Game feels "scripted"

[raxnt]

Now I know you all love to jump on the "L2P" train everytime you read a post about people thinking the game is scripted sometimes.

I am not saying it is "scripted", but there are arguments that can be made for pre-match events affecting the outcome of a game WAY above what is realistic (That means every single little event that effects players between matches). 

Especially when you look at the difference in team strength, individual player strength etc.

I've played FM since the first game was released and I have a lot of experience with FM games.

But in this 2018 release, I have noticed some very questionable events occurring.

 

I've been 1st for half the season now and everything is looking good.

 

I got without doubt best players by position in the entire league, I beat lower level Premier teams usually with ease for 3 seasons but I was never able to gain promotion. 

 

I play Gloucester and been stuck in Championship. My club stature remains poor despite beating teams way above my stature consistently for over 4 Seasons.

I also have the best coaching team in the league 4 seasons in a row.

I also have the best training facilities and Secure finances.

 

Scenario time:

I'm on a 3 game win streak, I just crushed mid-level premier team in cup (using their main players).

 

Morale is PERFECT

My players are 100% fit.

Everything in Dynamics is flawless.

I play a very stable 4-5-1, Fullbacks on defending, Central defenders on defending,1 Defensive midfielder support, 2 B2B midfielders( move into channels/run wide with ball ), 2 Inside forwards attacking, sitting narrow and 1 AF.

Last press conference should have had no effect on players from what I can tell since no morale or PR affecting questions on players were really asked.

So I am now on a 3 Win streak following 2 draws everything is back on track and I'm facing the bottom team of the league Cardiff.

 

They use the same formation as me. their morale is horrible, their players are that of a Skybet 2 team on average.

 

So I have everything going for me pre-match to my advantage at least from what I can judge.

I get absolutely demolished 4-0, all my players underperform, I did not get a single shot on target despite having 48% possession. My players who have been consistently performing for 6 months all have a complete mental breakdown all at the same time.

All ratings 6.50 or lower.

I'm playing HOME.

This loss happened at the point where I was about 2 lose my top spot if second place wins.

 

I got so annoyed I saved the game on a new save and went back just to replay it before I continued on my save where I lost ( I never cheat takes out all the fun of playing FM)

Again, similar time frames Cardiff scores, they are playing out of their minds insane football.

I lost again 3-1.

Next game I lose 3-0

3-1

4-2

5-2

4-1

3-1 

All lost.

 

I adjust tactics, swap players, I experiment trying to learn to find out why I am losing so hard to this team when there are no real big elements that should make this matchup so one sided when I have everything in the game going for me.

 

I did around 20 attempts before I managed to salvage my first 2-2 draw.

 

So despite me putting all the better numbers into this A.I Matchmaking machine. Better players, better morale, most definitely better dynamics, home advantage list goes on. This Cardiff team somehow did something that makes it nearly impossible for me to beat them.

 

So sure game might not be scripted but there sure is some hidden element affecting the match engine before game start making Cardiff players play like gods this one match and mine consistently playing horrible football.

 

And before you say it, Cardiff had no marking scheme on my attacking players, and if they did the Cardiff team defense was so slow they should not be able to keep up with my attacker's acceleration, agility, and pace.

 

Either way, this is completely unrealistic and you might not call it scripting but it cannot be questioned that a lot of the result was decided before I clicked the PLAY button considering the consistency of how hard they beat my team.

 

At 37 attempts I managed to win one game.

 

 

[anagain]

Quite often you'll see a trend and end up believing in that trend. Replaying the match over and over has also further convinced you. Don't think about it.

I can remember moments where I've sat running through a match and I've seen something that has made me think 'that always happens', and then I'll convince myself that it does so. But it doesn't. I've just highlighted something that I'm concentrating on.

It could be something you've said to your players last match. It could be something the Cardiff manager has said to his players last match. Shocks like this do happen in football. You'd be surprised how much effect your team talks can have on your team a match later. Maybe you praise them too much. That leads to complacency and they make errors the next match.

FM is a game and by nature there must be some conformity behind the scenes, because everything follows coding. Play a whole two weeks of game time over and over and then you can say 'the game is scripted'. You've played one match with the same lead up scenario.

 

You might have tried to dismiss the whole 'learn to play better' argument, but you should learn to look at more factors. Team morale is a huge part of FM. What you say to them week on week in team talks will have a big influence. Also, just because you have better players doesn't mean you should win. There are a lot of factors that influence results.

I watched a LokiDoki YT video the other day in which he touched on the fact that some people like to declare FM is scripted. He say 'why would SI do that?' and 'what would they gain from it?'. I'm inclined to agree.

Like he says, why would SI make your team lose?

[themadsheep2001]

Anagain has nailed it tbh. And if you're going to dismiss the fact it isn't scripted, what's the point of this thread? Because it sounds like nothing would convince you otherwise 

[raxnt]

Well If you actually read my post I didn't say it was scripted, I said it felt that way. 

You confirm my suspicions that things like team talks might have a way to big of an effect on team performance.

Team talks should be important, but lets set a limit here its a bit over the top if this is the case

 

At least considering all the things in my favor in this specific matchup.

[themadsheep2001]

6 minutes ago, raxnt said:

Well If you actually read my post I didn't say it was scripted, I said it felt that way. 

You confirm my suspicions that things like team talks might have a way to big of an effect on team performance.

Team talks should be important, but lets set a limit here its a bit over the top if this is the case

 

At least considering all the things in my favor in this specific matchup.

The team talk effect isn't big. And lasts less than 10 minutes per half effect wise (might be 15), it certainly doesn't overrule tactics. unless you've shattered team morale over a long period. But bear in mind you're essentially replaying from the same set point each time. That said, you could upload your save and someone would win it first time. Which kind of puts paid to the influencing factors argument. 

[raxnt]

Well the game is pretty much contradicting pure math nearly 40 times in a row then. I've encountered this in previous FM's but I have never experienced such a dominant performance from a team that is so far behind on everything.

 

 

[themadsheep2001]

1 minute ago, raxnt said:

Well the game is pretty much contradicting pure math nearly 40 times in a row then. I've encountered this in previous FM's but I have never experienced such a dominant performance from a team that is so far behind on everything.

 

 

Upload your save. I'm sure someone will knock it on the head first time. I'm more than happy to give a crack Monday evening, if only to prove the point so you learn from it rather than dwelling unnecessarily on something that doesn't happen in the game. 

[raxnt]

I didn't ask for help on how to play FM, I'm not struggling. 

I simply encountered a freak situation of losing a game I on paper should never lose nearly 40/40 times and If anyone could maybe point out why this happens if they have had similar situations and knew what it was.

 

The only thing you are contributing with is twice telling me I should not think the game is scripted when I already two times said I do not think the game is scripted, but I know people on these forums Love to be the teacher with all the knowledge. Would have thought a moderator at least was slightly more constructive with his responses.

 

 

[anagain]

I just don't think you do yourself any favours by dwelling on a belief. All that time you spent running through the same match over and over, you could have finished the season, been promoted and forgotten all about the one 'odd' result.

[raxnt]

Well I'm a perfectionist, which is why im bloody good at this game to begin with but I get your point.

 

[themadsheep2001]

4 minutes ago, raxnt said:

I didn't ask for help on how to play FM, I'm not struggling. 

I simply encountered a freak situation of losing a game I on paper should never lose nearly 40/40 times and If anyone could maybe point out why this happens if they have had similar situations and knew what it was.

 

The only thing you are contributing with is twice telling me I should not think the game is scripted when I already two times said I do not think the game is scripted, but I know people on these forums Love to be the teacher with all the knowledge. Would have thought a moderator at least was slightly more constructive with his responses.

 

 

I'm being constructive. You're dismissing every point. You're playing repeatedly from a set point time over and over. And rather than replaying the game, I'd have rewatched the game to see where I went wrong. 

Football isn't about perfection, it's about putting as many factors in your control as possible and hoping for the best. Because perfection has no chance against luck. 

Football is a game where you csn have more possession and shots on target and only win on average 63% of the time. Which means in a 60 game season you can expect to lose 19 times. Dwelling on 1 over and over is counter-intiutive. Go win the next one instead. 

[anagain]

5 minutes ago, raxnt said:

I didn't ask for help on how to play FM, I'm not struggling. 

I simply encountered a freak situation of losing a game I on paper should never lose nearly 40/40 times and If anyone could maybe point out why this happens if they have had similar situations and knew what it was.

 

The only thing you are contributing with is twice telling me I should not think the game is scripted when I already two times said I do not think the game is scripted, but I know people on these forums Love to be the teacher with all the knowledge. Would have thought a moderator at least was slightly more constructive with his responses.

 

 

And if you hadn't run through that game 40 times you'd never had looked in to it so closely and wondered if there must be something going on...

You never said you don't think the game is scripted? Your title is Game feels scripted. Why title the thread that if you're not wondering?

Edited August 11, 2018 by anagain

[raxnt]

If you were constructive, you would have asked yourself the question what the reason could be , and given me a constructive response as to why you think I am losing that game so consistently.

 

Telling me what I should and should not do with my time in FM is not constructive feedback.

[raxnt]

If you read my very first sentences on my original post I completely acknowledge I do not believe the game is scripted, which leads me to belive you did not really read my post at all. What kind of moderator are you.

 

[anagain]

2 minutes ago, raxnt said:

If you were constructive, you would have asked yourself the question what the reason could be , and given me a constructive response as to why you think I am losing that game so consistently.

 

Telling me what I should and should not do with my time in FM is not constructive feedback.

You never asked that. Read your original post and tell me where you asked, and in plain text, what you could have done to change the result. All you did was run through an 'experiement' you concocted to prove that you couldn't beat Cardiff.

It could be any number of reasons. Players that don't like those matches. A brilliant team talk from the Cardiff boss. Something that happened previous to boost morale. Maybe it was the weather.

Edited August 11, 2018 by anagain

[CFuller]

27 minutes ago, raxnt said:

Well the game is pretty much contradicting pure math nearly 40 times in a row then. I've encountered this in previous FM's but I have never experienced such a dominant performance from a team that is so far behind on everything.

Top of the table, check. Excellent squad, check. In fantastic form, check. Opponents are bottom and look very weak, check. Hmm... this sounds familiar.

Your team could have become complacent. Cardiff's players could have relaxed a little or even wanted to prove a point. Their manager might have set them up to counter your system.

The odds might have been stacked heavily in your favour, but there are various reasons why Cardiff could have won a match that they were not expected to. That is football.

[themadsheep2001]

1 minute ago, raxnt said:

If you were constructive, you would have asked yourself the question what the reason could be , and given me a constructive response as to why you think I am losing that game so consistently.

 

Telling me what I should and should not do with my time in FM is not constructive feedback.

Read my extended post. 

[themadsheep2001]

Just now, anagain said:

You never asked that. Read your original post and tell me where you asked, and in plain text, what you could have done to change the result. All you did was run through an 'experiement' you concocted to prove that you couldn't beat Cardiff.

This. And raxnt, keep the personal attacks out of this or the thread will be closed. 

[raxnt]

So I didn't ask you the right question to get a constructive response? Neither did I ask for advice on how to spend my time in FM but you seemed very eager to give me that constructive response. But please be my guest close the thread instead of answering the simple question of why do you believe they consistently beat me 40/40 times with the information posted in my original post

[themadsheep2001]

 a very stable 4-5-1, Fullbacks on defending, Central defenders on defending,1 Defensive midfielder support, 2 B2B midfielders( move into channels/run wide with ball ), 2 Inside forwards attacking, sitting narrow and 1 AF

 

I'm not entirely convinced by the lack of dynamic movement between the lines. But that's another question 

My main issue is. Forget the 40 times, what are you doing when they get on top of you? Or its 1-0? Where are their threats coming from? How are you dealing with said threats? How is your own attack functioning at this point? When you concede, where does it come from? 

Every time I lose these are some of the questions I ask myself. 

You're telling us how many times you lose, I'm asking what it is you're doing in game 

[raxnt]

They have insane pressure, regardless of passing game I tried it was nearly impossible to keep possession on their side of the pitch, i felt like i was playing against Real madrid.  Thats easiest way I can explain most of the matches, other then that there defense was rock solid if I ever got a tiny chance shots were made easy for their goalie to save.

 

Thats what confused me about this matchup why they play like the best team in the world on such a consistent basis, never experienced it before. Maybe just a freak occurance

[themadsheep2001]

2 minutes ago, raxnt said:

They have insane pressure, regardless of passing game I tried it was nearly impossible to keep possession on their side of the pitch, i felt like i was playing against Real madrid.  Thats easiest way I can explain most of the matches, other then that there defense was rock solid if I ever got a tiny chance shots were made easy for their goalie to save.

 

Thats what confused me about this matchup why they play like the best team in the world on such a consistent basis, never experienced it before. Maybe just a freak occurance

This is why I would say don't replay the game, rewatch it. I play on comprehensive, it allows me to see a lot more build, and it's surprising how often I see a clear issue when I rewatch a game. 

You say they have insane pressure: where on the pitch, how high is their defensive line, where are you giving the ball away, where are you not influencing the game or putting pressure on them. Is it their midfield that has control? Can you bypass it with direct passing. Without seeing the game, I can only speculate options but that's where I would start. 

[raxnt]

Anyway it might be what Cfuller said, just alot of pre match things happened that have motivated these cardiff players to play the game of there lives , which can explain why they play so good consistently, best reason I can think of so far

 

[Svenc]

Ironically, if the AI was actually "intelligent", the game would throw up less seemingly "random" occurance (for the unitiated), but it would all play like Cardiff, and spring a decent result or two. I'd argue you would also struggle for a couple results in general, as your role/duty distribution is severely limiting movement and passing angles opening up on the pitch, assuming it's the default fired 90 minutes through any match.

Without having a look at the match, it's impossible to tell. Suffice it to say there's players that could likely point you out what was going on (and game flaws can also be to blame).

 

Edited August 11, 2018 by Svenc

[themadsheep2001]

Yes, personally, on the surface, I think your formation sounds very static. But again would want to watch the game 

[raxnt]

1 minute ago, Svenc said:

Ironically, if the AI was actually "intelligent", the game would throw up less seemingly "random" occurance (for the unitiated), but it would all play like Cardiff, and spring a decent result or two. I'd argue you would also struggle for a couple results in general, as your role/duty distribution is severely limiting movement and passing angles opening up on the pitch.

Without having a look at the match, it's impossible to tell. Suffice it to say there's players that could likely point you out what was going on (and game flaws can also be to blame).

 

3

I play high up the pitch and out of defense, so my defending fullbacks act like semi support, I also play direct passing and high tempo counter attacking and recycle possession against almost all my opponents. My main struggle is 4-4-2 and my fullbacks giving away free crosses when they have bad games

[Svenc]

Yeah, it's not what you think it is either way. A must read.

 

 

[Fosse]

These things happen in real football too. How many times do you hear commentators say, "You just couldn't write it?"

[JordanMilly]

I mean, as a Liverpool fan, just watch the last few seasons we've had. We may go from match, to match, to match, all against top 8 teams and batter them, and then we go up against West Ham or Stoke and draw or lose. It happens all the time in football, and can be anything from the opposition team wanting to not get relegated and so playing their heart out, to your guys getting complacent at the top of the league and not playing as well as they could against a team they believe doesn't stand a chance.

[wayne'o]

7 hours ago, raxnt said:

Well If you actually read my post I didn't say it was scripted, I said it felt that way. 

You confirm my suspicions that things like team talks might have a way to big of an effect on team performance.

Team talks should be important, but lets set a limit here its a bit over the top if this is the case

 

At least considering all the things in my favor in this specific matchup.

I’d like to see the full match hilights in 2d, watching this can provide many clues as why they score the goals they do etc,   They have some how exploited your tactics, maybe from a fast counter attack?

any chance you can load the game onto YouTube so we can analyse it for clues?   With out watching the game people are speculating and guessing as to why you lost this game..   Cardiff must be exploiting your tactic..

[Miravlix]

FM isn't much of a game, it is some kind of statistics emulator, but it only does it well with just AI managers.

 

Throw in us players that can rig injuries, motivation, tactics and depending on how good you are at it, you can turn Barcelona into a relegation team or consistently turn Leicester into Champions.

 

While that might not technically means it's scripted, it sure feel like you can feed the right script to the ME and control the outcome.

[Svenc]

2 hours ago, Miravlix said:

Throw in us players that can rig injuries, motivation, tactics and depending on how good you are at it, you can turn Barcelona into a relegation team or consistently turn Leicester into Champions.

If it were "scripted", neither of which would be possible. The reason AI doesn't do either is because it doesn't systematically exploit engine weakness. If it does so, it happens by chance. Weakness which isn't anything to do much with stats -- but second by second play. E.g. players visibly not being defended proper, at which point player attributes mean zero, consistently. Luckily AI doesn't systematically "exploit" such though as nobody would play the game. Such defending weakness varies from release to release.

 

F'r instance, this is an FM17 match between a 3rd division side and a Prem team, and look how easy the 3rd division side in yellow has it to control the ball and pitch, and even drag the centre backs out of position. That's a 3 vs 2 training match in the middle of the park literally as none of the strikers defends nor do the wide midfielders help the 2 central midfielders being chased around like headless chickens -- something that has been adressed for FM 18

That said, to turn Barcelona into relegation fodder, you traditionally have to do a lot of ****. And if the AI were to do THAT, you could demand your money back as apparently SI spend all their year coding the world's dumbest manager AI in the existence of the genre and simply maintain that from release to release, 40 bucks pretty please). 

Edited August 12, 2018 by Svenc

[craiigman]

Last year on my Celtic save, Hibs were the same for me. Couldn’t beat them no matter what. Just a bogey team. Teams have them in real life too.

[herne79]

Actually it is scripted.

But only because you, @raxnt have unwittingly scripted it in that manner from all of your various inputs.  The Cardiff manager has also had input to it.  And you're playing like Germany at the World Cup.  Here's what's happened:

1) You have become complacent.  You've been lulled into a false sense of security by your current form and recent results.  You've clicked through "good" responses in press conferences and so on without really paying attention and you've lined up against Cardiff without much thought other than "yeh, bottom of the table, nail on 3 points".  Sounds like how Germany approached their opening game against Mexico...

2) Your complacency has had a knock on effect to your players.  They've got their heads full of "pfft, Cardiff, who are they?  We just beat a good Premier league team."

3) Cardiff are anything but complacent.  They're scrapping for their lives at the bottom of the table.  Their manager has got his players well up for the fight.

4) Cardiff go 1-0 up.  Now they really do have the bit between their teeth while your players start to wilt.  Again, Germany...

5) They also happen to have a sound tactic which makes a good foil to your own.

6) By this point changing your own tactic is too little too late.  The damage is already done.  All you're now doing by randomly changing your tactic is confusing yourself and your players further.  If you change your system, how do you know you're changing it to a good system?  It's brand new, untried.  And even if you do stumble across something which might be good, your players are so unfamiliar with it (and so complacent) they can't really cope - and Cardiff are still up for the fight anyway.

So, with all of those sort of inputs, it really isn't much of a surprise you can't beat Cardiff even with 30 reloads.

Stop reloading, learn from your mistakes and move on.  All that reloading does is reaffirm a negative belief, which is why you start to think that the game feels scripted.  As TMS is rightly saying, go back over your own actions and learn from that rather than reloading (the equivalent of banging your head against a wall).

[Seb Wassell]

11 hours ago, raxnt said:

Well the game is pretty much contradicting pure math nearly 40 times in a row then. I've encountered this in previous FM's but I have never experienced such a dominant performance from a team that is so far behind on everything.

 

 

I'm not sure I agree there. By the time you get to the match many of the factors that contribute towards a result have already been determined; injuries, morale, form, weather, training and so on. By replaying the match you are only revisiting a few of those factors that go into a match, yes of course this includes the most important one - the actual match - but let's say you re-sit an exam 1,000 times, would you even expect to pass once if you failed to do any revision beforehand?

[Svenc]

Re: reloads

 

Traditionally the only  matches that are "unwinnable" (or at least, tough to win) are when the opposition is actually superior, (in particular away), the own squad missing all first team players (or all of them being tired like hell). That's it. There's far too many myths going around that all the pre-match stuff would turn bad teams into world beaters, and vice versa. It's from the same tired old stock of FM myth that has it that praising players at HT was inherently bad (even though it is provided as an option). The same one that argues simply keeping morale up and running was like The Shield Of  Invulnerability (+2) against everything, including opposition players arriving repeatedly unchecked into your danger zone. None of this is true (it wouldn't simulate football very well, quite frankly).

Often times the uploaded save doesn't come though, as the premise is often that the mach in question isn't the first time the player has  reloaded until he got the win. An upload can expose a couple such things, as FM keeps a record of how often a file was overwritten, and some more. That is fine and nothing to be ashamed of if the case (not saying it is). It's just that unfortunately, reloading matches until you win them isn't a learning experience. It's simply brute-forcing through until you luck out, rolling the dice until you hit the 6. Plus as said, every release tends to have its own "quirks" (see the spoilered paragraph of mine in the post before). Therefore, having played the game for xy years means only this much.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Svenc

[RodentofDoom]

The game often looks like it's "filling in the blanks" to me when I watch the matches run through, and it does it enough to make me doubt the 'scripting naysayers'

Not disbelieve, but doubt ...so I guess there's still work needed to be done on the animations used.

 

 

I could never score more than 5 goals in a match either ..

Then a few weeks ago after a 12 match winless streak my team score 8 goals in 1 match … EIGHT!!!

This game is often frustrating, but then watching my local teams is too, so that at least mirrors real life accurately.

[Svenc]

The "scripting" suspicious, will always exist. In parts it's simply human nature to conclude that you "just couldn't do anything about it". In games, the suspicious is always there. And it's not as if actual football management was lacking "excuses" either. Oftenly according to that gaffer that ball was just too bouncy on that night.

No matter how limited a game is, what quirks it has. If there's somebody capable of doing something, it is doable. The thing to do isn't to conclude: "I just can't do anything about it." The thing to do is to look at what others are doing who aren't experiencing a problem, and how they do it. There will be many who have the same or similar problems just as you, so it's paramount to not fall for a cognitive bias. Look for the people who have overcome the problem. That is, if they exist. Sometimes, a solution indeed may not be there.

On the main topic, unless a new bug is uncovered. there is little to no doubt. Every save that tends to be uploaded with an "unwinnable" match is won quickly by somebody. Provided the match is actually winnable, and not played in terrible starting conditions or against hugely superior opposition. Given the information at hand, it is hard to tell whether it is "realistic" to barely win a reload either (it may not be). Red pill or blue pill thus. Which one is it?

Edited August 12, 2018 by Svenc

[westy8chimp]

Am i the only one really happy that the result was fairly consistent? Lets say you reloaded the same game 30 times... W 10 D 10 L 10 that would be far more damning of FM as it would point to luck of the draw. 

The fact it was consistent just shows it was a poor stylistic match up for you (playing a 5 man midfield you probably always have control of the midfield, they have offset your overload... One of many tactical variables to consider) 

Herne and Madsheep have summed it up. Playing with the same conditions but expecting a different result is the definition of insanity... Adjusting in the match when things are going badly is how to get promoted. 

[Snorks]

Doing the same thing over and over yet expecting a different result?

It happens, look at the managers IRL who believe the referee was against them, that decisions didn't go their way consistently, that teh game was scripted against Man Utd because they couldn't beat the newly promoted teams?

Instead of punishing yourself looking for random patterns, accept a bad day and move on. It's football, you win games, you lose games and you draw a few - if you could predict which games you win, which you lose it would be very boring.

[Svenc]

As a side note, the core puzzlement stems from the fact that it was the dead last in the league, presumably on average "League 2 quality" players in the Championship. And there was barely a win in sight. Firstly, the gap in between quality usually isn't that large, even in-game. Secondly, it's the Championship. It's not that unbalanced a league as the top tiers (CL money), and that shows usually. It's a common misconception that for teams to be "dead last" and teams to "run away" there needs to be a significant gap in quality. You can simulate that even on FM via the editor and cloning teams/players/their managers. The rules of the sports ensure that, over the span of "just" 30-40 matches, some teams win more, and some lose more. (If the gap in quality isn't that big (such as here), there tends to be less thrashings though.) That alone ensures a "surprise" or two every season. Most of them tend to be "corrected" the following season/s. Look at any seasonal league table, and you will find plenty enough "over" and "under"performances. Do a league table over 5, or 10 seasons, well better don't. It's not a table for the football romantic.

However, given that there isn't going to be a big huge gulf in class, the match will be technically very winnable. An upload may reveal several things though, including possible engine/AI issues possibly affecting things. Without it, no dice.

Edited August 13, 2018 by Svenc

[Tom8983]

On 11/08/2018 at 22:40, raxnt said:

Well I'm a perfectionist, which is why im bloody good at this game to begin with

 

On 11/08/2018 at 21:17, raxnt said:

I got without doubt best players by position in the entire league, I beat lower level Premier teams usually with ease for 3 seasons but I was never able to gain promotion

Doesn't sound like it... 

[..Valhalla..]

You know what I do when my high-flying team(s) suffer ridiculous results like this? I say nothing in the post-match team talks (I like to think my players take my silence as very bad news), then I exit the match and immediately press CTRL+S, send my assistant manager to the press conference, and carry on playing.

Pre-match team talk next time out is "I expect to see much better from you..." and off we go.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

On 12/08/2018 at 14:08, RodentofDoom said:

so I guess there's still work needed to be done on the animations used.

There is. I think it is a point that really needs working on.

 

Sometimes the match representation is beautiful to watch, and sometimes it comes across like it does on the TV.

But too often it can come across as too mechanical, too arcade-ish and too much like it is coming off a script. 

As an example; I just had a wonderful counter-attack 2 vs 2, my winger takes the ball over the half way line and darts to the right flank dragging both defenders with him, one tries to keep with him and the other backs him up centrally. So far so good.

My striker backing him up chases, but then all of a sudden decides to trudge vertically down the half-way line before finally 'clicking' and making the run into the box for the eventual cut-back, open goal attempt. That behaviour from the striker looked fake, it looked dubious and it looks scripted. In this event, he motored on and scored, so most people would just overlook it, but had he not done so I can understand the frustration that would induce. I see it lots of times watching 2018's match engine, there's a lot of dodgy animations being shown. Odd occasions of head-tennis. Bizarre cross-field passes and 'skating' movement. Even little things like a misplaced pass just looks odd enough to get an exasperated 'what was that?' rather than something that looks like it would make sense. - I've seen mis-placed passes intercepted for a counter, and they look great. But there's often scrappy passes going behind players, receivers not being alert to the ball and taking a while to respond to it.

 

Same deal with transitions, you could from a game perspective draw two lines in the ground and watch for when a player with the ball goes past those lines, that's when the rest of the team 'moves' up or down at a bit more pace, when they should be doing so a bit more organically. Then there's the odd situations where the ball goes loose but no one moves for it or recognises the situation as a specific player is designated to pick it up and we have to wait for the representation to show that first, even if that player is down by the corner flag minding his own business.

 

For me, the graphical showing of what the ME decides is off in FM2018 and can give the impression that things aren't right. I think personally this is something that really needs work on for 2019, just for quality of life and entertainment tbh - there's other stuff as well, but I'm more concerned with what I see - I couldn't tell you what the underlying issue is if it was a tactical thing though. :P

[raxnt]

On 12/08/2018 at 10:25, herne79 said:

Actually it is scripted.

But only because you, @raxnt have unwittingly scripted it in that manner from all of your various inputs.  The Cardiff manager has also had input to it.  And you're playing like Germany at the World Cup.  Here's what's happened:

1) You have become complacent.  You've been lulled into a false sense of security by your current form and recent results.  You've clicked through "good" responses in press conferences and so on without really paying attention and you've lined up against Cardiff without much thought other than "yeh, bottom of the table, nail on 3 points".  Sounds like how Germany approached their opening game against Mexico...

2) Your complacency has had a knock on effect to your players.  They've got their heads full of "pfft, Cardiff, who are they?  We just beat a good Premier league team."

3) Cardiff are anything but complacent.  They're scrapping for their lives at the bottom of the table.  Their manager has got his players well up for the fight.

4) Cardiff go 1-0 up.  Now they really do have the bit between their teeth while your players start to wilt.  Again, Germany...

5) They also happen to have a sound tactic which makes a good foil to your own.

6) By this point changing your own tactic is too little too late.  The damage is already done.  All you're now doing by randomly changing your tactic is confusing yourself and your players further.  If you change your system, how do you know you're changing it to a good system?  It's brand new, untried.  And even if you do stumble across something which might be good, your players are so unfamiliar with it (and so complacent) they can't really cope - and Cardiff are still up for the fight anyway.

So, with all of those sort of inputs, it really isn't much of a surprise you can't beat Cardiff even with 30 reloads.

Stop reloading, learn from your mistakes and move on.  All that reloading does is reaffirm a negative belief, which is why you start to think that the game feels scripted.  As TMS is rightly saying, go back over your own actions and learn from that rather than reloading (the equivalent of banging your head against a wall).

7

 

I didn't make any mistakes, I just proved how predetermined it was that I was gonna lose that match with 1 win in 40 matches attempted. Hence the entire point of this post pointing out that things done outside of match day might have too big of an effect on results.

 

If you actually read my post you will see my main focus point is, does prematch events have to big of an effect on match results? What do you think yay or nay?

 

I certainly did not ask for help on how to play FM.

 

And to add, as MODs you guys should really lose the patronizing tone of your posts as it immediately made me feel discouraged from posting on this forum in the future. 

 

As I'm typing this post this just happened, 

 

 

 

 

I guess the game decided both our defenses was gonna have a **** day and our attackers an insanely good one, let's go ping pong.

 

[keithfc]

5 hours ago, raxnt said:

 

And to add, as MODs you guys should really lose the patronizing tone of your posts as it immediately made me feel discouraged from posting on this forum in the future. 

 

 

You may be new in this forum. In the past, when they saw some similar post, you would saw more harsh reply. " It's your tactics." It's yours....." " GO to tactics forum,"

Back to the topic, I am sure pre-match event, including press conference,  who is favor side or underdog side can have a great effect. But how big is the effect? We never know. 

When you spend over 1~2 thousands gaming hours every series of FM, you will know some negative scenarios  will exist. But you just dont know how to solve it, how to avoid it, how to solve, There is no clear answer.

 

I have tried. For example, when you are keep winning, than i will try to not to praise anymore when they just win the game which is expected to win. I will reply a little bit negatively in the press conference. It looks better. But it also looks like not work.

 

May be at that time, you just need  to make use some match engine exploited tactics to against it. haha

 

FM is just a game. Just relax. 

[herne79]

4 hours ago, raxnt said:

If you actually read my post you will see my main focus point is, does prematch events have to big of an effect on match results? What do you think yay or nay?

 

On ‎11‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 22:37, raxnt said:

If anyone could maybe point out why this happens if they have had similar situations and knew what it was

I read your posts and gave you 6 reasons why it happened.  It was not intended to be patronising in the slightest, just pointing out why it happened - which is what you wanted.

Do pre-match events have a big effect?  Yes and no, but as I mentioned previously there is much more going on here than just pre-match events.  Why "yes and no"?  Because individually these pre-match events don't have a big effect but collectively they might do.  But it's not just your team involved, the opposition are also going through the same process.  And then there are tactical and motivational issues during the match itself - again for both you and the opposition.  Don't discount what the opposition are up to.

I gave you the Germany analogy.  At the World Cup Germany didn't suddenly become a bad team.  They are still a fantastic team full of great players.  But they got overly confident - arrogant even - and didn't give their opponents the respect they deserved.  Their opponents on the other hand were not only well up for the fight but also used good tactics of their own.

And so you wanted reasons: Manager and team complacency; opposition fired up in their relegation battle; tactical issues for you and the opposition.  It's these things in combination with each other that's at the bottom of this which collectively have had a large effect.  Not one or two things in isolation.

[GreenTriangle]

What can they say ? This game has a huge number of variables and modifiers. Changing same tactical approaches could be very useful sometimes but can be not enough sometimes. There is a hidden attribute called "consistency". How is this attribute working ? I dont know, but I presume that combined with other modifiers it decrease sometimes quality of players.  In some cases a theoretically good team can be at the same level with a relegation candidate team only because consistency, complacency, morale or nobody knows what other modifier. But not all players are affected in the same way. Some players are more, some are less affected. If all key players are highly affected then only tactical changes can not solve entire problem. A more cautious approach can be useful but is not enough if "quality" (attributes or anything else) of many key players is temporarily decreased. 

[Svenc]

ONE upload and this could have been sorted, 99% (including the 7-7, which will have limited to do with any pre-match stuff). Sometimes just every shot goes flying in, against the odds and probabilities which hopefully are somewhat realistically modeled in the Maths underneath, however not 14 usually. On FM anyway big time freak results usually are  helped by a combination of tactics on both ends of the pitch that see massively space opening up on both ends, which can also happen in between two AI sides (I've personally reported several such matches through the years).

Sometimes the cause is illogical choices (also by AI!). Sometimes it can be bugs, like a combination of marking orders  causing players to turn up in the box unmarked each and every time. That's not meant to come off as patronizing. It's just that this is always so frustrating to read. No less as a) this board has been there many times before (always same outcome) and b) an upload may reveal severe engine and AI issues that better be fixed, making the game better for all in the long run (hopefully).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill

Edited August 16, 2018 by Svenc

[raxnt]

2 hours ago, herne79 said:

 

I read your posts and gave you 6 reasons why it happened.  It was not intended to be patronising in the slightest, just pointing out why it happened - which is what you wanted.

Do pre-match events have a big effect?  Yes and no, but as I mentioned previously there is much more going on here than just pre-match events.  Why "yes and no"?  Because individually these pre-match events don't have a big effect but collectively they might do.  But it's not just your team involved, the opposition are also going through the same process.  And then there are tactical and motivational issues during the match itself - again for both you and the opposition.  Don't discount what the opposition are up to.

I gave you the Germany analogy.  At the World Cup Germany didn't suddenly become a bad team.  They are still a fantastic team full of great players.  But they got overly confident - arrogant even - and didn't give their opponents the respect they deserved.  Their opponents on the other hand were not only well up for the fight but also used good tactics of their own.

And so you wanted reasons: Manager and team complacency; opposition fired up in their relegation battle; tactical issues for you and the opposition.  It's these things in combination with each other that's at the bottom of this which collectively have had a large effect.  Not one or two things in isolation.

Yes and I appreciate your replies and your time, what I am trying to say is I know all these things lead to complacency, what I want to hear from you is peoples general opinion on these predetermined things you just mentioned.

If you guys feel its a bit over the top sometimes, I explained the differences between the teams very well so you would get an idea of how insanely complacent my team would have had to be to create this kind of one-sided result repeatedly, again I'm not asking for help on how to play FM, If I was I would be posting in other parts of the forum.

 

Svenc: My conclusion on the 7-7 vs Chelsea is passing into space with high acc/pace attackers create an insane amount of chances. Especially late in the game when you put on fresh fast attackers vs a tired defense.

This screen shot is from the same season and look at the results I have vs some of the top teams in the league:

 

https://gyazo.com/40082a722fa7455b877f9f3ded512c12

Towards the end of the season when all my players started forging strong understanding the goals from the pass into space, from long passes from defense to short quick passes into the box turned into an insane amount of goals.

Currently struggling to find/sign good defenders so I'm playing with kids and when they all hit prime age/potential it's gonna be glorious.