Why I decided to go back to FM11.

[penza]

5 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

Good to see you've made your decision after having played the game and formed your own opinion

The wingers staying too wide is most certainly partly down to peoples opinions and as you should expect people have different opinions as to where players should be positioned. 

SI will never create a ME that everyone agrees with because people have different opinions.

opinions are formed with facts, not invented only some people choose to ignore them some don't, the wingers staying wide is fixed with PPM's but it shouldn't occur at the first place

[Los_Culés]

 

7 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

Good to see you've made your decision after having played the game and formed your own opinion

The wingers staying too wide is most certainly partly down to peoples opinions and as you should expect people have different opinions as to where players should be positioned. 

SI will never create a ME that everyone agrees with because people have different opinions.

Which professional team IRL defends with wide mids (4-4-2) positioned like that? Certainly any of the top teams.

[Cougar2010]

1 minute ago, penza said:

opinions are formed with facts, not invented only some people choose to ignore them some don't, the wingers staying wide is fixed with PPM's but it shouldn't occur at the first place

Opinions are just that opinions and where you think a player should stand is probably not where another person feels a player should stand.

In FM terms on top of what the user thinks you also have a player on the pitch who also has his own personality & ability and interprets the TIs, PIs & OIs slightly differently.

I know you struggle to understand people who have a different opinion to yourself so I'll just leave it at that and I won't be arguing with you.

[penza]

1 minute ago, Cougar2010 said:

Opinions are just that opinions and where you think a player should stand is probably not where another person feels a player should stand.

In FM terms on top of what the user thinks you also have a player on the pitch who also has his own personality & ability and interprets the TIs, PIs & OIs slightly differently.

I know you struggle to understand people who have a different opinion to yourself so I'll just leave it at that and I won't be arguing with you.

i was talking about the crossing bug and overpowered full backs, thats not an opinion, on where a player 'should be' yes of course you are correct.

[Cougar2010]

3 minutes ago, Los_Culés said:

 

Which professional team IRL defends with wide mids (4-4-2) positioned like that? Certainly no top flight teams.

Examples?

There were a few posted in the thread where it was discussed that I saw before it was moved to the bugs forum but the problem with many of them were that they lacked context.

They were simply a snapshot of a moment in time and didn't show the movement of the player in the seconds before or after the pic was taken.  Opinions were also formed without considering all the inputs that went into the player being in that position.

In my opinion it is nowhere near as bad as some users have made out, can it be improved? probably but users also need to look at the bigger picture and understand why a player is in a position they don't like and then consider what they can do as users to improve that just like a manager does IRL.

[Cougar2010]

2 minutes ago, penza said:

i was talking about the crossing bug and overpowered full backs, thats not an opinion, on where a player 'should be' yes of course you are correct.

and yet my post that you quoted never mentioned that.

You should also be aware that while SI considered there to be an issue it was also worse in some leagues compared to others and made worse by some user tactics.

[Los_Culés]

13 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

but users also need to look at the bigger picture and understand why a player is in a position they don't like and then consider what they can do as users to improve that just like a manager does IRL.

Well, I understand why a player is in a position I do not like. It is because SI does not devote enough time to one of the most basic/elementary thing of football simulation which is players positioning. In FM16 fullbacks positioning was horrible, now wingers. The result is a football simulation where even a basic concept of two compact banks of four can not be emulated.

[Cougar2010]

5 minutes ago, Los_Culés said:

Well, I understand why a player is in a position I do not like. It is because SI does not devote enough time to one of the most basic/elementary thing of football simulation which is players positioning. In FM16 fullbacks positioning was horrible, now wingers. The result is a football simulation where even a basic concept of two compact banks of four can not be emulated.

So you would rather blame SI rather than considering the hundreds of tactical instructions you are inputting into the ME?  You have to take responsibility for the choices you make.

I can show you pics of my matches that have that basic concept of two compact banks of four, in fact here is one from the original thread, notice how narrow my ML & MR are.

 

[Los_Culés]

9 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

So you would rather blame SI rather than considering the hundreds of tactical instructions you are inputting into the ME?  You have to take responsibility for the choices you make.

I can show you pics of my matches that have that basic concept of two compact banks of four, in fact here is one from the original thread, notice how narrow my ML & MR are.

 

I take no responsibility of players unrealistic positioning created by SI. Even SI acknowledged that something is wrong. Bad thing they do not care to fix in the current release, same as with FM16.

That screenshot proves nothing. There are different defensive phases/zones (depending on where the ball is) and in some of them the wingers positioning is atrocious (see the bugs forum).

[Svenc]

12 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

Examples?

There were a few posted in the thread where it was discussed that I saw before it was moved to the bugs forum but the problem with many of them were that they lacked context.

They were simply a snapshot of a moment in time and didn't show the movement of the player in the seconds before or after the pic was taken.  Opinions were also formed without considering all the inputs that went into the player being in that position.

In my opinion it is nowhere near as bad as some users have made out, can it be improved? probably but users also need to look at the bigger picture and understand why a player is in a position they don't like and then consider what they can do as users to improve that just like a manager does IRL.

 

 

I rarely engage in personal discussions, and usually I'm flagged as "apologist" and "fanboy" often myself, but as a swift reminder: One of those framing a specific moment out of context was you. You are doing so again. The shots you posted had only shown the beginning of a build-up, where the ball had barely moved past the half way line. It thus never showed what would happen when the ball further moves into the half, nor anything in motion, the forwards go AWOL sitting at the half way line, the centre midfielders are outnumbered and the wide guys sit wide. I was PM'ed actually because of this, as it caused others to be frustrated who noted the very same things as it that's what happens currently. Others provided videos showing what a simple pick in formation means in terms of match dynamics on FM due to the combination of forwards lack of tracking plus the wide midfielders. There's more to those than these, even 3 man central midfields can be additionally outplayed as some formation swamp that area. I recently tried a download causing frustration (bad shots) to check what caused the shots and by accident such happened right in the first pre-season friendly, where lower league opposition again were all over that download simply by having a 5 vs 3 man advantage in the centre, which as of FM 2017 is a reality almost all throughout. As that central overload also causes centre backs to be all over the shop, that was also how the equalizer was scored.

Mind, I generally agree with the notion you should play the demo to check out yourself, rather than going with the opinion of others. Strongly so. Whether these are issues and how stronglyis up to you. But I take issues with this, as it you who post random snapshots again. You know fully well that this positioning is not the norm, the natural defensive position of WM/LMs is out wide as of FM 2017. These are some of the most curious dynamics I've ever seen simply caused by the picks in formation of both sides as it is the central spaces affected, not anything out wide as previous -- no matter if positioning is realistic or not, it's impacting ME matches in strongly ways. That said, going back to FM 2011? Never. Too easy and to weak AI plus matches don't last the 90 minutes and scouting is fairly basic. :-P The injuries overall could be actually more realistic in older relases though. Whilst I don't think that SI have toned them down much, this barely at all compares to real football anymore, no matter how many seasons you kick off, with half a league all the time suffering anything from 0-1 to 2-3 injuries at best at any point of the season.

[themadsheep2001]

5 minutes ago, Los_Culés said:

I take no responsibility of players unrealistic positioning created by SI. Even SI acknowledged that something is wrong. Bad thing they do not care to fix in the current release, same as with FM16.

That screenshot proves nothing. There are different defensive phases/zones (depending on where the ball is) and in some of them the wingers positioning is atrocious (see the bugs forum).

I'd be interested to see where that was written. People tend to say it's been acknowledged when it's actually not been.

[Cougar2010]

5 minutes ago, Svenc said:

I rarely engage in personal discussions, and usually I'm flagged as "apologist" and "fanboy" often myself, but as a swift reminder: One of those framing a specific moment out of context was you. You are doing so again.

Totally agree, as I said pics can only show a snapshot in time and lack context.

What I showed was to give balance to the other side of the discussion.

 

5 minutes ago, Svenc said:

The shots you posted had only shown the beginning of a build-up, where the ball had barely moved past the half way line. It thus never showed what would happen when the ball further moves into the half, nor anything in motion, the forwards go AWOL sitting at the half way line, the centre midfielders are outnumbered and the wide guys sit wide.

I've obviously played on and tweaked my tactics since that discussion.

Things like closing down, mentality settings and the individual player instructions all play a role in what happens.  I can actually see what each instruction does on the pitch for my team and trigger points where certain movements occur.

I'm fairly happy overall with the way my team defends, yes I've adjusted some team instructions to allow my team to defend in a way I'm happy with but the way I see it this is similar to how a manager would IRL.  I've used the tools available to me to get the players doing what I want on the pitch which is the whole point of the game.

Is it perfect? of course not but there will always be an element of opinion as I said above.  Where one person expects a player to be won't be where another user expects a player to be.  The problem is a lot of users aren't using the tools to help them achieve what they want, they are simply blaming SI who are on a hiding to nothing.  They have to try to find the middle ground that suits the majority of users.

 

 

[Svenc]

18 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

 

I'm fairly happy overall with the way my team defends, yes I've adjusted some team instructions to allow my team to defend in a way I'm happy with but the way I see it this is similar to how a manager would IRL.  I've used the tools available to me to get the players doing what I want on the pitch which is the whole point of the game.

 

The Wide Mids defending are hard coded though. The bulk of what was talked about in that thread, it's hard coded. There is nothing you can do much here, except trying to fiddle with the forwards a bit, so that they would be slightly more likely to put a foot in and put central players under pressure when the CMs are outnumbered (it is the combination of both that leads to those dynamics in the matches where a simply central midfield advantage allows worse sides to be over better ones -- several guys in central spaces unmarked and unchallenged for bulks of play -- it is from central positions where the pitch is controlled, and passes can be played into all directions). Probably the AI managers would need an awareness anyway for anything such as that, which they have not and likely will never have. For anybody downloading such "statistically dominating tactics" likewise (of which there are many), he would be completely clueless and felt it to be wholly random when he comes against such a (worse) opponent and not only sees his statistically "advantage" fading, but the opponent getting some opportunity off themselves.

Wholly agree with the questioning of the feedback regarding the crossing, though. Actually the wide mids new default defensive position is part of the measure that obviously was made to ensure that forward surging wide players would be picked up asap, rather than arriving in space (as in previous iterations). A simple switch of the flank on FM 2016, and the attacking full back running forward would find himself in masses of spaces where he could pick his nose before picking out a player to cross to. Obviously can't happen anymore when wide mids sit out wide when defending to anticipate such. So making it out as if "crossing" wasn't adressed at all only somebody could say who hasn't tried the thing -- and goes with the aforementioned opinion of others.

So I'll chime in: Try the demo. The worst you could do was going with Steam/Metacritic/Amazon reviews, no matter if positive or negative, either way. In particular if you're long-term, as they in 9.9/10 cases don't reflect on the game, but on the player's ability to get to grips with it.

[Cougar2010]

14 minutes ago, Svenc said:

The Wide Mids defending are hard coded though. The bulk of what was talked about in that thread, it's hard coded. There is nothing you can do much here, except trying to fiddle with the forwards a bit, so that they would be slightly more likely to put a foot in and put central players under pressure when the CMs are outnumbered (it is the combination of both that leads to those dynamics in the matches where a simply central midfield advantage allows worse sides to be over better ones -- several guys in central spaces unmarked and unchallenged for bulks of play -- it is from central positions where the pitch is controlled, and passes can be played into all directions). Probably the AI managers would need an awareness anyway for anything such as that, which they have not and likely will never have. For anybody downloading such "statistically dominating tactics" likewise (of which there are many), he would be completely clueless and felt it to be wholly random when he comes against such a (worse) opponent and not only sees his statistically "advantage" fading, but the opponent getting some opportunity off themselves.
 

Playing devils advocate if you are outnumbered in the middle of the park that is a tactical choice you have made via the formation you have chosen.  There is also the knockon effect that if you have chosen to be at a disadvantage in the middle then you have an advantage elsewhere on the pitch.  Again this goes back to using the tools you have available, if you don't want to be outnumbered in the middle then the user needs to select a different formation and not be pig headed about it.

For me there are times & matches where I do choose to be outnumbered where I know the opposition DM is going to be free to receive possession before the match kicks off.  I do that knowing that on the flipside in my final third I'll have an extra DC or a DM of my own.  Leaving players in those types of positions/areas on a pitch is a tactical choice you make as a manager and something you see IRL.

To clarify though I wouldn't have an issue with wide players being "hard coded" to sit a little narrower by default, I'll deal with it the same way whatever happens via the options available to me.

[Svenc]

8 hours ago, Cougar2010 said:

Playing devils advocate if you are outnumbered in the middle of the park that is a tactical choice you have made via the formation you have chosen.  There is also the knockon effect that if you have chosen to be at a disadvantage in the middle then you have an advantage elsewhere on the pitch.  Again this goes back to using the tools you have available, if you don't want to be outnumbered in the middle then the user needs to select a different formation and not be pig headed about it.

1) I would have agreed on that on prior iterations, where I may have made some adjustments when facing an AI 4-2-3-1 narrow before for sure depending on which, as that totally floods the centre of the park and may have players playing getting between the lines for sure. However forwards barely tracking + WMs additionally wide: Central midfielders are wholly isolated which doesn't happen like that in a match of football. Those are isolated training matches of x vs x players in the central of the park, which can last as long as the nights are long, in particular if none of the forwards opts to join in and spoil (if he does, that works wonders)

2) AI have ZERO awareness of this. It isn't a deliberate choice for them, they simply go with what's edited into the db and pick their formations from there. Hence whoever has that advantage here, has that advantage of players often barely pushed or marked in centrally positions, no matter how inferior/superior the actually players

3) In combination that can mean significantly worse sides outplaying better ones simply by the pick of formation. And if you don't want to yourself, AI sides barely able to win back the ball on occasion.

4) A simply pick of formation has an influence it shouldn't have (debatable). It certainly has far more so than on previous editions, and can lead to a lot of struggling and bewilderment of your average FM player too who isn't that geared on spotting such details, but may wonder why their Championship side struggles to contain lesser opposition on random occurances, simply by both side's pick in formation likewise

Above the "realism" argument, this was a deliberate choice after all to make for more robust defending down the flanks, in combination with the on-going forward behavior that's been in there ever since at least FM 2015 final patch*, the latter points is what affects the game either way, not only in own matches, but all the other ones as well. That said I didn't want to derail this into another FM 2017 defending thread. It's just that this sports curious dynamics overall. But SI are likely aware of it anyways, in particular the ME folks surrounding Paul. FM 2015 changed significantly from its first iterations to the final one, but in general this seems part of a long-term commitment so I would personally always chose the "I have faith" team talks. I wouln't class it as a game breaker, but the dynamic shifts this can cause all by itself are pretty big ones.
 

* initially, as of FM 2015, giving forwards a support duty actually saw them tracking back real deep on every opponent's attack --- in fact deeper than an attacking midfielder could sit. But likewise, AI had been given zero awareness of such, and such AI matches too were all over the place. And on FM 2013 one of multiple forwards would pretty much always track, which was similarily "hard-coded" in.

[fmfan74]

I don't know what to tell you.  Second season in with a greek team avg. 22 years of age I managed to beat Sevilla in a two leg tie with over 60% ball possession.   Speaking with a lot of people in tactics section of forums helps big time. 

[Cougar2010]

5 hours ago, Svenc said:

1) I would have agreed on that on prior iterations, where I may have made some adjustments when facing an AI 4-2-3-1 narrow before for sure depending on which, as that totally floods the centre of the park and may have players playing getting between the lines for sure. However forwards barely tracking + WMs additionally wide: Central midfielders are wholly isolated which doesn't happen like that in a match of football. Those are isolated training matches of x vs x players in the central of the park, which can last as long as the nights are long, in particular if none of the forwards opts to join in and spoil (if he does, that works wonders)

We are digressing and I don't really have the time/energy for an indepth discussion so will keep my answers short.

Personally I don't see much difference with how a team defends when they are outnumbered in the middle between any of the recent FM versions.  If you are outnumbered in the middle, you are outnumbered and you deal with it. 

One thing you never seem to mention Sven which I would expect you being aware of is how different players play the same role.  For example up front I currently have three main options - 2*big, athletic target man types who are natural STs and nothing else and a natural AMC/ST who is a smaller, quicker creator.  Now its too easy to say its just the position, its almost certainly his attributes (Because they are suited to AMC) but in the same formation, same role and identical situation the natural AMC/ST tracks back earlier & more often than either of the other two players.  On a similar theme ML/AMLs tend to do the same as compared to AML/STs while DM/MCs as compared to MC/AMCs will also.  This also works on the horizontal where players with some central positional sense (eg MLCs) will sit slightly narrower and come infield more than a player who only plays say ML.

Its been like this for a number of years when other ME issues were a thing such as AMLs/AMRs not tracking back a few years ago.  I pointed out at the time that ML/AMLs tracked back better than AML/STs but many users weren't interested because they had the blinkers on.

 

5 hours ago, Svenc said:

2) AI have ZERO awareness of this. It isn't a deliberate choice for them, they simply go with what's edited into the db and pick their formations from there. Hence whoever has that advantage here, has that advantage of players often barely pushed or marked in centrally positions, no matter how inferior/superior the actually players

But the AI teams have never had that awareness but suddenly its an issue, why wasn't it an issue 5 years ago? 10 years? 15 years?

Thats not to say it isn't an area that can be improved, we would all love to see a reactive AI that has a full range of options available to it and can make decisions that are less rigid.  I suspect though we are still a long way from that happening and in the meantime we have to accept that there will be limitations.

When SI or someone else finally reaches that point they'll have another issue to deal with which is that while making the AI smarter they will also need to make sure that the average user can still have some success and not get battered into the ground every match.

 

5 hours ago, Svenc said:

3) In combination that can mean significantly worse sides outplaying better ones simply by the pick of formation. And if you don't want to yourself, AI sides barely able to win back the ball on occasion.

As above its a limitation I suspect we'll have to live with a while longer.

 

5 hours ago, Svenc said:

4) A simply pick of formation has an influence it shouldn't have (debatable). It certainly has far more so than on previous editions, and can lead to a lot of struggling and bewilderment of your average FM player too who isn't that geared on spotting such details, but may wonder why their Championship side struggles to contain lesser opposition on random occurances, simply by both side's pick in formation likewise

I disagree and I've also argued that the media IRL don't help with the formations they show on screen during RL matches.

The formation is the starting point & the foundation of your tactic.  On top of that its your defensive shape and sets the tone of how your team play without the ball.

 

5 hours ago, Svenc said:

Above the "realism" argument, this was a deliberate choice after all to make for more robust defending down the flanks, in combination with the on-going forward behavior that's been in there ever since at least FM 2015 final patch*

More than likely, it does seem a little crowbarred from a users' perspective.

In more general terms the behaviour of the players on the pitch also seems set in a "grid" format and if you watch carefully you can see where that behaviour changes as the ball moves into another "grid".  As long as that grid exists you'll always have some sort of odd behaviour/rigid movement.

How do you get rid of that? maybe make the grids smaller which should give smoother overall movement/decisions which seem more realistic to the user?  I don't know but as a user I'm not that bothered as its not my problem, I can leave SI to worry about that and just carry on enjoying the game which is what I paid for.

[Svenc]

2 hours ago, Cougar2010 said:

But the AI teams have never had that awareness but suddenly its an issue, why wasn't it an issue 5 years ago? 10 years? 15 years?
 

Actually it was. On FM 2015 1.00 it was actually worse. Duties were directly tied to tracking back behavior for positions AML/AMR/AMC/FWD -- zero to do with the players, all with the duty assigned. If you had given a player an attack duty there, he would park at the half way line, literally. Vice versa a support duty forward tracked back as far as the own area on each opposition attack, something that's never happened since. Similar to that there's little to any correlation now between a central forward's attributes and his willingness to put a foot in. That's just coded that way, for the most part. As you can imagine, play, and inevitably results, were not pretty there in particular, all depending on the formations picked, and the duty mixes therein. They couldn't be. Not at all completely different to FM 2017's isolated central midfields, AI wasn't given the curious note, and for some players this caused rage-quits likewise. But yeah, let's leave it here.

 

[suncrush]

My word.  All these toys. And the pram!  It's empty!

[Los_Culés]

17 hours ago, themadsheep2001 said:

I'd be interested to see where that was written. People tend to say it's been acknowledged when it's actually not been.

"Winger too wide" thread in the bugs forum.

N. McFadden: " This is an area of the game that we need to improve for future editions of the game and something that we have not addressed for this patch that we have just released.". 

Seems like an acknowledgment for me. If not, then even worse, because the current positioning has very little to do with real life tactics.

17 hours ago, Cougar2010 said:

 Where one person expects a player to be won't be where another user expects a player to be.  The problem is a lot of users aren't using the tools to help them achieve what they want, they are simply blaming SI who are on a hiding to nothing.  They have to try to find the middle ground that suits the majority of users.

 

 

There should not be even debate about this. If FM pretends to be a football simulation then the players positioning should firstly reflect real life (and no top team playing fairly basic 4-4-2 would position wide players by default like that, moreover it is not only about wide players, the defensive positioning of strikers asked to track back is generally horrible too).  If the users want their players to be positioned differently then the users should be given tools to do that (eg. WIBBLE/WOBBLE or SOMETHING else!) and I am strongly advocating for such tools. However fear of exploits from SI side seems to be too big.

 

17 hours ago, Svenc said:

 

That said, going back to FM 2011? Never. Too easy and to weak AI ...

I play FM11 in good spirits, My aim is to emulate real life concepts. For people who look to exploit without any background philospohy or use certain tactics just because they work but have little to do with real life it can be easy, that's true.

[Sunstrikuuu]

On 12/15/2016 at 12:58, Los_Culés said:

"However fear of exploits from SI side seems to be too big.

It's not just SI, in fairness.  This is a thread that has been running through a lot of game design in the last few years.  

[qwerty22]

Without wibble/wobble and on Fm 2017 version 17.2, I have just made a 2nd division team in an asian league dominate every game with a possession figure of above %70 percent every game. And the players passing the ball between them 20 or 30 times against any opposition!

My tactic is a simple 4-4-1-1 nothing fancy, this is a very weak match engine and it's obvious that depth and realism isn't a     priority as long as it looks like a football game. I have drawn 6 games in a row 0-0 and in every match I get a minimumu of 5 freekicks at the edge of the box which are shot over the bar!

This is the reality that some users on here are scrambling to deny. Just like the crossing issue and other broken fundamentals.

 

 

[Dagenham_Dave]

12 minutes ago, qwerty22 said:

this is a very weak match engine and it's obvious that depth and realism isn't a     priority as long as it looks like a football game. I have drawn 6 games in a row 0-0 and in every match I get a minimumu of 5 freekicks at the edge of the box which are shot over the bar!

This is the reality that some users on here are scrambling to deny. Just like the crossing issue and other broken fundamentals.

 

 

In fairness, you shouldn't present the issues you're having as statements of facts about how the game has been coded. I'm having none of these issues, and for me it's the most balanced match engine since the final FM15 release. Not 'scrambling to deny' anything, just how the game is playing out for me. It's not perfect of course, but then it never is, and quite possibly never will be. 

I'm sure you'll be uploading your save to the bugs forum regarding the unrealistic possession stats, six goalless draws in a row on the back of that, and a 'minimum' of five free kicks outside the box in 'every match'. Because that won't be exaggerated in the slightest. 

[themadsheep2001]

This thread has descended into squabbling, so closed.