Football Manager 2015 FAQ and Myth Debunking

[dieablue0123]

I'm playing FM15 demo and the demo ran out. Can I transfer my demo game to the full version?

 

[Sherkey]

I'm playing FM15 demo and the demo ran out. Can I transfer my demo game to the full version?

Yes..

 

[dieablue0123]

ALLELUIA!

 

[dieablue0123]

I'm doing a Chelsea career on FM15 Demo. It's early January. I want to loan out Loïc Remy to our affiliates Vitesse. If I do that, can I recall him?

 

[Sherkey]

I'm doing a Chelsea career on FM15 Demo. It's early January. I want to loan out Loïc Remy to our affiliates Vitesse. If I do that, can I recall him?

If you have a Recall clause in the loan offer, you can, but iirc, recall only comes into effect during an active transfer window.

 

[Kreeshak]

In reality, the computer treats both human and AI players exactly the same, because it has no way of telling the difference between them. It's not programmed to do that, so it literally can't.

I could argue with the whole huge post, but I really don't have the willpower or the time. However on the part that I quoted, do we have a source that the AI can't tell the difference between human and AI? Do we have a source that it is not programmed to do that? Did someone affiliated with SI claimed that? Can't people associated with SI lie?

To clarify, I am not hostile even if I might sound so. I am just tired of both sides of fanboyism and conspiracists while both sides ignore reasoning or real facts.

 

[Death Ball]

I could argue with the whole huge post, but I really don't have the willpower or the time. However on the part that I quoted, do we have a source that the AI can't tell the difference between human and AI? Do we have a source that it is not programmed to do that? Did someone affiliated with SI claimed that? Can't people associated with SI lie?

To clarify, I am not hostile even if I might sound so. I am just tired of both sides of fanboyism and conspiracists while both sides ignore reasoning or real facts.

Making it differentiate would increase the difficulties of programming the game unnecesarily. There's also no reason to do that unless there were levels of difficulty, where it would be a way to implement it as to increase or decrease the AI's or the human's team chances at each play. The qualification badges and reputation is not that kind of thing. To use roleplaying terms, the badges and past experience is an IC matter of where would your manager begin within the world, whereas the level of difficulty would be an OOC regarding how many advantages or disadvantages you'd want to give the AI in order to make the challenge harder or easier.

So I would seriously doubt there's anything to differentiate. It may be look like that at times where the luck seems to be mounting toward one side. I remember in FM10, I think, when for the first four seasons in my Burgos save 90% of wrong referee calls regarding offside went in my favour. Something to wonder if there wasn't something to help me. However, as time went on it began to balance out.

Now I may be going on a tangent, but I'll leave this piece of advice: I thought a rule about being a manager from all my watching basketball, I think all the successful managers follow it, and I also think it can be applied to this game and works here: there is no luck, there is no "it came that way and I couldn't do anything" or "it's just one time", always think it's consequence of something you can change and try to find it. If there's some type of action where the AI teams are having more/less success/failure than there must be something you may do tactically. I'll give you two examples in increasing relevance:

1 - In FM14 in a YT video I made, a player lost the ball with a bad pass under pressure that costed my team a goal and I commented "nothing I could do". Wrong. The player made a mistake judging the positions of team mate and rival and made a poor pass to compound the mistake; there is where the temptation of a bad manager as myself is "I can't affect my player's decision making ability", well, I can. Why did the player make that mistake? Surely because I was telling my team to keep possession, play slow and pass it short, I was cutting him from the option to pass it quickly forward to a midfielder or the winger ahead and that made his mind turn to a back pass to the centerback that was not that easy and done poorly could have the consequences it had.

2 - The being benefited from mistakes in offsides/onside calls by referees: that which might have get me thinking the game had something that distinguished AI and human and was helping me, would be a consequence of my tactics. As I had very slow centerbacks before reaching Liga Adelante, I played with a very deep defensive line and in attack I tended to favour getting the ball quickly to the striker. That means there was little room I was letting for the opposition to truly be offside, so mistakes from referee would more often be calling offside in legal goals against me, while at the other side the placement of my striker and rhythm of pass meant the likelihood of my striker being caught offside was quite higher and hence the probability of the referee making a mistake was higher to happen when my striker was offside and it leading to allow illegal goals by my team. Once I got enough reputation and cash to hire faster centerbacks and play with a higher defense and also more talented attacking players to not play so close to the offside in attack, then that balance shifted and the mistakes were then more balanced.

So, anything that appears as if the game is favouring the AI team over yours is going to be a tactical matter most of the times and a few mere luck. That AI nets more one on one chances? Maybe because the way your players reach that situation is less favourable. Maybe yours are not as central as to have the best angle, or they start closer to the goalkeeper where he can cover greater angle...

As for luck, I've told several times of my time playing FM05. The AI team scored a goal always when I was thinking of making a tactical change. And don't think it was "the AI team is exploiting this hole left by the fullback, I should change it - AI exploits it and scores", it could be things like "All is going well, they're not threatening and finding no way to my goal, but I can be more defensive to ensure they don't even take one goal from this three goal win-GOAL" or "the striker looks a little tire, maybe I'll chan-GOAL" or "I'd like to give a chance to the youngster in my bench-GOAL". It was really as if the game was reading my mind and whenever it detected I was thinking on clicking the 'tactics' to have a goal happen. I had a streak of nine matches in a row with this happening. And in one it happened with both subs. It was crazy.

 

[dieablue0123]

If you have a Recall clause in the loan offer, you can, but iirc, recall only comes into effect during an active transfer window.

When I right click Remy I do Squad>Move to Affiliate>Vitesee. Can he be recalled if I do that?
P.S. This is the demo. I'm getting the full version soon so please tell me to you can do it on that.

 

[JordanERA]

how can u play 4 games in 5 days.how tihis can be fixed?View attachment 707373

if you are a team in English League 1 or lower and go for the final phases of Capital One Cup/FA Cup/FA Trophy it happens very often to play on consecutive days, just because SI Games says it is "not natural" for you to do that. Actually, their best answer for everything is "it's not natural"

 

[vanTiggelen]

It drives me crazy how many people take the 3D engine animations as gospel. It's a representation as to what has been calculated; it's not a real world physics simulator that just played out the shot while factoring in gravity, force, direction, centripetal-force, string theory, what's on TV, what they ate for breakfast, ect.

The ME decides if it's a goal, tackle, red card, ect. The 3D ME then just tries to string togehter the correct series of animations to represent that data. Simples

Could be simply a case of wording which can be misunderstood. But the bold part can be interpreted the wrong way 'round: The ME doesn't decide a goal is going to be scored or foul is going to happen and a yellow card is going to be awarded and then strings together an (arbitrary) sequence of animations and player movements. It is a move by move calculation in sequence, including a team's positioning, the passes, the tackles, anything, as any football video game really: Is FM a simulator or an illusion? (see also the following and posts before that, in particular as the posters before had similar theories).


Unless there is a bug (and there can be) any "represenation" or animation issues typically cover the limited amount of 3d animations for the 3d player models or them being glitchily synchronized. Previously it also applied for the 2d blops in the 2d view in that they could face into non-sensical directions (you can tell in which way they look by their feet that had been added a couple seasons ago), I think. F'r instance, I think there has never been a specific 3d animation for players pulling an opponent's shirt, it looked as if the two would just just run and then the ref would blow the whistle; and only a text commentary running alongside it would hint at the incident, as well as naturally the play suddenly stopping. What you see is typically what has been calculated though, with the catch being that there are only so many animations of a player shooting with his left foot in the optional 3d view, or in the case of a player pulling another player's shirt not being one at all. The animations have always been expanded, check the the game's data/sigfx/anims folder in the installation directory to get an overview, those files are named very tellingly. I did just have another look actually, and a move_run_pull_opponents_shirt.sia has been added apparently for FM 2015.

Apart of the limited animations of the 3d models, the game tracks each players' position and movement "physically" on the pitch just as any game of football would. There have been various statements made by this made by Paul Collyer and other SI staff over the years regarding this, and a common myth has it that the match engine would be a completely mysteriously separate entitity in the background, and that anything you get to see should be taken with a huge grain of salt. It is to an extent, since 3d animations of the 3d models will be limited, always (and they have been more limited in previous iterations and are being expanded, now with motion capturint technology). However not to the extent that what you get to see is pretty much an arbitrary sequence of play meant to display a calculated outcome (a goal, a yellow card, a foul, etc.). It's the other way around. A goal is scored because a sequence of indivual on the ball and off the ball actions results in that goal. That is an important distinction to make as it is the difference between the entire thing being wholly cosmetical vs. it being useful for analyzing a match, and if there's one thing to take from CM/FM's history, it's that SI have never dealt in cosmetics (for better and worse ).

Again, might have been the wording. But to me it can suggest to the reader this to be the case.

 

[Death Ball]

*Snip*

In support of the action calculated on the steps, it's the way when my PC was slower it could be noted how the processor became more busy when in a play things came to a point where many actions had to be calculated, something that still happens with my new faster PC though not so much. For instance, a striker is turning to run away from his defender that may or may not react in time to try a tackle and then shoot with another defender who may or may not have been able to see it coming and block it, plus the direction of the shot being on target or not plus then the goalkeeper saving or not. And some times it seems the calculation lag behind the animation and the ball that had been animated past the keeper into goal or goalkick is suddenly in his hands because the save and hold ball checks were successful.

That raises for me the question on how it decides the next highlight is key, extended or comprehensive? And that maybe that's how sometimes a highlight ends in nothing that looked threatening.

But even if there would be at any rate an extent of a 3D/2D display of what the logical engine is calculating that happens and that implies some limitations in way of animations, etc and we should not see what's in the 3D and take it as the perfect showing of what's going on, the game should aim to have the 3D/2D corresponding to the logical evens in a close enough way that the player can interpret tactically right in terms of spaces available, pressure of defenders, outmuscling, being tackled, etc.

The truth is that, indeed, the 3D should not be taken as the plain truth, but an approximation to reality that must be interpreted. A who is faster than B is close to B then suddenly slows down and lets B get the ball; one shall not succumb to the temptation to rage and say "this is ****, A just stopped for no reason and let B get the ball", one has to interpret it and see B outmuscling A, perhaps with a shoulder on shoulder charge that unbalanced A, causing him to slow down in his attempt to stay on his feet and that the ref didn't consider it a foul, then consider B is stronger than A and do the tactical changes that may be necessary to deal with that disadvantage in that concrete pairing.

 

[vanTiggelen]

That raises for me the question on how it decides the next highlight is key, extended or comprehensive? And that maybe that's how sometimes a highlight ends in nothing that looked threatening.

Because the match has already been played and calculated in the way described by wwfan (that's the pause you typically get to witness when a match day occurs). Upon you hitting kick off the game rewinds and restarts the match again: FM's Match Engine - live sim or not? The catch is of course, that every time you make a change, be a sub or else, it re-calculates from that point onwards again. You may have noticed that you can save entire matches as pkm files, and load them up from the main menu where you can watch them in their entirety, similarily as you would be able to watch every single game in your game world, depending on your detail level picked. It's technically the same thing, the engine rewinding a match and playing it again, as often as you like, although you naturally can't influence these matches anymore, nor can the opponent.

As for quick players occasionally outperforming slower ones, that is in parts also explained by Paul Collyer in the thread linked to above. The calculations works with weighted random numbers, so that better players mostly outperform worse ones, but not always. If it was working with absolutes, a player with a long shot value of 1 would never be able to hit a ball, and lower league management was unplayable. Every play can succeed in everything, with higher attributes it's just more likely to happen, or vice versa: with lower attributes it's more prone to fail. Additionally everything would be entirelly predictable, but then in particular regarding physical actions there is naturally also a players fitness taken into account. Also if a player slows down suddenly and lets the other run past him and pick up the ball, there was also a post explaining that a player's direction he faces (i.e. his field of view) also wouldn't be cosmetical, but taken into account. Naturally, there can also be bugs in such situations. That all sounds mightily complex (as argued by wwfan, there would be very complex calculations, but also simple ones regaring movement of players not involved in the immediate action). As otherwise the thing would take a lot of time to calculate, since unlike PES or something an FM match actually includes 90 minutes of action, including the corresponding number of passes, shots, corners, etc.

 

[thalen]

.... Just because you can't win doesn't mean that everyone else reloads their games. Grow up.

Also, there is a thread for ranting, use that. http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/foot...8964-fm15-post-your-frustrations-raaaage.html

I Actually did quite good before i quit the game, only reason i am replying is because out of boredom i replied an email showing a reply to another message. Shall i actually list some of the major issues?

1. The game is unrealistic and does not know the huge gap between between various leagues and for me any real football fan would know these simple things, i.e. there is no way EVER Inverness will EVER get over £1m for a player let alone asking for £2.5M for a player my staff tell is worth 15k. maybe staff are off on their estimate which can happen but in this instance to be off by sooo much i doubt it as looking at the estimated price of the rest of the team tells me my staff must be off on the prices of all the team.

2. No player at 37 would refuse 135k a week to then sign and play for lower team and take 20k a week for the privilege.

3. Why does me scout tell me as a player has already been playing in this country getting a wp should not be a problem then i get wp rejected? After many attempts at several players this happened 100%. WHY?

4. Playing different styles in different leagues and yet i always break the all time own goals record by either doubling it or coming really close.

5. I watched a match that was a bit boring and the end stats suggested i had 21 corners and i thought that was a bit odd because i only remembered 3-4 but.. i do realize i am only watching highlights and not everything will show on the highlights so i ignored it with a chuckle then many times later i noticed it was actually quite a common thing and i counted the corners and free kicks on a game, both were off from what i saw but the shocker was i had MORE corners than the stats suggested HOW?

6. A forward of 16 pace sped past my defender of 17 pace not that big a deal right? except the forward was indicating he was injured and after the game out of curiosity i looked at him for it to tell he was out for 6 months with a twisted knee????? wtf???? oh wait i think his name might have been Steve Austin or am i confusing him for the guy that plays for Shamrock Rovers you know the $6m guy or did he play for Inverness?.

7. There was only 4 points separating top from 11th and i was 7th and get sacked with only 22 games played and winning next game had the potential of taking me top????

8. Tried to buy a 16 year old from a 3rd division team and after £60mil gave up then was shocked to see a few weeks later he moved to a first division for £250k which was closer to his original value WHY?????

I could list more stupid mistakes and more lies from the staff but hey fanbois always ganna love no matter what

oh and finally seen a guy on Steam forums giving advice for many months telling people how it was their tactics and how his super skill at tactics won him all this glory then saw him ranting no matter how many times he reloaded a certain game he got beat and got sacked and i have a friend who reckons i am bad luck because "he never loses" when i am not there and yes i have noticed the same save on which he lost a few weeks before all of a sudden has him top with no defeats so don't tell this does not happen.

 

[Death Ball]

I Actually did quite good before i quit the game, only reason i am replying is because out of boredom i replied an email showing a reply to another message. Shall i actually list some of the major issues?

1. The game is unrealistic and does not know the huge gap between between various leagues and for me any real football fan would know these simple things, i.e. there is no way EVER Inverness will EVER get over £1m for a player let alone asking for £2.5M for a player my staff tell is worth 15k. maybe staff are off on their estimate which can happen but in this instance to be off by sooo much i doubt it as looking at the estimated price of the rest of the team tells me my staff must be off on the prices of all the team.

Then explain why all the ranting when "you" (that is not necessarily you, because I don't remember everyone I've read that complaint) play an Inverness-like team you should be getting offers for your valuation of expensive even for La Liga.

2. No player at 37 would refuse 135k a week to then sign and play for lower team and take 20k a week for the privilege.

Not necessarily if it's the kind of player who prefers to have playing time. What personality is him? That choice seems a bit extreme, but there's looking at whether the algorithm allows to too much leaning in that direction or maybe it's just a very few of which you had the luck to see one that if aren't allowed the system is making the realistic one too rare.

4. Playing different styles in different leagues and yet i always break the all time own goals record by either doubling it or coming really close.

Is this recent? There was a bug prior last patch that counted as own goals many that shouldn't be.

5. I watched a match that was a bit boring and the end stats suggested i had 21 corners and i thought that was a bit odd because i only remembered 3-4 but.. i do realize i am only watching highlights and not everything will show on the highlights so i ignored it with a chuckle then many times later i noticed it was actually quite a common thing and i counted the corners and free kicks on a game, both were off from what i saw but the shocker was i had MORE corners than the stats suggested HOW?

This version set pieces seem to not be considered as important to show as before. The more corners than stats say may be a bug with the stat tracking. I've forgot to report and don't remember the matches where it happened, but I've seen shots to the crossbar that weren't counted.

6. A forward of 16 pace sped past my defender of 17 pace not that big a deal right? except the forward was indicating he was injured and after the game out of curiosity i looked at him for it to tell he was out for 6 months with a twisted knee????? wtf???? oh wait i think his name might have been Steve Austin or am i confusing him for the guy that plays for Shamrock Rovers you know the $6m guy or did he play for Inverness?.

That's not enough to say it was wrong, though it might. I would submit the pkm as one thing meriting a look at. But it can be that player got a knock that wasn't serious at the start, he scored shortly after, and it was later when further knocks and effort aggravated the injury to that extreme.

7. There was only 4 points separating top from 11th and i was 7th and get sacked with only 22 games played and winning next game had the potential of taking me top????

Heppened to me in FM14 with Bolton after 17 games. And a variation of it with Crewe in FM13, where I was last of the table, but not because I was doing poorly but because cup matches and stuff had me play four games less than the rest of the teams. Only five points from those four games would have led me to ninth. One point where a refinement would be needed. Sadly I didn't remember to mention it over the SI bug forums *sigh*

But then again, that may be more realistic than we'd like. Currently the basketball section of Real Madrid has many people asking to sack the manager after losing three games in the domestic league, yesterday's against Barcelona, despite being only one win away from the top, qualified for the TOP16 and that he's brought the team to the highest success since 1995, with two consecutive Euroleague finals, three Supercups, two King cups and one league.

8. Tried to buy a 16 year old from a 3rd division team and after £60mil gave up then was shocked to see a few weeks later he moved to a first division for £250k which was closer to his original value WHY?????

Now that's extreme and I doubt the extras would up that to >£60M And even if their manager hates you and is a rival club, the difference seems way to big not to send this to the bug reports to be looked at.

I could list more stupid mistakes and more lies from the staff but hey fanbois always ganna love no matter what

And hatebois will hate no matter what ludicrous things they may say. Not saying you are one of them. Just that phrase works both ways.

oh and finally seen a guy on Steam forums giving advice for many months telling people how it was their tactics and how his super skill at tactics won him all this glory then saw him ranting no matter how many times he reloaded a certain game he got beat and got sacked and i have a friend who reckons i am bad luck because "he never loses" when i am not there and yes i have noticed the same save on which he lost a few weeks before all of a sudden has him top with no defeats so don't tell this does not happen.

LOL, what an idiot that guy. But that there's some idiots who reload until they win doesn't make that the usual for those who have success.

I can't tell you I'm one of those guys with big successes and no reloads, because I've never had great success. My best was with Torino in FM12: 7th first season in Serie A, second in Serie A twice, Italian cup and supercup winner, once each, semifinalist in Europa League. I don't count two leagues won with Porto and Real Madrid due to the size of those two clubs and neither the Copa del Rey with Real Madrid nor the Champions final with Real Madrid. One season saves I did to get the flavour of managing them and didn't like to be in charge of teams expected to win >90% of matches. With the rest it's promotions to the top (not straight) and then stuck as a mid table team. Except England, where I've never gone beyond midtable at the Championship.

 

[LewLufc]

You didn't 'debunk' anything, just gave your opinions on things

 

[dieablue0123]

I the Real Madrid manager. My nationality is Nigerian. American is my second and I'm American-born (Alexandria (VA)). How does my manager learn Spanish? (This is FM15 Demo).

 

[Sherkey]

I the Real Madrid manager. My nationality is Nigerian. American is my second and I'm American-born (Alexandria (VA)). How does my manager learn Spanish? (This is FM15 Demo).

Forgot how it was in the Demo, but while creating the manager, you can add multiple languages which he has learnt. Otherwise, I'm not sure whether or not a manager will also learn a particular language, can happen over time, I guess..

 

[Death Ball]

Managing in a country where that language is spoken the manager eventually learns the local languages. In this year a good adaptability attribute helps learning it faster.

In previous versions it seemed to take around six months or less. In a career that I took an African NT I learnt its local, African language in just over a month, as that's what it took for a better NT to come with an offer and leave that and saw I could speak it.

 

[wkdsoul]

the m.e. being different in fm and fmc is a new complaint/suggestion i've not seen before... hmmmm

 

[sergiolagartija]

Spanish Supercup final: Madrid vs Villarreal. I´m Villarreal. Lost in Madrid 3-0 playing poorly. Just five days after that match, i outclass Real Madrid but they manage to score and lost on the away goals rule (4-1 win). I keep on playing but things are not succesful and after a few days i started playing with another tactic and reload the game just the day before the Supercup Final. I lost in Madrid 4-0, playing horrible, with a completely different tactic. Five days after that, i smash Real Madrid but they manage to score and i win 5-1 (so lost again on the away goals). I think this needs an explanation, the procedure is exactly the same with very different elements: tactic, many players, team talks. I think that if i´d lost 8-0 in Madrid i´d win 9-1 in the second leg.