Why is Football Manager so Rigged / scripted ?

[sprotz]

Every version of football manager I played appears to be rigged, scripted and unrealistic. I mean, cummon,  can Watford beat Arsenal  5 - 0   in real life ?  Even if I sign the baddest players in the world, they still get humiliatingly beaten by weaker teams. And I once saw czech republic beat eveyone to win the world cup.  Whatever I do, my best players in the world fail to perform to high ratings. My so called greatest defenders do stupid, village mistakes leading to goals against me,  Another example, Has any one striker from Bristol managed 5 goals against Arsenal in real life ? I can't recall.  And can Oliver Kahn concede  goals from 'schoolboys' in real life ?    

It seems strength and ability of the players doesn't matter in this game. I noticed the game bases the success on the reputation of the club and on statistics like unbeated run etc. If  you manage a big club, some unknown player called 'dady' or 'Macky' will score 5 goals per game for you,  and if you break an unbeaten run record, the game decides 'oh, it's time for you to lose' and deliberately makes your players underperform. Whatever you do, you can't stop it. I am surprised at how few people are complaining that the game is rigged.

[chestermike]

Hahahahaha I love a good old comedy post. 'The game is rigged because I am bad at it'......hahahahahahahahaha classic.

[CFuller]

3 minutes ago, sprotz said:

Every version of football manager I played appears to be rigged, scripted and unrealistic. I mean, cummon,  can Watford beat Arsenal  5 - 0   in real life ?

Can Southampton beat Arsenal 4-0 in real life?

Even if I sign the baddest players in the world, they still get humiliatingly beaten by weaker teams.

And there's your problem... you sign terrible players and you get terrible results! 

And I once saw czech republic beat eveyone to win the world cup.

(Cough) Greece 2004. I'll also put forward Turkey... could you really foresee them finishing 3rd at Korea/Japan 2002?

Whatever I do, my best players in the world fail to perform to high ratings. My so called greatest defenders do stupid, village mistakes leading to goals against me,  Another example, Has any one striker from Bristol managed 5 goals against Arsenal in real life ? I can't recall.

Even world-class players aren't infallible. They can make mistakes, just like you and I. Also, it's possible that an unheralded player can have the game of his life against a big team. By the same token, someone like Jamie Vardy can go from barely scoring in the Championship to destroying the Premier League in a relatively short space of time.

And can Oliver Kahn concede  goals from 'schoolboys' in real life ? 

Considering Kahn has been retired for the best part of a decade, I'd say 'yes' now!  In all seriousness, any goalkeeper can be beaten by any striker/midfielder/defender/opposition goalkeeper if the shot is powerful/accurate enough, or if he's poorly positioned or otherwise makes an error. Even Manuel Neuer (the new Oliver Kahn) can be beaten by a schoolboy if the circumstances fit.

It seems strength and ability of the players doesn't matter in this game. I noticed the game bases the success on the reputation of the club and on statistics like unbeated run etc. If  you manage a big club, some unknown player called 'dady' or 'Macky' will score 5 goals per game for you,  and if you break an unbeaten run record, the game decides 'oh, it's time for you to lose' and deliberately makes your players underperform. Whatever you do, you can't stop it. I am surprised at how few people are complaining that the game is rigged.

That is not how Football Manager works. Losing an unbeaten run is not down to the game deciding you've had enough success. (The game does not treat a human-managed team any differently from an AI-managed team.) Rather, it'd be down to a combination of poor team selection/tactics, complacency, anxiety, luck, et cetera. You can find all sorts of examples across the SI Community of other managers maintaining extremely long unbeaten records for many months if not years.

Long unbeaten runs can end against anyone. Take Leicester, for example. I think the game at Arsenal in February was their last defeat of the entire 15/16 season, and they ended that season on an excellent run of form before starting the 16/17 campaign with a defeat to Hull.

In summary, anything can happen in professional football, and FM reflects that very well.

Instead of complaining that your Arsenal team got tonked 5-1 by Bristol Rovers or whoever, I would suggest that you think about why exactly you've lost, consider making changes if you feel you could've done better, and then look to try and put things right in the next game. That's what football managers do, in real life and in FM.

There's my two pennies worth.

[HUNT3R]

Alaves beat Barcelona today. It happens.

 

One way to improve is to seek advice in the Tactics forum.

[sprotz]

20 minutes ago, CFuller said:

Can Southampton beat Arsenal 4-0 in real life?

Yea but does this happen every 5 games ?

 

20 minutes ago, CFuller said:

Even if I sign the baddest players in the world, they still get humiliatingly beaten by weaker teams.

And there's your problem... you sign terrible players and you get terrible results!

What i mean by 'baddest', I mean Greatest.

 

20 minutes ago, CFuller said:

(Cough) Greece 2004.

That is not the world cup, I mean they beat Italy, Argentina, Netherlands scoring multiple goals..

 

20 minutes ago, CFuller said:

By the same token, someone like Jamie Vardy can go from barely scoring in the Championship to destroying the Premier League in a relatively short space of time.

But you can't create or replicate a Jamie Vardy in FM. For a big club maybe, but for Leicester, even if you give him max attributes in the editor, the game decides Leicester is too low reputation, and the club will start swallowing goal after goal.

 

20 minutes ago, CFuller said:

In summary, anything can happen

I've never seen a lower league team win the championship in FM, even one managed by the baddest (Greatest) manager. Another unrealistic thing, I suddenly hear in the news: "They've sacked Wenger".

[santy001]

It's a shame you seem to have already made your mind up, but think of this one question first of all: What's there to be gained from scripting the game in this way?

Now let's move on to a match scenario.

In terms of team selection, in the premier league there are 36 variables coming into play before you press to continue to the match.

The AI only has access to 18 of these, the other 18 variables (your squad) are entirely out of the AI's control.

However, in the grand scheme of it, the other 18 are also out of the AI's/match engines control as well.

This is because the AI team is being picked by a manager who was rated by a researcher, a researcher has looked at a manager and given him the ratings he/she personally, as an individual believes best reflect that managers real life qualities. So to an extent it's your 18 variables vs the 18 variables a researcher has influenced an AI manager to pick.

Now in reality there are far more variables, which you have a large degree of control over and the match engine itself has no influence over, because the match engine is its own entity within the game. The AI you face in these leagues aren't SI created, finely tweaked to perform to certain standards entities. They're created by your fellow players of the game. It's a process you yourself can be involved in, just by contributing on the data issues forums.

So when we come back to scripting, how is the game scripting in this way? Is the AI so aware that even if you go to the data issues and make compelling points about things and they get changed in the game that the AI can adapt to your influence on it and still skew the odds in its favour? It's nonsensical to claim its scripted (against you) when for it to be scripted your choices would have to be automated.

The match engine, in its most horrendously unfairly represented description to date is essentially nothing more than a calculator. You put numbers in, it puts an answer out. Now if you put 2+2 into the match engine, it will always be 4. You could run this scenario a billion times, it would always be the same. However, in FM you aren't just putting 1 number in, and the AI isn't just putting 1 number in, thousands of numbers are going in - before the game even kicks off. With your team selection you have 18 variables, each of those 18 variables has a different morale level, providing 18 more variables, and they have a physical condition adding 18 more. Then there's your first choice formation which adds 11 more, and then there's the roles for those players, which adds 11 more, with mentalities like attack/defend/support which adds 11 more. Then there are personal instructions, which immediately just goes and sledgehammers in a dozen more per player. Then the variables as to how these interact with each other. The best part is, we're still not even thinking about player attributes yet. All of these things are processed in seconds for a match, and the moment a match kicks off you're free to change it at any time, completely shifting all of these variables going forward. 

[CFuller]

Just now, sprotz said:

Yea but does this happen every 5 games ?

Are YOU managing Arsenal and losing to so-called lesser teams every five or, more conservatively, ten games? If so, then it's most likely down to your tactics/selection/in-form opponent/insert additional reason here. Maybe you're putting too much pressure on your players or even letting complacency set in. I might just be answering a question that hasn't been asked, but whatever.

What i mean by 'baddest', I mean Greatest.

I knew exactly what you meant, hence the tongue-in-cheek 

That is not the world cup, I mean they beat Italy, Argentina, Netherlannds scoring multiple goals..

My point was that international football can be just as predictable as club football, if not more so. Maybe winning the World Cup is slightly farfetched, but there's no reason why Czechia can't go far in a World Cup or another major tournament. After all, they took Germany to extra time in the Euro 96 Final.

But you can't create or replicate a Jamie Vardy in FM. For a big club maybe, but for Leicester, even if you give him max attributes in the editor, the game decides Leicester is too low reputation, and the club will start swallowing goal after goal.

Did you watch Leicester play against Liverpool earlier this evening? Last season was a fluke. You could replay the first season on FM16 about 1,000 times, and about 98% of the time, they would be no better than an upper-end mid-table team, which is what their start to this season suggests they actually are.

In other words, FM is more realistic than reality itself! 

I've never seen a lower league team win the championship in FM, even one managed by the baddest (Greatest) manager. Another unrealistic thing, I suddenly hear in the news: "They've sacked Wenger".

If Arsenal suddenly went on an horrendous run of form like Chelsea did early last term, don't completely rule out the possibility of Wenger leaving his post or 'moving upstairs' mid-season. Admittedly, the odds of that happening are something like 5,000-1, but if Leicester can win the league as 5,000-1 outsiders...

In addition, if I were you, I'd read the above post from santy001 in its entirety. I would also heed the advice of HUNT3R and visit the Tactics forum if you're underperforming. Those two users are among the most helpful members on the SI forums, particularly when it comes to assisting newer members.

[herne79]

2 hours ago, HUNT3R said:

One way to improve is to seek advice in the Tactics forum.

And if you do seek advice there, please read this first so that you can provide the necessary information to be able to help you: https://community.sigames.com/topic/264734-asking-for-help-please-read-this/

[forameuss]

Same question I always ask when someone suggests something pretty ridiculous - If the game is scripted (which it isn't) then that suggests that a script has been written by SI to govern it.  Given that, why would SI choose to do this?

[Maw74]

Why would SI want Czech Rep to win World Cup anyway?

Fair enough you can see results etc that would seem unrealistic, I suppose that would also depend how many years into a save you go as things will change over time, also if SI did make it so that the same clubs dominate surely that would have to be scripted/rigged?

[ivanro]

The only thing that seems blatantly 'rigged' to me is that sometimes in February/March there'll be that player who scores an equalizer, or most likely a winning goal, against you and it's his 'first goal of the season'.

Back in versions like a decade ago this would happen every season, now only every few seasons.

[Cougar2010]

3 minutes ago, ivanro said:

The only thing that seems blatantly 'rigged' to me is that sometimes in February/March there'll be that player who scores an equalizer, or most likely a winning goal, against you and it's his 'first goal of the season'.

Back in versions like a decade ago this would happen every season, now only every few seasons.

Why is that a problem?

Players have to score their first goal of the season against someone and if they only score a couple a season then scoring their first in Feb/March isn't an issue either.

One of my MCs last season scored two goals in one late season match, his only goals of the season.  He had opportunities to score in other games but shooting isn't a strength of his so a scrambled effort from a corner and a deflected long shot ended up being his only ones that year.

[ivanro]

53 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

Why is that a problem?

Players have to score their first goal of the season against someone and if they only score a couple a season then scoring their first in Feb/March isn't an issue either.

One of my MCs last season scored two goals in one late season match, his only goals of the season.  He had opportunities to score in other games but shooting isn't a strength of his so a scrambled effort from a corner and a deflected long shot ended up being his only ones that year.

Why so serious?

Of course players have to score their first goal of the season against someone, but that someone doesn't have to be my team, does it? And surely not every season?

Hence the 'rigged' feeling.

[stockportguy86]

On 9/10/2016 at 21:50, chestermike said:

Hahahahaha I love a good old comedy post. 'The game is rigged because I am bad at it'......hahahahahahahahaha classic.

ha ha ha ha I use to think that but now I'm actually getting better got 3 promotions and one cup win in my Keymer Hassocks FC save loving right now 

 

[Cougar2010]

40 minutes ago, ivanro said:

Why so serious?

As opposed to what? Were you making a joke?

 

40 minutes ago, ivanro said:

Of course players have to score their first goal of the season against someone, but that someone doesn't have to be my team, does it? And surely not every season?

Hence the 'rigged' feeling.

Just pulled some stats from an old save.

Based on the MLS in the 2026 season.

20 teams in the league playing 34 games each which makes 340 matches.

In those 340 matches there were 878 goals scored by 237 different scorers with 82 of those 237 only scoring once in that season.  So for each goal scored there is a 27% chance it will be the players first goal of the season & a 9% chance it will be his only goal of the season.  Obviously the % will be higher earlier in the season and drop as the season progresses so the graph would look like a curve.  I don't have the time or energy to work it out but even just sticking to the 82 players who scored once in the season you can see that with 340 games they will score in 24% of them.  With 20 teams in the league an average of four players per season will score their only goal of the season against you and if you spread those four goals evenly throughout the season that means one every eight games approx. 

Add in the players who score more than once a season (Especially those that score between 2 & say 5) and its easy to see that you should be having players scoring their first goal of the season against your team in the later stages of the season, every season.  If that wasn't happening it would be a problem.  As a rough estimate I would guess it should happen 3-4 times each season from Feb onwards.

 

[Johnleegriffin]

the game can sometimes feel scripted to me. 

I have been on a really good unbeaten run, i needed to restart my computer after an update so i did knowing what might happen.

when i came back to the game i lost the next game, i knew that would happen.

would i have lost that game if i didn't restart? why does that happen when i did everything the same? 

also i wish players would stop shooting from the by line. 

 

[Ceching You Out]

26 minutes ago, Johnleegriffin said:

the game can sometimes feel scripted to me. 

I have been on a really good unbeaten run, i needed to restart my computer after an update so i did knowing what might happen.

when i came back to the game i lost the next game, i knew that would happen.

would i have lost that game if i didn't restart? why does that happen when i did everything the same? 

also i wish players would stop shooting from the by line. 

 

This may have changed over the years, but at one point FM reset "momentum" variables when the program was restarted. That meant after a restart your team would play closer to their "normal" (as nebulous a concept as that is in FM). Of course this effect was much smaller than people realized and only blamed when it wasn't to a person's advantage.

[EuskalHerria]

On 9/11/2016 at 06:38, sprotz said:

Every version of football manager I played appears to be rigged, scripted and unrealistic. I mean, cummon,  can Watford beat Arsenal  5 - 0   in real life ?  Even if I sign the baddest players in the world, they still get humiliatingly beaten by weaker teams. And I once saw czech republic beat eveyone to win the world cup.  Whatever I do, my best players in the world fail to perform to high ratings. My so called greatest defenders do stupid, village mistakes leading to goals against me,  Another example, Has any one striker from Bristol managed 5 goals against Arsenal in real life ? I can't recall.  And can Oliver Kahn concede  goals from 'schoolboys' in real life ?    

It seems strength and ability of the players doesn't matter in this game. I noticed the game bases the success on the reputation of the club and on statistics like unbeated run etc. If  you manage a big club, some unknown player called 'dady' or 'Macky' will score 5 goals per game for you,  and if you break an unbeaten run record, the game decides 'oh, it's time for you to lose' and deliberately makes your players underperform. Whatever you do, you can't stop it. I am surprised at how few people are complaining that the game is rigged.

Just because something hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it can never happen. Is it probable that Watford would beat Arsenal 5-0? No! Is it impossible? Not by a long shot. Crazy things happened in sports. Look what Leicester City did last year. I bet if somehow they would have managed to win the Premier league in your save before the real thing happened, you'd be crying "Scripted" "fake" "unrealistic".  Just because something hasn't happened, doesn't mean it can never happen. In the future of real life sports, whether it is tomorrow or 10 years from now, there are going to be things happening that people have once thought was impossible.

Understand the difference between probable and impossible. Plus, another thing you have to realize, this is a video game. If you want real life , go sit in front of the tv and watch a match, that is the real life. SI does an awesome job at trying to make this game as realistic as possible, but you have to understand that it is still a game,and there is still going to be a degree or IMPROBABLE stuff happening. 

[fmfan74]

It's usually a tactics thing you need to work on.  But just recently in FM16  I pre loaded a save game 3 times in a row.  Each one of them I conceded a goal  in the 1st minute mark.  People use to tell me and still say to me it's not scripted, what do you have to say the the 3 times i loaded a save game and they all scored in the first minute of the game.  Oh and i did change the tactics to the 3 times i loaded the game.

I'm still seeing heaps of funny things about the game in this version. 

[Powermonger]

1 hour ago, fmfan74 said:

It's usually a tactics thing you need to work on.  But just recently in FM16  I pre loaded a save game 3 times in a row.  Each one of them I conceded a goal  in the 1st minute mark.  People use to tell me and still say to me it's not scripted, what do you have to say the the 3 times i loaded a save game and they all scored in the first minute of the game.  Oh and i did change the tactics to the 3 times i loaded the game.

I'm still seeing heaps of funny things about the game in this version. 

Really? I replayed the same game about 10 times to perfect a tactic, every iteration of the match was different. Sometimes my team performed brilliantly and sometimes the opposition did. Sometimes certain players performed great but the next iteration they performed poorly. I haven't seen any evidence of any scripting, it seems perfectly variable to me.

[fmfan74]

I'm not saying it's scripted, nothing is.  Don't you think i would know by so much testing that it's all situational ???.   I was just surprised at what i saw, and yes the AI is the same as human.  Obviously given that i conceded 3 times in a row a goal in the first minute of the game balances out suspicion that the AI is setting up tactics against your weakness.   How it's doing that I don't know but thats where my mind is bending towards.  I hope you understand me now.

Obviously it's going to be easy to criticise something and say your innocent.  Given the game has bugs still i'm not even pointing towards that because i know it's not a bug.  It's a tactical thing, surely the AI is doing something pre game against my team.  This is the area i'm working on a lot.  Also i still see some funny things in game thats for sure so don't get me wrong.

 

 

[Svenc]

Nobody knows but conceding first multiple reloads just a minute in points to combination of tacs applied by both sides, and there are some combinations. The last time I saw something akin to it it came off an unusual formation of the human player (i.e. makeshift back three of left back centre back right back) coupled with the fact that the AI's starting setup (by chance) completely exploited that by having three forwards who on FM then completely start to roam in that channels in between those three which are extremely wide. You can kick off the match any time you want under the same starting conditions that are in place (confidence, motivation, etc.), and that's technically what's going on, there is nothing overly esotheric about it, what you see is what you get. At the end of the day as soon as the op kicks off or gets the ball and starts an attack, this was bound to lead to some chance every time. On this one this lead to the first decent shot twenty seconds (real-time) in as multiple forwards were always available for a through ball straight from the kick-off.

Giving bad talks, the side being "complacent" or anything doesn't make you concede asap just like that, as that typically involves players gifting space which won't happen just like that. However with the patterns of play that combination of formations/tactics produced, every turnover of the ball saw opposition players gifted oodles of space they visibly sit in, which isn't representation, but second by second what's going on. Unlike this one, the matches are sadly never uploaded though it might actually help both players and the development of the game, as hell yes, AI mans can do curious stuff themselves. They don't crack. I wish the AI was more intelligent, in particular the elite, but it ever gets to that level where it actually proactively spots areas it could target with the overall quite simple tools and means in FM (and there's always some there as you can field but eleven players who can't cover every inch of the simulated pitch likewise), then things might get interesting.

 

[Matshit]

With the amount of matches that are played on Football Manager, someone is bound to experience results that are in the 0,001% chance of happening. 

Playing a match and conceding in the first minute is unlikely. Doing it three times in a row is extremely unlikely. But people overestimate the importance of unlikely events in a big series of events. It is the same way you are most likely going to get a series of 7 heads or tails in a row if you flip a coin 50 times.

[FrazT]

4 hours ago, fmfan74 said:

It's usually a tactics thing you need to work on.  But just recently in FM16  I pre loaded a save game 3 times in a row.  Each one of them I conceded a goal  in the 1st minute mark.  People use to tell me and still say to me it's not scripted, what do you have to say the the 3 times i loaded a save game and they all scored in the first minute of the game.  Oh and i did change the tactics to the 3 times i loaded the game.

I'm still seeing heaps of funny things about the game in this version. 

As has been said above, there are a large number of permutations that the game uses to produce a result , starting with the team talk from the previous game and including everything that occurs before you kick off.  Many of the parameters have been set well before you add the tactics, so if that is all that was changed, it is perfectly feasible that just changing the tactics will not affect how the game starts, but should kick in as the game progresses.  The game is not scripted.

[Maaka]

On 9/10/2016 at 22:38, sprotz said:

Every version of football manager I played appears to be rigged, scripted and unrealistic.

It's because the chemtrails have been concentrated largely over the SI hq, so they're using FM as a means to control the population, under orders from The World Leaders.

And Illuminati, of course.

[fmfan74]

How do previous game team talks affect a new game ?.  I never thought that was a case with an up and coming game.  I thought team talks usually reflect the current game and not the next game.  Is this documented anywhere ?.

[Pingdinho]

42 minutes ago, Maaka said:

It's because the chemtrails have been concentrated largely over the SI hq, so they're using FM as a means to control the population, under orders from The World Leaders.

And Illuminati, of course.

SI deny it is rigged. But that's exactly what they would say if it was rigged isn't it?!

[Cougar2010]

48 minutes ago, fmfan74 said:

How do previous game team talks affect a new game ?.  I never thought that was a case with an up and coming game.  I thought team talks usually reflect the current game and not the next game.  Is this documented anywhere ?.

Preparation for your next match starts with the post game team talk from the previous match.

I can't remember exactly off the top of my head but if I remember right each player has three hidden mentality settings (One is complacency) that constantly move.  Your post match team talk from the last match alters them one way or another, what happens in the gap between matches can alter them again (Such as media comments, what other managers say, interaction with a player).  On the day of a match you then select your team, tactics and give a pre-match team talk but saving at this point doesn't alter what happened from the last post match team talk until the day of the match.

 

[fmfan74]

i see. cool thanks for the tipps.

-)

[andychar]

Yeah i hate it when stupid things happen on FM.

Like this one time Leicester City won the league! Despite being 5000/1 to win it at the start of the season. 

And don't get me started on this one time Iceland beat England and got to the quarter final of the European Championship, they haven't got any good players!

Greece once won the Euros as well. As if!

No point managing Barcelona if your going to get beat at HOME to Alaves. 

The icing on the cake was when I was Bristol City manager against Rotherham. I had like 40 shots against their 8 and they only scored because of a stupid defence mistake and a comical own goal. As if any of that would happen in real life!

 

[Guest]

Time to close this one I think,