the more passes before a shot the better the chance

[2feet]

of the shot going in?

Does anyone agree? It seems if a team has made a succession of passes in the build up to getting a shot on target, the AI increases the chance of that shot going in. Does that make sense?

[zlatanera]

Not really. Sometimes that is the case, yeah, where the AI builds up a really good move and pulls your defence all over the place. But you can also get a really good quality shot by having a winger beat his man and hit it low to the near post for a pacy striker. 

[Snorks]

Can't say I've noticed to be honest. Have played games and achieved 60% + possession, which suggests big passing numbers, but still scoring one or two.

I know there are so many variables to take into account though.

Are you seeing the effect of chances from within the box/closer to goal? I guess it stands to reason you have a better chance of hitting the target from 10 yards than you do from 20 - the extra couple of passes to get the ball into that position perhaps?

 

 

[Baodan]

I don't think there's any

correlation between the number of passes and the chance to score.

[physiar]

Build-Up play with loads of passes tend to be shown as highlights, especially if you are on comprehensive, so you are possibly having the illusion that the more passes before a shot, the better the chance. 

[oblongata21]

I havent noticed this, sometimes ive seen one pass from a centre back over the defense to a striker running onto the ball. Maybe there is a correlation with build up play or possession play?

[sporadicsmiles]

I cannot imagine this being the case. There are so many factors that go towards a goal being scored. With passing, the style of play you have will make a difference too. If, for example, you play a possession style, you will see more passes per goal than if you play counter attacking. I have a counter attacking tactic I use against stronger sides where most of my goals come from moves with less than 5 passes in total, for instance.

I definitely do not think there is a bias in the ME or from the AI towards scoring goals after lots of passing.

The way to determine this would be to plot the number of passes it takes to score a goal. Make a bar chart and see what the distribution looks like. I'd imagine some kind of Gaussian whose center depends on your style of play, and with a secondary distribution towards very low number of passes (goals from corners, free kicks, counters, mistakes, penalties, etc).

[Peljam]

The problem with this is the 'better the chance' variable. How is this being assessed? If there's a way to score it then you could run a correlation (bivariate) with the number of passes being the 2nd variable. If you are going to categorise it (Clear Cut, Half Chance, Other) then you could look at the distribution as suggested by sporadicsmiles for each.

There would be issues with this though as already mentioned, there are other factors tactical style skewing things - if you only every play long ball then you'll only every have a few passes before a chance regardless of quality. If you play tika-taka you will almost always have many many passess before a chance, regardless of quality. That will make the data harder to deal with.

If you have the time though you could collect that data from several teams, using several styles of play. You could always record other factors (like those sporadicsmiles mentions) and analyse it using a regression to take those factors into consideration.

 

I'm nerding out over this idea as a) I'm a nerd, and b) there are tons of books about stats and football that blow apart a lot of myths. (Like...Soccernomics, The Numbers Game, Outside the Box). If you look at the history of football and stats (and the likes of Charles Reep) the original suggestion was that it was better to get the ball into the box as quickly as possible and in as few passes as possible (as very few successful moves were deemed to have more than a certain number of passes). This has been refuted since but it's interesting if you like stats and analytics.

[gerry58]

No and actually the opposite is true

[SD]

The OP is right, the longer a highlight drags on, the likelier it is it will lead to a goal, or at least on extensive highlights mode most people play.

But it's the other way around, not that longer spells of play lead to better chances, but that highlights that lead to goals or clear cut chances get cut in from earlier - the exception being dead ball situations. For instance, a goal from a free kick is still going to cut in straight from the free kick and not from the infraction that preceded it.

On the other hand, if a hightlight cuts in during open play and 10 seconds later your striker breaks through one on one with the keeper, he is always, and I mean ALWAYS going to miss. That's because the ME calculated the remainder of the match last time any input was made either from you or the AI, so it "knows" the outcome of that highlight. And if it were a goal, it would have started the highlight earlier during build up.

Most people don't tell the difference, but once you figure this out it kills a lot of the enjoyment. Or it leads to counter-intuitive reactions, like rooting for your winger to backpass because he broke free too early in the highlight so you know if he's going to cross, the striker's going to miss (not every time, but most of the times. occasionally there's a clearance, another 10-15 seconds of buildup play that finally ends with a goal).

There are rarely stops in play mid-highlight in FM18 - but in previous versions you could exploit and make a trivial change during a stop in play during a highlight and force the game to re-calculate the outcome. You could do this for instance when the action dragged on and it was mostly in your own third - sometimes you were going to score on the break that highlight, but more often than not it was going to end with you conceding.

My plan was to file this as bug if it happens in FM19 as well, but my guess it's that it's likely a deliberate design decision. Edit to clarify, I'm referring to highlight length, the exploit I describe in my last paragraph is nowadays either completely gone from FM or at least very, very situational.

 

 

[kensteidel]

On 14/10/2018 at 21:58, 2feet said:

of the shot going in?

Does anyone agree? It seems if a team has made a succession of passes in the build up to getting a shot on target, the AI increases the chance of that shot going in. Does that make sense?

Not true statistically speaking irl, at least.

[SD]

3 hours ago, kensteidel said:

Not true statistically speaking irl, at least.

Not true even in game, I have watched quite a few matches in full and I could not spot a clear cut tendency either way.

But when it comes to highlights, it a matter of perception - I gave an at length explanation above, but basically the game knows in advance how the highlight is going to end so if it's going to end with a goal it cuts in earlier during build up.

[Svenc]

No. There's a section of the player base who are under the misconception that more possession=in itself dominating an opposition (where they get that from is anyone's guess, I have my own for sure). THey tweak everything so that play doesn't easily break down. The same measures they take to get there  however heavily decreases the likelyhood of scoring, as it makes it ridiculously easy for opponents to close and defend the space they are "attacking". They ask themselves all the wrong questions from the go. And if you would focus on the numbers of passes, you'd do much the same.

It's not the number of passes. It's about the space. Anybody who is under a different impression is misguided. Actually, some of the best chances of conversion come about by sequences of very little passes, such as that proverbial ball over the top / in between the channels / lines of an advanced d-line with possibly no much protection whatsoever.

[SD]

1 hour ago, Svenc said:

No. There's a section of the player base who are under the misconception that more possession=in itself dominating an opposition (where they get that from is anyone's guess, I have my own for sure). THey tweak everything so that play doesn't easily break down. The same measures they take to get there  however heavily decreases the likelyhood of scoring, as it makes it ridiculously easy for opponents to close and defend the space they are "attacking". They ask themselves all the wrong questions from the go. And if you would focus on the numbers of passes, you'd do much the same.

It's not the number of passes. It's about the space. Anybody who is under a different impression is misguided. Actually, some of the best chances of conversion come about by sequences of very little passes, such as that proverbial ball over the top / in between the channels / lines of an advanced d-line with possibly no much protection whatsoever.

You completely miss the point I was making. Regardless of the tactics you are using, and all else being equal, the game shows more of the build up play for the highlights that end up in goals or clear cut chances.

It's an user experience decision on the developer's part, not a tactical issue with the match engine.

[Snorks]

Both you @Svenc & @SD make sense and I cant't disagree with either of you to be honest. Never noticed it in the length of highlight if I am honest, but I usually watch 3d in Comprehensive or Full anyway and would assume the effect s more noticeable on the Key highlight options.

 

As for the possession thing, I still aim to out-possess the opposition in the game, but that's not an FM thing, it's deeply ingrained from when I was a little kid being told 'they can;t score if we have the ball' so for me, I see it as more a defensive or protective approach to the tactic.

Mind you, not gonna complain at 40% possession and a 1-0 win though, just wouldn't build a tactic with that in mind.

[Experienced Defender]

On 15/10/2018 at 10:37, oblongata21 said:

I havent noticed this, sometimes ive seen one pass from a centre back over the defense to a striker running onto the ball

My favorite way of scoring 

[Svenc]

8 hours ago, SD said:

You completely miss the point I was making. Regardless of the tactics you are using, and all else being equal, the game shows more of the build up play for the highlights that end up in goals or clear cut chances.

That was a reply to the general OP, else I would have used a quote.
 

The ME btw doesn't know its own outcome. It doesn't know a goal is going to be scored until its scored likewise. It simply creates the playthrough of the entire half/match -- SI do this so that their "highlight picker" knows where a "highlight" occured (which is a separate entity from the ME). Technically, everything you ever get to see is a replay (and couldn't ever be further influenced). That's also how you can click on any past result, save matches as pkm files and watch it all in its entirety (or highlights). Recalculations after tactical changes and/or subs occur when the ball is out of play, etc. That's a different angle naturally. As mused, it may or may not influence the OP's perception. It may very well be possible that in tendency you see longer sequences of passes during the build-up to an actual goal, simply because of how the highlights are chosen. That's coded by SI. There may well be patterns here, same as any piece of the code has (including the actual ME). There have been several interesting perception biases connected to this though too -- like players being convinced they'd get better results if they chose to follow the match in purely text, to  full, or highlights (no kidding).

Do more passes as suchincrease the scoring chance on FM though? No. In particular against opposition keeping things tight, players evidently struggle as soon as they go all extreme and simply tweak things so that they can string an endless amounts of passes, which tends to be easier to do if they go all ultra narrow, slow and probing. On FM's level of flawed and far too simple MOTD style stats though, this doesn't necessarily hugely show in those stats. One of the telltale signs of that struggle is when every 2nd shot or more isn't created from open play, but set piece play. Unfortunately, set pieces by definition see boxes packed. If every other shot is purely from a set piece, shot conversion has always taken a nose dive. The many set pieces happen because the opposition defense gets a foot into every other move easily. Likewise, it is no coincidence that there are so many complaints about how opponents "would score on every 2nd shot". Opposition are gifted opportunity on a platter and can knock out defenses with the fewest of passes when coming up against the many defenderless tactics shared on FMBase et all. In general, this is about context. A bit like it tends to be in footie.
 

[NabsKebabs]

what a load of rubbish

[SD]

9 hours ago, Svenc said:

That was a reply to the general OP, else I would have used a quote.

The notification was that you quoted me, that's why I assumed your reply was addressed to me.

9 hours ago, Svenc said:

The ME btw doesn't know its own outcome. It doesn't know a goal is going to be scored until its scored likewise. It simply creates the playthrough of the entire half/match -- SI do this so that their "highlight picker" knows where a "highlight" occured (which is a separate entity from the ME). Technically, everything you ever get to see is a replay (and couldn't ever be further influenced). That's also how you can click on any past result, save matches as pkm files and watch it all in its entirety (or highlights). Recalculations after tactical changes and/or subs occur when the ball is out of play, etc. That's a different angle naturally. As mused, it may or may not influence the OP's perception. It may very well be possible that in tendency you see longer sequences of passes during the build-up to an actual goal, simply because of how the highlights are chosen. That's coded by SI. There may well be patterns here, same as any piece of the code has (including the actual ME).

We're pretty much on the same page here.

9 hours ago, Svenc said:

There have been several interesting perception biases connected to this though too -- like players being convinced they'd get better results if they chose to follow the match in purely text, to  full, or highlights (no kidding).

Now, this I agree it's silly.

9 hours ago, Svenc said:

Do more passes as suchincrease the scoring chance on FM though? No. In particular against opposition keeping things tight, players evidently struggle as soon as they go all extreme and simply tweak things so that they can string an endless amounts of passes, which tends to be easier to do if they go all ultra narrow, slow and probing. On FM's level of flawed and far too simple MOTD style stats though, this doesn't necessarily hugely show in those stats. One of the telltale signs of that struggle is when every 2nd shot or more isn't created from open play, but set piece play. Unfortunately, set pieces by definition see boxes packed. If every other shot is purely from a set piece, shot conversion has always taken a nose dive. The many set pieces happen because the opposition defense gets a foot into every other move easily. Likewise, it is no coincidence that there are so many complaints about how opponents "would score on every 2nd shot". Opposition are gifted opportunity on a platter and can knock out defenses with the fewest of passes when coming up against the many defenderless tactics shared on FMBase et all. In general, this is about context. A bit like it tends to be in footie.

This is an entirely different conversation, but I agree that on the contrary, drawn out passing moves are a sign the team is struggling to break down the opposition. A good possession tactic is less about not losing the ball and more about how to regain it once you lose it.

The possession figure, like every other stat, is a useful to a degree but we must not lose sight that it's only a means to an end.

[oblongata21]

On 17/10/2018 at 06:39, Experienced Defender said:

My favorite way of scoring 

Mine too, all you need is a poacher lol, but I think it was far too easy for that to work most the time.