Zealand's "FM is broken video"

[Spallo]

vor einer Stunde schrieb wazzaflow10:

Its that there should be a clear separation between world class abilities compared to players that exists even just below that tier.

Are we sure that is not already the case in the game? In my experience there are players in the game, that clearly stand out in the ME - thats obviously subjective, but I dont think that is a particular big problem of the ME. In every FM I played (2008, 2010, 2014, 2021 and now 2024 - I dont count CM) I had/have players that are pretty recognizable for one reason or another. You could of course come to another conclusion with your indiviudal experience. 

Like I said - I pretty much follow your argument for making the game more realistic - but I doubt it would be desirable because of what you have said about the somewhat hard to distinguish, lets say 30 to 90percentil players in attributes. And I do think actually, that FM does a good job at simulating the bulkload of players which are in these middle-tiers, because you can have relativ sucess with them or can do badly (in recent years admittedly less so). 

I am all for a better and more realistic experience, but I dont think there is an easy way to do this.

[wazzaflow10]

37 minutes ago, Spallo said:

Are we sure that is not already the case in the game?

I don't know that's why I was asking the head researcher if that's how the game views attributes or not under the hood.

37 minutes ago, Spallo said:

but I doubt it would be desirable because of what you have said about the somewhat hard to distinguish, lets say 30 to 90percentil players in attributes. And I do think actually, that FM does a good job at simulating the bulkload of players which are in these middle-tiers, because you can have relativ sucess with them or can do badly (in recent years admittedly less so). 

Well there's the range of top level professionals (say attributes 12-20) but there's not enough separation between levels of say a League One team or a Serie C team. Outside of physicals - which should not be bounded by the league - there is likely not enough of a difference in technical or mental attributes to really show the difference that truly exists. If we could view say Regionalliga data and below I'm curious what the bottom end of pace would look like even getting down into semi-pro leagues.

Edited June 20 by wazzaflow10

[perpetua]

19 hours ago, wazzaflow10 said:

To the user the difference between a 19 and 20 is only one "point" (or 10 using the 1-200 scale) but is that how the match engine interprets that? In other words is each step in attribute interpreted as a linear increase - such that  for each tenth of a point in pace is an increase in running speed of .01 km/h? 

 

To the best of my knowledge (which is very limited) the underlying values assigned to each attribute level is linearly related to the attribute level.

Using a non-linear approach is interesting but I would question how this would impact lower leagues.  Someone with 18 for an attribute will be X better than someone with 15 for the same attribute but someone with 12 for an attribute will only be (X - y) better than someone with a 9 for an attribute. 

Let's say we want to achieve a league table with a 50 point difference between the top team and the bottom team.  Without a change to the cost of attributes in CA (a whole other can of worms in my opinion), the expected CA difference between the top and bottom teams will be less at the top of the football pyramid than one step below, even less than two steps below etc.  Research would have to adapt to this change as well.  Without relying on CA differences being linear, this will leave us to shoot in the dark for lower levels and giving us very random looking results in the game until we get a handle on the impacts of the change.

 

Edited June 21 by perpetua

[NineCloudNine]

18 hours ago, wazzaflow10 said:

Well there's the range of top level professionals (say attributes 12-20) but there's not enough separation between levels of say a League One team or a Serie C team. Outside of physicals - which should not be bounded by the league - there is likely not enough of a difference in technical or mental attributes to really show the difference that truly exists. If we could view say Regionalliga data and below I'm curious what the bottom end of pace would look like even getting down into semi-pro leagues.

The separation you are looking for here comes at the CA level, not individual attributes. By being a few points better at everything, a player is dramatically better overall.

I do agree though that it’s not obvious why pace and acceleration are so much higher in top leagues. This makes no sense to me and the real life data shown above proves the point. I assume this is simply because those skills have very high CA mulipliers so if lower league players had realistic pace/acceleration they would have to have absolutely terrible values for other stats. It’s a reminder that we are playing a game, not a simulation.

Edited June 21 by NineCloudNine

[tts0]

2 hours ago, NineCloudNine said:

I assume this is simply because those skills have very high CA mulipliers so if lower league players had realistic pace/acceleration they would have to have absolutely terrible values for other stats. It’s a reminder that we are playing a game, not a simulation.

But thats the whole point here! Players in lower leagues are in fact miles away in terms of their footballing skills. Otherwise they would have been playing in the bigs already.

[NineCloudNine]

59 minutes ago, tts0 said:

But thats the whole point here! Players in lower leagues are in fact miles away in terms of their footballing skills. Otherwise they would have been playing in the bigs already.

Yes ofc. My point is that this separation is being achieved in part by suppressing pace and acceleration for lower league players, whereas the data shows that there is little difference in pace between the leagues. 

[wazzaflow10]

All great points from both of you, @perpetua and @NineCloudNine.

7 hours ago, perpetua said:

Without a change to the cost of attributes in CA (a whole other can of worms in my opinion), the expected CA difference between the top and bottom teams will be less at the top of the football pyramid than one step below, even less than two steps below etc. Research would have to adapt to this change as well.

I'll certainly take your word for this as I'm obviously not privy to what goes on behind the scenes on how a player is constructed. I wonder if it could be something done programmatically that can functionally separate the top from the middle from the bottom that doesn't require a change but clearly I'm out of my depth here. I suppose in some regards research could be easier because there's not the need to languish if an average player should be 11 or 12 since the gap between those would be relatively small comparatively. More effort would be around discussions about the upper end and lower end of the scale where it should, theoretically be easier to say yes world class or barely professional.

I find this point below to be constructive in thinking about this challenge conceptually if we can just slightly open the can of worms.

4 hours ago, NineCloudNine said:

The separation you are looking for here comes at the CA level, not individual attributes. By being a few points better at everything, a player is dramatically better overall.

This suggests to me (perhaps incorrectly) that world class players are better all around rather than truly excellent in the same aspects as their real life counterpart. So hypothetically lets say Luka Modric is the best passer in FM (which we know includes attributes of passing, technique, flair, vision, composure etc) but because those skills are capped at 20 to get the target CA he needs points elsewhere rather than make him really stand out in his best attributes. So the effect I think is that Luka Modric is more well rounded in FM than he is in real life (not that he isn't good elsewhere but just in comparison).

A thought I'm having as I type this out (so apologies of a half baked idea) is that players are created/modeled based on archetypes. What I mean by this is the archetype dictates the cost of CA for attributes either in addition or in place of the position familiarity.

A deep lying playmaker would have an easier time adding to attributes that govern passing but finds it more difficult/expensive to add to certain physical attributes. Likewise an anchorman will find it easier to add CA to defensive attributes than more attacking attributes. As a side effect - this could help the AI train players more effectively since it would be able to view the archetype and want to focus training to a players strengths.

I don't mean for everyone to be able to reach 20. The high CA cost for reaching world class should still exist. I do want to prevent a lot of world class players from becoming jacks of all trades to compensate for the lack of room at the top to differentiate their greatness. Its not to say that all around players can't or shouldn't exist either.

Edited June 21 by wazzaflow10

[jcafcwbb]

The thing is that whilst attributes like pace, acceleration, off-the-ball and anticipation do determine whether you get to the ball first a second set of metrics determine what you do when in possession. An example of a slow player using other metrics to succeed is Franco Baresi - a slow defender but one of the best.

On the ball other metrics become more important. Passing, Finishing, Vision, Flair and others determine what you achieve and things like pace and acceleration are less important.

I do not know how hard this is to programme but we need to have different calculations for on the ball and off the ball. It may already be in the game - I have zero knowledge of how the ME works, like most but I would hope that a fast, unskilful player does not over perform any more than a skilful player with bad mental abilities.

[MichaelNevo]

To poke the bear it a bit further, I've started an experiment and you can follow the progress here... Not only are physicals overpowered, but so is having zero training.

 

[Lord Rowell]

3 hours ago, MichaelNevo said:

To poke the bear it a bit further, I've started an experiment and you can follow the progress here... Not only are physicals overpowered, but so is having zero training.

 

But if they're Model Citizens, they're going to be exemplary at taking care of their own fitness and professional development. Hence the need for coach-led training will be diminished.

[NineCloudNine]

3 hours ago, Lord Rowell said:

But if they're Model Citizens, they're going to be exemplary at taking care of their own fitness and professional development. Hence the need for coach-led training will be diminished.

Not just that, but:

Quote

They have Model Citizen personalities, 1 for Injury Proneness, 20 Consistency, 20 Important Matches and 20 Determination. 

[MichaelNevo]

4 hours ago, Lord Rowell said:

But if they're Model Citizens, they're going to be exemplary at taking care of their own fitness and professional development. Hence the need for coach-led training will be diminished.

Once I've finished with that, I'll run the test with normal players.

[El Payaso]

My biggest hope for FM 2025 would actually be that the game would demand more concentration on small details like attributes for us. 

As far as I know, it is still possible to play even your backup goalkeeper as an outfield player without major setbacks in terms of performances. I would like a lot if the game would be developed in a totally different direction which would lead even world-class players struggling to perform if they are played in wrong kind of role or system. Just like what is happening with England at the moment: Harry Kane being the wrong type of striker to perform as the highest player to set up an effective pressing style. 

We should even run into scenarios where the style of play is logical and well built but fails because we don't have the right type of players. 

[Spallo]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb El Payaso:

As far as I know, it is still possible to play even your backup goalkeeper as an outfield player without major setbacks in terms of performances.

This is just not the case. There are major performance losses for players out of position. The natural, accomplished, competent etc. labels are assigned with x-performance losses - the FM-Experiment guy tested this pretty extensively. Same holds true for fitness, sharpeness and morale to a certain extent.

Roles and familarity are another thing though and there is no clear evidence which I know of, that they effect performance. But based of my own subjective and anecdotal evidence, players out of their best roles and with low familiarity seem to struggle. And I for myself think, that you can even see this in the ME - but could be just imagination on my part 

Edited June 24 by Spallo

[NineCloudNine]

2 hours ago, El Payaso said:

I would like a lot if the game would be developed in a totally different direction which would lead even world-class players struggling to perform if they are played in wrong kind of role or system. Just like what is happening with England at the moment: Harry Kane being the wrong type of striker to perform as the highest player to set up an effective pressing style. 

We should even run into scenarios where the style of play is logical and well built but fails because we don't have the right type of players. 

This is what roles and role familiarity is intended to achieve. You also get a glimpse of it in assistant advice like 'X is used to a more direct game than is being asked of him'. But as has been pointed out multiple times on these forums, role familiarity can largely be ignored when setting up tactics. Another aspect of this is players becoming annoyed/frustrated at being asked to perform an unfamiliar or non-preferred role. Again, these preferences exist in the game (players sometimes ask for a promise to be played in a particular role) but don't come up in normal play.

What you suggest here would make the game much harder. Recruitment, tactics and squad management (arguably the three pillars of the game) would all be significantly more tricky. I'd love this and I suspect many forum regulars would, but added complexity/difficulty of this sort is very much not the development direction of the game.

Edited June 24 by NineCloudNine

[Super Bladesman]

Didn't work out for me - I repeated the test with the 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress tactic but with Sheffield United. 19th position, 6 wins, 7 draws, 25 points. Might argue that's an improvement on real life but I'd usually have the Blades in the top 8 in the first season. Early exits in both cups to lower division sides. I had a good number of players at the tops of the tables for yellow and red cards, and it looks like serious injury challenges... but I'd made sure there was good squad depth. Well, depth anyway. Was first, and well above average for pace (16.04) and acceleration (15.72). Was pretty much bottom of every other attribute on the comparison report.

I didn't sign many of the same players, and just chose players effectively at random for each position but with a preference for those with the highest pace/acc.

Edited June 25 by Super Bladesman

[Dagenham_Dave]

Remember the good old days when people used to just play and enjoy the game instead of trying to break it at every available opportunity? 

I miss those days. 

[Spallo]

vor 21 Minuten schrieb Dagenham_Dave:

Remember the good old days when people used to just play and enjoy the game instead of trying to break it at every available opportunity? 

I miss those days. 

Even if I contributed to this thread these are my thoughts exactly - FM does a very good job for a game with such a scope, even if it has stagnated a bit in recent years - I dont rly get the urge to break it at every opportunity.

Edited June 24 by Spallo

[NineCloudNine]

1 hour ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Remember the good old days when people used to just play and enjoy the game instead of trying to break it at every available opportunity? 

I miss those days. 

Those days never existed. People have been trying to crack games since Pong.

[Brother Ben]

2 hours ago, NineCloudNine said:

Those days never existed. People have been trying to crack games since Pong.

It's the main reason I switched to LLM.  To be honest I wish I didn't enjoy this forum so much as you see things you can't unsee.

That said its still very rewarding to set yourself realistic limitations within the framework of the game

[Footix]

Seems as this might be a thing for past versions too. Out of curiosity I loaded up a WBA save on FMT21. I wheeled and dealed my way through pre-season and brought in a team full of speed merchants. I went with squad players / transfer listed players from Premier League and Championship. I didn't care too much about their attributes, I only did a quick glance to ensure they were half decent and fast. 

By Christmas I was sitting in 10th and had beaten Man City away. I doubt I would have finished higher than, lets say 6-8th, but that's still a massive achievement. With time I would have been able to replace my one trick ponies with players who were actually good, and fast. 

[phd_angel]

Whaaaa?.... FM is broken?... Nooooo....

FM has been broken since 2005, dear...

I watched the video. At first I was, "oh my gosh!..." but then I stopped and thought, well, nothing new, isn't it?...

[El Payaso]

23 hours ago, Spallo said:

This is just not the case. There are major performance losses for players out of position. 

Okay. I haven't noticed any myself. Even when playing goalkeeper as an outfield player. 

[Super Bladesman]

Realised I'd not ticked the right option, so I repeated my test save with the Blades, with the assistant manager now using the 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress rather than a very vanilla 4-4-2... And we came 12th, 43 points. Paul Mensah at AMC

Spoiler

CA109

with pace 16, acceleration 15 got 13 goals and 4 assists in the league as the leading player with an average 7.0 rating.

Knocked out of both cups in the 4th round by Villa. Biggest defeat was 4-1 away at Chelsea, but most games only lost by a single goal. Beat both Fulham and Newcastle away 4-2. Beat Man City 2-1 at home. Clearly pace AND the right tactic to make the most of pace will be beneficial. This team should have been relegated with <10 points.

Edited June 25 by Super Bladesman

[Dagenham_Dave]

11 minutes ago, Super Bladesman said:

Clearly pace AND the right tactic to make the most of pace will be beneficial. 

Wow, who would have thought that fast players and the right tactic would make a team play better. 

[Super Bladesman]

1 hour ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Wow, who would have thought that fast players and the right tactic would make a team play better. 

Without any level of thought or interaction from the human player...

In my latest test, I then also paid attention to player suitability to the tactic - signing players who had 10+ for most (or where possible all) of the key attributes for each role/duty required, AND pace/acc > 15 wherever possible. I didn't pay a great deal of attention, signing 25 players in less than 10 minutes and setting the game going on holiday mode. The Blades now came 5th, with 64 points. 20 wins, 14 defeats with the assistant in charge. All players signed had to have some interest in signing for the Blades, but I removed the limit on CA.

Dagenham_Dave will be ecstatic that signing good fast players, and a basic if effective tactic suited to those players, did indeed lead to the best outcome and a team playing better more often. Good is a broad statement - to find a pacey keeper, my options had CA 112 and 110. My AMC had CA 115 - the best players that made the cut were Crysencio Summerville, Gnonto and Savio (10 goals, 13 assists).

The team won their first 6 games on the bounce then largely alternated between 3 defeats then 3 wins for the rest of the season. Lost home and away to Aston Villa, Arsenal and Liverpool, beat Man United and Newcastle home and away.

Contrary to what some might think, I'd like to think I was adding some value as a manager in the game controlling each match, setting training, responding to crises etc... But there's minimal evidence from this test that I'm adding much.

I think the other question on this - clearly it's an extreme experiment, but I've released every player anywhere near the first team and then signed 25 players on one day. How have they gelled into a cohesive unit that can win their first seven games (including a cup match and games vs Man Utd and Spurs?) - and without any special attention to building cohesion in training? 

Edited June 25 by Super Bladesman

[batsy23]

Don't fast football players impress in real life too? They are also successful. 

There is a lot of problems in this game... Graphics, engine, reputation system etc. Pacy guys are op? Maybe. But in turkish league, i have seen players with incredibly low skills transferred just because they are fast. 

For example, the fact that the offensive midfield position is a dead zone is one of the bigger problems in this game.

[Super Bladesman]

Of course fast players are impactful in real football. But only when they are part of a team that is cohesive, with tactics thought through, with good coaching etc. You shouldn't be able to say buy 11 fast players and win. The simulation needs to be working more effectively at a deeper level than that.

I don't think a focus on physical attributes should be ineffective, but the game should respond to it, and it shouldn't be a guarantee of excessive levels of success when weighed against the whole rest of the game and level of interaction from the gamer. I should have seen a weakening in the second half of the season as teams 'figured us out' and started adapting tactically, dropping deeper perhaps against us - but not much evidence of that based on results. Pace and acceleration aside, my team was below average or bottom in almost every other metric in the comparison page, my midfield and keepers were still terrible on every measure, but sure I was fast and apparently this is OK?

Edited June 25 by Super Bladesman

[MichaelNevo]

2 hours ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Wow, who would have thought that fast players and the right tactic would make a team play better. 

Explain this then... Real players, zero training and no human tactics, 100% holiday mode.

 

[jamesgrhm0]

On 16/06/2024 at 09:35, 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.

Yeah but in Zealand's test, it wasn't a squad full of Usain Bolts, it was just bog standard league 1 level players who had like 16 or 17 for pace and acceleration. We aren't talking ridiculous outliers here and let's face it, most other AI teams in the Premier league should have had players with similar levels of pace and acceleration so his Forest team still had no business finishing mid table, period.

[Dagenham_Dave]

20 hours ago, MichaelNevo said:

Explain this then... Real players, zero training and no human tactics, 100% holiday mode.

 

Easy, and it's the same answer to ALL of these pointless, wild experiments

Unrealistic input = Unrealistic output. 

When will people learn this? It's code, it's not real life ffs. 

[Dagenham_Dave]

Someone else said the correct thing earlier in the thread. These tests may show up deficiencies in the game, but it's because they are being run with a set of variables that would never have been tested by SI, because frankly, which sane individual who is just playing the game the way it's supposed to be played is ever going to recreate these scenarios? It would be great if the AI was good enough to adapt to all of those scenarios, but given this is a yearly cycle game, I'm quite sure SI have neither the time nor the inclination to test the code for every single bonkers set up, and rightly so. 

Played the way it's designed, the game is fine. Like all games of this type, it can always be improved, but the match engine itself is still a remarkable feat of coding, considering what it must involve. Improvements to the overall AI (particularly dynamics and interactions) is, IMO, a far more pressing concern. 

[bahmet]

Where is the announced FM25 announcement?

[MichaelNevo]

3 hours ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Easy, and it's the same answer to ALL of these pointless, wild experiments

Unrealistic input = Unrealistic output. 

When will people learn this? It's code, it's not real life ffs. 

I think you will find that you could easily do this with any set of players, considering their CA hardly even increased. I initially did have unrealistic input, but I was asked to use real players, so I did and came out with the same results more or less... I hardly think it's a wild experiment when you're getting 14th place in the Premier League with a team that shouldn't be even challenging in the Championship.

[Dagenham_Dave]

28 minutes ago, MichaelNevo said:

I hardly think it's a wild experiment when you're getting 14th place in the Premier League with a team that shouldn't be even challenging in the Championship.

There's not a massive difference between the bottom 6/7 sides in the PL and the top half of the Championship, so it's hardly earth shattering. 

[MichaelNevo]

1 hour ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

There's not a massive difference between the bottom 6/7 sides in the PL and the top half of the Championship, so it's hardly earth shattering. 

The guy has 116 CA and is one of the best players in the squad, please tell me how this is Championship standard, let alone Premier League. All he's got going for him is long shots and jumping reach with a 50 pence shaped head.

[Edit] Here's the squad

Edited Wednesday at 17:39 by MichaelNevo

[NineCloudNine]

19 hours ago, jamesgrhm0 said:

Yeah but in Zealand's test, it wasn't a squad full of Usain Bolts, it was just bog standard league 1 level players who had like 16 or 17 for pace and acceleration. We aren't talking ridiculous outliers here and let's face it, most other AI teams in the Premier league should have had players with similar levels of pace and acceleration so his Forest team still had no business finishing mid table, period.

I agree that a team whose only strength is pace should not thrive. It is also likely there are plenty of players with "16 or 17" pace in the real life lower leagues. As discussed earlier in this thread, it seems weird that pace/acceleration are lower in lower leagues. The fact that pace is downgraded in this way by SI demonstrates all on its own that pace is overpowered in the ME. It always has been. Clearly by now SI cannot change it without messing other stuff up, so their solution is to give pace/acceleration very high CA multipliers and suppress it from natural levels in lower leagues. So the video doesn't suggest anything that isn't already obvious and well-known.

That said, it is still right to point out (as @Dagenham_Dave does) that the video creates an artificial scenario and therefore produces artifical results. In normal gameplay such a team would never exist. Therefore, there's no reason for SI to have the game account for it. This is true of all tests that use extreme attribute profiles. I don't want SI to spend time examining extreme, artificial scenarios. I'd rather they found a way to better balance mental/physical/technical attributes in normal gameplay and recreating Zealand's scenario or @MichaelNevo's test doesn't help with that at all.

[MichaelNevo]

1 hour ago, NineCloudNine said:

I agree that a team whose only strength is pace should not thrive. It is also likely there are plenty of players with "16 or 17" pace in the real life lower leagues. As discussed earlier in this thread, it seems weird that pace/acceleration are lower in lower leagues. The fact that pace is downgraded in this way by SI demonstrates all on its own that pace is overpowered in the ME. It always has been. Clearly by now SI cannot change it without messing other stuff up, so their solution is to give pace/acceleration very high CA multipliers and suppress it from natural levels in lower leagues. So the video doesn't suggest anything that isn't already obvious and well-known.

That said, it is still right to point out (as @Dagenham_Dave does) that the video creates an artificial scenario and therefore produces artifical results. In normal gameplay such a team would never exist. Therefore, there's no reason for SI to have the game account for it. This is true of all tests that use extreme attribute profiles. I don't want SI to spend time examining extreme, artificial scenarios. I'd rather they found a way to better balance mental/physical/technical attributes in normal gameplay and recreating Zealand's scenario or @MichaelNevo's test doesn't help with that at all.

I agree with most of what you said, but I disagree that my test was in any way extreme. You can easily create the same scenario with young players who're more than interested in joining your club at Championship level in normal game play. Their stats were not changed in any way, shape or form other than their PA (which was very minimal) and that proved to be pointless as they never progressed in CA after the first season. None of them were selected based on attributes either, it was completely random.

[baris28]

Not to say game is very very broken but as an argument the game should be published every year to continue improvement needs a bit of weight now. Every year the same statement. What is this "economy for improvement" for full price game every year I wonder. I like FM 2024 as it is but I think it is the last version I will purchase if most attributes not valued at all in match engine, while match engine was great to watch in this version. It is pitty.

[jamesgrhm0]

23 hours ago, NineCloudNine said:

I agree that a team whose only strength is pace should not thrive. It is also likely there are plenty of players with "16 or 17" pace in the real life lower leagues. As discussed earlier in this thread, it seems weird that pace/acceleration are lower in lower leagues. The fact that pace is downgraded in this way by SI demonstrates all on its own that pace is overpowered in the ME. It always has been. Clearly by now SI cannot change it without messing other stuff up, so their solution is to give pace/acceleration very high CA multipliers and suppress it from natural levels in lower leagues. So the video doesn't suggest anything that isn't already obvious and well-known.

That said, it is still right to point out (as @Dagenham_Dave does) that the video creates an artificial scenario and therefore produces artifical results. In normal gameplay such a team would never exist. Therefore, there's no reason for SI to have the game account for it. This is true of all tests that use extreme attribute profiles. I don't want SI to spend time examining extreme, artificial scenarios. I'd rather they found a way to better balance mental/physical/technical attributes in normal gameplay and recreating Zealand's scenario or @MichaelNevo's test doesn't help with that at all.

Whilst I agree with some if this I think the overriding point of this video was that it wasn't an artificial scenario. These players exist on football manager and they were just essentially signed to a Premier league team. As I said most oft he other squads probably had players with comparable pace and acceleration (maybe not quite as good but not miles off.) He was choosing players with 16 or 17, not putting crazy outliers like 20 so the point stands. This wasn't an entirely aritifical scenario. They should have finished bottom of the league in every single season period.

[MichaelNevo]

12 minutes ago, jamesgrhm0 said:

Whilst I agree with some if this I think the overriding point of this video was that it wasn't an artificial scenario. These players exist on football manager and they were just essentially signed to a Premier league team. As I said most oft he other squads probably had players with comparable pace and acceleration (maybe not quite as good but not miles off.) He was choosing players with 16 or 17, not putting crazy outliers like 20 so the point stands. This wasn't an entirely aritifical scenario. They should have finished bottom of the league in every single season period.

If you use the editor in any way shape or form, they won't agree with you. I have half a mind to just assemble a squad in the proper way to prove a point.

[Spallo]

vor 14 Stunden schrieb MichaelNevo:

I have half a mind to just assemble a squad in the proper way to prove a point.

But what would you prove, which is not known already? Every decent FM-Player does this in a way, but I would assume with better players. I always look for decent physicals and/or try to improve them by training, because I know that they are vital for sucess in the game. And if I dont have the ressources for good overall players, guess what players I try to get? And thats how it has worked in every FM which I own (2008 onwards). Sometimes more sometimes less. The only thing you could prove here imo is, that its gotten more OP over the years - maybe maybe not. Of course you have to run the test with other FMs too 

Is it an issue? I would say yes it is, but it is not at all game-breaking imo. Solving it is a whole other can of worms like stated earlier by more informed users than me.

[MichaelNevo]

54 minutes ago, Spallo said:

But what would you prove, which is not known already? Every decent FM-Player does this in a way, but I would assume with better players. I always look for decent physicals and/or try to improve them by training, because I know that they are vital for sucess in the game. And if I dont have the ressources for good overall players, guess what players I try to get? And thats how it has worked in every FM which I own (2008 onwards). Sometimes more sometimes less. The only thing you could prove here imo is, that its gotten more OP over the years - maybe maybe not. Of course you have to run the test with other FMs too 

Is it an issue? I would say yes it is, but it is not at all game-breaking imo. Solving it is a whole other can of worms like stated earlier by more informed users than me.

The only thing it would prove is the doubters wrong, I have to decide whether I care enough to do that and I probably don't. Doubters will be doubters, they will be sceptical because it doesn't fit their narrative and they will be stubborn, so it's pretty much pointless.

I never really looked into it much as my interest in the game faltered in recent years, whilst before that I just wanted to play, but I'm once again enjoying FM since FM24 was released and these things peak my interest more than before.

[forameuss]

15 hours ago, MichaelNevo said:

If you use the editor in any way shape or form, they won't agree with you. I have half a mind to just assemble a squad in the proper way to prove a point.

But that would essentially be the same problem as people are pointing to with the editor.  It doesn't matter how you create an unrealistic scenario, it remains an unrealistic scenario.  No AI path is going to lead the code to act in that way, and no human is likely to either.  

Ultimately it comes down to testing as much as you can, because there is absolutely no way of testing every path.  How much time do you devote to testing unrealistic paths in code, particularly when it's one that isn't outrageously so?  Time is finite, and I'd imagine the resources that could look under the hood and add value to a match engine that is surely a mess of code at this stage in its life is probably even more finite.

[MichaelNevo]

38 minutes ago, forameuss said:

But that would essentially be the same problem as people are pointing to with the editor.  It doesn't matter how you create an unrealistic scenario, it remains an unrealistic scenario.  No AI path is going to lead the code to act in that way, and no human is likely to either.  

Ultimately it comes down to testing as much as you can, because there is absolutely no way of testing every path.  How much time do you devote to testing unrealistic paths in code, particularly when it's one that isn't outrageously so?  Time is finite, and I'd imagine the resources that could look under the hood and add value to a match engine that is surely a mess of code at this stage in its life is probably even more finite.

 

The test itself - unrealistic (through the use of an editor)

The test itself - can also be replicated in a realistic manner

Correct me if I'm wrong but you're saying no human would ever assemble a team of pacey players?

 

[Spallo]

vor einer Stunde schrieb forameuss:

But that would essentially be the same problem as people are pointing to with the editor.  It doesn't matter how you create an unrealistic scenario, it remains an unrealistic scenario.  No AI path is going to lead the code to act in that way, and no human is likely to either.  

As much as I dont get the urge to test such things, I dont rly get this argument either. Like I said in my last post - I assume that basically every decent human player does exactly that, because we know about the importance of physicals. That is not to say, that every player has to have god-like physicals, but that there is a tendency to pick players with better physicals above others.

So where is this scenario, esp if it is created with "normal" gameplay, unrealistic? 

[forameuss]

42 minutes ago, MichaelNevo said:

 

The test itself - unrealistic (through the use of an editor)

The test itself - can also be replicated in a realistic manner

Correct me if I'm wrong but you're saying no human would ever assemble a team of pacey players?

 

Was the point of one of the tests not that they deliberately chose players that wouldn't necessarily fit the profile of who would usually be signed, but had better-than-average physicals?

 

[MichaelNevo]

3 minutes ago, forameuss said:

Was the point of one of the tests not that they deliberately chose players that wouldn't necessarily fit the profile of who would usually be signed, but had better-than-average physicals?

 

I already agreed that the original test was too influenced. The test that we are now talking about was compiled of player chosen totally at random, regardless of their physicals. I used the training function in game to increase their physicals. The players in question could have been considered unrealistic if they were actually improving as their PA was relatively high, but considering they barely improved at all and most only improved slightly in the first season, I'd argue that it's not unrealistic and that is why I would say that this can be done without the use of an editor.

[forameuss]

16 minutes ago, MichaelNevo said:

I already agreed that the original test was too influenced. The test that we are now talking about was compiled of player chosen totally at random, regardless of their physicals. I used the training function in game to increase their physicals. The players in question could have been considered unrealistic if they were actually improving as their PA was relatively high, but considering they barely improved at all and most only improved slightly in the first season, I'd argue that it's not unrealistic and that is why I would say that this can be done without the use of an editor.

Then if that case, if you could do that purely through playing the game normally without the editor, that would have more weight, although whether it's something a user would do without extra knowledge of the engine being weaker on it, that's the question.

[NineCloudNine]

5 hours ago, MichaelNevo said:

The only thing it would prove is the doubters wrong, I have to decide whether I care enough to do that and I probably don't. Doubters will be doubters, they will be sceptical because it doesn't fit their narrative and they will be stubborn, so it's pretty much pointless.

I never really looked into it much as my interest in the game faltered in recent years, whilst before that I just wanted to play, but I'm once again enjoying FM since FM24 was released and these things peak my interest more than before.

There aren’t any doubters. Pace & acceleration have been very powerful in FM for years, possibly since it was CM. Everyone knows this, no-one disputes it.

It’s also obvious that SI know this because (a) they aren’t stupid, (b) those attributes have very high CA multipliers and (c) they are suppressed from natural levels in lower leagues.

Given all this, either SI think it’s fine (since pace is, in fact, savagely potent in football) or, more likely IMO, they have reached the limit of what can be done about it in the labyrinthine monster that is the current ME code.

People talk here as if there’s just some simple dial that needs to be turned down from 9 to 7. It’s not like that. The aim of the ME is to give a reasonable approximation of a football match within the normal boundaries of gameplay. That’s a fantastically complicated thing to do. It’s a marvel of coding. ‘Fixing’ this ‘problem’ is clearly not possible without breaking other stuff. I trust SI to know more about this than us. They don’t need your tests or Zealand’s video to jolt them into action.

Edited Friday at 15:19 by NineCloudNine