Does the Match Engine over-react to tactical tweaks?

[jcafcwbb]

I start this by saying playing as AFC Wimbledon, who will finish in the bottom third of L2 IRL, I have done well. Promoted finishing 2nd in my first season, finished 14th in the second and currently 12th in the third. I am playing as a head coach where the AI signs my players so I do not sign wunderkids to break the game.

An example is my game away to Preston, who are a top side in this game. I play a 4-3-3 DM with wingbacks. After 80 minutes it is a close game 1-1. My sub striker gets a through ball and slots it home. So I decide to change my WIng-backs on support to Full-Back on support. Cue them dominating me and winning 3-2. They equalised and scored the third before my reversal went through. After I reverted I had another chance which was missed.

The next game I an 1-0 up after 80 but decide not change anything and win the match without a problem even though my wingbacks are still bombing on. Obviously at Preston the ME read me going more defensive and punished me - excessively I thought.

I also had a game when I was 4-0 down but a tweak of width got back to a 4-4 draw.

I like this game but sometimes notice a tweak can result in a massive change which is more than happens IRL?

[Haiku]

My guess is the WBs are more involved in the possession than FBs are. Especially if you are counting on ball possession and controlling the game rather than sitting back and sulking the pressure that change alone could have killed your system.

[FrazT]

The ME will react to all changes made by both managers, but not over-react IMO.  If the AI goes behind late in a tight game, you can expect a reaction and it will try to get something out of the game by being more aggressive.  I am not sure how much impact adjusting the player roles will have but it may be minimal, so why not try reducing the team mentality a notch and using the "Focus" team shout?  This works most times for me.

[phd_angel]

Answering to your headline, yes, I think the match engine often overreacts to minor tweaks. For example, sliding from no time waste to some time waste... To clarify, some tweaks do have a big impact  (e.g, switching mentality from Cautious to Positive, etc.) but other tweaks shouldn't be as impactful. So, I do fear that any tweaks may have huge negative impact on the score.

[Wavelberry]

2 hours ago, phd_angel said:

Answering to your headline, yes, I think the match engine often overreacts to minor tweaks. For example, sliding from no time waste to some time waste... To clarify, some tweaks do have a big impact  (e.g, switching mentality from Cautious to Positive, etc.) but other tweaks shouldn't be as impactful. So, I do fear that any tweaks may have huge negative impact on the score.

I think this is a fair reflection. There are some tactical tweaks that do next to nowt, some that do what you expect and then ones that you think might be logical but then actually break your entire tactic down. I think the reason for this is that it's not (usually) just the tactic that you have to think about but the players you're inputting into it and the behaviours they demonstrate. As such you could make what seems like a logical change but due to the player's mentals or physicals suddenly they're struggling. An example I'll give is of my 4-2-3-1 dm tactic which presses high but when teams come at me they get in behind. Now, I have a higher D line and drop off more already tagged and I don't particularly want to change mentality from Positive because I've found that makes us sterile and invites more pressure that way, so early on my next logical step was to lower the D line when this happened to standard. Now, in an early save this seemed to work but when I played with a lower league team suddenly my defenders who played well enough in the Higher D line were suddenly all over the shop and the goals I conceded were stupid. It took a couple of games to realise this was now a suicidal thing for me to do so instead I knock both the CBs to cover and keep the D line and we defend better when a team tries to get in behind. Different tweaks and different results and it all depends on the intersection of your players in the tactic.

This is why, I am assuming, so many people get so annoyed with the game sometimes because you think you are doing something logical and then you absolutely fall apart. Add to this the impact of morale and momentum in the ME which I think also has a real visible impact and sometimes it can look like you are defying logic and do you know what? I'm gonna say kudos to SI for that because a lot of football defies logic.