FM19 Poor Match Engine and a Suggestion re: Scouting

[timcliffsmith]

Perhaps this is my fault. Normally I wait until about Easter to buy FM, it's not to do with money, it's to do with the inevitable torrent of patches. By Easter, generally, you have the finished product and don't have to go through the enormous rigmarole of getting a decent tactic only to have it wrecked by the new patch - and then have people on here trying to tell you that FM is so realistic that developing a good tactic is just like it is in real life and not about "exploiting" the match engine. However, FM18 was so easy it was ridiculous. There was literally(!) a billion diablo tactics. Didn't really matter the calibre of player, as long as they could shuffle about, you'd win. I resorted to having to massively handicap myself by only using regens or only Welsh players, free transfers etc. It became so boring winning everything that I gave up much earlier than usual and bought FM19. Now, I just read another thread on here in which the poster was complaining about there being nothing new and an issue with PA, which I think distracted from the real issue. The PA complaint was a non-starter, but I think she/he had a point regarding the process of starting a new FM incarnation: Open it up; let ass man handle training and all interviews because they are by now far too complex and are just traps to fall into; play around till you find tactic you can trust and you're away (at least until next patch, when you have to look for new tactic). The joy for me has always been finding new players and gradually building up. As I said previously, despite people on here declaring very sincerely that this game is not about exploiting the ME, it's about building solid tactics - that is very obviously not the case - as evidenced by different elements (e.g. narrow front three, gegenpress, long range shooting, two F9s, three at the back) working much better some years than others (and even varying from patch to patch). So, FM is (and has always been) about finding a tactic that works decently. Personally, I just want a tactic I can trust and that makes the sum of my players a little better than they are individually. That way, I can slowly improve and really enjoy my success when it comes. Kinda perfect for me is getting promoted and then it takes say three seasons to win promotion again (a consolidation season, a mid table/push for play-offs, and then promotion). You might do it in two, you might do it in four, but you can see that young player develop, or you might take a punt on an old fella for a season. However, a few years (and FM18 was the worst) have been guilty of getting the balance all wrong; get the right tactic and nothing stands in your way - successive promotions all the way to the Prem from non-league and then two seasons to win Prem. When it's like that, it renders the whole player side of it redundant. Why should I care about who I have up front, when I know he'll get 30+ goals?

Anyway, what's that got to do with the title of this post? Not much, just background really. My point is that at the moment (19.1.5), the ME is poor. It may be more complex, but what I'm seeing in terms of animation and variety is very limited. There will be just endless strikers latching onto long balls (for both teams) and then clean through and 9 times out of 10 missing. Or blasting straight at the keeper who just stands there and the ball bounces off him like he's a bollard. And then there'll be three goals from corners. It's poor. I'll shelve this for now and come back after a few more patches. And before anyone says it's cos I'm not doing well, I'm first season with Cardiff, middle of December, I'm 8th. 

Okay, one more point. The guy/girl complaining about no new features and PA got stick for not suggesting anything her/himself. So, I'll offer a thought.

I'm 43, and have been playing this in its various forms for 25+ years, often with over 1,000 hours per year. The game has improved massively in many ways (apart from when it gets the balance wrong), but one thing always stuck with me, and it was sparked by the complaint about PA. In ye olden days, before scouting, there was no way to tell the current ability or potential ability of a player; all you had was their individual stats (far fewer back then) and their team stats. That being the case, you often scrolled through the lower divisions (there were no foreign leagues) looking at who had the highest ratings and then taking a punt. I used to look for players who had high average ratings but were in teams not at the top of their respective league. And then, you never really knew what sort of player you had until you gave them a run of ten or so games and saw how their average rating was working out. That side has gone. With the star rating, you just play the guy with the most stars. It's like FIFA in that respect. Now, I realise that you can't do away with scouting, so my suggestion is this:

The scouts will watch a player and report back to you not a star rating, but make comments about their stats, such as, 'He's not quick but has great ball control'. You need to keep scouting a player to reveal the stats - similar to now - but that's all that scouting does, and of course, how good your scout is affects the accuracy of his assessment. BUT, you can never know the CA or PA, you have to judge it for yourself. YES, stats can help you determine this - but there will always be those few players who have all the stats you're looking for but are terrible. And then they'll be those who have not great stats but turn out to be diamonds. Why? Because that's how it is with footy sometimes. So, perhaps the scouts could also make comments such as, 'He has the third highest average rating for a rightback in League 2.' And you think, hmmm, he has pretty good stats, would seemingly fit my system, but why only third best? You go look at where Newport County are - ah, they're 16th - third highest rated playing for the team in 16th...this kid might be worth a punt!

There you are, just an idea. Personally, I think that would be a much better system, and really give you a sense of satisfaction when you unearth a gem. Much better than just the scout giving him 5* and the label 'wonderkid' being attached. I realise this would involve a major overhaul of scouting, but for me, a nicely balanced tactic and that way of assessing players would really boost my passion for this game that I (still) love.  

[Mitja]

good post enjoyed reading it.

try the beta ME, give the feedback in beta section. and i agree the game is too easy.

[timcliffsmith]

11 minutes ago, Mitja said:

good post enjoyed reading it.

try the beta ME, give the feedback in beta section. and i agree the game is too easy.

Hi Mitja, thanks. How do i try the beta ME?

It's okay. I found it. Thanks again for the suggestion.

[FrazT]

It would also be best if you could keep feedback about the game in the feedback thread so that way your comments will be noted.

[timcliffsmith]

7 minutes ago, FrazT said:

It would also be best if you could keep feedback about the game in the feedback thread so that way your comments will be noted.

Okay, no problem. Shall I shift it there?

[Dagenham_Dave]

1 hour ago, timcliffsmith said:

 despite people on here declaring very sincerely that this game is not about exploiting the ME, it's about building solid tactics - that is very obviously not the case - as evidenced by different elements (e.g. narrow front three, gegenpress, long range shooting, two F9s, three at the back) working much better some years than others

There will always be ways to exploit the match engine, it's just code after all. 

I get enjoyment out of the game by not trying to do that. When I'm building up a team, I hardly ever get successive promotions, it usually works the way you're posting that it can't. I also pay little attention to star ratings, instead I look at key attributes for a position and marry that up with the pros and cons on the scout report. 

If you go looking for lists of wonderkids and exploitative tactics, you'll find them easily enough. There's absolutely no need to do it though. For example, I have no idea what formations or tactics 'work better' than previous years or exploit any holes in the engine. It's simply not how I approach the game. 

[DominicForza]

I don't start what I consider to be a "real" save until first ME patch.   I realize that the noble thing to do for my fellow FM'ers would be to jump right in (especially with the public BETA) and contribute feedback for the patch...but I just don't have the motivation until that first major patch.  

 

I get way too invested in the game. Not that anyone else can identify with that....HA!

[timcliffsmith]

12 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

There will always be ways to exploit the match engine, it's just code after all. 

I get enjoyment out of the game by not trying to do that. When I'm building up a team, I hardly ever get successive promotions, it usually works the way you're posting that it can't. I also pay little attention to star ratings, instead I look at key attributes for a position and marry that up with the pros and cons on the scout report. 

If you go looking for lists of wonderkids and exploitative tactics, you'll find them easily enough. There's absolutely no need to do it though. For example, I have no idea what formations or tactics 'work better' than previous years or exploit any holes in the engine. It's simply not how I approach the game. 

I take your point, but perhaps you misunderstood mine. By 'exploits', I don't mean cheating, I just mean that in some versions certain things work better than in others. I'm sure what you do is no different. You tweak your tactic until you find something that's working. That's all I meant. The problem I was highlighting is that some years (like FM18) you find a tactic that works so well you just steamroller everything. Re: wonderkids, my point was not looking up lists of them, it's just that when you scout they have 5*potential and often are described as wonderkids (applies to regens, too) - you can't not see that, even if you pay little attention to star ratings.

[Dagenham_Dave]

30 minutes ago, timcliffsmith said:

Iit's just that when you scout they have 5*potential and often are described as wonderkids 

The star ratings of a player is only relevant to the rest of your squad. I also purposely don't sign a player if he has 'wonderkid' in the description, and it's a feature I wish they'd remove.  Not that I ever see many...

32 minutes ago, timcliffsmith said:

I'm sure what you do is no different. You tweak your tactic until you find something that's working.

Well.....yeah. That's kinda the whole point of it. 

[Svenc]

Tweaking until you find something that "is working" is looking for some kind of winning formula -- which real football doesn't have. The game has though, no less as there are multiple defending issues on various releases (wide midfielders on FM 17, central area overload long-term, etc.) From my end, they tend to show in numbers oft too. Such as in your shot conversion numbers in the team reports when compared to AI. In real football, Man City last term had a shot conversion of about 16% -- 1 in 6 attempts was a goal. Whereas the average in the Prem was about 10%. On FM, it's been possible to bump that up to a massively 20+%, sometimes even approaching 25%, which is such an edge over AI competition, they cannot compete. Tweaking for a winning formula is also an exercise in frustration, as those weakness tend to be patched longer term in some form.

I personally prefer to let my sides play the kind of football I want to see on any release, which typically differs from save to save too------- which is naturally limited by the ME. But it's perfectly viable to overperform that way. No less as virtually NONE of your AI competition is coded to look for some "game beating winning formula" at all. Actually, the core logics as such rewarded by the game have never much changed in like a decade plus running, or else the AI would need a massively overhaul. Unfortunately, you can "beat" the AI oft by pretty much sports common sense oftenly, e.g. employing common sense you would oft do better than them with a squad of players rather than that AI with the same squad of players. Even on the supposedly AI "elite" level of managers.

Make no mistake though, if this game were primarily competitive multiplayer....

[FlorianAlbert9]

@timcliffsmith i missed your point about scouts. 

Scouting is now harder than in CM/First FM.

I remember that at the time of (maybe) FM07 i made a long post here (with another account i can't rememeber now) how scouting was to easy:

At the time scouting was fast, one day and you know all, so i suggested to make it longer and have attributes in a range (eg. Passing 6-11) when scout doesnt know well It. (Indeed i don't know if was my suggestion to change the scout 'cause i left then forum in the 2008 i think, to return only now).

And even now scout don't give you the CA or PA. Sure a scout with good stats have more possibility to guess then.

Until we have PA like this (a random stat not linked with others) scouts have to know a range of it, at the contrary they sere useless.

But the stars you see are related to your team. So if you play in a semi-pro team in Hungary, a 5-star potentially player could be the new Puskas or only a great player but only for the hungarian third division.

 

While i agree on your point about tactics. Above all in this FM19, to make a tactic works you have to think more how the game works than how football works...

[bar333]

The game being too easy in my experience is not about tactics so much as other management skills of the player VS AI. Squad building, proper rotation and managing fitness, man management - all things the player will always do much better than the AI. 

The AI recruits pretty poorly, teams overpay for mediocre players and stack positions unnecessarily, which also then leads to unhappiness due to playing time - > player gets sold at a big loss the following season. Then there's bad rotation - leading to games, esp during congested schedules, where the AI fields a bunch of players with very low condition, this also leads to injuries. Man management - always a couple of unhappy players in AI squads, and dismal morale during poor runs of form whereas the player can keep morale at Okay at the worst of times quite easily. 

Tactics wise there will always be ones that break the ME but they tend to be exotic formations that I don't use for immersion and the AI sure doesn't use them either (I don't know how strong 3 striker tactics are, but the one time it was played against me in 4 seasons I exploited the flanks and hammered Werder Bremen 5-0 at their place). 

Overall I find the game easy as in I always overachieve but not so easy that I accomplish ridiculous feats. Biggest achievement so far for me has been finishing 7th in the Bundesliga with a newly promoted team that was predicted to finish dead last at 18th. Which is pretty big but you know, still within the realm of reason and things that can happen IRL. 

[FlorianAlbert9]

Playing in weaker nation league, like Hungary, in FM17, i played all matches only for the first 3 years. For the other 19y i played only the ChampionsL and EuropaL matches with all the national games made in holiday.

I won the EL in 2031 and two CL in Row in 2038-9. 

Playing in International competition stay hard 'cause keep great player in Hungary League is impossible, but in the national league while you in 10 years built a great team (Ajax-level) the others team grow up very little (only cause due to you result, the League rep increase).

I know that programming a proper AI, it's very hard, so i would accept also that in a dominion situation by Human, at least a AI team 'cheat' (a rich owner, letting the AI see  ca/PA to buy great player and youth, etc..)

[tiki-eone]

On 29/11/2018 at 22:37, timcliffsmith said:

Perhaps this is my fault. Normally I wait until about Easter to buy FM, it's not to do with money, it's to do with the inevitable torrent of patches. By Easter, generally, you have the finished product and don't have to go through the enormous rigmarole of getting a decent tactic only to have it wrecked by the new patch - and then have people on here trying to tell you that FM is so realistic that developing a good tactic is just like it is in real life and not about "exploiting" the match engine. However, FM18 was so easy it was ridiculous. There was literally(!) a billion diablo tactics. Didn't really matter the calibre of player, as long as they could shuffle about, you'd win. I resorted to having to massively handicap myself by only using regens or only Welsh players, free transfers etc. It became so boring winning everything that I gave up much earlier than usual and bought FM19. Now, I just read another thread on here in which the poster was complaining about there being nothing new and an issue with PA, which I think distracted from the real issue. The PA complaint was a non-starter, but I think she/he had a point regarding the process of starting a new FM incarnation: Open it up; let ass man handle training and all interviews because they are by now far too complex and are just traps to fall into; play around till you find tactic you can trust and you're away (at least until next patch, when you have to look for new tactic). The joy for me has always been finding new players and gradually building up. As I said previously, despite people on here declaring very sincerely that this game is not about exploiting the ME, it's about building solid tactics - that is very obviously not the case - as evidenced by different elements (e.g. narrow front three, gegenpress, long range shooting, two F9s, three at the back) working much better some years than others (and even varying from patch to patch). So, FM is (and has always been) about finding a tactic that works decently. Personally, I just want a tactic I can trust and that makes the sum of my players a little better than they are individually. That way, I can slowly improve and really enjoy my success when it comes. Kinda perfect for me is getting promoted and then it takes say three seasons to win promotion again (a consolidation season, a mid table/push for play-offs, and then promotion). You might do it in two, you might do it in four, but you can see that young player develop, or you might take a punt on an old fella for a season. However, a few years (and FM18 was the worst) have been guilty of getting the balance all wrong; get the right tactic and nothing stands in your way - successive promotions all the way to the Prem from non-league and then two seasons to win Prem. When it's like that, it renders the whole player side of it redundant. Why should I care about who I have up front, when I know he'll get 30+ goals?

Anyway, what's that got to do with the title of this post? Not much, just background really. My point is that at the moment (19.1.5), the ME is poor. It may be more complex, but what I'm seeing in terms of animation and variety is very limited. There will be just endless strikers latching onto long balls (for both teams) and then clean through and 9 times out of 10 missing. Or blasting straight at the keeper who just stands there and the ball bounces off him like he's a bollard. And then there'll be three goals from corners. It's poor. I'll shelve this for now and come back after a few more patches. And before anyone says it's cos I'm not doing well, I'm first season with Cardiff, middle of December, I'm 8th. 

Okay, one more point. The guy/girl complaining about no new features and PA got stick for not suggesting anything her/himself. So, I'll offer a thought.

I'm 43, and have been playing this in its various forms for 25+ years, often with over 1,000 hours per year. The game has improved massively in many ways (apart from when it gets the balance wrong), but one thing always stuck with me, and it was sparked by the complaint about PA. In ye olden days, before scouting, there was no way to tell the current ability or potential ability of a player; all you had was their individual stats (far fewer back then) and their team stats. That being the case, you often scrolled through the lower divisions (there were no foreign leagues) looking at who had the highest ratings and then taking a punt. I used to look for players who had high average ratings but were in teams not at the top of their respective league. And then, you never really knew what sort of player you had until you gave them a run of ten or so games and saw how their average rating was working out. That side has gone. With the star rating, you just play the guy with the most stars. It's like FIFA in that respect. Now, I realise that you can't do away with scouting, so my suggestion is this:

The scouts will watch a player and report back to you not a star rating, but make comments about their stats, such as, 'He's not quick but has great ball control'. You need to keep scouting a player to reveal the stats - similar to now - but that's all that scouting does, and of course, how good your scout is affects the accuracy of his assessment. BUT, you can never know the CA or PA, you have to judge it for yourself. YES, stats can help you determine this - but there will always be those few players who have all the stats you're looking for but are terrible. And then they'll be those who have not great stats but turn out to be diamonds. Why? Because that's how it is with footy sometimes. So, perhaps the scouts could also make comments such as, 'He has the third highest average rating for a rightback in League 2.' And you think, hmmm, he has pretty good stats, would seemingly fit my system, but why only third best? You go look at where Newport County are - ah, they're 16th - third highest rated playing for the team in 16th...this kid might be worth a punt!

There you are, just an idea. Personally, I think that would be a much better system, and really give you a sense of satisfaction when you unearth a gem. Much better than just the scout giving him 5* and the label 'wonderkid' being attached. I realise this would involve a major overhaul of scouting, but for me, a nicely balanced tactic and that way of assessing players would really boost my passion for this game that I (still) love.  

TOTALLY AGREE! and improve tactical play in  the match SI beacuse 75% of oals come from corners! its boring lol

[CFuller]

8 minutes ago, tiki-eone said:

TOTALLY AGREE! and improve tactical play in  the match SI beacuse 75% of oals come from corners! its boring lol

YOU might be experiencing 75% of goals coming from corners in YOUR save game (and I find that hard to believe, even if your sample size is very small). I'm sure many other users will tell you, though, that this is NOT the case in their save games.