Lets Assume It's "MY" Fault (time to ask for help?)

[Rupal]

TeeWee, it would be possible to devise a test such as you suggested, I'm sure. The difficulty would be in coming to an agreement about where on your scale any individual CCC would come (and I could see that going on and on and on for each one) and with getting agreement between Hammer's camp and the other one that his tactics actually were producing these bad results! I imagine that things would go round and round and round and we would be reduced in the end to cries of 'It was!' 'It wasn't!' about whether each and every chance was good or bad....

I've said that I'd be in Camp B because it explains boywonder's experience. But I may very, very well be wrong!

Let me add that I'd actually be really glad if somebody could prove that it was all down to tactics because that would mean that one could do something about it. Sadly, nobody has yet.

[Hammer1000]

Let us get this straight then. What you are saying is that when a FM Gamer achieves the most accurate tactical settings, a mechanism activates that turns your tactics into an obsolete value causing it to fail? So the settings you implement are these maximum impact tactical settings? I am sorry to disagree with you there. The best tactical settings I have experienced are those that Arsene of Arsenal use, but you need the right player attributes to pull it off as High Closing Down needs players with very high stamina...

It's all really very simple really, imagine any game, any game at all and the exact same thing can be said about each one.

When you buy any new game your liable to suck at it when you first get it, be it a fighting game, a racing game, or a football management game.

After so long you learn the right action combo's in a fighting game that means you win easily, in a racing game you get used to driving through practice that ultimately will win you races, well FM is no different, you are always going to get those who can master the tactical side of this game.

To continue to make the game competitive for such people there has to be something put in place to give the game longevity and playability to carry on.

[TeeWee]

TeeWee, it would be possible to devise a test such as you suggested, I'm sure. The difficulty would be in coming to an agreement about where on your scale any individual CCC would come (and I could see that going on and on and on for each one) and with getting agreement between Hammer's camp and the other one that his tactics actually were producing these bad results! I imagine that things would go round and round and round and we would be reduced in the end to cries of 'It was!' 'It wasn't!' about whether each and every chance was good or bad....

I've said that I'd be in Camp B because it explains boywonder's experience. But I may very, very well be wrong!

That depends on whether Camp A-proponents are able to roughly define a type of CCC which are easily identifiably better, on average, than another type of CCC. wwfan names passes from wide vs narrow through balls as an example.

I hope wwfan can come in and state, on the record, that his working assumption is, amongst others, that wide passes on the striker on average are better than narrow passes on the striker. This should be easy to note (no need to guage the CCC-ness of the CCC, just tick if the endpass is wide vs anything else) and only rarely subject to discussion.

If wwfan is right, the wide CCCs, on average, should have a better conversion rate than the non-wide CCCs. If the result does not support this, than the working assumption "wide CCCs > narrow CCCs" is false. This should be a very easy test and easily agreed on the criteria.

I agree that there may be a discussion afterwards about whether or not all wide CCCs are equal (your worst case scenario for this experiment), but if averageQuality (wideCCC) > averageQuality (narrowCCC) as wwfan seems to claim, then the opposing camp must have a good explanation why the result does not support the claim. I suppose one can claim that a tactic which creates loads of wideCCCs will create a disproportionate amount of "bad" wideCCCs, enough to skew the results that the conversion rates are equal again, but that would be a far stretch and in need of good evidence to back this. It would, however, put the burden of evidence on them instead of on the Camp B'ers who now hold the burden.

To prevent this, it's perhaps better to let CampA'ers create the tactics for the test. Since they claim to be able to judge the quality of CCCs, they can judge whether or not the tactics create the right type of CCCs. Camp B'ers don't care about the type of CCC anyway, they care mainly about the amount.

PS: I don't mean to speak for wwfan, I'm just using him as an example of a Camp A'er with the most specific and testable notions.

[Squirmy Rooter 2.0]

But is this so? We get back to the situation of somebody like Hammer1000 pointing to 14 shots to the AI's 1 and 6 CCCs to the AI's 1 and losing 1-0 or similar. Now this doesn't seem to him on the face of it to show that FM is handling opportunity conversion realistically and I must say that I have considerable sympathy with that point of view at first glance.

Ok, back to square one. Hammer has been walked through what could be going on, and it is not a case of all FM Gamers experiencing the same thing. If we did then it would be a case. The problem with your arguments are that you do not know what it is that could cause this, or present any theory. The only thing you are doing is choosing not to agree, the one minute you say proof then next you don't. I am sorry but I keep getting that feeling you are not here to make a constructive debate...

But the Game does not come with a wwfan in every box (as far as I know!), who will sit next to you while you're playing and "walk you through what could be going on". The Game does come with stats about shots on target and clear-cut-chances. To anyone who has never read these forums, doesn't even know they exist, and simply do not have the time available or the inclination to scrutinise every match in full, then it's understandable that they are going to use the stats presented to them by the Game as an indication of how well they are doing and how good their tactic is.

The presence of wwfan, T&TF, or any of these forums, should not be a pre-requisite with which to play the game, or be used to justify any of it's shortcomings.

I totally agree with Rupal here, if "Average Joe" is frequently getting matches with "14 shots to the AI's 1 and 6 CCCs to the AI's 1 and losing 1-0 or similar", then I can understand that on the face of it they may think that their tactic is a good one because they are dominating games, and I can also understand their frustration at this repeated apparent "bad luck", and before long they are going to start claiming serious foul-play on the Game's behalf. And I totally sympathise with these people, because for them the game does not provide them with enough information as to where they are going wrong, and the information it does give them (the CCCs) is misleading them.

I am sorry but I keep getting that feeling you are not here to make a constructive debate...

On the contrary, I have been following this thread quite closely, as I do with most of the intelligent discussions about AI, and I have found Rupal's posts to be very constructive indeed - I'm not necessarily saying they're right or wrong, but have certainly been constructive nonetheless.

[Rupal]

I have been following this thread quite closely, as I do with most of the intelligent discussions about AI, and I have found Rupal's posts to be very constructive indeed - I'm not necessarily saying they're right or wrong, but have certainly been constructive nonetheless.

Why, thank you, kind sir!

[TeeWee]

It's all really very simple really, imagine any game, any game at all and the exact same thing can be said about each one.

When you buy any new game your liable to suck at it when you first get it, be it a fighting game, a racing game, or a football management game.

After so long you learn the right action combo's in a fighting game that means you win easily, in a racing game you get used to driving through practice that ultimately will win you races, well FM is no different, you are always going to get those who can master the tactical side of this game.

To continue to make the game competitive for such people there has to be something put in place to give the game longevity and playability to carry on.

Up to your last paragraph, you're correct. But a racing sim (not just any game; a sim! Because FM claims to be one) does not make your car slower just because you get better at cornering to make it more challenging.

The longevity of FM is not in the long term toughness, but in trying out different types of teams, growing your career in a Roleplay sense or in growing a team to play exactly like you want it to. FM seems to have a very large proportion of repeat buyers anyway, so the game doesn't have to last that long (peak sales at Xmas, last patch late winter/early spring, during the summer people are already longing for the next version). I don't think a mechanism to punish good tactical players as a longevity-enhancing mechanism is a design philosophy that appeals to SI. If they did, they could have just gone and made them into the "difficulty level" feature that some people have wanted for some time.

[Rupal]

To prevent this, it's perhaps better to let CampA'ers create the tactics for the test. Since they claim to be able to judge the quality of CCCs, they can judge whether or not the tactics create the right type of CCCs. Camp B'ers don't care about the type of CCC anyway, they care mainly about the amount.

Oh I think that Camp Bers do care. They will dispute the entire contention that the CCCs created by Camp Aers' tactics are actually any better at all than CCCs created by their own. They may very well be claiming that they produce as just as many, if not more, good CCCs as Camp A does and more not-quite-so-good ones as well. If they were right they might have a case for arguing that their tactics were actually better than Camp A's even though the proportion of good CCCs wasn't so high. So they'll fight tooth and nail for all their CCCs to be classified as good and will disagree over the criteria which Camp A might choose to employ....... When is a wide CCC not a wide CCC.........?

Edit: I think that the question of whether Hammer1000's tactics produce fewer good CCCs than wwfan's or the same number or more is the crucial point here. The proportion is irrelevant. It's the absolute number which is the point at issue.

[Squirmy Rooter 2.0]

Let me add that I'd actually be really glad if somebody could prove that it was all down to tactics because that would mean that one could do something about it. Sadly, nobody has yet.

The difficulty arises that proving that different tactical choices can make "the problem" go away doesn't necessarily prove that "the problem" was itself tactical. If you know what I mean. You could just be hiding or circumventing it, as opposed to curing it.

It's going to be very difficult to actually prove anything beyond any reasonable doubt without actually seeing the source code. ... Now if only PaulC would accidentally leave his laptop on my bus...

[Nomis07]

Let me add that I'd actually be really glad if somebody could prove that it was all down to tactics because that would mean that one could do something about it. Sadly, nobody has yet.

Surely the fact that one person experiences it and another doesn't proves that it is user error. Or are we talking about selective issues?

[Hammer1000]

Surely the fact that one person experiences it and another doesn't proves that it is user error. Or are we talking about selective issues?

This has been aswered on more than one occassion.

[Hammer1000]

Up to your last paragraph, you're correct. But a racing sim (not just any game; a sim! Because FM claims to be one) does not make your car slower just because you get better at cornering to make it more challenging.

The longevity of FM is not in the long term toughness, but in trying out different types of teams, growing your career in a Roleplay sense or in growing a team to play exactly like you want it to. FM seems to have a very large proportion of repeat buyers anyway, so the game doesn't have to last that long (peak sales at Xmas, last patch late winter/early spring, during the summer people are already longing for the next version). I don't think a mechanism to punish good tactical players as a longevity-enhancing mechanism is a design philosophy that appeals to SI. If they did, they could have just gone and made them into the "difficulty level" feature that some people have wanted for some time.

They would'nt need such a thing in a racing sim, because this kind of game is not supposed to have anything like the longevity FM has.

I can see that your not thinking about this properly, so i'll leave it there for now.

[Rupal]

Nomis07, it really doesn't prove that at all.

As I've said earlier, any number of factors (possibly but not necessarily including tactics) could lead to some people experiencing this much more than others. The example I used before was that if these sorts of matches ended, for example, one third of the time you win but not very well, one third of the time you draw and one third of the time you lose, then Person A, who meets this three times in a season can claim that he only lost one game he should have won so there isn't an issue ('bad luck'). He might claim that his wonderful tactics stopped these problems but, in fact he might be no better at all than person B who meets this 15 times in a season and therefore loses 5 times which, he claims, cost him his Champions' League spot. They both fiddled about with in match changes and both were completely useless, but the first person will claim that this proves that it was all down to tactics, when it doesn't.

[Äktsjon Männ]

Surely the fact that one person experiences it and another doesn't proves that it is user error. Or are we talking about selective issues?

No, because IF there is an issue then the fact that a certain type of tactics may not reveal it won't mean it isn't still an issue.

I'm not getting into this debate because as is the norm on here it's going nowhere because neither of the sides here are willing to accept any points by the other crowd. But a point that I've been trying to make for years here seems suitable - just because you can avoid a problem with the ME by changing tactics doesn't necessarily mean there isn't one.

[Nomis07]

This has been aswered on more than one occassion.

Sorry, wasn't prepared to read 8 pages worth of thread tbh.

Aktsjon Mann answered my question

[Hammer1000]

Sorry, wasn't prepared to read 8 pages worth of thread tbh.

Aktsjon Mann answered my question

Sorry Nomis, i'm just used to other participants of this thread having selective deafness(lol)

[RT--]

Douglas Adams' TV set parable seems strangely relevant, here....

A man didn’t understand how televisions work, and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box, manipulating images at high speed. An engineer explained to him about high frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. “But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren’t there?”

[Äktsjon Männ]

Douglas Adams' TV set parable seems strangely relevant, here....

The main difference is there are no engineers in this thread, just a bunch of people that see their own kind of little men in their tv sets

[Hammer1000]

Douglas Adams' TV set parable seems strangely relevant, here....

Sorry, but you have obviously posted in the wrong thread!

[TeeWee]

Oh I think that Camp Bers do care. They will dispute the entire contention that the CCCs created by Camp Aers' tactics are actually any better at all than CCCs created by their own. They may very well be claiming that they produce as just as many, if not more, good CCCs as Camp A does and more not-quite-so-good ones as well. If they were right they might have a case for arguing that their tactics were actually better than Camp A's even though the proportion of good CCCs wasn't so high. So they'll fight tooth and nail for all their CCCs to be classified as good and will disagree over the criteria which Camp A might choose to employ.......

No no no no... Think methodology, my man!

If Camp B's CCCs are not significantly worse, it will show through the test. Even better, if Camp A'ers select CCCs in their class that Camp B'ers believe are not better on average, smile silently for this will only weaken Camp A!

Camp A'ers believe that there is an easily identifiable class* of CCCs which on average are better than Hammer's CCCs, within the context of the match engine. The allegedly poor quality of Hammer's CCCs is what causes his results. The entire point of the test is to see if this claim is right.

So let's assume this is correct: let Camp A define an easily identifiable class of CCCs which they claim is better than average. We will now devise an experiment that can disprove this assumption, e.g. my proposal.

Compare the results of tacticsA against tacticsB over games with the same number of CCC. If the claim was correct, you'll see that their tactics produce better results than your tactics. The stronger you disagree with Camp A'ers classification, the more the results should favour tacticsB. The result will thus only strengthen your hypothesis that there must be some other mechanism at work than the "class of CCC" that CampA'ers believe in.

* This bit is important: it should be easily identifiable so we don't get discussions afterwards about membership to this class. Is should also be big enough to be meaningful and not reduce to open goal tap-ins.

[This field intentionally l]

So where are we? wwwfan claims that there is a (small?) subset of tactics that produce realistic and statistically correct results. Hammer-dude claims that there is leveling in the game to artificially constrain the goals scored. These claims are almost orthogonal. I happen to believe both claims and they're both depressing. Where the claims intersect is where a tactic (outside of wwwfan's subset) creates many CCCs but runs into leveling. Its possible that such tactics are rare but Hammer appears to have a very refined version of such a tactic.

At the end of the day we need a ME that produces realistic and statistically correct results, without leveling, across a much broader spectrum of tactics. wwwfan might state that that is what we have already; in which case I'll be playing CM in the near future.

[TeeWee]

They would'nt need such a thing in a racing sim, because this kind of game is not supposed to have anything like the longevity FM has.

I can see that your not thinking about this properly, so i'll leave it there for now.

I know you're tired of "selective hearing" in some of us, but I'm just trying to extend the analogy that you started.

Anyway, simulations in general aim at a different audience than "conventional" games. They reward time invested in a major way and usually require a significant investment in time before it starts to pay off. A game like the old F1 sim by Microprose, it was aimed to at a very long term play. Different difficulty levels (steering aids, damage etc) were available, but none of the "if you get really good at it, we'll secretly make your car slower" that you claim FM has.

But sure, if I'm wrong on this count, then please enlighten me and don't simply disregard it. If I am indeed not thinking properly about this, please enlighten me. Seriously.

[RT--]

On a serious note - surely, if this 'balancing' effect did occur for teams who create lots of CCCs, it would be impossible to have scorelines of 5, 6, 7, 8-0? I've seen that kind of scoreline plenty of times on my own game, and wwfan has posted screenshots of it happening on his, as well.

It just seems a very easy theory to dismiss.

The only way around that is to argue that this 'balancing' only occurs *sometimes*, but we're not sure when. Which would be a very fuzzy theory indeed.

To me, it seems far more likely that certain tactics are biased towards creating a high number of CCCs (either because they exploit ME flaws - such as, what I think, is a problem with through balls being too effective, or something else) which are either of a poor quality, or create situations (in my example, one-on-ones) whose effectiveness have been tuned down across the board, due to their over-occurring.

[Rupal]

TeeWee, I am not altogether sure that the experiment as you have just described it would produce what you were looking for. The problem isn't that Camp A are trying to include as good CCCs those which Camp B say aren't but rather that Camp A would tend to exclude various CCCs which Camp B would say are perfectly good.

In the first place, it will be very difficult to find games where all the circumstances are the same so that there are equal CCCs in each case. Remember, we should be having games which are of the same type. It's wwfan's claim that Hammer1000's tactics are inappropriate for games of this sort, (what I think he or somebody described as 'shut up shop' tactics, where the AI is ultra defensive) not inappropriate overall, and I could see further long winded disputes about whether this was or was not happening in any particular case..... You certainly can't tell this just by looking at the match - I have had games where I adopted such tactics and my players spent most of the time in the opponents' half....

Thre really isn't any dispute that some CCCs are better than other CCCs, not from me at any rate. There do seem to be disagreements about whether any individual CCC is a good one or not, whether we can identify such a CCC just by looking at it and 3) whether Hammer1000's tactics produce fewer, as many, or more such CCCs over a reasonable period than do 'Camp A's' tactics.

Without reasonable agreement over points 1) and 2) you are hardly likely to get very far in assessing the position regarding point 3) and I just don't think you are likely to get it.

[Hammer1000]

I know you're tired of "selective hearing" in some of us, but I'm just trying to extend the analogy that you started.

Anyway, simulations in general aim at a different audience than "conventional" games. They reward time invested in a major way and usually require a significant investment in time before it starts to pay off. A game like the old F1 sim by Microprose, it was aimed to at a very long term play. Different difficulty levels (steering aids, damage etc) were available, but none of the "if you get really good at it, we'll secretly make your car slower" that you claim FM has.

But sure, if I'm wrong on this count, then please enlighten me and don't simply disregard it. If I am indeed not thinking properly about this, please enlighten me. Seriously.

You are misinterpreting the link between an F1 game and FM.

I made the link simply to qualify that in any game, the user will eventually come up with the best possible way to win, whether it be by shear practice playing the F1 game, or by shear testing/and or luck of hitting the premium connatation of sliders.

I dont care how they try to draw longevity from the F1 game, i'm simply saying that in FM they do it they way i have suggested.

[Hammer1000]

To me, it seems far more likely that certain tactics are biased towards creating a high number of CCCs (either because they exploit ME flaws - such as, what I think, is a problem with through balls being too effective, or something else) which are either of a poor quality, or create situations (in my example, one-on-ones) whose effectiveness have been tuned down across the board, due to their over-occurring.

This is'nt too far away from my overall theory, only it is not a lack of quality CCC's, its because of an abundance of them due to the fact that like any game, the people who play will always find a way to master it.

To keep the game competitive and to give it longevity, the theory i support is imposed.

How you think this is so easy to dismiss is beyond me?

[Shizzle]

In the end of the day, there does seem to be a limit to how much CCC get converted, but the limit is set high enough.

I used to get under the top 4 in the premier league in my first season after promotion with Brimingham.

This time in 09 I only got as far as 6 place, but it's still overarchieveing a lot.

The game doesn't limit you, if the team and your tactics are good enough you could probably even win the prem after promotion.

Do you know how my games went?

The opposition dominated me for the whole game with often 10-15 shots(between 3-10 on goal) and I had around 2 CCC and both of them were goals.

I played a slow building up game with playmaker and counter attack.

The games were except the too many shots on the crossbar and post perfectly realistic, now 2 seasons later my team is playerwise under the top 20 in the world with some worldclass players and many great internationals.

I do see a limitation of the CCC's scored, but then again which team produces 5 CCC's and more per game like my team?

The results are good and without a goal limitation, I just beat Arsenal 3-0 away and before that Liverpool 4-0 at home, also beat Tottenham 6-1 at home last season(6-1!!!).

Also lost 1-5 to Manu last season.....as far as I can tell the game doesn't say that you can not score too many goals.

Nowadays I play fast and short with a playmaker and lots of killerballs->a lot more CCC's but also a lot more misses.

Yes there are games that I could've won 7-1,but it ended 3-1 which is fine.

I don't see it as much of a problem, but it would be a lot better if these things could get rebalanced.

Why even let the player see 3 CCC get wasted from your worldclass strikers?Just show 1 go to waste and the other 2 in.....

The results are moreor less fine, even though Arsenal is just ridiculous, but will get rebalanced for 9.3.0.

[RT--]

This is'nt too far away from my overall theory, only it is not a lack of quality CCC's, its because of an abundance of them due to the fact that like any game, the people who play will always find a way to master it.

To keep the game competitive and to give it longevity, the theory i support is imposed.

How you think this is so easy to dismiss is beyond me?

Well you missed the other part of my post.

If the game is balanced against teams who create lots of CCCs, how is it possible to win games by large margins - 5/6/7/8-0, or the likes?

[Äktsjon Männ]

A game like the old F1 sim by Microprose, it was aimed to at a very long term play. Different difficulty levels (steering aids, damage etc) were available, but none of the "if you get really good at it, we'll secretly make your car slower" that you claim FM has.

A lot of racing games have 'catch up' coded in to artificially make it challenging. The really good ones don't, but one might argue that these are sufficiently advanced so no artificial levelling is needed. Grand Prix 4 (which I think is the game being referred to) is just that as there aren't too many people that can beat it easily with all aids off as it requires full concentration for a two hour period if one decides to do full races - and there are lots of people still modding the game physics to make it even more challenging. Plus the AI drivers hardly follow the same rules (or physics) as human players when sticking to their trajectories.

Racing games shouldn't really be compared to games like FM anyway as the method and amount of user input is completely different.

[TeeWee]

On a serious note - surely, if this 'balancing' effect did occur for teams who create lots of CCCs, it would be impossible to have scorelines of 5, 6, 7, 8-0? I've seen that kind of scoreline plenty of times on my own game, and wwfan has posted screenshots of it happening on his, as well.

It just seems a very easy theory to dismiss.

The only way around that is to argue that this 'balancing' only occurs *sometimes*, but we're not sure when. Which would be a very fuzzy theory indeed.

To me, it seems far more likely that certain tactics are biased towards creating a high number of CCCs (either because they exploit ME flaws - such as, what I think, is a problem with through balls being too effective, or something else) which are either of a poor quality, or create situations (in my example, one-on-ones) whose effectiveness have been tuned down across the board, due to their over-occurring.

The claim is not that it can't happen, but that the "conversion rate" variable so to speak, is decreased in some manner proportionate to the amount of CCCs created by a side in any given match. Since FM consists of many "die rolls", big scores are still possible, but just less likely due to toning down the conversion rate if the amount of CCCs is too big.

[RT--]

The claim is not that it can't happen, but that the "conversion rate" variable so to speak, is decreased in some manner proportionate to the amount of CCCs created by a side in any given match. Since FM consists of many "die rolls", big scores are still possible, but just less likely due to toning down the conversion rate if the amount of CCCs is too big.

I'm not sure that makes sense, on a match-by-match basis. At what point does the "conversion rate" get toned down, in a match? How does the game know how many CCCs you're going to create before the match, in order to apply this "conversion rate" from the kick-off?

[Hammer1000]

In the end of the day, there does seem to be a limit to how much CCC get converted, but the limit is set high enough.

I used to get under the top 4 in the premier league in my first season after promotion with Brimingham.

This time in 09 I only got as far as 6 place, but it's still overarchieveing a lot.

The game doesn't limit you, if the team and your tactics are good enough you could probably even win the prem after promotion.

Do you know how my games went?

The opposition dominated me for the whole game with often 10-15 shots(between 3-10 on goal) and I had around 2 CCC and both of them were goals.

I played a slow building up game with playmaker and counter attack.

The games were except the too many shots on the crossbar and post perfectly realistic, now 2 seasons later my team is playerwise under the top 20 in the world with some worldclass players and many great internationals.

I do see a limitation of the CCC's scored, but then again which team produces 5 CCC's and more per game like my team?

The results are good and without a goal limitation, I just beat Arsenal 3-0 away and before that Liverpool 4-0 at home, also beat Tottenham 6-1 at home last season(6-1!!!).

Also lost 1-5 to Manu last season.....as far as I can tell the game doesn't say that you can not score too many goals.

Nowadays I play fast and short with a playmaker and lots of killerballs->a lot more CCC's but also a lot more misses.

Yes there are games that I could've won 7-1,but it ended 3-1 which is fine.

I don't see it as much of a problem, but it would be a lot better if these things could get rebalanced.

Why even let the player see 3 CCC get wasted from your worldclass strikers?Just show 1 go to waste and the other 2 in.....

The results are moreor less fine, even though Arsenal is just ridiculous, but will get rebalanced for 9.3.0.

You see, just like a lot of others you are not understanding the overall principle.

Nobody is saying that you wont see high scoring games, like 6-0's, 7-1's or even 12-6's.

What you are not likely to see if i have just won a game 7-0 with 7 CCC's is the likelyhood of that been repeated game after game even if i make 10 or even 15 CCC's

I do wish people would try to understand what is actually being said, before posting?

RT - The above applies to your last post also.

[TeeWee]

TeeWee, I am not altogether sure that the experiment as you have just described it would produce what you were looking for. The problem isn't that Camp A are trying to include as good CCCs those which Camp B say aren't but rather that Camp A would tend to exclude various CCCs which Camp B would say are perfectly good.

But again: this is good news for you! The more good CCCs camp A excludes, the more the results will favour your side! To make this more clear:

if they misclassify your good CCCs as bad CCCs, the control-group (campB'ers) will have a similar (or even better!) good v bad CCC distribution compared to the campA tactics. That way, test results would show similar results for both campA and campB, as they have a similar good v bad distribution. Since this is the core of campA's argument, this makes the position of campA untenable. Only if they are right in excluding your CCCs as bad CCCs, will their results actually be significantly better than your results. So do not fear the misclassification: it justifies your position!

So: you may disagree that campA disqualify your CCCs as bad CCCs, but the way to do disprove them is let them get away with it in the test and then use the test results to disprove their position!

Anyway, if the results don't match someone's expectations, it's their duty to come up with a good and testable explanation for this discrepancy.

Core assumption still: there is an easily identifiable class of CCCs which campA claim to be qualitatively better than your CCCs.

[TeeWee]

A lot of racing games have 'catch up' coded in to artificially make it challenging. The really good ones don't, but one might argue that these are sufficiently advanced so no artificial levelling is needed. Grand Prix 4 (which I think is the game being referred to) is just that as there aren't too many people that can beat it easily with all aids off as it requires full concentration for a two hour period if one decides to do full races - and there are lots of people still modding the game physics to make it even more challenging. Plus the AI drivers hardly follow the same rules (or physics) as human players when sticking to their trajectories.

Racing games shouldn't really be compared to games like FM anyway as the method and amount of user input is completely different.

Racing games have catch up coded in. Racing sims don't. Is FM a FootieMgt game or a sim?

[Hammer1000]

Racing games have catch up coded in. Racing sims don't. Is FM a FootieMgt game or a sim?

He does say that a racing game should'nt be compared to FM anyway, but even so, does the actual difference in name mean that having a catch up code written in was not possible?

I understand people are going to disagree, but i think its time to start disagreeing for the right reasons, it's obvious there is a lot of misquoting and maybe some general ignorance going on in some of the latter posts.

[RT--]

You see, just like a lot of others you are not understanding the overall principle.

Nobody is saying that you wont see high scoring games, like 6-0's, 7-1's or even 12-6's.

What you are not likely to see if i have just won a game 7-0 with 7 CCC's is the likelyhood of that been repeated game after game even if i make 10 or even 15 CCC's

I do wish people would try to understand what is actually being said, before posting?

RT - The above applies to your last post also.

I'm still waiting to hear a good explanation of how *exactly* a balancing mechanism could operate, on a game to game basis.

Does your conversion rate decline based on your league standing/previous results? Does it decline throughout the match, with the number of CCCs you create? So let's say you have a 25% chance of scoring your first CCC, a 20% chance of scoring your next CCC, and bugger all chance of scoring your 10th? Does the game work out how many CCCs you're going to create before the match, and adjust your conversion rate accordingly?

Okay, so I'm being a little facetious - but, honestly, the complexity of coding this supposed balancing act in to the game (so that it disproportionately targets teams who create lots of chances) seems quite high, to me.

[TeeWee]

I'm not sure that makes sense, on a match-by-match basis. At what point does the "conversion rate" get toned down, in a match? How does the game know how many CCCs you're going to create before the match, in order to apply this "conversion rate" from the kick-off?

I think it has been stated that the user input-engine is not showing the results of the calculations "real time" and only slowing down to allow the player to intervene. It actually calculates the game ahead of time and replays the generated events for you on your preferred speed. Only if you (or the AI manager) interfere, does the game recalculate. So I can sort of think of a way to calculate this, but it's rather complex precisely because of these factors.

Anyway, because this mechanism is rather complex, I think the "quality of CCC" hypothesis (camp A in my posts with Rupal) is a more tenable one, and unless presented with evidence that runs counter to it without proper explanation it is my position.

I just answered to prevent you from misrepresenting what I think is camp B's position.

[RT--]

I think it has been stated that the user input-engine is not showing the results of the calculations "real time" and only slowing down to allow the player to intervene. It actually calculates the game ahead of time and replays the generated events for you on your preferred speed. Only if you (or the AI manager) interfere, does the game recalculate. So I can sort of think of a way to calculate this, but it's rather complex precisely because of these factors.

Anyway, because this mechanism is rather complex, I think the "quality of CCC" hypothesis (camp A in my posts with Rupal) is a more tenable one, and unless presented with evidence that runs counter to it without proper explanation it is my position.

I just answered to prevent you from misrepresenting what I think is camp B's position.

I agree that the mechanism would be rather complex - and that's ignoring the fact that I *really* can't imagine SI implementing a code which disproportinately affects teams who create lots of chances - so would tend with the far more simple explanations already offered on this thread.

[Rupal]

I agree that the mechanism would be rather complex - and that's ignoring the fact that I *really* can't imagine SI implementing a code which disproportinately affects teams who create lots of chances - so would tend with the far more simple explanations already offered on this thread.

My only problem with the 'more simple' approach here (which is methodologically absolutely fine) is that it doesn't seem to explain observations by people like boywonder and Shizzle that your conversion rate appears to worsen the more you dominate and that you can win quite easily when the stats suggest you should only draw or lose.

On the other hand, if there is a general limiter on conversions when many CCCs are created to keep scores within bounds, that would tend to fit in with such observations, affecting both AI and human managers as it would.

[Loversleaper]

It's all really very simple really, imagine any game, any game at all and the exact same thing can be said about each one.

When you buy any new game your liable to suck at it when you first get it, be it a fighting game, a racing game, or a football management game.

After so long you learn the right action combo's in a fighting game that means you win easily, in a racing game you get used to driving through practice that ultimately will win you races, well FM is no different, you are always going to get those who can master the tactical side of this game.

To continue to make the game competitive for such people there has to be something put in place to give the game longevity and playability to carry on.

So, I can still see that many are having a hard time understanding what the post is all about and which direction the post is going. Let's analyse what Hammer1000 has been saying apparently all along: The computer has a mechanism that nulifies accurate Human tactics, such as Hammers'. Why does our buddy ME decide to do this next season? It can distinguish when it should implement the mechanism that nulifies Human tactical settings?

Hammer, you said yourself that you overachieve every season but can't stop running into these 'levelling' ideologies from time to time (not a next season theme anymore then?). That means the ME from time to time activates the nulifying mechanism, as if it all of a sudden has a mind of it's own. That means you do not think it is a case of the AI teams playing more tactically against Human Users and that you cannot over-ride the AI's settings by using more extreme slider settings yourself.

This is what I understand through all of the mass-confusion...

[Äktsjon Männ]

Is FM a FootieMgt game or a sim?

This is the most tired comparison here that doesn't actually mean a thing. FM is and always will be a game first and foremost. It doesn't directly simulate real life management as there are too many aspects that can't be simulated. The difficulty levels and ME mechanics have nothing to do with what you want to see it as - a simulation of something that can't be simulated or a game which incorporates a match engine that tries to simulate real life football matches. To claim that a simulation game can't use (and that none have used) catch up or levelling mechanics is, well, naive and quite frankly ludicrous.

[TeeWee]

He does say that a racing game should'nt be compared to FM anyway, but even so, does the actual difference in name mean that having a catch up code written in was not possible?

I understand people are going to disagree, but i think its time to start disagreeing for the right reasons, it's obvious there is a lot of misquoting and maybe some general ignorance going on in some of the latter posts.

No, but it would mean that the design team is straying very far from the core. But let's agree that the analogy in its whole was poorly chosen and leave it at that.

Yes, a catch up mechanism could be coded in; no, just because it's conceivable doesn't make it likely. There are other, less complex explanations which fit the symptoms just as well.

PS: while I do have thick USENET-hardened skin and I'm not offended, your wording is grating. Too many sneers with (lol) at the end, words like "ignorance", they leave little ground for arguments. If it is not meant this way, I apologize for this.

[RT--]

My only problem with the 'more simple' approach here (which is methodologically absolutely fine) is that it doesn't seem to explain observations by people like boywonder and Shizzle that your conversion rate appears to worsen the more you dominate and that you can win quite easily when the stats suggest you should only draw or lose.

On the other hand, if there is a general limiter on conversions when many CCCs are created to keep scores within bounds, that would tend to fit in with such observations, affecting both AI and human managers as it would.

Well firstly, we're only seeing those observations (the ones about conversion rate worsening with increased domination) from certain people, not everyone. Others have claimed that they see no such situation.

There have been a couple of suggestions as to possible reasons why certain people might see this situation, which are along the lines of: a) they're creating lots of harder-to-convert CCCs or b) they're creating a certain *type* of CCC whose effectiveness has been tuned down across the board, so are more likely to be missed.

Both are quite hard to test, of course (although I would tend to agree with wwfan that observation of matches will give a pretty good idea) but they are only counter-suggestions. The burden of proof still lies with those who are claiming that there's a 'balancing effect', not least because it's very hard to see how it could actually work in principle.

[el sid]

Obviously CCCs aren't the best way of determining how good your tactic is, you can create a dozen of them and still lose, and it also looks like the result of a match is not connected with the number of CCCs you create. So why not remove CCCs altogether from the game ? It's just a number, a number we would all be happier not knowing. Of course, this is just my opinion

And I'm sorry if this has been suggested already in this thread but I can't be arsed to read through the entire thread

[Hammer1000]

I'm still waiting to hear a good explanation of how *exactly* a balancing mechanism could operate, on a game to game basis.

Does your conversion rate decline based on your league standing/previous results? Does it decline throughout the match, with the number of CCCs you create? So let's say you have a 25% chance of scoring your first CCC, a 20% chance of scoring your next CCC, and bugger all chance of scoring your 10th? Does the game work out how many CCCs you're going to create before the match, and adjust your conversion rate accordingly?

Okay, so I'm being a little facetious - but, honestly, the complexity of coding this supposed balancing act in to the game (so that it disproportionately targets teams who create lots of chances) seems quite high, to me.

Look, i've explained the theory itself and why i believe that this is in fact coded into the game.

You cannot simply say i'm wrong about it, because i dont know HOW it was coded into the game.

If you dont want to believe it thats up to you, like i've said, for me it explains everything that has been wrong with the ME for some time now and it adds up like 2+2=4.

As for the difficulty of writing it as code, i imagine it must be easier than the what must be quite daunting task of writing code for the rest of the game?

[Loversleaper]

Look, i've explained the theory itself and why i believe that this is in fact coded into the game.

You cannot simply say i'm wrong about it, because i dont know HOW it was coded into the game.

If you dont want to believe it thats up to you, like i've said, for me it explains everything that has been wrong with the ME for some time now and it adds up like 2+2=4.

As for the difficulty of writing it as code, i imagine it must be easier than the what must be quite daunting task of writing code for the rest of the game?

There is a big problem with this assumption: I (and you too) can show screenshots of teams over performing. I can show you the last 4 seasons with my Watford save where I won the EPL in the end. How did I do this? I do not have a magic wand. You cannot cheat a coded program, such as this nulifying mechanism that you are talking about, how on earth would any FM Gamer get around this, please explain...

[Rupal]

Well firstly, we're only seeing those observations (the ones about conversion rate worsening with increased domination) from certain people, not everyone. Others have claimed that they see no such situation.

There have been a couple of suggestions as to possible reasons why certain people might see this situation, which are along the lines of: a) they're creating lots of harder-to-convert CCCs or b) they're creating a certain *type* of CCC whose effectiveness has been tuned down across the board, so are more likely to be missed.

Both are quite hard to test, of course (although I would tend to agree with wwfan that observation of matches will give a pretty good idea) but they are only counter-suggestions. The burden of proof still lies with those who are claiming that there's a 'balancing effect', not least because it's very hard to see how it could actually work in principle.

Well we could go round and round this for ever. I don't think that observation of matches will be nearly good enough, for reasons which I've given before. I suggested a third possibility, that it's simply that some players meet these situations more often in the game than others for reasons which may be unconnected with tactics at all and that these players therefore see a problem which the others don't. It's quite likely to be wrong, but, as a theory, it's not that much more unreasonable than anything else.

The 'burden of proof', in fact, lies on anybody who claims that they know what the cause is. Up to now, nobody seems to have been successful in proving anything.

[RT--]

There is a big problem with this assumption: I (and you too) can show screenshots of teams over performing. I can show you the last 4 seasons with my Watford save where I won the EPL in the end. How did I do this? I do not have a magic wand. You cannot cheat a coded program, such as this nulifying mechanism that you are talking about, how on earth would any FM Gamer get around this, please explain...

I suspect we're getting nowhere, to be honest, Loversleaper - Hammer's apparently not sure exactly how this balancing effect works, or when it happens, but is convinced it's been coded in anyway. I suspect he's not really interested in a discussion (or really asking for help), but just having a bit of a moan.

[Hammer1000]

So, I can still see that many are having a hard time understanding what the post is all about and which direction the post is going. Let's analyse what Hammer1000 has been saying apparently all along: The computer has a mechanism that nulifies accurate Human tactics, such as Hammers'. Why does our buddy ME decide to do this next season? It can distinguish when it should implement the mechanism that nulifies Human tactical settings?

Hammer, you said yourself that you overachieve every season but can't stop running into these 'levelling' ideologies from time to time (not a next season theme anymore then?). That means the ME from time to time activates the nulifying mechanism, as if it all of a sudden has a mind of it's own. That means you do not think it is a case of the AI teams playing more tactically against Human Users and that you cannot over-ride the AI's settings by using more extreme slider settings yourself.

This is what I understand through all of the mass-confusion...

I'm at a point where i am struggling to even understand what you have posted and whether or not there is a question within you want answering?

Let me put it this way, if your playing in England, have a look at Man Utd and the take a look at the games they lose or drop points in(dont include games against the other 3 of big four)

What i find is that 99% of the time they have completely dominated and had lots of chances but have failed to score, whilst the opposition has managed the old 1 shot 1 goal to nick a point or a win.

This is because unlike Real Life, Man Utd cannot really be beaten fairly and squarely in FM(unless against Chelsea, Arsenal, etc) in fact you'd be hard pressed to see any of the weaker sides even manage to run them close(stat wise) yet in Real Life teams manage it quite often(West Ham recently)

Therefore, the game must be coded as i've theorised, otherwise Man Utd would just go on winning every game(which sometimes they do anyway) the same can then be said about those who like myself have adopted a certain kind of tactic that will dominate games and create multiple CCC's.

I really cannot make it any easier than that for people to understand?

[This field intentionally l]

I'm still waiting to hear a good explanation of how *exactly* a balancing mechanism could operate, on a game to game basis.

Does your conversion rate decline based on your league standing/previous results? Does it decline throughout the match, with the number of CCCs you create? So let's say you have a 25% chance of scoring your first CCC, a 20% chance of scoring your next CCC, and bugger all chance of scoring your 10th? Does the game work out how many CCCs you're going to create before the match, and adjust your conversion rate accordingly?

Okay, so I'm being a little facetious - but, honestly, the complexity of coding this supposed balancing act in to the game (so that it disproportionately targets teams who create lots of chances) seems quite high, to me.

Given that the entire game is played out at the start and after every tactics change I'd imagine it would be a lot easier to implement leveling than you think (and perhaps harder than perhaps other people think). Still, my developer's instinct is that it would be easier to implement leveling than re-write the defending to render leveling unnecessary.

[Rupal]

But again: this is good news for you! The more good CCCs camp A excludes, the more the results will favour your side! To make this more clear:

if they misclassify your good CCCs as bad CCCs, the control-group (campB'ers) will have a similar (or even better!) good v bad CCC distribution compared to the campA tactics. That way, test results would show similar results for both campA and campB, as they have a similar good v bad distribution. Since this is the core of campA's argument, this makes the position of campA untenable. Only if they are right in excluding your CCCs as bad CCCs, will their results actually be significantly better than your results. So do not fear the misclassification: it justifies your position!

So: you may disagree that campA disqualify your CCCs as bad CCCs, but the way to do disprove them is let them get away with it in the test and then use the test results to disprove their position!

Anyway, if the results don't match someone's expectations, it's their duty to come up with a good and testable explanation for this discrepancy.

Core assumption still: there is an easily identifiable class of CCCs which campA claim to be qualitatively better than your CCCs.

Let me see if I understand you correctly because I am getting confused here (it's easily done....:confused:).

Are we talking about an individual match with the same teams involved and with identical inputs of the non tactical sort? And camp A and camp B each pursue their own tactics? So camp A produce (say) 6 'good' CCCs and 6 'bad CCCs' whereas camp B produce (say) 3 'good' CCCs and 14 'bad' CCCs?

The only trouble with this is that camp B will claim that, in fact, they actually produced 7 'good' CCCs not 3 and that this was just another example of the 'balancing effect' kicking in because they had produced 'too many' CCCs.

I'm sure that such testing would just end up in wrangling like so many of these threads seem to do .

It seems to me that it's just that core assumption that people would be squabbling about all the time.