Zealand's "FM is broken video"

[jcafcwbb]

It has been released today on You Tube so you can watch it if you want.

His premise if that you can over-achieve with players not good enough to play in that division as long as have high pace and/or acceleration stats.

He ran a test with Nottingham Forest. These were real players with no editing in the their stats. The only criteria was that they were below Premier League standard. The CA of the players were below that of every other team but the pace had to be high.

They finished 12th and 11th in two try outs. Another player got them to 4th with the same inferior players.

How does this factor in with my belief that the match engine favours the wrong things. I believe it values tactics over player ability too much and it seems it values pace over player ability.

This is something that I hope FM25 addresses.

[MichaelNevo]

1 hour ago, jcafcwbb said:

It has been released today on You Tube so you can watch it if you want.

His premise if that you can over-achieve with players not good enough to play in that division as long as have high pace and/or acceleration stats.

He ran a test with Nottingham Forest. These were real players with no editing in the their stats. The only criteria was that they were below Premier League standard. The CA of the players were below that of every other team but the pace had to be high.

They finished 12th and 11th in two try outs. Another player got them to 4th with the same inferior players.

How does this factor in with my belief that the match engine favours the wrong things. I believe it values tactics over player ability too much and it seems it values pace over player ability.

This is something that I hope FM25 addresses.

I do agree with you, I actually saw another video not long ago, based on how well would a team do if there was zero training throughout the season and the players had high potential. Their physical attributes shot through the roof, whilst their other stats were extremely poor, probably league 2 standard. They were achieving top half finishes in the premier league if my memory serves me correctly.

I'm all for variation, but that is a bit extreme and probably as you say "broken".

[eXistenZ]

We're getting a new engine, so if it doesnt get rectified now, it wont be ever. And thats a really sad state of affairs. No proper competition is a death sentence for the quality of a series. It happened with FIFA, it happened with TW... etc

But if im brutally honest/crude here, I dont hold high hopes. This year, player interactions were supposed to be better. they arent. AI squad building was worked on. Doesnt really looks like it. Even one of the sale features, J-League, was/is a complete mess.  Even regen faces have never looked worse...

 

Now I dont really expect anyone of SI to comment on the video, I just hope the discussion can be civil and openminded, which again, I dont have good experiences with here.

[turnip]

I hope they're submitting these saves to SI to be looked at

 

The problem is always going to be that SI don't have the resources to check every combination of variables that can go into a league season. I assume they run a few thousand simulations of key leagues just to see if the outcomes are in line with what they'd expect with the players teams already have (plus, presumably, some auditing of transfers made by AI managers).

[XaW]

25 minutes ago, turnip said:

I hope they're submitting these saves to SI to be looked at

Indeed! This video might highlight something, or it might be outliers, no one other than SI can really know for sure. Especially as we see a correlation, but don't know the causation. So I hope Zealand, or anyone else who has done something similar, upload this to SI. As this test is much more plausible than the unrealistic input videos that has been posted here before. At least this uses real players!

[eXistenZ]

Ngl, first thing I thought of was someone going "well we need the files so we can properly take a look at this" as a copout answer.

Why do you need save files when he specificly adresses that anyone who has the ingame editor can set this up in less than an hour....

 

 

 

Edited June 15 by eXistenZ

[CAE82]

1 hour ago, eXistenZ said:

We're getting a new engine, so if it doesnt get rectified now, it wont be ever.

Don’t conflate Unity as a general game engine and the SI match engine. FM25 could very easily use exactly the same match engine (and transfers, and training, and scouting, and player development modules etc etc) as previous versions with Unity just offering a new interface. We’ll just have to wait and see.

But this video is old news. We’ve known for years that physicals are king. Guess it’s a slow-time of year pre-FM25 and content creators are scraping the barrel. 

[santy001]

26 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

Ngl, first thing I thought of was someone going "well we need the files so we can properly take a look at this" as a copout answer.

Why do you need save files when he specificly adresses that anyone who has the ingame editor can set this up in less than an hour....

 

 

 

There are always more considerations to it and maybe SI could assign a staff member to do that, recreate it in less than an hour as you say and then they don't get the same outcome. At that point its given absolutely zero insight as to why this happened in the first place.

It is the case that there are issues which some people in the community experience every single save without issue, but don't reproduce internally for SI. 

[XaW]

43 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

Ngl, first thing I thought of was someone going "well we need the files so we can properly take a look at this" as a copout answer.

Why do you need save files when he specificly adresses that anyone who has the ingame editor can set this up in less than an hour....

Why is it so hard for anyone who thinks this can be done in an hour and also thinks this is a big issue to do so? And no it's not a copout answer. I even said I think this shows correlation, but SI needs to look deeper for causation in order for this to be useful for them.

[eXistenZ]

42 minutes ago, santy001 said:

There are always more considerations to it and maybe SI could assign a staff member to do that, recreate it in less than an hour as you say and then they don't get the same outcome. At that point its given absolutely zero insight as to why this happened in the first place.

It is the case that there are issues which some people in the community experience every single save without issue, but don't reproduce internally for SI. 

Well we cant relieve any SI staff member of crucial duties like designing more face paint or manager costumes now, can we.....

btw, last time I opened a ticket and provided a save file, nothing was done with it.

32 minutes ago, XaW said:

Why is it so hard for anyone who thinks this can be done in an hour and also thinks this is a big issue to do so? And no it's not a copout answer. I even said I think this shows correlation, but SI needs to look deeper for causation in order for this to be useful for them.

probably the same reason that a lot of people think that Q&A at SI is pretty bad if you see some stuff that makes it in? Player get injured for 8 months and complains about playing time is not exactly something that is rare or only happens in extremely specific conditions only in latvian 2nd division...

Edited June 15 by eXistenZ

[XaW]

11 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

probably the same reason that a lot of people think that Q&A at SI is pretty bad if you see some stuff that makes it in? Player get injured for 8 months and complains about playing time is not exactly something that is rare or only happens in extremely specific conditions only in latvian 2nd division...

Then why complain if you don't think anything will happen either way? Why spend all the time around it? It would be much better to spend that reporting bugs rather than meaningless complain about them, no?

Btw, your last reported issue was fixed and you got an answer from SI who said what had happened firstly and how to work around it, and later also that is was fixed and they wanted you to please tell them if you experience it again.

So not sure what you mean by "nothing happened"?

[CAE82]

SI probably know pace/acceleration are king. Heck, I think we all do. The question is how tests are done. Real-life squads are not full of speed merchants. So when tests on the ME are run, so long as the number of points, goals, penalties, injuries etc are somewhat realistic and teams finish in a somewhat sensible order then tests will pass and the ME will be deemed acceptable.

What else can reasonably happen? No real club has 10 Usain Bolt’s and so we don’t really know what would happen, only speculate.

The game clearly is not perfect but credit to SI as I’m not aware of a better simulation of football (on-field and off-field) on planet Earth.

If you put in reasonable inputs, on the whole you’ll get reasonable outputs. It’s not really news to say that a team of high pace players is an unreasonable input which gives an unreasonable output.

So no point reporting as a bug, it’s an ‘edge case’ and we all know it happens.

[eXistenZ]

3 minutes ago, XaW said:

Then why complain if you don't think anything will happen either way? Why spend all the time around it? It would be much better to spend that reporting bugs rather than meaningless complain about them, no?

Btw, your last reported issue was fixed and you got an answer from SI who said what had happened firstly and how to work around it, and later also that is was fixed and they wanted you to please tell them if you experience it again.

So not sure what you mean by "nothing happened"?

And there is the copout answer I had expected, similar to "we dont have those issues in our saves/tests" and "well if you dont like the game, why are you here?".

Well I wasnt refering to that particular issue I had, I'll admit "last time" was more a way of speaking than 100% facevalue accurate. I know, the shame...

 

Huh look at that, an hour has passed since your first reply in this topic. You know, you could have used that time to run the experiment yourself, but offcours it was more productive to shut down any criticism....

And before you ask, I dont have the IGE and refuse to pay for something that should come free with the game

[XaW]

47 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

And there is the copout answer I had expected, similar to "we dont have those issues in our saves/tests" and "well if you dont like the game, why are you here?".

Well I wasnt refering to that particular issue I had, I'll admit "last time" was more a way of speaking than 100% facevalue accurate. I know, the shame...

 

Huh look at that, an hour has passed since your first reply in this topic. You know, you could have used that time to run the experiment yourself, but offcours it was more productive to shut down any criticism....

And before you ask, I dont have the IGE and refuse to pay for something that should come free with the game

Oh, another copout you expected? And now I must ask, do you even believe in what you write here? I have asked for anyone to upload it. I don't know if this a big issue or not, but those who make the claim has the burden of proof. Nothing more, nothing less.

Well, I looked at what bug reports you have made (All two of them), and the other was a question about prize money in Switzerland where the HR gave you the answers you were after. Now, older versions than FM23 are probably removed, so you might have some unanswered there, but for what I can see for FM23 and FM24, you have two issues reported and both are well answered, so 100% of the issues the last 2 years are good as far as I can tell.

And yes, I could have if it was an issue that I wanted SI to look at, but it's not an issue for me, and I see no reason to try to prove someone else's point. I'll refer that to the ones making it. If you don't want to do it, then don't. I don't care, as this issue is not something that bothers me at all. I just think that anyone who DOES care about this should report it. I mean, the streamer in question have already done it, why not ask that person to do it, if you don't want to?

I haven't shut down any criticism, I even said I think this looks like something SI should take a closer look at if someone provides.

Stop creating paper tigers just to tear them down. If you want to argue with me, at least don't attribute things to me that I haven't written.

[santy001]

Not sure why you would in any way feel entitled to a moderators personal time to do something. It's weird enough to expect it with SI staff but there's the tenuous justification of paying for a product and it's become so entrenched in society that it isn't worth challenging. 

Being disparaging towards QA despite the fact they do not code/develop the game or fix individual bugs directly does nothing to help any persons point either. Knowing whether an issue affects 1 in 1000 players or 870 in 1000 players would help assign a priority to it. If a bug happens more frequently and to more players it stands to reason it will be a higher priority to fix. This is because there is a finite number of working staff hours and so there has to be a prioritisation of issues. 

[eXistenZ]

now I wont disagree that content creators are often over the top and honestly thats one of the reasons zealand isnt one of mine go to ones. But going 'the burden of proof' is on them is dismissive and unconstructive, and again, something (at least what my experience is) you run into a lot in this forum. Its not like its being plucked out of thin air. They set up an experiment §which might have flaws), they explained it and showed the results.  Starting with the view of "well they fixed it for clicks probably" isnt exactly helpfull either. Its like having Caroll Beer around.. 'well we could look into it, but....*shrugs shoulders*"

Where there is smoke there is a fire.

 

PS: I had also opened a support ticket about player promises not being fulfilled (promise to loan out a player that didnt receive any offers and the player claimed I had), which didnt get resolved.... weird that you didnt find that one.

[perpetua]

Having played this game for far too long, the results in the video aren't really all that surprising to me.

It's a low CA team, playing against stronger opponents.
The stronger opponents under AI control are more likely to come out with a more attacking setup as a result.
This gives the pacy, low CA team exactly the scenario that they need to succeed, a team that leaves a lot of space to exploit and lots of opportunities to play 1v1 against slower players.

If the AI manager would look at the type of team they are facing (ie. a bunch of very pacy but unskilled players) instead of CA when devising the strategy, it would opt for a different strategy. 
At the very least that's what I would do.

So this is a joint test of not only attributes but also the AI's ability to nullify the very real threat of pace by deploying tactics designed to do just that.

A more salient test would be to play human vs. human against this pacy team and discover the conditions under which the pacy team thrives or suffers in order to pinpoint the underlying issue.  Play a more risky, more high tempo game against the pacier team and you're playing to their hand.  Play a more cautious style that forces them to use their weak skills more frequently and you're playing to their weakness.  The real question is, does the AI manager know to do that?

Edited June 15 by perpetua

[Cloud9]

7 hours ago, perpetua said:

Having played this game for far too long, the results in the video aren't really all that surprising to me.

It's a low CA team, playing against stronger opponents.
The stronger opponents under AI control are more likely to come out with a more attacking setup as a result.
This gives the pacy, low CA team exactly the scenario that they need to succeed, a team that leaves a lot of space to exploit and lots of opportunities to play 1v1 against slower players.

If the AI manager would look at the type of team they are facing (ie. a bunch of very pacy but unskilled players) instead of CA when devising the strategy, it would opt for a different strategy. 
At the very least that's what I would do.

So this is a joint test of not only attributes but also the AI's ability to nullify the very real threat of pace by deploying tactics designed to do just that.

A more salient test would be to play human vs. human against this pacy team and discover the conditions under which the pacy team thrives or suffers in order to pinpoint the underlying issue.  Play a more risky, more high tempo game against the pacier team and you're playing to their hand.  Play a more cautious style that forces them to use their weak skills more frequently and you're playing to their weakness.  The real question is, does the AI manager know to do that?

Who knew you needed pace to successfully play as an underdog 

Imo you can fairly easily overachieve in the game with any style of play...and Zealand has built around speed in a situation that plays into it. I have also taken teams up who are far below the Premier League standard and managed a top half finish consistently...w/out the gimmicks. 

Speed is also not some undervalued attribute...it's a large component of what makes a good footballer unplayable IRL (and as stated earlier amplified as an underdog). Physicals are not impacted by attributes like consistency and can be put on roles like W(a) which minimize the need for link up play or decision making---which require a higher CA, more well rounded player. 

Clickbait title/simulation for views, nothing to see here. Are some attributes like first touch underrated in the match engine? Does the addition of positional play expose some of the weaknesses of the current AI? Yes indisputably, and it would be great to see these things reworked, but it is not some save breaking revelation as billed.

Edited June 16 by Cloud9

[Cloud9]

8 hours ago, XaW said:

Oh, another copout you expected? And now I must ask, do you even believe in what you write here? I have asked for anyone to upload it. I don't know if this a big issue or not, but those who make the claim has the burden of proof. Nothing more, nothing less.

Well, I looked at what bug reports you have made (All two of them), and the other was a question about prize money in Switzerland where the HR gave you the answers you were after. Now, older versions than FM23 are probably removed, so you might have some unanswered there, but for what I can see for FM23 and FM24, you have two issues reported and both are well answered, so 100% of the issues the last 2 years are good as far as I can tell.

And yes, I could have if it was an issue that I wanted SI to look at, but it's not an issue for me, and I see no reason to try to prove someone else's point. I'll refer that to the ones making it. If you don't want to do it, then don't. I don't care, as this issue is not something that bothers me at all. I just think that anyone who DOES care about this should report it. I mean, the streamer in question have already done it, why not ask that person to do it, if you don't want to?

I haven't shut down any criticism, I even said I think this looks like something SI should take a closer look at if someone provides.

Stop creating paper tigers just to tear them down. If you want to argue with me, at least don't attribute things to me that I haven't written.

If users are spending the time they play the game only looking to break it, and then complaining it invalidates their experience (w/out looking to submit the data) I think it reflects more on them then the game itself. Usually when I see these "tests" the user has mislead themself and the conclusion they have reached is fairly inaccurate or does not take into account key factors.

That does not sound particularly fun to me in the first place...and something I would only expect people to do as part of a job. It's a single player, sandbox, football escapism experience which doesn't require you to play any specific way. I would also add almost all single player games I enjoy have some sort of exploit in them, which you generally acknowledge and choose not to use. 

• I add a number of restrictions or "house rules" whenever I play, which I would recommend for anyone feeling frustrated by their current experience in FM. 

Again, that's not to say there aren't issues that need to be addressed in FM24 (I for one would like a stronger AI who can develop youngsters more consistently/recruit better), but most of these "there's only one way to play and look I overachieved" users are fundamentally misguided. 

Edited June 16 by Cloud9

[Cal585]

8 hours ago, perpetua said:

Having played this game for far too long, the results in the video aren't really all that surprising to me.

It's a low CA team, playing against stronger opponents.
The stronger opponents under AI control are more likely to come out with a more attacking setup as a result.
This gives the pacy, low CA team exactly the scenario that they need to succeed, a team that leaves a lot of space to exploit and lots of opportunities to play 1v1 against slower players.

If the AI manager would look at the type of team they are facing (ie. a bunch of very pacy but unskilled players) instead of CA when devising the strategy, it would opt for a different strategy. 
At the very least that's what I would do.

So this is a joint test of not only attributes but also the AI's ability to nullify the very real threat of pace by deploying tactics designed to do just that.

A more salient test would be to play human vs. human against this pacy team and discover the conditions under which the pacy team thrives or suffers in order to pinpoint the underlying issue.  Play a more risky, more high tempo game against the pacier team and you're playing to their hand.  Play a more cautious style that forces them to use their weak skills more frequently and you're playing to their weakness.  The real question is, does the AI manager know to do that?

Pretty much this.

Do I think speed is a bit overpowered in the engine compared to some other attributes? Sure

Do I think turning one of the lower rep teams in the league into one of the best counter attacking teams proves much when they overperform? Not really. If anything, as perpetua says, it more shows the limitations of the AI managers in their current implementation. They do a lot of stupid, easily exploitable things from tactical set up to fitness management, to youth development.

I imagine this is currently being tweaked for FM25. I'm also sure that the balancing act will mean that if they get one thing properly aligned, another 3 things will break and therefore what we end up seeing is a less ambitious engine than what they may have hoped due to all the moving parts involved. But that's not from lack of effort and I do think it is improving every year.

[lied90]

5 hours ago, Cloud9 said:

Imo you can fairly easily overachieve in the game with any style of play...and Zealand has built around speed in a situation that plays into it.

He didn't play into it, he got the type of players that the original reddit post used, and left everything else to the assistant.

The original post plays into it by using a 4231 gegenpress, and got 80 points+second place. Which is obviously much better than Zealand.

[El Payaso]

I find it a bit funny when people raise something like this as a game breaking error. I'm not saying this to claim that some attributes aren't too valuable in the match engine while some like intelligence and technical aren't valued as important. 

I would see it more a problem that human players can heavily overachieve basically with any approach, especially if they don't add clear house rules for themselves. Taking your local team to the top might be fun "challenge" for a couple of times but when all the challenges turn into success stories, they lose their value. 

FM for me is a game that should be able to deal and bring us good general balance, no matter what the players' approaches are. Even though I like the game in general, this is where it fails and probably always has done that. 

[WelshMourinho]

10 hours ago, perpetua said:

Having played this game for far too long, the results in the video aren't really all that surprising to me.

It's a low CA team, playing against stronger opponents.
The stronger opponents under AI control are more likely to come out with a more attacking setup as a result.
This gives the pacy, low CA team exactly the scenario that they need to succeed, a team that leaves a lot of space to exploit and lots of opportunities to play 1v1 against slower players.

If the AI manager would look at the type of team they are facing (ie. a bunch of very pacy but unskilled players) instead of CA when devising the strategy, it would opt for a different strategy. 
At the very least that's what I would do.

So this is a joint test of not only attributes but also the AI's ability to nullify the very real threat of pace by deploying tactics designed to do just that.

A more salient test would be to play human vs. human against this pacy team and discover the conditions under which the pacy team thrives or suffers in order to pinpoint the underlying issue.  Play a more risky, more high tempo game against the pacier team and you're playing to their hand.  Play a more cautious style that forces them to use their weak skills more frequently and you're playing to their weakness.  The real question is, does the AI manager know to do that?

The problem here though is that it's AI against AI. Zealand didn't manage the team (from what I can tell from this video) he got his assistants to use numerous formations and he saw a similar level of success all the way through. I feel like you must not have watched the video because some the goals vs West Ham weren't based on 1 v 1's with the faster players getting an entire half of space to run into.

You're using real football logic and assuming that's why it has done well here, but the evidence provided suggests that's not what happening. We get a million threads every year on here with people saying they've suffered a mid season slump, and the response (rightly) is always the same. Your team is performing well and so the AI have adjusted to be more cautious. That is exactly what would have happened in this save, and it should have seen a slump, but it didn't. Which tells me there's more going on here than a simple 'fast player beats slower player' scenario.

 

 

[jcafcwbb]

In real football we have seen plenty of players with pace who has started well but as teams adjust to them they become less effective.

Their pace means they can have an advantage but without the technique they never become elite. That is what I believe needs fixing. Players can get by with their physical attributes but without the technical stuff they do not develop. The game does not have the balance between the player's abilities and their physicals right in the same way it doesn't have ability against tactics. We saw in the Champions League final that Adeyemi's speed got him into the one-on-one but he lacked the technique/mental ability to finish it. In the same situation Vinicius Jnr put it away as he has a higher technique/mentality than Adeyemi.

People like Zealand and I are not looking for reasons to dig out SI. We come from a place where we love the game and want it to be as best as it can be. I will be buying FM25 and will love it but I will not pretend not to notice things that can be improved.

[jcafcwbb]

1 minute ago, WelshMourinho said:

The problem here though is that it's AI against AI. Zealand didn't manage the team (from what I can tell from this video) he got his assistants to use numerous formations and he saw a similar level of success all the way through. I feel like you must not have watched the video because some the goals vs West Ham weren't based on 1 v 1's with the faster players getting an entire half of space to run into.

You're using real football logic and assuming that's why it has done well here, but the evidence provided suggests that's not what happening. We get a million threads every year on here with people saying they've suffered a mid season slump, and the response (rightly) is always the same. Your team is performing well and so the AI have adjusted to be more cautious. That is exactly what would have happened in this save, and it should have seen a slump, but it didn't. Which tells me there's more going on here than a simple 'fast player beats slower player' scenario.

 

 

That is another fault then. The simulation should work in the same way as playing it in real time. If formations get adjusted to playing the slow path then it should be adjusted to in the simulation. You have the choice of an instant result in the console version - does that exist in the full game? 

When you see the end of season results you should see that the formation gets adjusted to and that could show you the how and whys

[WelshMourinho]

6 hours ago, Cloud9 said:

Who knew you needed pace to successfully play as an underdog 

Imo you can fairly easily overachieve in the game with any style of play...and Zealand has built around speed in a situation that plays into it. I have also taken teams up who are far below the Premier League standard and managed a top half finish consistently...w/out the gimmicks. 

Speed is also not some undervalued attribute...it's a large component of what makes a good footballer unplayable IRL (and as stated earlier amplified as an underdog). Physicals are not impacted by attributes like consistency and can be put on roles like W(a) which minimize the need for link up play or decision making---which require a higher CA, more well rounded player. 

Clickbait title/simulation for views, nothing to see here. Are some attributes like first touch underrated in the match engine? Does the addition of positional play expose some of the weaknesses of the current AI? Yes indisputably, and it would be great to see these things reworked, but it is not some save breaking revelation as billed.

Absolutely nothing here suggests that they were playing as an underdog. The original tester went all out gegenpress and finished 2nd with the same team. Zealand didn't do anything tactically and just let his assistant crack on, and still achieved a solid mid table finish. To say "nothing to see here" is absurd. 

If I go into the tactics forum and say guys I want a solid counter attacking tactic, what attributes should I look for? I will get various responses from great players who'll advise looking for things like positioning, anticipation, concentration, off the ball, first touch, dribbling etc. It requires a lot more than just pace, which should be the issue here. All of these things are incredibly important to the style of play, but apparently this test should be written off because the players are fast? I think that's nonsense.

Also lets not forget the standard that is being used here. Premier League defenders on the whole are not slow. We aren't dealing with 9 pace vs 17 pace mismatches. Either way you look at this, it is silly that this transfer strategy is proving fruitful with more than one style of play.

[WelshMourinho]

1 hour ago, Cal585 said:

Do I think turning one of the lower rep teams in the league into one of the best counter attacking teams proves much when they overperform? Not really. If anything, as perpetua says, it more shows the limitations of the AI managers in their current implementation. They do a lot of stupid, easily exploitable things from tactical set up to fitness management, to youth development.

Where does it suggest they were turned into a counter attacking team? You're making that assumption based on "fast players = counter attack" when the original test was a front footed approach (which finished 2nd) and Zealand's only input was ensuring a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-1-2-1-2 diamond was utilised. The game against Man United they had more possession, and the goals against West Ham have the West Ham players penned in their own box? There's no suggestion that this was a sit back and counter tactic. 

[NineCloudNine]

15 minutes ago, WelshMourinho said:

Absolutely nothing here suggests that they were playing as an underdog. The original tester went all out gegenpress and finished 2nd with the same team. Zealand didn't do anything tactically and just let his assistant crack on, and still achieved a solid mid table finish. To say "nothing to see here" is absurd. 

If I go into the tactics forum and say guys I want a solid counter attacking tactic, what attributes should I look for? I will get various responses from great players who'll advise looking for things like positioning, anticipation, concentration, off the ball, first touch, dribbling etc. It requires a lot more than just pace, which should be the issue here. All of these things are incredibly important to the style of play, but apparently this test should be written off because the players are fast? I think that's nonsense.

Also lets not forget the standard that is being used here. Premier League defenders on the whole are not slow. We aren't dealing with 9 pace vs 17 pace mismatches. Either way you look at this, it is silly that this transfer strategy is proving fruitful with more than one style of play.

Speed and acceleration have been overpowered in FM for years. SI know this, which is why those attributes have extreme CA multipliers. It is reasonable to assume that the potency of pace in the ME has been extensively explored by the devs over the years and either they think it’s fine or (more likely IMO) the creaking ancient nature of the code means they can’t do any more about it.

That said, some other points. Pace is a killer attribute in football. The havoc caused by Vinicius or Mbappe, or the speedy guy on the wing in your park team, make that obvious. A whole team of speedsters would be devastating, even if they did lack badly in other areas.

What would actually happen to a team of sprinters is that the opposition manager would adapt, sitting deep, holding the ball, pressing hard, fouling, whatever. There is no tactic or attribute in football that does not have a counter, none at all.

So IMO this test doesn’t tell us anything new or interesting about the potency of pace in FM or in football. It tells us that the manager AI is limited in its ability to adapt to opposition tactics and completely fails to do so when faced with an entirely unrealistic scenario which cannot have been tested for because there is zero reason to test for it.

This is where “X is broken, fix it” threads and claims go wrong so often. There seems to be an assumption that fixing these things is easy because (for example) there’s a metaphorical dial in the code where the impact of pace can be dialled down from 9 to 7 and the problem would go away. In fact it’s often not clear exactly what the problem is and ‘fixing’ it might require really significant time and end up changing something which none of us might have realised was the root cause. I see no reason to expect devs to do this when faced with an entirely unrealistic scenario which would never be encountered in normal play and where it’s not at all clear what, exactly, causes the outcome.

[jcafcwbb]

5 minutes ago, NineCloudNine said:

Speed and acceleration have been overpowered in FM for years. SI know this, which is why those attributes have extreme CA multipliers. It is reasonable to assume that the potency of pace in the ME has been extensively explored by the devs over the years and either they think it’s fine or (more likely IMO) the creaking ancient nature of the code means they can’t do any more about it.

That said, some other points. Pace is a killer attribute in football. The havoc caused by Vinicius or Mbappe, or the speedy guy on the wing in your park team, make that obvious. A whole team of speedsters would be devastating, even if they did lack badly in other areas.

What would actually happen to a team of sprinters is that the opposition manager would adapt, sitting deep, holding the ball, pressing hard, fouling, whatever. There is no tactic or attribute in football that does not have a counter, none at all.

So IMO this test doesn’t tell us anything new or interesting about the potency of pace in FM or in football. It tells us that the manager AI is limited in its ability to adapt to opposition tactics and completely fails to do so when faced with an entirely unrealistic scenario which cannot have been tested for because there is zero reason to test for it.

This is where “X is broken, fix it” threads and claims go wrong so often. There seems to be an assumption that fixing these things is easy because (for example) there’s a metaphorical dial in the code where the impact of pace can be dialled down from 9 to 7 and the problem would go away. In fact it’s often not clear exactly what the problem is and ‘fixing’ it might require really significant time and end up changing something which none of us might have realised was the root cause. I see no reason to expect devs to do this when faced with an entirely unrealistic scenario which would never be encountered in normal play and where it’s not at all clear what, exactly, causes the outcome.

Mbappe and Vinicius would not be the elite superstars that they are if they did not have the technique and mental ability to go with their pace. That is the point you seems to be missing. I support a L2 side and I see plenty of players with either speed or strength who do not make it any further because they lack the technical ability on the ball and the consistency from their mental attributes. I won't name him but we got a player when, on first glance, we wondered how he was at our level and not higher. When he faded during the season we saw why. It seems that in the game the guys with pace do not fade or their lack of technique does not hamper them.

That Nottingham Forest side would have been relegated in real life. We saw that with three promoted teams getting relegated because they do not have the ability to compete. 

No-one is saying that this is an easy fix but to pretend the game cannot be improved is wrong. I play other games and all can do with some fixing - that is the way of game. We are working as volunteer QAs for the game and maybe by pointing out things that can be broken (because of our love of the game) so it can help SI to develop the game into a better one. Sweeping it under the carpet doesn't not help SI in any way.

[fc.cadoni]

It's summer, YouTubers need to create something. So, let's make a video for a well known thing in FM for many years. And let's put "broken" to make more drama. Nothing to see here. Let's move on.

[NineCloudNine]

33 minutes ago, jcafcwbb said:

Mbappe and Vinicius would not be the elite superstars that they are if they did not have the technique and mental ability to go with their pace. That is the point you seems to be missing. I support a L2 side and I see plenty of players with either speed or strength who do not make it any further because they lack the technical ability on the ball and the consistency from their mental attributes. I won't name him but we got a player when, on first glance, we wondered how he was at our level and not higher. When he faded during the season we saw why. It seems that in the game the guys with pace do not fade or their lack of technique does not hamper them.

That Nottingham Forest side would have been relegated in real life. We saw that with three promoted teams getting relegated because they do not have the ability to compete. 

No-one is saying that this is an easy fix but to pretend the game cannot be improved is wrong. I play other games and all can do with some fixing - that is the way of game. We are working as volunteer QAs for the game and maybe by pointing out things that can be broken (because of our love of the game) so it can help SI to develop the game into a better one. Sweeping it under the carpet doesn't not help SI in any way.

Pace in football always confers a relative advantage. Hence my reference to a speedy park team winger as well. And pace can get a player a long way without having equivalent technical and mental skills - Ousmane Dembele, Timo Werner and any number of players for example. So it’s not weird that pace is powerful, the question is how much.

So when you say “improve the game” or “things that can be broken” what is it that you think needs to be improved or is broken? It’s not at all clear from this test what the problem is, as all we have is an outcome from an entirely unrealistic and artificial scenario. Is the problem pace?, or poor AI reactive tactics?, or the weak impact of mentals?, or something specific to the club or league? Exactly where should the club have finished (over a lot of seasons, not one)?. And even then, who cares when the scenario is so unrealistic?

You have already decided that pace needs to be de-powered and you are latching on to evidence that you think confirms your pre-existing view. In fact this test offers nothing new, it’s not realistic and it’s not obvious that it is even demonstrates what you think it does.

[XaW]

2 minutes ago, NineCloudNine said:

So when you say “improve the game” or “things that can be broken” what is it that you think needs to be improved or is broken? It’s not at all clear from this test what the problem is, as all we have is an outcome from an entirely unrealistic and artificial scenario. Is the problem pace?, or poor AI reactive tactics?, or the weak impact of mentals?, or something specific to the club or league? Exactly where should the club have finished (over a lot of seasons, not one)?. And even then, who cares when the scenario is so unrealistic?

A much better explanation that mine, but essentially what I was trying to get at earlier. We know there is a correlation, but we don't know the causation of it. Thus SI needs to get examples to look at to find out the root cause.

[cocoadavid]

I don't know whether it's common knowledge or not, but I think it's worth mentioning here: Usain Bolt actually played football in Australia and even was on trial with Borussia Dortmund, but eventually he did not make it. And anyone who saw him play could see that being the fastest man alive does not make you a good enough footballer. He had some good moments when he had space to run into, but oh boy, his first touch, technic and decision making let him down big time. So I think we can come to the conclusion that in real life a team full of Usain Bolts would not make it in the Premier League.

Pace and acceleration are very important attributes, but I think it's clear that it's overpowered in the ME, and Usain Bolt is the living example that without technic and other footballing skills, you're not going to make it at the top level.

[Rashidi]

Physical attributes have been king since the days of champman, nothing new there.  There have been plenty of examples of people achieving things on FM doing things in a different way. Some choose attacking styles, others decide to follow self imposed rules. However you break things down, the game gives everyone an option on how they want things done.

[Daveincid]

vor 15 Minuten schrieb cocoadavid:

Usain Bolt is the living example that without technic and other footballing skills, you're not going to make it at the top level.

I don't think that Usain Bolt is a good example to compare his football skills with actual professional footballers with high ratings for pace and acceleration which were used in this experiment.   

[phnompenhandy]

2 hours ago, El Payaso said:

I find it a bit funny when people raise something like this as a game breaking error. I'm not saying this to claim that some attributes aren't too valuable in the match engine while some like intelligence and technical aren't valued as important. 

I would see it more a problem that human players can heavily overachieve basically with any approach, especially if they don't add clear house rules for themselves. Taking your local team to the top might be fun "challenge" for a couple of times but when all the challenges turn into success stories, they lose their value. 

FM for me is a game that should be able to deal and bring us good general balance, no matter what the players' approaches are. Even though I like the game in general, this is where it fails and probably always has done that. 

Watching Switzerland last night had me thinking how football is a game that is 80% in the head, and that the effect of mentality attributes in FM doesn't reflect this.

However, the point I'd like to make is not about the imbalance of attributes. The point I'd make is that we on this forum are not a balanced cross-section of the FM-buying market. The game has to cater to 'casuals' who don't want to put the time and effort in that we do to hone our FM skills. Good FMers will inevitably overachieve without setting their 'inhouse' limits. It disappoints me too, but SI are running a business, and it's not my profit margin at stake.

[Etebaer]

Tactic and Pace play a crucial role in football and can not be underestimated - bcs Tactic and Pace decide if, when and where player skills comes into play.

Its easy to witness when a good but exhausted higher tier team plays vs a fresh lower league team in the season preparation and gets smashed by the fresher team that simply outruns them and bcs the exhausted team usually does have a hard time to get into challenges so the lower player skill does not matter that much as without challenge most semi pro players are capable of play passes and score goals with the necessary quality to succeed.

The only lesson to learn is maybe that the AI is bad at finding good tactics vs pace merchants...

 

 

Edited June 16 by Etebaer

[El Payaso]

11 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

Watching Switzerland last night had me thinking how football is a game that is 80% in the head, and that the effect of mentality attributes in FM doesn't reflect this.

However, the point I'd like to make is not about the imbalance of attributes. The point I'd make is that we on this forum are not a balanced cross-section of the FM-buying market. The game has to cater to 'casuals' who don't want to put the time and effort in that we do to hone our FM skills. Good FMers will inevitably overachieve without setting their 'inhouse' limits. It disappoints me too, but SI are running a business, and it's not my profit margin at stake.

In general "catering the game for casuals" is eating away a lot of the game's potential. FM has almost always been a solid game (excluding some versions like FM 2010, 2015-2018). 

A closer focus on how certain attributes work and limit players would be a fantastic new way but it would make it would ask for a bit of effort from players if they would need to think about what kind of players they need to have in a certain style of play or even good players struggling when they are not suitable for certain roles or style of plays. Like said, this would be a fantastic thing but not something that is going to happen as long as there is only one level of difficulty. 

Something like backup goalkeepers being able to play as well as your better outfield players and mindless running machines having no technical or intellectual limitations visible are bad but also something that has been present in the game practically always. 

 

[cocoadavid]

28 minutes ago, Daveincid said:

I don't think that Usain Bolt is a good example to compare his football skills with actual professional footballers with high ratings for pace and acceleration which were used in this experiment.   

There were other experiments where players had 20 pace and 20 acceleration and 1 in technical and mental skills, and it still led to similar results.

[Daveincid]

Gerade eben schrieb cocoadavid:

There were other experiments where players had 20 pace and 20 acceleration and 1 in technical and mental skills, and it still led to similar results.

I just pointed out that Usain Bolt isn't a good example for real life comparison. I'm not going into those other experiments in the past. Nothing changed since then.

[samrnpage]

This is far far worse and gamebreaking than anything we have had before and anyone playing it down is in denial because they love the game (its ****ing difficut to stomache for me as well). This is CA95-110 players, getting 2nd in the premier league using a gegenpress system, or midtable prem with AI manager. 

EVERY single save ANYONE on this forum does from now on, you know if you get pacey players, youll win. I just started a build a nation save in Sweden and now I cannot stop thinking about if I just sign that guy thats terrible but has 16 pace, I know ill do well. 

SI MUST PUBLICALLY ADDRESS THIS. This kills the game for me. I cant enjoy a save knowing that all I need to do is build a pacey team

"Some dude also tested by raising non-meta stats in Crystal Palace team to 17 (if not already that good) on all players - it did **** all"

Edited June 16 by samrnpage

[cocoadavid]

17 minutes ago, Daveincid said:

I just pointed out that Usain Bolt isn't a good example for real life comparison. I'm not going into those other experiments in the past. Nothing changed since then.

But this thread mainly is about whether pace and accelerion are overvalued in the ME or not and I point out that poeple often argued that "But there are no real life players that has 20 pace but totally lacks technical and mental skills, so these experiments are pointless and does not prove that the ME overvalues pace" - well, there is a real person like that and we could see him play football with professional footballers, and that is, Usain Bolt, and he is a real life example.

[Daveincid]

vor 1 Minute schrieb cocoadavid:

But this thread mainly is about whether pace and accelerion are overvalued in the ME or not and I point out that poeple often argued that "But there are no real life players that has 20 pace but totally lacks technical and mental skills, so these experiments are pointless and does not prove that the ME overvalues pace" - well, there is a real person like that and we could see him play football with professional footballers, and that is, Usain Bolt, and he is a real life example.

Again, I just pointed out that the test which Zealand did wasn't done with players which are comparable to Usain Bolt. Anyways...for me, pace and acceleration are indirectly overpowered but not directly. (Beside the fact that other parameters such as club reputration were left out but I don't want to discuss all parameters which may play a role).

In modern football, you won't see teams pressing all the time. They might do it for 15 minutes and then take things a bit more easy again to recover. This isn't replicated well in the game. You can press 90 minutes if you want to. The way I lowered the impact of speedy players was to increase injuries for sprints etc., this way I was able to reduce the effectivity of physical players a little over the course of a season. 

[NineCloudNine]

1 hour ago, cocoadavid said:

But this thread mainly is about whether pace and accelerion are overvalued in the ME or not and I point out that poeple often argued that "But there are no real life players that has 20 pace but totally lacks technical and mental skills, so these experiments are pointless and does not prove that the ME overvalues pace" - well, there is a real person like that and we could see him play football with professional footballers, and that is, Usain Bolt, and he is a real life example.

No-one has argued that, you’re making a strawman. 

Bolt didn’t even have 1s in his technical and mental skills. It’s been pointed out many times that 1-20 in FM is 1-20 *for a pro footballer*. A player with ~100 CA (such as those in this experiment) is an extremely good player, even if they are below Premier League standard. Bolt wasn’t even good enough to play semi-pro; his short attempt to be a pro was a publicity stunt for the club, no matter what footballing fantasies he may have possessed.

[NineCloudNine]

1 hour ago, samrnpage said:

This is far far worse and gamebreaking than anything we have had before and anyone playing it down is in denial because they love the game (its ****ing difficut to stomache for me as well). This is CA95-110 players, getting 2nd in the premier league using a gegenpress system, or midtable prem with AI manager. 

EVERY single save ANYONE on this forum does from now on, you know if you get pacey players, youll win. I just started a build a nation save in Sweden and now I cannot stop thinking about if I just sign that guy thats terrible but has 16 pace, I know ill do well. 

SI MUST PUBLICALLY ADDRESS THIS. This kills the game for me. I cant enjoy a save knowing that all I need to do is build a pacey team

"Some dude also tested by raising non-meta stats in Crystal Palace team to 17 (if not already that good) on all players - it did **** all"

This is all in your head. You’re playing alone, against an AI. You can do nor not do exactly what you want. You don’t “need” to build a pacy team unless you want to.

Your shouty demand for SI “to address this” will be ignored. If it “kills the game” for you, that’s something you’re doing to yourself.

[enigmatic]

18 hours ago, CAE82 said:

But this video is old news. We’ve known for years that physicals are king. Guess it’s a slow-time of year pre-FM25 and content creators are scraping the barrel. 

Yeah, this. Not news that pacy players overachieve, high pressing and attacking tactics overachieve especially with sides tipped for relegation and that certain tactical setups (different in each version) overachieve more. Actually hard to imagine someone coding a footballing simulation where pace doesn't have outsized effects on performance without other tricks like the highest paced players not moving that much quicker than the lowest pace ones...

Frankly I've seen posts with less sensationalist titles with people doing a lot better than 11th or 12th with that combo...

 

8 minutes ago, NineCloudNine said:

This is all in your head. You’re playing alone, against an AI. You can do nor not do exactly what you want. You don’t “need” to build a pacy team unless you want to.

Your shouty demand for SI “to address this” will be ignored. If it “kills the game” for you, that’s something you’re doing to yourself.

Also this. In fact, once you know that pacy players overperform, it's actually pretty easy to challenge yourself by deliberately not signing them...

[WelshMourinho]

4 hours ago, NineCloudNine said:

What would actually happen to a team of sprinters is that the opposition manager would adapt, sitting deep, holding the ball, pressing hard, fouling, whatever. There is no tactic or attribute in football that does not have a counter, none at all.

 

How much deeper do West Ham have to be before their superior mental and technical attributes take over? Practically their entire team is back there and they're still getting drilled by a bunch of yard dogs.

You've brought up Vinicius Junior, who was actually criticised for his end product early on in his Madrid career, but who's reached the 20 goal mark in each of the last 3 seasons. Before that he managed 6. He developed his all round football ability and became a far better player, he didn't become faster. Adama Traore has existed for years, we've seen him play for a relegated Middlesbrough, a mid table Wolves, and a top team in Barcelona. He would've faced a variety of different blocks, with different types of space afforded to him. His best season came in the Championship, because it was a lower level.

I don't know exactly what the problem is, no one here does, but the reality is this team is dreadful at kicking a football and that would show over the course of a season. This isn't a one off cup game in which they've faced an aggressive opponent, this is a consistent performance over numerous saves with numerous formations.

 

[WelshMourinho]

16 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

Yeah, this. Not news that pacy players overachieve, high pressing and attacking tactics overachieve especially with sides tipped for relegation and that certain tactical setups (different in each version) overachieve more.

This game is advertised as being the most complete version ever. God forbid people expect a tad better than having this many 'overpowered' things in it.

[enigmatic]

Just now, WelshMourinho said:

This game is advertised as being the most complete version ever. God forbid people expect a tad better than having this many 'overpowered' things in it.

I mean, it's entirely possible that it is both the most complete version and like every other 3D simulation ever, especially previous FMs, it's possible to overachieve with physical players. 

Since most of the people deliberately exploiting the game with attacking tactics and pace merchants actually want it to get them good results and the rest could always just not do that, it's unsurprising it's not top of the list of things to unbalance other parts of the game to fix...

[fat mole]

Always thought pace was overpowered due to something else, the relative lack of fast players in lower leagues vs top flight compared to how common that is in real life.

There's obviously more top class speed merchants in the upper echelons of football but not to the degree that is presented in FM. It's as though SI know how powerful pace is within the game so give players who are better mentally and technically an extra boost with added pace as that makes a big difference in the match engine. Physicals are actually where lower league players match up relatively well compared to better players, perhaps not for the whole game (stamina) and there's other reasons why PL players will beat them to the ball (anticipation, positioning).

There's 147 Premier League players with 15+ pace, 5 in the Vanarama National in a new save I just created. That's just unrealistic. In a sprint race involving all players in both leagues there's no way there'd only be 5 from that division in the top 150 finishers. They'd come out worse than their PL rivals, but it wouldn't be by anywhere near that much.

There's also only 16 Vanarama National central midfielders (natural position) out of 164 with a faster top speed than Christian Eriksen (11 pace). 12 are faster by 1 point and 4 by 2 points. There are more than 9.75% of players in that position who have a better top speed than him in that league IRL.  He'd completely outplay them in other areas of course.

There's 10 Vanrama central defenders out of 162 faster than Harry Maguire in game, all of them by 1 point. I don't think that's remotely true either compared to the real world.

Edited June 16 by fat mole