Question: Why do users feel it's unfair if the AI "figures" out their tactic?

[saiyaman]

Isn't that supposed to be realistic?

I'm pretty sure people will begin the "there's a limit to how realistic it can be and also be fun as a game" and I would like to hear them but since a lot of people have denied that the AI doesn't randomly "figure out" your tactic and instead adjusts to your rep I ask all of you:

Why is it wrong if the AI indeed did try to figure out your tactics over the course of a season?

[Welshace]

It's not denial .. it's a fact.. and it has been confirmed by SI .. the AI doesn't figure out anything.. it merely changes it's stance if your team's rep changes or theirs do.. 

 

i.e .. the ai Man city will change it's way of play against you if you improve your team enough into being a contender etc...

 

But there is no AI working out your tactic or anything...  That's not to say the ai within a match won't change things around, just that it won't figure out your tactic and how to counter it intuitively.

[saiyaman]

I'm trying to say it's a good thing if the AI notices over a long period (maybe 20 games) that you're doing the same things and tries to stop you by countering your tactics.

It could be based off tactical knowledge for managers which will make them actually do something rather than stick to boring playstyles.

[f.zaarour]

I just noticed that changing your tactics into high pressing and low pressing makes a succesfull formula. When you go full pressing, counter the opponent you get easy chances and goals. And then at the right moment, go less pressing which will create more space for your team. Other moments you can change it, and also looking if you play against a strong opponent or not. it looks like the AI find it difficult in this case to choose how to fight your tactics. 

[ben carter]

Some people get p**sed off when their tactic that's won for 10+ games suddenly doesn't deliver results. 

I'm not saying it's right or wrong (everyone plays their own way) but some players just want to load a tactic and win consistently.

Short of something that exploits the ME the opposition will start to alter how they play against you as you so you will need to change things up now and then, and I think that's great.   

[Svenc]

11 hours ago, saiyaman said:

I'm trying to say it's a good thing if the AI notices over a long period (maybe 20 games) that you're doing the same things and tries to stop you by countering your tactics.

It could be based off tactical knowledge for managers which will make them actually do something rather than stick to boring playstyles.

It's still a myth mind and not coded into the game.  

AI managers react to teams', any team's changing reputations throughout a save.

Opposition are either seen as roughly equal, underdogs to beat or favorites to tactically target more modest results against.

It just happens to be primarily human ones who consistently overperform, thus….

 

In a "realistic" simulated world of football, AI Managers would react to teams', any teams', well tactics some. Doesn't happen in-game. Therefore the "after xx games suddenly stuff stops "working" myths". More and more opposition change their approach reflecting the user's overperformance. Curiously this randomizes the game world in a sense...

Edited January 10, 2020 by Svenc

[FMunderachiever]

the only issue I have is that runs of form seem to be too extreme for me.

The big winning run is just as extreme as the complete reversal that usually comes too.

I don't see that nearly as often in real life

[sporadicsmiles]

21 hours ago, Tetsuro P12 said:

Because the only way to (consistently) win against the AI is to exploit it.

Depending on what you mean by "exploit", you could be right or very wrong. If by exploit you mean exploit coding in the ME, then no this is not the only way to win consistently against the AI. If you mean to follow scout reports, watch a game, figure out what the AI is doing and change your tactic to take advantage, then you are spot on. The latter is what happens in real sport all the time. 

21 hours ago, Tetsuro P12 said:

In football you have your well known tactic, that rarely tweaks (and by tweaking a few roles, not by revolutionise everything, like some in this forum expect.

I do not think you really know how fluid football tactics are in the real world, how quickly they evolve and become something new. No offence, but it is utter nonsense to say teams only ever play one way, ever. They absolutely adapt to what is happening around them. All the time. Any manager who cannot adapt is a bad manager. Just look at Tiki Taka. It was originally unstoppable and nobody could stop it (and teams tried many things). Then eventually teams started to realise the being really direct against it worked. You will now notice nobody plays the Tiki Taka of late 00s Barcelona (not even Guardiola, he has changed). Football evolved to something new. We will see the same thing with the Gegenpress over the next 5 or so years. Liverpool currently look unstoppable, but sooner or later someone will figure them out. This is not just me trying to make a point with a single example. "Inverting the pyramid" is a wonderful book detailing the evolution of football tactics. 

21 hours ago, Tetsuro P12 said:

del Bosque Spain played the same, etc.

Del Bosque's Spain played like Guardiola's Barcelona. They in no way resembled the Spain that came before... Spain used to be an even bigger international football failure than England, if you can believe it. 

[Bothan Spy]

Its a bit of a bug bear of mine this. I'm all for cleverer AI in game, but sometimes it can be the source of major frustration when suddenly the in game opposition completely shuts down your previously effective tactic and kills your game.

Lets face it. IRL, every team knows how Liverpool and Manchester City play, but it still doesn't stop them from losing 6-1. And its simply because they play pressing, attacking football with better players. 

You try applying the same simple principles in FM and you end up scratching your head and desperately searching the 'tactics' forums.

I just think the game is trying far too hard to be more clever and failing miserably as the ME gets more frustrating with each passing year.

[Welshace]

7 minutes ago, Bothan Spy said:

Its a bit of a bug bear of mine this. I'm all for cleverer AI in game, but sometimes it can be the source of major frustration when suddenly the in game opposition completely shuts down your previously effective tactic and kills your game.

Lets face it. IRL, every team knows how Liverpool and Manchester City play, but it still doesn't stop them from losing 6-1. And its simply because they play pressing, attacking football with better players. 

You try applying the same simple principles in FM and you end up scratching your head and desperately searching the 'tactics' forums.

I just think the game is trying far too hard to be more clever and failing miserably as the ME gets more frustrating with each passing year.

Did you not read any of the replies which have told you that the AI doesn't react to your tactics in that way?  No team is working out your tactic... if it suddenly stops workking, it's down to either overperformance, so teams will adjust their mentality to suit yours (all pre match), or that something with your own team is causing the tactic to be less effective (unhappy player, key player not performing, fitness etc)

[kingking]

People Don't do match Preparation training for upcoming matches

They don't improve their tactical familiarity for their tactics or their individual players 

They don't improve their team cohesion with training

When i started doing all these my team has been consistant 

[Bothan Spy]

So its not the opposition then? Okay. Just down to the game trying to be far too clever.

All the things you have quoted, a majority of players leave that to their backroom staff because they don't want to get bogged down with the 'boring' stuff. After all, whats the point of employing a technical sports analyst director scientist if we have to micromanage every minor detail?

[HUNT3R]

Just now, Tetsuro P12 said:

'mentality' (lower/higher tempo, etc.)

People don't understad Mentality. It's for sure isn't tempo. It's everything. Risk taking (decision making), primarily, but also affects everything else - closing down, tempo, d-line, width etc.

[kingking]

4 minutes ago, Tetsuro P12 said:

How 'mentality' (lower/higher tempo, etc.) can have anything to do with 'winning' or 'losing'? Do you hear what you say? That's the 'football' you would like to play? They should not adjust anything, just play their football at their best.

 

People offload some of those things people to coaches, if Sigames allows it it must be done correctly. And I have to say I'm not disappointed about the work of the coaches. Maybe a fine-tuner like you can do an excellent job, but AI trainings looks good to me. Team cohesion grows with time.

This evidence of how training affects matches

 

as soon as i added more training units related to match preparation and set pieces i have started getting more of these comments 

Edited January 13, 2020 by kingking

[Welshace]

9 minutes ago, Tetsuro P12 said:

How 'mentality' (lower/higher tempo, etc.) can have anything to do with 'winning' or 'losing'? Do you hear what you say? That's the 'football' you would like to play? They should not adjust anything, just play their football at their best.

 

People offload some of those things people to coaches, if Sigames allows it it must be done correctly. And I have to say I'm not disappointed about the work of the coaches. Maybe a fine-tuner like you can do an excellent job, but AI trainings looks good to me. Team cohesion grows with time.

Not sure you understand what mentality means? mentality is like an overall picture of your teams stance in a game.. it's the difference between man city's way of playing against liverpool or their approach to playing against Luton.. they will still pass the ball around, but their mentality will be different..

 

In game it's the difference of man city seeing you as a higher performing opposition so they will take less risks and maybe be more cautious in their attack to if they were playing against you when you are in 19th position with one win all season.. they will probably approach the game with a lot more freedom and risk taking etc

[HUNT3R]

1 minute ago, Tetsuro P12 said:

How playing Defensive against Offensive should make AI having the edge?

It's not offensive vs defensive if you're talking about Mentality only. The human is far more inventive and can play either on most Mentalities.

As for AI, if they have an edge, there's a reason. We should be better than the AI overall.

[HUNT3R]

Just now, Tetsuro P12 said:

If you would like to elaborate... I don't see that point to AI having advantage with mentalities while the players not. How the AI playing Defensive or Offensive should exploit a player playing Cautious or Positive (a balanced stance).

They don't automatically have an advantage, no. As I said, we're (overall), better than the AI.

[Welshace]

2 hours ago, Tetsuro P12 said:

If you would like to elaborate... I don't see that point to AI having advantage with mentalities while the players not. How the AI playing Defensive or Offensive should exploit a player playing Cautious or Positive (a balanced stance).

If an opponent ai or real, notices you taking risks and playing with an all out mentality, of course the AI should be able to counter that with a more cautious mentality.. but as @HUNT3R says, as a player controlled team we have the advantage of being able to tweak and counter against this so should always have an advantage IN THAT sense...

[Welshace]

1 minute ago, Tetsuro P12 said:

As I repeated multiple times no one is playing with those traits. My tactic is fairly relaxed, since I take care of the defensive phase more than anything else. There is no exploiting by AI there, just A. domination (bad day?) or B. episodes, often less clear than mine (luck?) .

If by traits you mean you aren't changing your mentality at all during games or pre game, than cool? your opponent is merely reacting to your status and reputation currently and will adjust their tactic and mentality to suit... i'm really not sure what you are arguing about or trying to say tbh..  the ai does not exploit your tactic.. it's been said many times.

[pikeal]

On 11/01/2020 at 12:20, sporadicsmiles said:

Del Bosque's Spain played like Guardiola's Barcelona.

Lol. No they didn't. Maybe at the start of his reign but that was fleeting and they have never been considered on par with that Barca side. I remember at one point Spain were being labelled as boring under VdB. Barcelona were never boring, especially during that period. Just ask Valverde what happens if Barca play like Spain were

[sporadicsmiles]

4 hours ago, pikeal said:

Lol. No they didn't. Maybe at the start of his reign but that was fleeting and they have never been considered on par with that Barca side. I remember at one point Spain were being labelled as boring under VdB. Barcelona were never boring, especially during that period. Just ask Valverde what happens if Barca play like Spain were

They did. Possession as a defensive tool (endless fast sideways passing). Pressing intensely when lost the ball. Very high defensive line. Occassional bursts of very direct football. They played pretty much the same style, and differed mostly in Barcelona being able to do it better because they could choose their players and train them to play this way all the time. Spain had less flexibility and played a little toned back Tiki Taka.

Personally, I find all Tiki Taka to be boring. Whether than is Spain or Barcelona or whoever. The endless sideways passing is dullness personified to me. Sure, the players are super technically proficient to pull that off, but that does not make up for it. Tiki Taka was a defensive strategy at heart, and the endless recycling of possession. Ugh. No thanks. I'm very much a direct incisive fast paced football kinda guy. I very much like watching Jurgen Klopp's teams, for instance. This is all personal preference though, we can happily agree to disagree on this one.

[pikeal]

7 hours ago, sporadicsmiles said:

They did. Possession as a defensive tool (endless fast sideways passing). Pressing intensely when lost the ball. Very high defensive line. Occassional bursts of very direct football. They played pretty much the same style, and differed mostly in Barcelona being able to do it better because they could choose their players and train them to play this way all the time.  Spain had less flexibility and played a little toned back Tiki Taka.

Personally, I find all Tiki Taka to be boring. Whether than is Spain or Barcelona or whoever. The endless sideways passing is dullness personified to me. Sure, the players are super technically proficient to pull that off, but that does not make up for it. Tiki Taka was a defensive strategy at heart, and the endless recycling of possession. Ugh. No thanks. I'm very much a direct incisive fast paced football kinda guy. I very much like watching Jurgen Klopp's teams, for instance. This is all personal preference though, we can happily agree to disagree on this one.

Pep's Barca played in a similar vein to Klopp's Liverpool i.e. an incisive, fast-paced brand of football with an intense and high press that fully utilised their world class wing backs. Barca were technically superior, hence the extortionately high possession, but both teams were and are exciting to watch. Barca may have moved the ball sideways but it was always with an intention to disorientate the opposition with zipped passes before identifying opportunities with quick one-twos and slide rule passes; when they were slipping Messi et al through on goal they were simply delightful to watch. This is why Messi managed to score 40/50/60/70 goals a season.

On paper,  Barca's tiki taka looks similar to VdB's Spain due to the high possession, lots of passes and of course, the trophy cabinet bulging. But Spain were nowhere near as interesting to watch as Barca. Slow sideways passing, keeping possession for the sake of keeping possession, endless recycling etc. Exactly as you stated. Yawnfest! Spain played the boring (but effective due to the highly technical players) tiki taka. Barca did not. 

All my own personal opinions of course. I may even have rose-tinted glasses on!

I don't want to get off topic for the thread so I will leave it there, but all I can see is that we're not really disagreeing 

 

[SOULjah]

On topic to your heading...

... on a personal front concerning AI (although anything I say concerning what I 'suspect' to be AI related gets shot down with "it's the MEs fault" or some such to which I do not dismiss but I also do not agree either) I really enjoy the apparent 'advancement' of the AI. I feel with FM19 it's making me realise that the same things keep constantly happening, if these constant happenings keep happening then it is likely the way I have set up my tactics and essentially being a stuck in the mud concerning tactics...

... on the other hand, I feel it also realises when I am a tad knee jerky and punishes me for this too?

I feel with the many variables of being able to play tactically and vast personalities of community everyone has to find a kind of zen with it.

Although I am only talking single player, hardly ever played multiplayer myself.

[IrrelevantLion]

According to FM logic, all the best teams in the world shouldn't be winning all the time because other teams know how they are going to play.. 

[Welshace]

3 minutes ago, IrrelevantLion said:

According to FM logic, all the best teams in the world shouldn't be winning all the time because other teams know how they are going to play.. 

I have no idea where you got that from... but frankly.. isn't that what is happening irl? man city and liverpool don't win every game .. some of that is down to how teams are countering the way they play no?

[IrrelevantLion]

7 minutes ago, Welshace said:

I have no idea where you got that from... but frankly.. isn't that what is happening irl? man city and liverpool don't win every game .. some of that is down to how teams are countering the way they play no?

Liverpool haven't been beaten at Anfield since April 2017...

[Welshace]

12 minutes ago, IrrelevantLion said:

Liverpool haven't been beaten at Anfield since April 2017...

What's your point? 

[IrrelevantLion]

19 minutes ago, Welshace said:

What's your point? 

Good teams playing the same tactics don't arbitrarily lose because they play the same tactics: e.g. Liverpool at Anfield. 

[Welshace]

2 minutes ago, IrrelevantLion said:

Good teams playing the same tactics don't arbitrarily lose because they play the same tactics: e.g. Liverpool at Anfield. 

Who's saying they do? they certainly don't lose in fm jut because they have the same tactics.. did you not read any of this or any other thread almost on this forum?

 

The AI does not work out tactics.....

[Rashidi]

4 minutes ago, IrrelevantLion said:

Good teams playing the same tactics don't arbitrarily lose because they play the same tactics: e.g. Liverpool at Anfield. 

As a LFC fan they don't play the same tactics at home every time.

[Svenc]

On 13/01/2020 at 22:30, Welshace said:

If an opponent ai or real, notices you taking risks and playing with an all out mentality, of course the AI should be able to counter that with a more cautious mentality..

The more common "issue" Players are having oft aren't an overly aggressive mentality, or any of that sort. It's not even overcommitting. It's bad movement structures  and / or not commiting enough men forward by the roles/duty combos picked when facing packed defenses. 

That's also why there is this perception the AI would adapt. It doesn't. It's just that more and more teams play more cautious against successful teams -- the Thing that occurs for the top sides in the league from the start. Suddenly the space gifted prior isn't available, and the weak structure / insufficient (Forward) movement is found out.

[laxrulz7]

5 hours ago, Svenc said:

The more common "issue" Players are having oft aren't an overly aggressive mentality, or any of that sort. It's not even overcommitting. It's bad movement structures  and / or not commiting enough men forward by the roles/duty combos picked when facing packed defenses. 

That's also why there is this perception the AI would adapt. It doesn't. It's just that more and more teams play more cautious against successful teams -- the Thing that occurs for the top sides in the league from the start. Suddenly the space gifted prior isn't available, and the weak structure / insufficient (Forward) movement is found out.

Surely the AI does some basic "adapting". The AI Assistant Manager presumably orders player instructions similar to how yours does and also likely makes midgame tactical changes relative to your time. They also often make raw formation changes in the final ~15 minutes if it's only a 1 goal difference. Those are "adjustments". Now perhaps they don't look at your formation/roles/instructions and "pick a counter" but that doesn't mean that the small tactical tweaks haven't improved over previous iterations of FM and that players with particularly rigid styles playing with "fragile" tactics might feel like their tactic goes suddenly from god mode to useless because one Assistant Manager finally figured out that passing shorter and tight marking of your MC will render you useless.

I know we get stats returned to us about what our various formations are weak and strong against as well. VERY rarely, my Assistant Manager will even make a recommendation about an alternate formation to play because it will do well against our next opponent. Again, I assume that (at least sometimes) happens for the computer as well. 

No, I don't think the AI is "adapting" in the way some people think it does. But nor is it just this static, monolithic thing merely looking at reputation and making no other adjustments. We see there's more to it in game than just that.

All that being said, the AI is 100% looking at SOMETHING ahead of time. I've done this experiment multiple times with the same result in FM20. Play ~10 games with the same tactic (Tactic "A"). Now save the game before a fixture with a team who's relatively even in capability to you. Build another tactic (one that makes sense and you know will work with your team comp.. Tactic B). Make sure in the editor you max tactical familiarity with both tactic A and B. Play the next fixture 10 times with Tactic A and record your results. Play it again 10 times with tactic B. There's a marked and dependable improvement with Tactic B vs. Tactic A (at least every time I've done it). Now either my redesigned tactics are ALWAYS better than my existing tactics (which seems silly) or the AI is looking at recent fixtures to get SOME useful information about how your team plays and how they should line up (even if it's as simple as whether to play the BWM on the left or the right or something like that).