Most frustrating FM?

[rocheyb]

All those missed chances are annoying because on the face of it, there is no footballing reason. But if you persevere and play on regardless, gaining more transfer money each summer and improving your squad exponentially, your team will get better at taking chances - as long as you are employing sound tactics, of course - and these occasions happen less often and, even when they do, they don't necessarily affect your chances of winning trophies.

The moderator and others in the know advise us to watch the matches on the Comprehensive view, which I now do. You do see things, not necessarily the obvious, that gives you a clue where the strengths and weaknesses lie for both your team and the opposition and you have time to make changes and see how well they play out - and you learn more as you go. I always keep the opposition's formation on screen, so I see immediately if they have changed their shape and can change my tactics and/or opposition instructions accordingly.

I won the Premier League, Europa Cup and Capital One Cup last season. Having retained the Capital One in 2019/20 and won the Community Shield earlier on, I'm still on for the FA Cup, Premier League and Champions League, too... with Southampton.

Others often complain that the strikers don't score goals. I had two 20+ goal strikers last season, and now in mid-March I have one on 26 and another on 23. My wingers get their fair share, too. Here's how:

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/foot...1-real-4-4-2-how-i-learned-play-triangle.html

 

[Dihenzo]

Its a yearly game just like FIFA, PES, NBA, F1, NASCAR, NHL etc. All these sports games have a lot in common, scripts that are overdone. Why? Its modern cheap coding. I have been playing games for very long time and they get worse every year because of this. FM is no different. I challenge the argument made by the MODERATOR.

In sport games, in order to make the game APPEAR more challenging to the players scripts or micro-events have been implemented in the game mechanics. Anyone one that plays sports games will tell you how these scripts take most of the realism away by making AI have a boost in stats. This is very much present in FM Match Engine. All the preparation and hard work i put in only for my fate to be decided by what the game wants. Why should i play a game that puts me at an unfair position? To challenge me? Well that is not the sort of challenge i am looking for. To prove my point beyond doubt that AI and human user are separately coded i will use the SI official patch notes i selected so you understand what i mean

Lets start:
Football Manager 2014 Patch 14.1.3
Transfers
- Tuned AI opening offers & negotiations

Football Manager 2014 Patch 14.2.0
Transfers & Contracts
- Stopped AI clubs bidding on players they cannot afford
- Improved logic of AI co-ownership offers
- Fixed user being unable to Approach To Sign player after deal falls though

Football Manager 2014 Patch 14.3.0
Competitions
- Fixed user not given opportunity to Postpone Premier Division match due to International Callups
- Fixed user not being asked to set length of End of Season Break after last match of season
- Improved A-League AI teams' signing of Marquee players

These come from the official patch notes were its clear "AI" and "Human User" are on two different codes or scripts. This is proven beyond doubt by sum of the fixes that clearly indicate to fix an error ONLY on the part of AI that the human user could not benefit the same from that situation. I am not going to be in denial over such an issue because the difference is there. I am not saying its a bad game. My point is the scripts need to be balanced more so one can enjoy the game without feeling their effects. People want a good game to have sum fun with, a challenging game that does not take realism away with bad coding. Overdone scripts only add more frustration and less enjoyment and i do hope SI do something about it

 

[Crane]

None of them patch notes are to do with the Match Engine. Your entire argument is debunked by that point.

 

[rogatsby]

The people complaining about the match engine are just simply wrong. Yes, sometimes there are results that look unfair, but that happens all the time in real life. The key is to hone your tactics, team talks, preparation, instructions, etc. to minimize those bad results. If you are losing consistently with a decent team, there is usually a reason. It could be poor tactics, not customizing your tactics to play well against the other team, poor morale, etc. People usually only focus on the AI's goals, but the AI also misses plenty of easy chances.

As for the comments about players shooting way off target all the time, have you ever seen a player like Adel Taraabt play? There are countless other players like him in real life, who create or get decent chances and blaze it over 80% of the time.

For me, FM14 has been the best FM so far. You can't just plug in a tactic and expect to dominate. You really have to work at it, customize your tactics, and buy players that fit your system. Also, compared to prior versions, FM14 really focuses more on team building. You can't just buy a couple of superstars and expect to dominate in your first or second season. I am currently playing an online game using Southampton, and we are now in year 2033. I struggled for the first 5-6 seasons, and slowly built my team with young Wonderkids. Eventually, I started finding success, and by my 10th or 11th season, my team was one of the best in the league. I have now won 12 league titles, 2 champions leagues, and many cup trophies. And this is in an online game, with no cheating possible whatsoever. The ridiculous results people talk about hardly ever happen for me now, and I pretty much challenge every year, usually scoring 100+ goals a season. I also always have at least 2 players with 25+ goals per season.

FM14 has been very challenging and enjoyable for me, and I have been very happy with it.

 

[Mike.]

Its a yearly game just like FIFA, PES, NBA, F1, NASCAR, NHL etc. All these sports games have a lot in common, scripts that are overdone. Why? Its modern cheap coding. I have been playing games for very long time and they get worse every year because of this. FM is no different. I challenge the argument made by the MODERATOR.

In sport games, in order to make the game APPEAR more challenging to the players scripts or micro-events have been implemented in the game mechanics. Anyone one that plays sports games will tell you how these scripts take most of the realism away by making AI have a boost in stats. This is very much present in FM Match Engine. All the preparation and hard work i put in only for my fate to be decided by what the game wants. Why should i play a game that puts me at an unfair position? To challenge me? Well that is not the sort of challenge i am looking for. To prove my point beyond doubt that AI and human user are separately coded i will use the SI official patch notes i selected so you understand what i mean

Lets start:
Football Manager 2014 Patch 14.1.3
Transfers
- Tuned AI opening offers & negotiations

Football Manager 2014 Patch 14.2.0
Transfers & Contracts
- Stopped AI clubs bidding on players they cannot afford
- Improved logic of AI co-ownership offers
- Fixed user being unable to Approach To Sign player after deal falls though

Football Manager 2014 Patch 14.3.0
Competitions
- Fixed user not given opportunity to Postpone Premier Division match due to International Callups
- Fixed user not being asked to set length of End of Season Break after last match of season
- Improved A-League AI teams' signing of Marquee players

These come from the official patch notes were its clear "AI" and "Human User" are on two different codes or scripts. This is proven beyond doubt by sum of the fixes that clearly indicate to fix an error ONLY on the part of AI that the human user could not benefit the same from that situation. I am not going to be in denial over such an issue because the difference is there. I am not saying its a bad game. My point is the scripts need to be balanced more so one can enjoy the game without feeling their effects. People want a good game to have sum fun with, a challenging game that does not take realism away with bad coding. Overdone scripts only add more frustration and less enjoyment and i do hope SI do something about it

And not a single one of those is the Match Engine....

Your attempt to challenge my point fails immediately.

Just because some games do one things doesn't mean everyone does it. Wrong argument to make

For everyone else who is interested. Outside the ME, the logic is often different, because of course no AI logic is needed for a user to make a bid (for example), since we input all that ourselves. AI logic is only needed for when they recieve the bid, or make a bid of their own.

In the match engine however, because the user does not control every input of the player FIFA style, AI logic is coding is also required for the users team, so the coding is blanket (for example when you see something like GK AI improved, that applies to all GKing, and thus will apply to your GK). Importantly the ME does not recognise a difference between inputs, it has no idea one input is computer and one is human. This inability to differentiate means its impossible for any "cheat" theory to work.

 

[Mike.]

I've gotta say that i think I was just frustrated with a run of games that wasn't going my way when i posted this thread, drawing 4 out of 5 games is a **** take especially when the amount of shot i had in each game was pretty high, in the same season i went on to win the premier league, capital one cup, fa cup and champions league! haha

Hah, this is what I mean about unrealistic expectations. You just totally cleaned up in trophies, having a little bump on the way isnt unrealistic. I'd argue winning all 4 is more "unrealistic" than drawing 4 from 5.

 

[Strolla]

OK, this here will get nerdy. Just a heads up from a dude currently studying game coding.

It is nearly impossible to code a game into treating the AI and the Human Managers (henceforth abbreviated to HM) as two distinct entities in any environment that does not base itself upon differing input signals from the HM than would be expected from the AI. It is better to think that the AI is another human, playing the same save with you, but with a different club. Actually, the difference is more the fact that the AIs will not make great decisions nearly as often as human players who actually understand a little bit about the game.

See, the AI is based on an extremely complicated coding pattern. Let's purely talk about the match itself here. Assume a hypothetical, you are 1 goal down at half time, your center back has a rating of 5.6. A human manager would see this, and would almost instantly know that it would be much better to take the guy off straight away, and replace him with another defender who, 85 times out of 100, will have a better game then the first guy. The AI does not see this, as it operates under a coding system that means that the AI will not make any substitutions until the early-mid second half (55th minute being fairly common, along with 62nd, however there is a 6 minute margin of distribution there, so common substitutions will come from the 49th minute to the 71st minute, in the shape of a bell curve) or until the mid-late second half (82nd minute to 87th minute with a 4 minute margin of distribution). This could lead to another mistake by the player in question, causing the AI to be two goals down, that wouldn't have happened if the AI was an actual human.
[please note that SI have accounted for this, and have installed a measurement beacon which, after complicated calculations including tactical knowledge, motivation, determination, adaptability and man management, along with a random error value to calculate the probability of an earlier substitution so that players with especially low ratings can be taken off incredibly early, however this is very much the exception and not the norm]

As for the match engine itself... I genuinely laugh at the idea that it can treat AI and HM in any sort of different way. I have seen the coding behind some of the ME, and it is clear to me that it is a (unbelievably good) simulator engine of a football game that effects itself based on a HUGE number of calculations, all of them unbelievably interconnected. It is also why I laugh at the idea that another company can suddenly emerge within a year to overtake SI, the match engine would be garbage in comparison.

To simplify the match engine down to size, there is a very basic scenario, a player is running at a goalkeeper, no defenders around him, from 30 meters out. What we see is the player take 3 or 4 touches and then shoot, and the goalkeeper could save it, or he could score, or he could miss. How does the ME do this? It takes the runner's composure, first touch, agility, balance, pace, dribbling, technique, long shots, decisions, finishing, determination, concentration and creativity, and the goalkeepers position, positioning, eccentricity, reflexes, rushing out, agility, concentration, composure and decisions plus random probability error values, and calculates a large number of possibilities, ranging from ludicrously unlikely (imagine a Beckham vs Wimbledon goal), to very probable (player tries to round keeper). It does this for every touch the player makes, every step the goalkeeper takes, and every second (in game) the player has on the ball. That is for a sequence that lasts, at most, 5 seconds. There are millions of calculations made, each and every game. Player interactions, player movement, marking, corner decision making, crosses, finishing, passing, ext. I have seen some of the coding, so I know it is based on these various things.

IF SI were to make a game that effected the AI differently to the HM (and they could), they wouldn't use a match engine in this model. Because, in this model, the Match Engine is based on the players and various instructions given to them, not which manager they have. Do not misunderstand this, your instructions will mean you will get different results from the AI, even with identical players in identical form with identical moral. However, the game does not differentiate between AI instructions and your own.

The things mentioned a few posts ago that were trying to say that the AI is run on a different script... that is stupid. Utterly stupid. Every single thing you mentioned can be VERY EASILY EXPLAINED. Here, let me.

Lets start:
Football Manager 2014 Patch 14.1.3
Transfers
- Tuned AI opening offers & negotiations

This is not evidence that the AI is run on a different script, or a different engine, or anything. This was done because there was a flaw in the coding of this in the AI. Now, the HM, being fully responsible for opening offers and negotiations with the AI, would not have seen this effect much. Want to know how you would have? If you had a Director of Football negotiating for you.

Football Manager 2014 Patch 14.2.0
Transfers & Contracts
- Stopped AI clubs bidding on players they cannot afford
- Improved logic of AI co-ownership offers

See above

- Fixed user being unable to Approach To Sign player after deal falls though

This was a bug that was noticed in the script coding. The AI, after a breakdown in transfers, does not go back to the same player unless there are differing circumstances (a lower fee to pay for him). This method, would mean that they would not approach to sign a player who wouldn't accept the most they would offer. This is coded into the game, and was changed because the player can still try to sign him, as it is a genuine option. Technically, the AI could approach to sign him as well, but with no better results than the first time, so the AI that calculates transfer has P(X)=0 from the start. It doesn't bother to open negotiations for P(X)=0 players (ironically a fix introduced in this update). Therefore, there was no instance of it ever happening with the AI anyway, no need to mention a fix for something that never happened.

Football Manager 2014 Patch 14.3.0
Competitions
- Fixed user not given opportunity to Postpone Premier Division match due to International Callups
- Fixed user not being asked to set length of End of Season Break after last match of season

Emphasis mine. This was an error that meant that one part of the coding stopped the managers from being asked about this, which I have been told (although this is second hand info, may be incorrect) was caused by an error in the coding regarding the ability to give the managers choice in the tactics, and was an issue known about from the start, but the coders deemed it more important to release the game with the opportunity to make your own tactics (the basis of the entire game) than the opportunity to postpone a match or two a season, or a once-per-season choice.

Now, you may want to argue that the coders should have sorted the problem early, however I suggest you learn how difficult that would be first. It took unbelievably good coders about 6 months to fix the problem. That should say something on it's own.

- Improved A-League AI teams' signing of Marquee

Again, AI related only because the user has the opportunity to control this anyway. There can be no tweak on a HM choice, it's like saying "Here, you can take over Manchester City, but you must sell Zabaleta". It's a part of the game non-related to the HM specifically because the user is a user.

tl:dr;

The game is not in any way, shape or form, scripted to be against the user. Want more proof then just me? If it was, another, better coder than I, who doesn't work for SI (an EA employee, for example), would have come out and said it, and provided evidence.