouting, i'd say my other players do what i want them to do, it's just the strikers that don't do their job.

Onovo played as a DLF S so his main job was to assist not really score goals, most of his goals were because of crossing chances (the winger crossing to him got a ballon d'or). He was really bad at finishing too but what i wanted him to do was make the other two be clear on goal, which he did. He had a lot of vision and passing which is why i bought him (only one of the three i bought), so i try to get players to fit what i want them to do, not just follow CA/PA/Star etc. On this case i was right. http://postimg.org/image/ip2o1wtgt/

Fatai and Bevi have skills good for finishing so in theory they should be good at it, but they are awful, and i see that everywhere in AI teams too.

[Guest]

Have a read of my edits, that part was written before your post so was an assumption based on what had been posted so far, a frustrating aspect of forum communication.

You've actually given me an idea for some tests to provide feedback & ideas to the guys working on the transfer system & I might even buy the IGE to assist in that.

Will give me something interesting that do while I'm rehabbing my knee.

[Silver Twilight Sparkle]

Have a read of my edits, that part was written before your post so was an assumption based on what had been posted so far, a frustrating aspect of forum communication.

You've actually given me an idea for some tests to provide feedback & ideas to the guys working on the transfer system & I might even buy the IGE to assist in that.

Sorry, i did not see the edits before i posted.

Maybe the adapdability was not important because he was already in the club? I tried scouting him and it does come up. http://postimg.org/image/k1u3jtwu7/

I just noticed the manager that replaced me changed to a one striker formation, i had 5 strikers when i left so now he sold 1, transfer listed another and is not using Bevi, only Onovo is AF upfront and i think he and Fatai will have trouble sharing a fair amount of games, he is now buying some players to fit into his tactic, he even bought 2 from me.

If you want i can check other things for you with the IGE, i bought it because it was on sale and i wanted to make Dortmund available (the current manager was in there for 7 years and he finally had awful results but they didn't sack him, so i gave them a hand with that), so if you want me to test other things let me know.

[Guest]

Thanks for the offer but I will be using my inside knowledge as a former SI employee as the basis of my tests & I could risk breaching the still active NDA if I asked you to do any leg work for me.

It's not as if the IGE is expensive & as I've said I have plenty of time on my hands for a few weeks.

What would be good is if you could raise the coach not reporting on the crappy adaptability in the bugs forum, personally I don't think it should matter that he's already at the club & the coaches should be letting you know that the player has a pretty crucial mental weakness.

[fmfan74]

Sorry to break you dreams mate. But if you have been following the bugs thread you will see plenty of evidence that a lot of areas are bugged. I always upload my video files to SI as a fact and if you have been reading a lot of my uploads to them you will see they have accepted that there needs to be corrections. And just to top it off here is something special just for you to see how this one is totally wrong http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/453150-This-is-not-right watch the game and you tell me who is pulling who's socks. Yes past injury time. Was this not predictable you bloody bet it was, it just had to be the case for the AI.

[Mitja]

The big problem here is that strikers are useless at finishing easy chances (unless its from crosses) regardless of their attributes. It looks as if finishing and composure are totally irrelevant stats.

So you have to rely on the crossing spamming (which the AI does a lot in their formations) to compensate for these misses, making the match engine almost impossible to enjoy.

This sort of reminds me of another problem with the finishing, that PPMs are rarely used so players are equally inept at scoring. There is another option which is to dribble the GK, but this never happened in any FM, the max that can happen is that striker reaches a through ball and the GK also run to it, and then the striker goes through the GK (who doesn't jump or anything) and scores, i guess this is what FM considers dribbling.

Places shots? Who cares about it? Its only used maybe 15% of the time the striker tries to finish.

I agree about finoshing PPMs and it would be nice to see improvements here. But the problem with your point of view is that we would have hockey resaults again. Personally I dont think finishing rate is that bad.

Imo zhe one thing the new ME still hasn't adressed is that there are still too many chances being created. Too many things happen in attack. Wide players are too good at dribbling, too confident at trying them and too good at finding space for crosses no metter the quality and stage of the game (exsausted players still dribbling late on when passing should be first option). Couple that with poor defending especially wide areas and theres your FB bug and the reason why strikers might suffer from converting chances.

The ME is still unbalanced, defensive part being weaker than attacking. Thats why these things (crossing, finishing issues) happen. When defending is sorted then we can expect fine tuning and more diverse attacking play. But I think they are on right track and hopefully they will try to fine tune this ME instead of implementing a hole new one with new problems.

[Guest]

Sorry to break you dreams mate. But if you have been following the bugs thread you will see plenty of evidence that a lot of areas are bugged. I always upload my video files to SI as a fact and if you have been reading a lot of my uploads to them you will see they have accepted that there needs to be corrections. And just to top it off here is something special just for you to see how this one is totally wrong http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/453150-This-is-not-right watch the game and you tell me who is pulling who's socks. Yes past injury time. Was this not predictable you bloody bet it was, it just had to be the case for the AI.

There's no denying that there are issues with the ME, there always are.

What the recent exchange has shown is that player mental makeup is important & that potentially there could be too many instances of players mentally incapable of performing at the elite level being signed by elite level club.

As an experienced tester I know that in many cases issues in the ME are down to a combination of factors rather than one single piece of errant code & the signing of players who shouldn't be playing at the level they are in FM has the potential to exacerbate any issues, it certainly won't be helping.

[fmfan74]

There's no denying that there are issues with the ME, there always are.

What the recent exchange has shown is that player mental makeup is important & that potentially there could be too many instances of players mentally incapable of performing at the elite level being signed by elite level club.

As an experienced tester I know that in many cases issues in the ME are down to a combination of factors rather than one single piece of errant code & the signing of players who shouldn't be playing at the level they are in FM has the potential to exacerbate any issues, it certainly won't be helping.

Well yes your right in terms of buying players that are not good for elite teams but the word development means something as well. Did anyone expect Leicster City to be top of the table ? As reality shows they dont have elite players of the likes Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal etc. They play as a good focused unit. Given that some players don't have the finishing of messi it doesn't mean the team still can't win.

Also to elaborate further on ME section because i really hate it when people just use the "ME" against me without viewing my files and posts to SI. If you did test the game then why don't you have a look at my post regarding the collision detection by your own staff. Now read the post and watch the details carefully now you tell me if the "ME" is seriously an issue there. Because thats what I mean about the game having some issues that players are confronting and when they raise a post they are given the "ME" word. Seriously please.

I'm not saying you can't play the game because it's fully bugged, there are areas of the game that are seriously hampering players achievements. I"ve done this testing 2 years straight and this season i put in more effort to assist SI making this a gem of a game. The last patch was a dissapointment, but it doesn't mean you can't play the game. I look forward to better versions of the game.

[Svenc]

Tactics aren't the problem, the problem is the dudes up front. If the tactic didn't create the high number of chances and the crossing wasn't OP i would be in really deep trouble with these stooges upfront. The AI strikers being bad was also saved me.

There are always some justified tweaks made to to finishes, such as close range finishes. However there's also typically a lot of misconceptions going around:

- One one one from open play, the keeper is typically in the advantage to save.

- The best of forwards miss chances. Conversely the worst ones convert them when in space. The margins in between both of them aren't as comically huge either way

- Far easier to score where there is actually space, rather than a defender near

Given that you revealed in the other thread to be on zoomed in cam view and think that to be the most useful, you likely wouldn't pick up a lot of the stuff what is causing things. Such as:

AI teams when they are underdogs very readily pull off a Chelski 2012, I had one such case even as far as in a Euro semis, and Portugal doing it (to a degree). Such sides as long as it's still a draw in particular, outside of counter attacks and set-pieces barely pushing up anybody, which means when they drop the ball nobody will be dragged out of position, and EACH shot against them will be within a packed box, with defenders forcing the forwards to shoot:

How it naturally will be differently for attacking teams, as they push up in numbers, and when the ball is intercepted somebody has to leave his position in that area vacated should the ball carrier come that way, therefore: most of shots being in far less pressure, as people upon the interception must hurry to get back behind the ball:

You similarily wouldn't spot when your opponent switches formations outright, or starts with multiple forwards. PUsh too many players forward, and they will convert from nothing. http://www.pic-upload.de/view-29895033/Bildschirmfoto2016-03-01um07.23.55.png.html

I was arguing that issues caused, also understanding opponents, that's actually people being on "useless" cam views. I stand by that. Similarily it's never a case of opposition playing like "Barcelona", it's them having lots of defned duties such as in the first shot when the draw is on, and then overloading such as in the second screenshot when they desperately push for an equalizer. They're not going to hold much of the ball in your half with barely anybody pushing up, but then they are content with the draw. However anybody would be able to do so if they have lots of players pushed up into space.

The overall finishing isn't that off either way. If it would be improved overall, it wouldn't be like football I run tests almost every year. About 33% of shots on target are being converted, which fluctuates between 25% and ca. 45% for the top forward. https://notbottomline.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/who-is-europes-deadliest-finisher/ Go into squad screens, insert columns for "shots on target" and "goals. However, if you watch match play from those cam views as suggested, you will find that even on the poorest of poor levels, teams will have the basics of zonal marking and visibly keeping their shape covered. Therefore in particular against those rigidly defensive sides, there will ALWAYS be a defender near, and even if somebody is out of position, he'll quickly try to get back. If you do want to test thus how things look if people really always are into tons of space, you would have to apply creative formations. Unsurprisingly, there's quite a difference there, though I agree individually there are some stupid decisions made, totally.

[fmfan74]

What i would like to know is, how much does intelligence affect a player making decisions in this game. Is it a very important stat to look at, does it reflect big time in game ? does it affect the teams shape ? If this is a major stat in a player not to be ignored then yes we would also need to focus on that in relation to team shape. Then again what other attributes affect player finishing or performance. There are so many factors but I'm sure Leicester city is showing a perfect e.g. of players with lower ratings stat achieving big time success.

Is this due to players being intelligent ? could it mean teamwork stat plays a big role as well in keeping team shape and manager instructions. I only wish that SI gave players more flexibility commanding your players. When i say "stay back" i mean Stay all times back.

[Guest]

Mental (visible & hidden) attributes play a significant part in how players perform over the course of a season, that is true irl & in FM.

As has been shown in this thread a forward with very high ability & a good distribution of attributes is not consistently performing to his ability due to a few middle of the road mental attributes & one very bad one. Put that same player in a a mid-table Italian side & he could perform brilliantly as his mental weakness will have less of an impact.

As for players following your tactical instructions you do have to consider if the player is mentally capable of following those instructions & if that instruction fits in with your wider strategic approach, asking a wing-back with a gets forward PPM to stay back is probably going to be difficult to implement as their innate tendency will be counter to what you want, more so if you have a fluid/very fluid team mentality. This is a consequence of SI rightly removing the slider tactical interface.

[Svenc]

Defend duty players will never leave position though unless they have a trait (player prefered move). Additionally from my experience the high creative freedom in fluid setups has never affected forward movement, i.e. the inherent license attached to it (defend duty players by default across the shopt have HOLD position enabled, which they will do either way.) Everbody will develop different viable strategies, but sometimes I used that as the base of a super low risk strategy like late when just seeing out the remaining minutes of a slender lead. Applied just for fun from start to finish if you're a big team against which nobody pushes up numbers as long as it's still a draw, matches tended to turn into completely boring stalwarts, naturally. Had a sequence of 10 matches, like 6 of them then being 0-0 draws.

[if you take a look at the right wing, you'll note Müllers gets forward PPM in action, as he still tends to make forward surges rather than sit in the position as outlined on the tactics pitch -- research should be far more carefully with these in particular for wide backs, though no doubt there's players that indeed are quite tactically indisciplined and deserve them. Up until FM 2012/2013 even holding/defend duty players at the CM position where affecting however that ppm clearly doesn't affect them anymore, same as centre backs who always stay in their position]

However players naturally move out of position OFF THE BALL too if they are forced to do so, i.e closing down the ball carrier as they'Re the naturally option to do so and he's near. I.e. the oft complaints of "why does my centre back close down and open the passing channels". Tends to happen if there's nobody sitting in front of them which might be because the player in front of them is either pulled somewhere else himself or if there isn't actually somebody sitting in front of them. I think that's common sense defending too, if a ball carrier in particular deep in your half isn't attacked, he can do as he please.

Aside of this immediately forcing cbs one on one against an even number of forwards, that's the other reason multiple forward setups are immediately dangerous depending on how many players you push up on att/supp duties. Attack is intercepted, cleared to the forward, cb closes down, game over. As for closing down, mental attributes rub off on the willingness of somebody to actually close down too. Did data experiments, but then arguably that's how it should be. Implementing a pressing game should never be a button, it should be players suited to that, i.e. for all his qualities, you should prefer Kuyt over Özil here anytime.

[Mitja]

As for closing down, mental attributes rub off on the willingness of somebody to actually close down too. Did data experiments, but then arguably that's how it should be. Implementing a pressing game should never be a button, it should be players suited to that, i.e. for all his qualities, you should prefer Kuyt over Özil here anytime.

Thats true but only to a degree. Imo almost all proffesional players should be able to press half decently. Its their job its why they get milions paid. Its not rocket science players learn it during their hole career. I dont see a reason why a Ozil couldnt press if any FB can look like Ronaldo when dribbling. Things are not balanced.

[Guest]

Thats true but only to a degree. Imo almost all proffesional players should be able to press half decently. Its their job its why they get milions paid. Its not rocket science players learn it during their hole career. I dont see a reason why a Ozil couldnt press if any FB can look like Ronaldo when dribbling. Things are not balanced.

Ideally all players should be hard working at all times, reality proves that such an ideal scenario very rarely exists, even at the highest level of the game.

[Svenc]

Ideally all players should be hard working at all times, reality proves that such an ideal scenario very rarely exists, even at the highest level of the game.

I.e. Galacticos Real Madrid, where even to the staff it was apparent that the collectively likes of Zidane, Figo et all where of somewhat limited use when without possession. The full backs being effective even on lowly attributes is not intentional it's something currently inherent to the ME, like them being too easily into space in parts because of wide defenders sitting narrow which means they help to contain things centrally at the expense of space out wide, but also because of them not being picked up properly when they push up. On my last FM 2015 save from a narrow formation an attacking wing back was my best assist giver already, so the root cause likely goes back some already. I think SI have already announced they intend to work on this long-term, but it's no easy fix so didn't touch this for the last patch FM 2016. It's not intentional either way.

[Mitja]

Ideally all players should be hard working at all times, reality proves that such an ideal scenario very rarely exists, even at the highest level of the game.

Yes we all agree with that. Imo its the defensive issues within the ME that are causing problems mentioned in this thread and others. FB/crossing bug is defensive issue more than anything which could be improved a lot simply by making wingers more awere of their defensive responsibilities and making them better at marking or tackling or decreasing wide players confidence when trying to dribble. I highly doubt that Barca is the most hard working team on earth, assuming they are the best pressing team now.

[Svenc]

I agree about finoshing PPMs and it would be nice to see improvements here. But the problem with your point of view is that we would have hockey resaults again. Personally I dont think finishing rate is that bad.

As an addendum of sorts, the hockey results outside of flukes that should happen of previous releases too were exactly the cause of players being into actually visibly space, rather than finishing being somehow hugely tweaked somewhere in between.

There were:

- outright bugs such as the positioning split in between centre backs opening centrally passing lanes for through balls for additionally goals. Same goes for any marking/closing down bug that stil remains, and I would expect there are a couple. Though not every time a player is into space is an outright bug, I mean how would you have reacted to this? Keepers looking stupid, players being completely unmarked, defenders being passers by, first touches failing for top level millionaires, crosses from deep not being reacted to, final shot count 7-11, final scoreline something else entirelly?

- weird tactical AI decision making influencing results, such as a side comfortably leading at half time suddenly in the second half switching to a hugely attacking set-up all the same, coupled with the other AI equally trying to get back into the game this would cause end to end action totally throughout, with the most likely outcome 4-4 results and similar. Similary linked to two-legged cup ties, when the first tie was won and the AI in the return leg totally digged itself in, allowing the op to have an easy comeback (not necessarily resulting in huge scorelines, mind)

- tactical overhauls which allowed there to be space all over the pitch, I don't know the combination but ca. FM 2013 up until a certain patch if you went with a top heavy formation such as 4-2-3-1 wide, all the advanced players would be very reluctant to track back, breaking the team in two when defending, which caused space for the opposition to just fire straight away all over (this one had a couple of shoots on sight ppms in the mix):

- combinations of the above, such as on FM 2015, where initially attack duty for advanced players meant they DID NOT TRACK BACK AT ALL. In a couple leagues you had several sides averaging up to 7 goals for against as a result and similarily human players who complained they just could not defend a lead and conceded like from every attempt. Naturally if things were intercepted regardless, it was an immediate counter attack and a goal fest always rather likely. Wonder why?

So whenever you see somebody encouraging to not take a look at what's happening by arguing that everything would be a "representation/approximiziation", which is oftenly posted or suggested, ignore him. He doesn't know what he's talking about. The

meant to give a better illusion of there being actually football players pulling things off (rather than 2d dots) may be limited compared to Fifa's, there may be glitches and bugs. The play is genuine, second by second.

[Mitja]

Thanks Svenc for the post. This post also shows the big improvement in defense in 16 ME. Like Difference in AML/R S/A positioning when tracking back exellant for me. How a wingerAtt becomes 2nd striker and on suport almost can defend like MC. We need more things like that. Defensive line works great its just I dont understand how they could not fix the FB/wide play/problems issue. Now the expectation is huge for next ME.

[fmfan74]

Mental (visible & hidden) attributes play a significant part in how players perform over the course of a season, that is true irl & in FM.

As has been shown in this thread a forward with very high ability & a good distribution of attributes is not consistently performing to his ability due to a few middle of the road mental attributes & one very bad one. Put that same player in a a mid-table Italian side & he could perform brilliantly as his mental weakness will have less of an impact.

As for players following your tactical instructions you do have to consider if the player is mentally capable of following those instructions & if that instruction fits in with your wider strategic approach, asking a wing-back with a gets forward PPM to stay back is probably going to be difficult to implement as their innate tendency will be counter to what you want, more so if you have a fluid/very fluid team mentality. This is a consequence of SI rightly removing the slider tactical interface.

Awesome info Barside, explains a lot. I never looked heavily into the ppm sync with manager. Though if a player has PPM to always go forward and I as manager don't want him to do that often what would I need to do to change that ?. Would I need to change his ppm ? last thing i want to do is sell a player because of one small thing.

[Svenc]

Awesome info Barside, explains a lot. I never looked heavily into the ppm sync with manager. Though if a player has PPM to always go forward and I as manager don't want him to do that often what would I need to do to change that ?. Would I need to change his ppm ? last thing i want to do is sell a player because of one small thing.

Yeah, changing ppms or selling him. That's a challenge a real manager faces himself too though, so I think it's awesome it's in the game. Do I adapt my system to suit a player or get rid of his if he can't let go? Furthermore, this player looks amazing, but does he at all suit my system due to him always going wide? Typically an older player is rather reluctant to let go off his traits. I.e. bit tough to make Robben let go of his "cutting inside", the thing that has earned him the tag "one-trick pony" all his career, everybody knows what he does, but still can't stop it either. I'm not convinced about the fairly widespread handed out "runs forward" ppms etc. though either. To me this is the definition of being tactically ill-disciplined, and naturally any kind of forward movement has the most severe effect on match play. That's space left behind for which somebody else has to cover after all. Some players may have called to have one of these, but if you take a look around, it's really fairly common. The German reserach seem to be luckily more sensitive in this. But looking at the EPL for instance, every wide defender of Arsenal has one such, and they're not alone. It's madness, imo.

Thanks Svenc for the post. This post also shows the big improvement in defense in 16 ME. Like Difference in AML/R S/A positioning when tracking back exellant for me. How a wingerAtt becomes 2nd striker and on suport almost can defend like MC. We need more things like that. Defensive line works great its just I dont understand how they could not fix the FB/wide play/problems issue. Now the expectation is huge for next ME.

Always looking forward to improved defending myself. As posted by THOG in the tactics forum, 2016 also saw an overhaul/improvement if you opt to defend deep. From 2012 onwards, attacking play and positioning was improved this much, by 2015 it was slightly hardish to at all get out of your half if you sat deep and intercepted when you won the ball back, and 2016 tries to rectify this some. Naturally on FM 2012 it was fairly easy, too easy, too though. You simply clicked defend/drop deeper/stand off'ish and that way you would have forced attacking teams to just blast it from range all match (slightly exaggerating), even opponents from a league tier above you, probably coupled by the fact that even at their most attacking, AI teams didn't push overly many men up (which was in parts exploited by everybody's favourite exploit tactics of having like 7 players on defend duty/runs from deep never/hold position who would never at all venture forward and thus being out of position).

[ac13]

The big problem here is that strikers are useless at finishing easy chances (unless its from crosses) regardless of their attributes. It looks as if finishing and composure are totally irrelevant stats.

So you have to rely on the crossing spamming (which the AI does a lot in their formations) to compensate for these misses, making the match engine almost impossible to enjoy.

This sort of reminds me of another problem with the finishing, that PPMs are rarely used so players are equally inept at scoring. There is another option which is to dribble the GK, but this never happened in any FM, the max that can happen is that striker reaches a through ball and the GK also run to it, and then the striker goes through the GK (who doesn't jump or anything) and scores, i guess this is what FM considers dribbling.

Places shots? Who cares about it? Its only used maybe 15% of the time the striker tries to finish.

In a previous version of FM I put all Chelsea's attacking players finishing to 1 and all their defensive players jumping to 1 (it was the version where attacking players never scored from a header if there was defender anywhere near them) to see if those attributes were as unimportant as I suspected. They finished 2nd in the league.

I wouldn't be surprised if the same was the case now. With all the first time shots from crosses etc. I suspect if you dropped the attacking players technique to 1 it would make a huge difference though.

[Svenc]

I found finishing, composure etc. aren't as impactful across the shop. If players are into space and are given quality assists, they're regularly scorers. Does not necessarily mean they'll have the best conversion stats, but they will be regularly finishers. Is that realistic? Don't know. It's the ME staff who tweaks how heavily attributes are weighted into things, naturally even at "1" that doesn't mean failure every time, else lower league management would be rotten. Taken from THOG too there were changes as of FM 2016 too:

Now, you will have a much easier time punishing teams that recklessly throw numbers forward, and you'll also find that implementing different styles requires giving greater attention to player skill sets. On the counter, pace kills, though one-dimensional pace merchants are now more prone to poor touches and errant passes if you try to play it out of the back with a less technical side.

Not sure what version that was with the headers, but what certainly didn't cause them to do well was the centre backs then winning their majority of headers thus, but something else, like the forwards not at all engaging into them. Never seen a version where such players would be able to cope when header challenges were on, success rates of at best 50% would be the norm typically, which is a totally liabilty and very bad at CB, considering that they have the play in front of them typically and are given an advantage (which is the reason why forwards even with great stats have lesser header completion ratios in the game too). Would be more of an issue or rub off on things if Chelsea were a team dropping off and defending deep, but naturally Chelsea being a favourite like in 9 out of 10 of their matches, not gonna happening. In the end it's the same as with the moderately well equipped full backs getting good ratings / doing well depending on your and the opposition set-up. Depending on which they're simply in tons of space and allowed to do well, rather than being inherently great. In-game in Serie A where most teams play narrow formations, this naturally shows the most. Therefore applying things logically / learning to apply football logics will always apply. Re: crosses, is there anybody actually overperforming? The most severe I've seen is somebody who actually really had like 80% of his goals come from crosses, but even though he said "exploit", accordingly to the screens he posted he seemed to score no more than 1.9 goals a match give or take. As a human player you can artificially force virtually all play down the flanks (by making nobody advance from the centre, i.e. defend duties) , which tends to involve additionally crosses.

Even if you aim to target supposedly weaknesses, you are prone to identify symptoms rather than causes, and come a next iteration, it would all fall apart. Sometimes it's not even ME weakness, but the way AI applies tactics, or a weakness thereof. I would imagine if it was able to spot for instance if everybody and their mom is being pushed forward, rather than switch to multiple central forwards when it picks its "attacking formation" and has that edited as such, tactics like these would face a bit more of a problem too. THis one has an additional problem in that there is no back pass on, which also rubs off on finishing. If there's no back pass on, check the screenshot at the bottom showing how players position themselves, it means it's always forward forward shoot, which is just common sense -- if nobody stays in position how could there be a pass made back. However the effectively overloading of defenses for the most part seems to make up for this. Whilst dribbling was rather effective on FM 2015, and players such as Hazard really really tough to contain, good luck trying the same with Crouchie, against sides that visibly keep like half their team behind the ball and that totally isolated forward forced to engage against all of them no less. Not sure I'd try the same on FM 2016, but for fun why not go for it to check. If you watch it's you'll see it's not even a "tactics". It's keeping men behind the ball, hoofing it to Messi and wishing him well.