Kick off goals

[dsb85]

I'm not sure if there's another thread for this, but its something that really needs to be addressed!

Has anyone else noticed the amount of stupid goals that you concede, immediately after scoring yourself? It's already happened to me in 3 of my first 4 games of the season. There are countless examples that I could show, in separate saves and different teams and even totally different tactics. The most infuriating one was in the CL final. I'm playing as Benfica and played Man Utd. I scored to go 1-0 up in the 88th minute, they scored in the 89th. Then it happened again in extra time. I scored in 115th, they scored in 117th.
I've also seen this happen on Youtuber's videos consistently, so I know that its not down to my tactics.

 It must be some kind of bug but I can't see anyone addressing it. Either that or it is something which has been intentionally coded into the game, in which case it is far too overpowered as there is no way to stop it, especially as it usually happens before your tactical changes take effect (if you decide to go defensive, if its last minute). Surely this puts it more into the 'scripted' bracket which definitely shouldn't be a thing!

If anyone knows if SI have addressed this, or even knows a way to combat it, please let me know.

Thanks.

[CFuller]

There is absolutely no evidence of scripting in Football Manager. And what exactly would be the point in SI coding the game so that an AI-managed team would always score immediately after a user-managed team?

Also, would you be complaining if the opposition regularly suffered from this problem? In other words, are you claiming it's a bug because it happens, or are you claiming it's a bug because it happens to your team?

Anyway, if your team is consistently conceding immediately after scoring, there could be several factors at play (don't rule out your tactics here), and there is no perfect solution. For starters, I'd look at the Concentration attributes of your players, particularly your defensive ones. If they're quite low, then I suspect you might have problems.

[Federico]

9 ore fa, dsb85 ha scritto:

 

 It must be some kind of bug but I can't see anyone addressing it.

You can answer yourself to this.

In fact, it never happened to me.

[Svenc]

No much experience with playing with the latest release/patch, so, in general:

The AI Manager is going to change upon conceding a goal, which can make it look that way on the occasion. Basically, AI managers are coded to react to scorelines. Usually, they will push to get back into the game, although they can also take measures to avoid a thrashing.  There could be also ME defending flaws that could make goals conceded upon a lead and the AI changing more likely, but you'd need to take a far closer look than just the goals to filter them (even in Football, looking at purely goals as they are so rare and often random tell very very very little about a match, or a team). E.g. how are those Goals scored? Additionally, be aware of possible confirmation bias. "EVERY TIME I drive home from work, that damn traffic light goes red -- except for all the times it doesn't".  

As for scripting, there's Nothing to be gained here for SI. Games aren't coded like that these days as they want to keep you in that loop, and every possible enraged customer is a lost customer. That's not much a conspiracy, that's a thing. The AI for instance is never coded to challenge the more hardcore end of the spectrum of this, and if it would… this is ensured via extensive focus group, er beta and play testing these days -- to the oft dismay of the more hardcore end of the playerbase, who tend to have found solutions to (almost) everything the AI keeps throwing up.
 

Quote

humans like to win and hate to lose. But a game with no stakes generally isn’t much fun – we thrive on achievable challenges. According to research by behavioral economist Richard Thaler, humans prefer a pattern of large rewards all at once, but small losses spread out over time, even if the amounts are the same in the end. If you want to keep someone playing a game, you have to make sure that their brain is happy with the way the rewards are being distributed. Every rage-quit is another lost player.

[weezy3313]

. There is an abnormal amount of goals conceded on the kickoff after a score (it goes both ways).... IT IS A THING!

[CFuller]

I personally have not seen an abnormal number of goals being scored shortly after kick-offs. Please understand that just because you appear to experience it regularly doesn't mean that everybody experiences it regularly,

[Svenc]

The time stamps in the OP indicate a late match AI switch to a super aggressive setup (more width, top heavy formation, aggressive mentality, attack duties all over the place, etc.). WHen the AI concedes that late it typically figures it has to go that way, or else it's almost guaranteed to lose. So, every once in a while, it should be a statistical probability that you concede immediately with the first, second attack. Unlike other Sports, Goals  in Football aren't that highly correlated, but yet, if a Team concedes, it takes the kick-off and has the next attack. If you wanted to know if it's actually a "Thing", you had to be really specific how often it happens, and then record how the goals are scored (providing vids, better yet saved Matches as pkms).

Otherwise, there's no way this can be assessed either way… (again, not playing the current Iteration/patch release atm, so cannot tell). What I can tell you from experience, that you will find all Kinds of odd Things, and Players both agreeing/disagreeing with you, as yes, stuff happens. And this game is played by thousands and thousands. (This is basically 90% the history of the the "injury" bug section in a nutshell ever since, even though the game is far too light on injuries on average -- that is, when compared to actual Football, and it's actually tweaked that way to avoid overly Player Frustration -- see my Quote and the article above).

[phd_angel]

I feel your pain, and tend to agree. We have to be extra careful right after scoring a goal.

I do all sorts of things: I shout "tighten up", set tactics to "Cautious", increase Time Wasting slider, change mentality of wingers to support, etc, etc. etc, 

If I don't take some of such counter-measure actions, I'm bound to be scored against...

Good luck.

[Svenc]

In terms of counter-measures, what also used to be overly efficient was playing keep-ball upon going in front. Whilst that doesn't help you win the ball back off the team kicking it off after you've scored; once you get the ball, it was easy to not give it away. On a Prior release I had a spell of barely conceding after taking the lead that lasted months; including but conceding 1 Goal past the 75th minutes mark for almost half a season. The AI, as usual, was incapable of doing such.

Whilst this was this efficient in big parts due to pressing issues inside the match engine (and limited AI Managers); at least early patch iteration FM 19 this looked just as feasible. It's one of the first things I tried, and I got sequences involving a dozen+ passes right from kick off in my first ever FM 19 match easily, which likely was no coincidence.  Just chose a more cautious mentality, don't make Players run forward this much so that the ball stays deeper alongside them, and kick in all the possession based instructions on offer. I mean, anybody arguing the game were ever flawless is stupid -- however, those flaws can be utilized ourselves too. 

Would be interesting if somebody could post a screenshot of their schedule and mark the matches where conceding right upon scoring actually happened. Over the longer term. Six months, 12, 24. This is also an useful exercise for assessing your performance, as a possible bias which may at least partially affect Things, impacts your (Management) decisions in bad ways. If you're only looking for confirmation for Problems you encounter, you're likely to stop looking for a (possible) solutions, for a start. And given that FM is played by this many Players, you will find confirmation for everything.  
 

 

[Filke]

Happens all the time.

[Grifty]

I don’t see it that often. Happens enough to be realistic.

[Filke]

I want to add to that that whenever they need a goal, engine will give them corner kick from which they always score. So frustrating they cant beat my defense but will always score from corner kick or game will give them penalty.

[CFuller]

4 minutes ago, Filke said:

I want to add to that that whenever they need a goal, engine will give them corner kick from which they always score. So frustrating they cant beat my defense but will always score from corner kick or game will give them penalty.

Please take off your tinfoil hat, because - and I CANNOT stress this enough - the match engine CANNOT tell the difference between a user-managed team and an AI-managed team.

[Filke]

Yea sure, why my goalkeeper then make no effort to catch ball after their corner kick.

[herne79]

6 minutes ago, Filke said:

Yea sure, why my goalkeeper then make no effort to catch ball after their corner kick.

We're getting off topic here, however as @CFuller rightly says, the Match Engine simply isn't built like that.

Back on topic - personally I have noticed goals (or decent chances) straight from kick off following another goal for several years now.  They're rare and it's just as likely to happen for my team as the opposition, but they tend to stick in the mind though so it can turn into a bigger issue than it actually is.  So yes it's something I've noticed but for me isn't a big issue - although I'll always roll my eyes when I see the kick off after a goal, we go straight into another highlight and think "here we go again".  Perception bias.

Has anyone actually been keeping track of the frequency of occurrence?  How often have you seen it happen over the course of a season?  If you can monitor this in your saves and then come back with some data, that may give SI something to investigate - especially if you then back up the data with match pkms.

[Filke]

How can i record and make a gif to show you how my keeper react to opposition heading?

[herne79]

1 hour ago, Filke said:

How can i record and make a gif to show you how my keeper react to opposition heading?

If you are that convinced of some sort of ME bias against you which favours the AI teams, the best thing you can do is create a new thread in the Match Engine issues forum, upload lots pkms showing many examples of the issue you are seeing and let SI review it.

By the way, if you are seeing so many goals from corners, how have you adjusted your training to focus more on defending set pieces?  Which tall, strong defenders have you transferred in to help?  What defensive set piece routines are you using?  Going by your post in the tactics forum I see you are using a flat 433 formation with 3 strikers, so how much are you relying on your strikers to help defend set pieces?

[Svenc]

4 hours ago, herne79 said:

Back on topic - personally I have noticed goals (or decent chances) straight from kick off following another goal for several years now.  

The Question then is how do they come About. As an example: Maybe run/s straight from the spot are not picked up properly, and a player not yet under pressure right from the kick off playing a through ball from Deep to that unmarked player… That's the Kind of stuff that SI would likely want to adress (if it's an actually issue), but they have to pick it up in the first place, which is the challenge. Often times that issue is not immediately obvious, as it may not be in the immediate build-up, or even the turnover of the ball, let alone the goal mouth action in isolationincident. And often times it's stuff Happening Yards off the ball at fault too.
.

As for the "tinfoil hat", this one isn't: If the AI on this were more intelligent, the suspicion of cheating AI would only increase, which is what SI going by their Responses are really triggered by (in particular Paul Collyer, who is as Purist as you can get About this). 

Not ideal for anybody yearning for improved AI, I'm afraid. One of the reasons I'm combatting this with all my might, personally. (In particular how ridiculously players on this tend to outperform said AI on all accounts across every FM community out there, even if they don't realize).

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/116071/Analysis_Game_AI__Our_Cheatin_Hearts.php