Please reconsider how the game handles player fatigue . . .

[stockwellpete]

I am 500+ hours into the game now - and while I consider it to be a very interesting football simulation in many respects, I find the way that fatigue is currently configured to be really frustrating. Sometimes it means that I stop playing for a few days because I get fed up with continually having to manage players' fitness levels individually by going into "Training-Development-Rest-2 days" for each player who is supposedly "exhausted" after a match.

 

Of course, managing the stamina levels of your players should be an important part of team preparation, but at the moment when a club is playing twice a week for more than just a week, it becomes the all-consuming consideration to the detriment of other aspects of the game. I feel that a lot of tactical nuance is being lost because of this overwhelming pre-occupation with getting your players physically fit enough to get them through the next 90 minutes.

 

My main point is that players do not generally get "exhausted" playing football. I stand on the touchline during a game and my assistant tells me that so-and-so is looking "exhausted" and we should bring him off. No, he isn't. Exhausted is when a marathon runner collapses 5km from the finish line on a very hot day. Footballers do get tired though - and it means that they start to adopt coping strategies to get themselves through to the end of a game (e.g. reducing the amount of high intensity running that they do), which may mean that they are implementing the original gameplan (especially if it was a pressing gameplan) less effectively than they were at the start. The manager then has a judgement to make. Can this "tired" player still impact the game in a positive way for us that mitigates his gradually declining work rate, or should I make a change?

 

At the moment, centre backs seem to get more tired than anybody else in the game. Why this should be is a complete mystery to me. I know it is the same for the AI team, but that is really missing the point. Central defenders do not generally run quite as far as players in other positions on the field - and they generally do not do as much high intensity running either. Yet in FM23 they are often the first players to reach "fair" then "poor" stamina. Fit central defenders playing just once a week should have no stamina concerns at all. Only if they were playing twice a week for an extended period should fatigue become an issue. For wing backs, midfielders and strikers, the situation is a bit different as they run further in a match and do more high intensity running than defenders, maybe 20-25% more in some cases. These players are much more in need of substitution and squad rotation.

 

I am currently playing as St Albans City and we are now in the Vanarama National League. We are still part-time and train just twice a week. Sometimes we have a match on Saturday and then another one on Tuesday, without there being a training session in-between. I have my own "house-rule" now that stops me from using the "Rest" option for players unless I am specifically excusing them from a training session. I checked the stamina levels of both teams on the last occasion that I had a Tuesday match after one on the previous Saturday. I had rotated my squad as much as possible, but after just 30 minutes four of my players were already on "fair" stamina. I thought this was unrealistic, but then I checked my opponents and they had 6 players at either "fair" or "poor". So before half-time, half of their side were either "exhausted", or approaching exhaustion. Clearly, this is ludicrous.

 

I appreciate that all these different types of strategy games (sports, historical, whatever) sit on a continuum with "game" at one end and "simulation" at the other. And sometimes compromises with "reality" have to be made in order to enhance gameplay. Maybe this is what is happening here? Somewhere else (maybe on the Steam forum), someone wrote that the gegenpress tactic was found to be too powerful, so stamina levels then took a hit to balance the game. I have no idea if this is true or not. If it is, then I think that it is always a mistake to correct one error with another one.  

[Enzu225]

I set team training/rest levels: 1. No Training 2. No Training 3. Half Training 4. Normal 5. Normal. If condition is less than half, then no training.

Despite that, fatigue still does affect the players in Spanish leagues where there is at least 1 game a week (frequently 2 games a week).

You are right, when player becomes tired, he will in real life run less.

Edited August 31, 2023 by Enzu225

[frank_flores]

Am 26.7.2023 um 10:37 schrieb stockwellpete:

centre backs seem to get more tired than anybody else in the game. Why this should be is a complete mystery to me.

This is SO annoying!!!!! Wholeheartedly agreed!