Tyler's issues with FM. Major issues. Part III. Match Engine.

[tylerB]

The worst part of the game in my opinion. There are a lot of really weird, mind-melting stuff constantly happening on the field in FM, I couldn’t possibly name all of that stuff even if I wanted to. But the true reason I consider match engine to be the worst part about FM is that it doesn’t have balance between attacking and defending. Not even a glimpse of it. Attacking in FM means being strong, creative and resourceful, while defending means being weak, unintelligent and pathetic. When you are in attacking mode (yes, there are modes and in an even match they can often switch that leads to ridiculous and absurd match scenarios, we’ll get to that later) your players don’t do mistakes in the build up, thus excluding counter attacks. They almost never misplace passes or lose the ball. If they do, they would get it back in a couple of seconds, because they win all the second balls. Even your weakest player can do wonders in attacking mode. If you have too many weak players the game simply won’t give you lengthy domination spells, but if you got enough quality to go attacking, then even your weakest link might well look like a star player. If he is a midfielder, he would find space behind the defenders even if they play the lowest possible line, he would find unmarked players in the box with a one touch pass, he would score from distance no matter of his long shot attribute. Once, when I was fooling around, my third choice goalkeeper scored from distance. First touch, turn and boom. Right in the corner. And he doesn’t even have a long shot attribute, he has “kicking”. And if your weakest player is a striker… 26 goals in La Liga. I was talking about that in part I. Yeah, exactly. He was constantly unmarked, undealt with and when my team was attacking (and it attacked enough in most matches) he additionally gain these superpowers. Superpowers that allowed him to score any goals you like. Powerful header? No problem. Half-volley outside the box? No problem. Place a shot? No problem.

But things change the moment you go defending. Or forced to go defending. When you are in defensive mode, your players are just a bunch of good for nothing idiots. And it doesn’t matter how many of them are there behind the ball, they provide no resistance whatsoever. They would lose physical challenges if there are any, because for the most part they would act as a convoy simply running beside a player with the ball. They would constantly lose players. Even players they are specifically told to mark. And it is only in the box that someone might eventually try to do something. And most likely it would be your goalie. In possession they would make a couple of passes to each other, then pass it back to the goalkeeper who would play it long and thus start another opponent’s attack. Because make no mistake you target man wouldn’t win this long ball. If he is there in the first place. No wonder your preset defensive tactics wouldn’t work. How can they if defending in FM means playing like this?

Now, as you might have guessed, such disbalance leads to things. Well, here’s some of those things:

1.      If you’re playing away against a much stronger team you will be crushed like a bug. Even if it is a friendly match. If you try to do damage control and go deep defending you will only make matters much worse. They will have even more domination. Domination in FM means chances and chances mean goals. I once saw 56 shots in full time statistics. I went deep defending and the opposition team made 56 attempts on my goal. Thankfully not all of them were on target. 56! More then one shot per two minutes. Can anybody tell me what is it? Anybody? And by the way, my opponent wasn’t Real Madrid or Barcelona. It was Sevilla. I actually beat them at home that very season. But apparently this is what defending does. Turns a football field into a shooting gallery.

 

2.      Since it is easy to score, chances are that the attacking team can succeed on the first try. So you score a goal, the game switch modes and your opponent scores back the next minute. I lost count how many times I saw these idiotic “immediate responses”. I score on minute 21, they score on minute 22. I score on minute 54, they score on minute 55. They score on minute 67, I score on minute 68. Without even me changing anything.

 

3.      Comebacks! Oh, boy… Sometimes when I’m winning 1:0 and absolutely (judging by statistics) in control of the game, I literally root for my players to NOT score a second goal. Because I know what is most likely to follow. The second goal will trigger a switch and if it’s more then 15 minutes to go then I’m in trouble. The team who was nowhere to be seen will all of a sudden start playing, pushing me into defensive mode. And you know what it means: my players are idiots, their players are beasts. They will claw one back, that’s almost a given. If after the second goal I go defending myself, it is far worse. In that case, I might lose the game 2:3. Even if there’s 15-20 minutes to go. And of course vise versa. My team can do a comeback almost anytime when playing at home and even sometimes when playing away. You just need to push. In a lot of cases it is enough to at least get back in the game. I lost a match 3:4 winning 3:1 after first half and then two weeks later my team managed to get 3:3 out of 1:3. Two comebacks in two weeks. Some might say that this is entertaining. Well, yeah. But so is circus.

 

So what is your actual request, you may ask. My actual request is to do something about that. Balance the match engine. Balance it at last, because this issue has been in the game since… Since forever. In reality it is incredibly hard to create chances when there’s no physical space. Unbelievably hard. This is exactly why coaches park the bus. Because it works. It can backfire if you’re overdoing it, but in a lot of situations it works. And it takes a certain amount of skills to create something when your opponent keeps men behind ball. An amount of skills that not every team has. Most don’t. That’s why it is unlikely that you’ll see a lot of goals when two below average teams are playing. Because one team is a guest and goes defending and another one doesn’t have the skills to open it up. That’s a clinch. But there can be no such clinch in FM as long as some reserve keeper is able to score outside the box like it is nothing. I am not saying that there are no close games in FM that end up 0:0 or 1:0. There are and there are enough. But it is mostly when none of two teams are really pushing. If one of the teams does push, counteracting it, preventing it from creating many goalscoring opportunities is next to impossible. And it shouldn’t be.

 

Thanks! Sorry for the long read and I will see you in part IV.

Edited December 19, 2021 by tylerB

[tylerB]

I made some research and decided to do a follow-up. First off I googled the net in order to find similiar posts about the game balance. And I found quite a few, where people actually question if the game is unbiased and do not favour attacking over defending. One of the posts I found was 9 years old. Secondly I started two savegames with exactly the same team. In one savegame I play with positive mentality, higher defensive line, higher line of engagement, shorter passing etc. In the other one I play with cautious/defensive mentality, lower lines and more direct passing. I made sure that all other factors are similar, most importantly tactical familiarity and team morale (initial, because later it goes either up or down, depending on the results). Well, to say that the results differ would be an understatement. But why would they? And finally I watched some FM tactics youtube videos. I was specifically interested in underdog tactics and found such videos. How do you think a winning underdog tactics would look like? Of course, it's the one with a positive mentality and a higher or even much higher line of engagement. And then the person proudly shows his remarkble results with a team that was predicted to finish in the bottom half. Seriously?

 

I will once again pinpoint the problem. It is already embarassing that I have to explain this to people who make one of the most popular football games in the world, but still... The idea of defensive football is very simple: you sit back and wait for the opponent's midfielders to make a mistake. After that you grab the ball and you have tons of space to launch a counter. If you take this "make a mistake" factor away, then yeah, defending makes zero sense. And that is exactly what happening in the game. The strikers can miss a sitter, but there won't be mistakes in the build up, even if you constantly press each and every opponent's midfilder. At least costly ones. When you are attacking, you can make their defenders make a mistake under pressure, but you can not do the same with their midfielders when you are defending, which is, by the way, much easier if you think about it. And I am not talking about playing against top class teams where you would expect a high number of completed passes, including passes completed under pressure. No, I am talking about playing against average and below average teams. In real life you would want them to have the ball, because they don't have the quality to work it into the box (so they would cross mostly) and they would definitely give it away every now and then (misplaced pass, bad first touch, failed dribbling attempt). It is like a perfect scenario. But in the game not only they don't give away the ball, but somehow constantly turn their possesion into goalscoring opportunities. Average and below average players. Come on! No wonder that people play these gung ho tactics with underdog teams. Just imagine what would happen in real life if underdog teams with average players played three up front with both wing backs on attack duty and a high defensive line. That would be pretty ugly, no? But somehow it works in the game. The game punishes you for defensive mentality, but awards you for being a courageous idiot. How come?

 

Sort it out. Why would you need this advanced stuff like mezzalas and carrileros if you screw up the very basics of football. I understand that the game is trying to follow certain trends, but these trends are appliable for top class teams only.

 

Once again, sorry for the long read.

Edited January 13, 2022 by tylerB

[Kyle Brown]

I assure you I've read all of this, so apologies if it seems like I'm glossing over it, but I'll try answer in one swoop to your overriding point.

On 19/12/2021 at 01:14, tylerB said:

So what is your actual request, you may ask. My actual request is to do something about that. Balance the match engine.

Every year, multiple different versions of the Match Engine are released through hotfixes. We constantly make changes based on user feedback, trends, and our own internal testing. We will always strive for a perfect match engine, even if it's not quite possible. Our Match Engine forum on the Bug Tracker is open for the typically the first 6 months of the games release, and any hot topics that are affecting a large percentage of the userbase we will strive to resolve as quickly as possible. That's ultimately where I feel a post like this is best made. 

We can't just blanket 'balance' the match engine, as there are thousands of factors and variables involved. But we'll always be looking to improve upon it and that attitude never stops.

For a specific issue, like immediate goal responses, you'll be best raising that individually and bringing us specific examples. That way, it's brought to the publics attention, and other users can show examples on their own save. If a trend becomes apparent, we can look into the route cause and make changes.