FM13: Anyone else cheesed off with this "sideways" football?

[LemonTea]

So not only does the premiership and every bloody European team serve up sideways and reverse gear football, now FM has jumped on the band wagon as well!

I am sick and tired of watching my team create a great opening, only for the players to grind to halt outside the opposition 18 year box and then proceed to demonstrate how good they are at the sideways pass! As if that ain't enough, the bloody wide men get in on the act by playing a brand of reverse gear football until it finally goes way back to a center half who hoofs the ball up field to an opposing player.

No amount of tactic changes can stop this, I've tried

SI have ruined the match engine to follow fashion.

I have also yet to see an attacking player, mine or the opposing team, break away and bear down on goal in a 1-on-1 situation.

[ChelseaFan]

So not only does the premiership and every bloody European team serve up sideways and reverse gear football, now FM has jumped on the band wagon as well!

I am sick and tired of watching my team create a great opening, only for the players to grind to halt outside the opposition 18 year box and then proceed to demonstrate how good they are at the sideways pass! As if that ain't enough, the bloody wide men get in on the act by playing a brand of reverse gear football until it finally goes way back to a center half who hoofs the ball up field to an opposing player.

No amount of tactic changes can stop this, I've tried

SI have ruined the match engine to follow fashion.

I have also yet to see an attacking player, mine or the opposing team, break away and bear down on goal in a 1-on-1 situation.

It's your tactics.

Lots of things being posted relating to not being able to defend or attack are almost certainly down to users' tactics, not the ME. Such tactical issues illuminate the problems of coding the ME. There is a footballing logic that it and AI tactics access, which includes having a certain number of players moving between the lines (pushing up or dropping deep). If a user's tactic is very static and keeps players glued to their line, then they arguably should be struggling to get results, just as a real life team playing totally static football would. Historically, users employing static tactics have been able to "beat" the ME rather than the AI by keeping their defence back and channeling their passes through to a single, usually quick, player. The lack of collision detection in the ME resulted in this player being guaranteed a certain number of good chances every match. The only thing that mattered was how well he played.

In reality, any team would be able to mark that player out of the game. The one dimensionality of the tactic then gets exposed, as it can't create another type of chance. A user with this type of tactic should be seeing bad football and getting frustrated. How do you know that is you? Generally, if you always kept both FBs on Defend duties, had at least one DLP, possibly two, and forwards only on Attack duties, then there is the strong possibility you were relying on the 'no collision' exploit to overpower the ME. If you had multiple DLPs and an FC in the FCC position, it was almost certainly you.

Ultimately, if this type of tactic is struggling, then it is evidence that the ME has improved structurally. That doesn't mean that it doesn't have some bugs, such as defensive positioning on some free kicks, shooting too often from extreme angles, pressing not being aggressive enough etc. However, these are all secondary to the overall structure working far, far better. Structural improvement was the key focus of the two year ME redevelop, which required the introduction of player collision and ball physics. If you can't see quite how much this has improved the overall play of the ME, then you are missing the wood for the trees. Everything outside of this structural improvement is polishing. The ME might need burnishing in certain areas, but the underlying framework has improved significantly.

[IWWROCKS]

So not only does the premiership and every bloody European team serve up sideways and reverse gear football, now FM has jumped on the band wagon as well!

I am sick and tired of watching my team create a great opening, only for the players to grind to halt outside the opposition 18 year box and then proceed to demonstrate how good they are at the sideways pass! As if that ain't enough, the bloody wide men get in on the act by playing a brand of reverse gear football until it finally goes way back to a center half who hoofs the ball up field to an opposing player.

No amount of tactic changes can stop this, I've tried

SI have ruined the match engine to follow fashion.

I have also yet to see an attacking player, mine or the opposing team, break away and bear down on goal in a 1-on-1 situation.

You start your sentence off by saying every team does it in real life, and then complain about it? Sorry but if it's in real life, shouldn't it be in the game?

[SaLaDiN]

Dead offsides are in real life and but not in the game, so your point?

[Fabregas_04]

It's your tactics.

Lots of things being posted relating to not being able to defend or attack are almost certainly down to users' tactics, not the ME. Such tactical issues illuminate the problems of coding the ME. There is a footballing logic that it and AI tactics access, which includes having a certain number of players moving between the lines (pushing up or dropping deep). If a user's tactic is very static and keeps players glued to their line, then they arguably should be struggling to get results, just as a real life team playing totally static football would. Historically, users employing static tactics have been able to "beat" the ME rather than the AI by keeping their defence back and channeling their passes through to a single, usually quick, player. The lack of collision detection in the ME resulted in this player being guaranteed a certain number of good chances every match. The only thing that mattered was how well he played.

In reality, any team would be able to mark that player out of the game. The one dimensionality of the tactic then gets exposed, as it can't create another type of chance. A user with this type of tactic should be seeing bad football and getting frustrated. How do you know that is you? Generally, if you always kept both FBs on Defend duties, had at least one DLP, possibly two, and forwards only on Attack duties, then there is the strong possibility you were relying on the 'no collision' exploit to overpower the ME. If you had multiple DLPs and an FC in the FCC position, it was almost certainly you.

Ultimately, if this type of tactic is struggling, then it is evidence that the ME has improved structurally. That doesn't mean that it doesn't have some bugs, such as defensive positioning on some free kicks, shooting too often from extreme angles, pressing not being aggressive enough etc. However, these are all secondary to the overall structure working far, far better. Structural improvement was the key focus of the two year ME redevelop, which required the introduction of player collision and ball physics. If you can't see quite how much this has improved the overall play of the ME, then you are missing the wood for the trees. Everything outside of this structural improvement is polishing. The ME might need burnishing in certain areas, but the underlying framework has improved significantly.

You should really have credited wwfan with that analysis.

[iknowniknuk]

The game is supposed to reflect real life, wouldnt have it any other way.

[LemonTea]

The game is supposed to reflect real life, wouldnt have it any other way.

Oh really? Silly me, I apologize then. I must have been away from a football ground for far too long then, because I have never seen;

*Goalkeepers sliding along, BACKWARDS, on their arses, making fantastic saves with their feet!

*Wingers too frightened to take on lone defenders.

*Forwards who don't follow up a palmed away shot, even when they are inches away.

*Defenders who let attackers breeze past them and score.

*Players running the opposite direction from a "free" ball.

*No defensive cover on either side of the goal when an attacker cuts in from the touchline.

There are more, many more bugs regarding this flawed match engine, just look in the relevant forum, and you'll see. Its another case of SI bowing down and releasing, yet again, a heavily bugged game, and they have the cheek to ask us for proof so they examine it themselves. Is this not what the game-testers are suppose to be doing? How the hell did so many bugs get past them in the first place?

@chelseafan. I have been playing football/championship manager since its first outing on the Amiga 500, so I do know my way around this game. There was no need for your "cut-n-paste" effort.

[Kriss]

Feedback thread please, ta,