AI squad building problems. What is going on with these transfers???

I posted some other findings in the thread here after 3 simmed seasons too.

I took over Real Madrid from Graham Potter just to see if I could pinpoint any issues, so I used his 4-2-3-1 formation that he used for five years at the club already to get a better view of squad depth and how the team has been formed. There are a lot problems. For one thing, they signed Nico Mantl as their first choice keeper after selling both Courtois and Lunin. This guy is really, really not even good enough to be a backup keeper here. There's no reason for either Raya or Costa to not be playing here instead of both of them rotting on PSGs bench.

-If you check the CB screenshot, Sutalo is the only proper CB in the squad (apart from Ceesay, who's 20 years old and still has a long way to go to be any good). The 'depth' around him is made up of multi-position players that are more suited as DMs or fullbacks.
-In the LB screenshot, you can see that the supposed best leftback in this squad is Camavinga - ahead of two actual left fullbacks (though Alaba is falling out of favour due to age and should be replaced with an actual signing anyway). Nice time for a pun here: Yusi is yusi-less. 23 years old and in the B squad, shouldn't even be considered in this depth analysis.
-RB position is shocking. They have one player - forget Alfonso, he's 18 and in Real Madrid B.
-STC position shows depth with only two actual strikers (Evanilson and Endrick) and Rodrygo, who's still labelled by the media as an 'elite winger' and has Inside Forward as his considered best position.

I think this is the last I'll test simming seasons to see how squads are built by AI until the full game is released. As things stand, If this is the level of competition to expect from AI managers - and if this is how elite clubs shape their squads - journeyman saves really aren't worth doing.

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by tezcatlipoca665

I'm just gonna post here any time I realize/notice something about this save. I also took over Inter in this sixth season test save to look around, and I can confirm that a lot of the issues with AI squad building is that they're retraining players for other positions. That's why Rodrygo and Fati are playing as full-on strikers, and neither Barcelona nor Real Madrid are buying for those positions. It looks like a combination of two things are happening:

1) The AI managers have a big, big preference for players that can play multiple positions, and don't like players that play one position extremely well.
2) The AI managers are absolutely determined to retrain players for other positions.

I mentioned Victor Osimhen joining Bayern Munich for £86 and being used as a backup striker in that thread I linked above, which was 3 seasons in. From the fourth season on, he's now a first team regular, because Bayern retrained him to play on the left wing.

I got this notification during the first team meeting. Diego Simeone (who was Inter manager before I pushed him out) was retraining Martinez and Thuram as Shadow Strikers. Simeone doesn't even use people in the AM position to utilize this role in his tactics!!! lmao

Here's one for international team building. A newgen called Aitor Marin is now part of the Spanish first team at 19 years old and has 4 caps, but he's only had 6 games in total for Juventus (3 starts, 3 sub appearances). He was playing in La Liga 2 before this, and then Serie C with Juventus's B team for a season until those 6 first team appearances.

We're aware of these issues and have it under review, thanks for the spot.

In future though, when doing these sort of tests please look at the end of the Summer window, as squads will still be getting built in the months prior. 

lol, I didn't even realize. I'm gonna holiday it to the end of the transfer window later and at least give RM a chance there and see what happens. btw, sorry if the tone of these posts is coming off badly - I think some of these things are pretty funny. Brentford having two keepers out with cruciate ligament injuries and being forced to rely on some poor unexperienced 17 year old for almost a whole season was hilarious. The game itself is a massive improvement overall and it feels much better than FM23 did. I also really like how the Saudi teams are buying players that you'd actually expect them to want to sign, and I don't know if this is intentional, but I like that those players are leaving at the end of their contracts and (mostly) going to other leagues on free transfers. Seems like that'd be likely to happen in the future in real life for players that aren't really at retirement age. I think that some managers are retiring a bit prematurely at relatively early ages sometimes after they've left international management, and that was the case in FM23 too, but I'm not sure if that's worth worrying about.

If I can have a long-term journeyman save game where I can see out manager contracts (provided I don't get sacked), move from team-to-team without having to completely rebuild with every move, this'll be pretty much perfect imo.

Edited October 25, 2023 by tezcatlipoca665

Okay, I think I'll make this my last post in this thread. I just simmed to the end of the transfer window, and Madrid didn't sign anybody other than an attacking midfielder they didn't need (Samuel Justo). They also sold both Endrick and Victor Kristiansen, so now their left back position is held together by Camavinga and Alaba - but Alaba is their first choice centre back based on appearances, keeping Sutalo out of the squad, despite being labelled as a Fringe Player. He's 37 years old, has 9 stamina, 9 pace, and 8 strength - but has an average performance rating of 7.89!! Fair play to the guy.

Yusi is there in the leftback position too within the squad planner, but he shouldn't even be good enough to get on the bench for the worst team in La Liga. If Yusi is reading this: I'm sorry I was caught saying these things about you. In my defence, the Spanish FM research team did this to you.

This is how the regular RM starting 11 looks 9 games into the new season.

As a veteran player, thank you for pointing this out. We need much better AI squad building, we need top AI managers that really push the human player, we need the difficulty and realism back in our game. If they're not going to do it, at least allow a difficulty level with realistic injuries and hardened AI. 

Great posts. Kills my will to play unfortunaly but it needa to be pointed out

 

On 24/10/2023 at 03:59, tezcatlipoca665 said:

I'm just gonna post here any time I realize/notice something about this save. I also took over Inter in this sixth season test save to look around, and I can confirm that a lot of the issues with AI squad building is that they're retraining players for other positions. That's why Rodrygo and Fati are playing as full-on strikers, and neither Barcelona nor Real Madrid are buying for those positions. It looks like a combination of two things are happening:

1) The AI managers have a big, big preference for players that can play multiple positions, and don't like players that play one position extremely well.
2) The AI managers are absolutely determined to retrain players for other positions.

I mentioned Victor Osimhen joining Bayern Munich for £86 and being used as a backup striker in that thread I linked above, which was 3 seasons in. From the fourth season on, he's now a first team regular, because Bayern retrained him to play on the left wing.

This was something that I bug-reported in FM22, I believe.   It's been an issue for quite a while. And, because retraining players into new positions costs CA and development time, it exacerbates the development problems that have been a scourge of the last few editions.  (Take a player who has 168 CA/184 PA.  He's 20 CM/AMC.  Make him an 18 DM and now he's 171 CA.  If he's 20 CM/AMC, with 15ish AML/AMR/ST, he goes up to 173 CA.  It's the same bump in CA that he gets from going from 14 Passing to 20.  All of the focus on positional retraining is crippling player development.)

16 minutes ago, Sunstrikuuu said:

This was something that I bug-reported in FM22, I believe.   It's been an issue for quite a while. And, because retraining players into new positions costs CA and development time, it exacerbates the development problems that have been a scourge of the last few editions.  (Take a player who has 168 CA/184 PA.  He's 20 CM/AMC.  Make him an 18 DM and now he's 171 CA.  If he's 20 CM/AMC, with 15ish AML/AMR/ST, he goes up to 173 CA.  It's the same bump in CA that he gets from going from 14 Passing to 20.  All of the focus on positional retraining is crippling player development.)

IMO, it'd be better just to do away retraining a position altogether and just stick to natural positions players start with - especially for the AI so this just doesn't happen anymore. The appropriate visible attributes, player traits, and hidden Versatility attribute should just be used to judge whether a player is able to play in an unfamiliar position when it's needed, in order to avoid the AI from ending up creating an AM that can also play as a CD, LB, and RW, ranging from awkward-to-competent, and making the player position pitch in his profile look like a Connect 4 offshoot with confusing rules.

Edited November 6, 2023 by tezcatlipoca665

2 minutes ago, tezcatlipoca665 said:

IMO, it'd be better just to do away retraining a position altogether and just stick to natural positions players start with - especially for the AI so this just doesn't happen anymore. The appropriate visible attributes, player traits, and hidden Versatility attribute should just be used to judge whether a player is able to play in an unfamiliar position when it's needed, in order to avoid the AI from ending up creating an AM that can also play as a CD, LB, and RW, ranging from awkward-to-competent, and making the player position pitch in his profile look like a Connect 4 offshoot with confusing rules.

On the other hand, it's important to be able to replicate mid- and late-career positional changes.  Positional retraining is a big part of the sport.  Look at, for example, the career of Philipp Lahm.  But yeah, something has to be done to curb this; it's a bit out of control at the moment.

20 minutes ago, Sunstrikuuu said:

On the other hand, it's important to be able to replicate mid- and late-career positional changes.  Positional retraining is a big part of the sport.  Look at, for example, the career of Philipp Lahm.  But yeah, something has to be done to curb this; it's a bit out of control at the moment.

In my Juventus save in FM23, a coach recommended having Angel Di Maria train as a central midfield position due to his age, though he could already play there. I thought that still made a lot of sense, at least. I'm just kind of thinking the whole thing needs to be ripped out and redone, but this mightn't be a problem if the AI squad building issues are fixed in general. If they prioritize signing players to keep decent squad depth, as well as bring through younger players in their preferred positions, we'll probably see less of this insistence of creating utility players despite having the funds to bring in suitable players.

Though Diego Simeone retraining players to work as Shadow Strikers - which he doesn't use as a role in his tactics, nor even the AM position which is always absent in his formations - is a real head scratcher.