This is what I just cannot understand about FM. Any ideas?

[Sussex Hammer]

As the title says this is what I just cannot understand about FM especially FMT because "apparently" morale isn't meant to be such a big thing in FMT although I might be mistaken although if this is morale based then it's far to much of an influence.

Start the season very well after some good friendly results and as you can see results are positive despite having  injuries galore and having to play the likes of Antonio and Snodgrass up front.  Calleri starts very well and scores regularly.  So very positive right through to February really with one or two defeats but the team bounces back well and copes pretty well despite losing three key players to the African Nations.

Mid to late February there are a few defeats but nothing too alarming and at the time of the Watford game on 19th March the team are top of the League and playing pretty well.  Calleri has 18 goals and has 12 in the League.  Plenty coming from midfield as well with Noble bagging 13 and Lanzini 8.  We are the second top scorers in the League at this point and are playing with good pace and tempo and defending quite well.

The Watford draw is a blow but not over concerning but as you see suddenly for no apparent reason the wheels come off in spectacular fashion.  Suddenly I am conceding and the goals dry up and in fact Calleri doesn't score again for the rest of the season and yet despite "throwing the title away" we go to second placed Man United in the last game who only need to win to grab the League themselves and we play like we did earlier in the season,.

I stuck with it for a few games then tried different striker roles, different strategy's and no matter what I did it was the same.  Players were slow rather than closing down like they had before, passes were going astray, chances stopped being created and it looked lethargic and slow and yet as it's FMT I can't do anything team talk wise or give a gee up or a rollocking.

How on earth does a team bubbling along quite nicely suddenly fall from grace like this?  The Teams mental stats are pretty good on paper so I just really can't understand it and worse still had no apparent way of stopping it.

Any thoughts? 

[Svenc]

Nice write-up! You could naturally also ask the reverse, how does an (average) team additionally forced to field a weakened side through injuries be top of the tables? Without uploading some matches of each of those phases it is tough to tell. But whilst morale may be a factor I'd reckon it can be influenced by a style of playing plus the average at best forwards eventually finding it much harder to score depending on how opponents lined up in that latter stages of the season. That said, yeah on FM (classic) you have those additionally tools that can slightly help to arrest slumps which aren't much of a thing here (but then for the opposition they aren't also).

How do you explain it in real football likewise that first half / second half of the season tables regularly look wildly different for mid-table teams in particular? Bremen in the Bundesliga were pish by December, and then went on a run that saw them winning everything, Frankfurt the completely reverse etc. I know how I do that: Football is a low scoring game of slight margins (most common win margins by 1 or two goals, loads of draws). Therefore any run they go on is already much more influenced by random chance compared to either a team that doesn't stand much of a chance or belongs to the few who are truly a class beyond anybody (in the EPL that's at the start about 4, 5, 6 teams capable of running way / losing little). I know this is straying a bit off-topic, but as for randomness in football / the game in general, Maths guys had simulated what would happen if teams were all of equal strength. The natural instinct would suspect that the final tables would look fairly even if every team was equal. It didn't though, you had teams running away as well as the bottom pile running miles behind. Out of interest I had simulated that on the game on an older iterations a couple months ago via copying players / teams and their managers etc. The only clue that all teams were level were the goal differences which weren't as huge apart as in an uneven league. I find it surprising that the game would replicate the Maths guys findings, maybe not that unrealistic at all!

[Sussex Hammer]

Interesting post Sven.  Maybe randomness plays a part but then again what is the point of management if it is>?

In my other save (same tactics) I finished 6th first season with a similar record but wins, draws, losses were spread more evenly although I scored 76 goals rather than 63.  So 76 goals finishing 6th and 63 goals whilst finishing 3rd.  Mind you if it hadn't been for the slump I probably would have scored similar.  Second season in that save I won it losing only three games and scoring 91 goals.  Again wins, draws, losses were fairly spread out although I drew a few near the end and stumbled over the line.  Real life football I could put this, and my sudden slump in my new save down to inexperience.  We all hear the TV saying a Man United have experience in winning titles, even though more recent squads may not have that experience, but yes I can see how a Club who has never won the League could get nervous, (although Leicester didn't) but can FM replicate that?  In fact what confuses me is that Calleri for instance is in superb morale at the end of the season and states that "he will not let his lack of goals worry him" despite not scoring for several matches so my argument is you can't manage that.  If he is not worried and has confidence and good morale then why isn't he banging them in like he was before?>  I did note he was hitting the woodwork a lot though and if those had gone in he may well have scored 4 or 5 rather than none!!

What I do notice though in any save is that draws and losses come in clusters,.  You may well win 6 or 7 in a row then you will draw or lose one and then comes a run of 3 or 4 games without a win.  Usually a scrambled win will get you going again but in my latest save it didn't happen until the last game when I inexplicably beat United.  By rights I should have been stuffed in that game.  United need a win for the League and we have literally blown it our chins would have been on the floor and I would have no complaints at a hammering but the win and decent performance confused me.  We needed a point for the Champions League so the argument that we had nothing to play for so we just relaxed doesn't stand so its baffling. 

 

[Svenc]

Football is random. Not all of it, it could be argued that a good management is lessening its influence, but quite a few of it. Instinctively people know that, or else they wouldn't show up at all those horrible mismatches, even though they still celebrate the new managers supposedly turn-around, recording three wins in his first four matches, when the prior manager was sacked after a (typically) bad spell (it is rare that managers are sacked when succeeding). So that no matter what, the only possible change in direction was up, manager switcheroo or no. (Typically the new managers is then quickly down to the point average of his predecessor).

Now FM ain't football. You can be hugely superior in your decision making to AI managers, whereas the "knowledge levels" in actual football on a level tends to be fairly evenly spread. Guys that know little of their job don't get appointed on their level in the first place, usually.  If you are at that, you would find ways how to protect leads, turn draws into wins or losses into additional draws. Those tools are all in the game, they are being used by AI managers all the time, though not at a level of a really well versed player. Then there is the match engine which tries to play out like a football match could, but being a computer sim has niggles. Add to that of SI's interpretation of it all (morale, etc.). If you watch how the odds shift up and down it has little to do how betting odds work in football, as the guys making money off such odds know that any W-L-D record or any cluster of wins / losses over such short spans can be wholly down to randomness, more precisely luck, good and rotten. And such clusters do exist in football a lot. They are being noted as such, which is down to how our brains are wired, spotting patterns in randomness. TV punditry oft takes this to comical levels, Bournemouth haven't won with x in goal for 6 matches, the lad hasn't scored away to Munich in five seasons, West Ham more ecent have only won when the temperature was above x degrees of Fahrenheit.

I think what the game would hugely benefit from was if there was a better indication of which result was to be expected or just damn lucky and to which extents of each. Plus different rankings than just points (shots for and against averages, etc. etc.). Is it really the side that has like three times however poorly shots that was more likely to win a match? The post-match reports surely act like it. Even the CCCs sure aren't reliable, and their margins are very wide, lumping all kinds of shots together. The game must consider though a difference between a ranged shot under pressure or a tap-in internally, or else it would be completely random, which it isn't. One-off you can win a match by scoring three direct free kicks against the odds (your only attempts that match). Regularly, doesn't happen. Else everybody would quit in disgust, as that goes both ways. As such, I can't judge the above results fully. It is unlikely that the second half of the season was wholly random given that prolonged periods of slumpness, as argued, if teams would keep it tighter in the return as they now see your team as a threat rather than the also-ran it is at the start of the game, they keep the space tight. That should make it harder all by itself, as this is an average team.

What you would benefit from was if the lot of you got your act together and you don't have to rely on average sides anymore, i.e. not competing against level opponents in like 8/10 matches you enter as they are player by player level or thereabouts, and a handful+ at least significantly better equipped across the board.

[potbellypigs]

Morale plays a massive part in Football Manager. I reckon you could pick the worst team in any league, reset the morale to superb before every game and come away massively exceeding expectations.

[Svenc]

36 minutes ago, potbellypigs said:

Morale plays a massive part in Football Manager. I reckon you could pick the worst team in any league, reset the morale to superb before every game and come away massively exceeding expectations.

If you did that, you'd have an edge over opponents as outside of editing it's impossible to keep a team on superb morale throughout, in other words, outside of your side no side would ever have it. It's not as simplistic though. Things link, plus according to the main coders, it's but a few adjustments made to a few mental traits (mainly decision attributes).  If that team is mismanaged it won't matter how good the mood in the dressing room is, as an unprotected backline will still be an unprotected backline, etc. Whilst having a good mood in the dressing room does make things easier, it's not the be end of all thins management.

It's certainly not down to morale if you can go on a run of months where you never suffer an opposition comeback / barely concede a goal in the 2nd half. A guaranteed way to overachieve in the way you highlight is more likely achieved by tactically exploiting match engine / AI issues, as highlighted every year. Morale doesn't do that as it won't see those worst players constantly popping up in unmarked spaces the engine always tends to have somewhere. It can seem as being the solely influence causing swings though depending on how you play, or how versed you are at the various modules of the game. Hammer highlights why the game could use a good deal more feedback on all of this in general though as argued, runs as such are caused by random chance already for as long as FM matches will remain mostly decided by margins of 1 or 2 goals (as tends to happen in football), and everybody, myself included, may be suspect to spot patterns in something where none exist.

[knap]

There is a program  that  currently freezes Match Fitness and Condition to 10000, Jadedness to 0, Morale to 20 and removes all injuries as they happen, from all the selected teams (yes, you can pick more than 1 team to freeze).

 

[Svenc]

1 minute ago, knap said:

There is a program  that  currently freezes Match Fitness and Condition to 10000, Jadedness to 0, Morale to 20 and removes all injuries as they happen, from all the selected teams (yes, you can pick more than 1 team to freeze).

 

Might make for an interesting experiment!

 

[knap]

Its used for all teams in league to ensure best vs best, but could be used to quantify the morale factor.

[knap]

Sussex

Came across this when looking for something else -

In order to better explain my thought on “slumps that FM has” I’ll take analogy with a coin.

Everybody knows that if you toss a coin then your chance to get “a head” is 50% and your chance to get “a tail” is also 50%.

If you toss a coin 5 times then you might get these results:

1. “Tail”
2. “Tail”
3. “Tail”
4. “Head”
5. “Tail”

Result: 4xTails; 1xHead

Some person after seeing such results might say: “Hey… wait a minute… “A tail” has much higher probability to come up than “A head”… you are cheating!”

But if you toss the same coin for another 5 times then this time the result might look like this:

1. “Head”
2. “Head”
3. “Head”
4. “Tail”
5. “Head”

Result: 4xHeads; 1xTail

It's obvious that if you separately look at the 1st test’s results and the 2nd test’s results then you get wrong impression about chances to get “a tail” or “a head” when you toss a coin and the only way to get right impression about chances to get “a tail” or “a head” is to toss a coin about 100-200 times and see the result.

“Tossing a coin” is extremely simple system and even with such simple system you need to repeat testing at least 100-200 times in order to get a proper view on the chances of getting a tail/a head and now look at FM, it’s 1000 times more complex that “tossing a coin” system so can you imagine how many times/matches should be played to find out of probability of something in FM...




When someone person complains that he always has “slump” during every season then it means that this person thinks that he should win 100%(or don’t lose any) of matches in the season but what makes him think that he should win of 100% in the season? I don’t say that something like that isn’t possible… Yes, it’s possible but only when your team is much stronger than all your opponents during the season, for example, if your team is 180-190CA and all your opponents are 110-120CA then only in this case, probably, you can expect to win 100% of matches during the season but how many people play in such conditions..? I’d say no one plays in such conditions usually people that complains about “slumps” play with a team that isn’t even the strongest team in the league but something makes them think that they must win 100% of matches and “that something” what makes them think like that is few good results that they got in few previous matches but if you look at the example with “tossing a coin” then you understand how ridiculous to build your expectations that are based just on few good results that you got in the previous matches.

In FM if you won 10 or 20 previous matches even then you can't expect to win the next 10-20 matches because 10 or 20 matches in FM is like a drop in ocean but many FM players don't understand that and they build their expectations that are based on the result that they got in the previous 10-20 match which is very wrong.



 

[Svenc]

3 hours ago, knap said:

1. “Tail”
2. “Tail”
3. “Tail”
4. “Head”
5. “Tail”

Result: 4xTails; 1xHead

Some person after seeing such results might say: “Hey… wait a minute… “A tail” has much higher probability to come up than “A head”… you are cheating!”

But if you toss the same coin for another 5 times then this time the result might look like this:
 

Excellent post! As tossing that coin is a 50/50 chance: Bookies in football have that typically roughly assigned (slightly less actually) to the home team against equal opposition, what they consider such anyway, whilst the odds for the away win against equal opposition you'll likely find more 1 in 3 odds (roughly 33%). As you highlight, even with that 50/50 chance, there will be runs. That coin doesn't care if it landed heads 9 times before already out of 10 throws, that is still a fifty fifty on every throw. I'd actually extent that to another popular frustration, which is the one on one conversion (in real football: 1 in 3 chance on average), different topic though. Speaking about West Ham, in real football they not merely face equal or worse teams, they also face a lot of better ones, also away, so. Well at the start of it anyway. That's naturally simplifying it, and in-game during the match you have further influence, and then there's also a bit of that morale stuff, and teams aren't merely better or worse but have different strenghts and weaknesses and play different formations and players with different traits... and as this is a game rather than real football, Hammer probably had them performing better greatly anyway shifting odds in his favors across the season compared to the actual Hammers, who found this to be a bit of a struggle. But that's not a bad analogy to make. It's all to do with probabilities.

Still a curious season dynamic outlined in Hammer's post! For doing slightly better in that season, perhaps all that was needed was developing some plan B to turning that point drops at home against Bournemouth, Watford or Southampton into wins which aren't unrealistic prospects at all.

[knap]

Sussex

If you have your save before loss of form, I will have a look to see if it can be turned around. I do have FMT set up.

[Sussex Hammer]

1 hour ago, knap said:

Sussex

If you have your save before loss of form, I will have a look to see if it can be turned around. I do have FMT set up.

Thanks fellas some interesting stuff.  Knap annoyingly I tend to override the previous save so only have it saved at the very start of the season and at the very end.  I should have saved it earlier but there you go.

I'll take a look at some of the game stats from where the slump started and see if I can see a pattern.  I do know that my team is far better when taking a lead and when the slump started I was starting to concede early goals myself which in turn meant that I was struggling to break down teams, especially mid table/low table ones.  Getting results against bigger sides seems easier in some ways, especially at home.  In fact second season of another save which is the year I won the League I beat the "bigger" teams by bigger margins on the whole than I did with similar rep teams as the results attached from that season will show.  I can only put that down to obviously having better players than my first season but also the possibility that better teams tend to at times leave more space behind.  However the third season I started to struggle against the bigger sides so maybe they were taking my rep more seriously.  I started the new save in the OP because I got bored after 5 seasons basically!!  Interestingly enough though whilst Calleri banged them in all year in that title winning year Barbosa, my signing that year, went 8 games in a row scoring towards the end of the season and then failed to find the net in the last 7.  Very similar situation to Calleri in my present save.  I find this happens a lot with inconsistency especially with strikers.  Whether it's the striker that's the issue with form, morale or confidence or the supply I am unsure.  As Sven says the stats don't help much because it looks like they are getting the same amount of shots away.

Re breaking down sides that sit deep that is my weakness.  Ok I play a 4132 based on one of your tactics Knap so it is narrow, but even by changing say passing to mixed or play wider or attack the flanks it makes no difference and it seems like the team plays exactly the same.  I have one of the best sides in the League when it comes to height and heading but crossing in this version is woeful, constantly getting blocked by full backs and I can only remember maybe one or two goals scored with a header in two saves which makes players like Carroll absolutely useless in FM!!!!  With two strikers on support when it stopped working I changed one to an attack duty but he just kept getting caught offside "despite" the opposition sitting deep across the area so with crosses zonked and strikers constantly offside the only other option is to stop working it into the box and shoot early.  That didn't work either!!!

What was really interesting about my latest save is that both United and Arsenal also did their best to lose it, which made my slump all the more hard to take.  Arsenal lost 7 and United 8 to my 1 which is unusual.  The save I won the League I only lost 3 and the season before Chelsea lost only 4 whilst winning it so in FM terms the Champions losing 7 is in my experience an unusually high amount of games to lose.

Title winning season results below.

[Svenc]

Hammer, out of interest, do you ever progress past the first few seasons? Because with someof your results in general, you should dominate the thing in no time, five clubs+ being a completely cut above or no. I'm not often managing in the EPL, but I found it the most competitive top league in the game at the start, I lost out on the titles on that one despite losing no more than 3 matches once. For what it is worth, I found it too that against the biggies on more recent iterations, it can be easier to score (in individual matches anyway), and it is totally to do with them playing more aggressively in particular when going a goal behind. So if you struggle to break down after doing the opposite, that would be a starting point. However I still think you will struggle a bit unless you could afford significantly better players, that's me though. With your unique way of playing some of the best what could of happen was for Sullivan&Gold to open the big pockets in coming iterations... or a Sheikh takeover. Maybe Rooney next season would be a start! All of this has inspired me to apply to the Hammers for the first ever time when my next save is due. Winning the EPL with them early on sounds tough though!

[Sussex Hammer]

Well in my longest save in FM17 I called it a day when I hit the fifth season.  I think I had been 6th, 1st, 3rd, 5th, or something like that.  I suddenly thought paying 60 odd million for Naby Keita for instance was unrealistic in West Ham terms.  Obviously I got better players in than I already had although it was hard to offload players so I was getting into a bit of debt buying.  The problem I had was offloading players like Feghouli and Snodgrass who are wide players with no use in a 4132, but without them playing despite values of say 22 million for Feghouli I wasn't getting anywhere near that interest so they were going for a pittance if anything.

On my new save I am trying a new ploy to just buy British but it isn't easy.  Players like Lewis Cook or Berahino are valued at ridiculous prices, so like real life it can be easier to buy foreign.  6 million for Rajkovic  or 26 million for Butland?!  It's ridiculous. I would ideally like to bring more youngsters through as well but it's difficult.  Players like Reece Oxford I loan out to either decent Championship Clubs or mid table Premier League sides but in my original save he didn't improve at all in 4 seasons.  The loan system in FM isn't IMO very good in helping youngsters improve out on loan.  I can understand it if you loan them out at a lower level, but if Reece Oxford with all his potential isn't improving after a season at say Bournemouth it is difficult, although I guess you could argue he has stalled IRL as well.  I must confess in FMT I don't really see a difference in what staff do.  You can have an average Assistant, DOF and Youth Development Officer and they will perform as well or as badly as top class (on paper at least) staff.

Interesting point about some of those results above though.  The 4-0 away win at Anfield was a total fluke.  I used an old 4141 that I had and just changed it to counter mentality with IWB's.  Was a brilliant performance, especially defensively and was a close to a counter attack tactic that I have ever seen.  Sadly after that it became very hit and miss.  You might grab a 2-1 win away or you might be three down after 15 minutes!!

[knap]

I would use Reece Oxford 1st season and a 3 at back tactic.

With PL clubs I usually only play a season with original squad.

Contain can be a very effective away tactic, and maybe worth a try in more difficult away games to grind out a result.

[Sussex Hammer]

Well I did an experiment where I decided to play the 3rd season after winning the Championship again.  Made a couple of upgrades squad wise but after losing just 3 games all season in the title winning year I lost 3 in the first six League games.  Bit unlucky playing some of the big boys away early but after beating Arsenal 4-3 away and 6-0 at home in the title winning season I get thumped 3-0 away in the new season,.  Away at Spurs was the same, hardly had a kick, and despite being the Leagues top scorers in the title year I can hardly get a goal third season!!

Now it's not losing that's the issue.  It's not even the opposition maybe "sussing me out" that's the issue, it's the fact that whereas in my title winning year my players were quick on the ball, closed down the opposition quickly and basically ran themselves into the ground.  You could see this in the games.  Now third season the players seem sluggish and seem to meander about without any intensity, passes are going astray and tackles aren't being made.  Now as I say I can understand the opposition trying different tactics against you but this shouldn't stop your players having the same intensity, work rate and effort to the title winning season and yet the defeats seem to be because my players just don't seem to have that effort and work rate that they had merely a few months before.  That is my issue, how on earth can you manage that in FMT?

[knap]

Can you change Manger and see if the same happens.

[Svenc]

Considering that there was new / different players brought in, that would sound a far more likely reason than AI playing different tactics. As has also been highlighted many many times throughout the years, nobody is ever sussed out. Broadly speaking you've always been part of a dynamic football world (if you wanted to, you could optionally just sit back take no job and watch the fireworks) where teams/managers adapt a bit every week to their opponents. As happens in football, else you'd have Bournemouth going gung-ho at Chelski or Arsenal parking the bus at home to Sunderland, which would be a bit funny (at least at the start, mind). Work rate related attributes definitely relate to closing down, for instance, you can test this via the editor. However, a couple players may be not as motivated to play for you as the old ones yet (on FMT too players can like you so much that they list you as they prefered personell at one point, or does it?). Hidden traits such as consistency rub off on mainly mental traits too, but noticing that a team may have that "off day" may be managable some too (keeping it tight in an attempt to at least not lose, etc.) Add to this a bit of possible perception bias/cognitive dissonance -- it is easy to fall for the perception that everything was fantastic if you're winning, whilst perceiving the opposite if you don't. In particular as in matches where you are winning you are likely to see more highlights that would show the good stuff on your side, and the bad stuff on the other end -- after all, shots/chances have to be worked from somewhere.

This is the kind of technical stuff that if getting a bit more specific (I've just bought x many new players, is that expected to rub off on the effort players put in compared to my previous ones) may be suitable for the Ask SI thread.  I personally miss the days PaulC was still around, as his posts used to be a treasure for this. edit: That said, on the attacking front, it can appear as if opposition would directly counter you on occasion if your tactic is extremely one-dimensional in its chance creation or area targeted (purely through the middle which can be rather weak on FM 2017, etc.)  to the point that a specific set of opposition formations could lock it all out a bit. The tactical mods have always made a case for a multitude of chance types/multi dimensional play. Generally, expecting the same tactic to work the exact same thing under all conditions (opposition, players, formation, pitch size and condition) is also inviting some inconsistency/ additionally perceived randomness. Speaking about opponents, personally I am hoping for AI managers who would have improved their Arsenals etc from the last season too, surely they can't be happy about West Ham winning their titles (which you hopefully realize is a fantastic achievement)!

 

[Sussex Hammer]

Thanks gents....  Can't do nowt now anyway as overnight the game crashed and since despite trying everything from reinstalling, game and graphics drivers to disk checking the entire game from drop down menus to the match itself 3d or 2d I hasten to add is one juddery, stuttering, lagging mess!!!!

Unfortunately those in charge of the bugs forum seem to be away from their post at the moment!!!