It's got f- all to do with morale and completely about tactical changes. The AI won't just roll over. At some point they will want to come back into the match and try to win it. If you allow that, it'll happen.

have a look at what the AI is really doing lol
Also, if its doing what you say....why does it need to wait till 2nd half to do it....why cant it realize it needs to adapt after 10 or 15 minutes....because it sure is unable to adapt till half time.
If you are running all over them over the first 10 minutes you will keep attacking and maybe scoring for all the first 45 minutes :)

Unless they score some odd goal and.....morale changes.....not tactical tweaks....its really a lot more to do with morale changes.

Have a better look into the games and see what is really happening.

Notice how the kind of plays is always the same. If you don't change your tactic you will see more or less the same game.
What really changes is the way in which the players play it.
And it makes quite a change if one team has the upper hand and can just anticipate those balls and pass confidently....as the other just misses the same passes and cant anticipate anyone.

Also, what is really happening is if you launch some new player from the bench, unless you give a really bad pep talk, he will come into the game willing to show something. And this can bring changes. The timing of substitutions as a lot to do with controlling a 2nd half performance....just because of this extra changing factor of the new fresh and motivated player.

But many human players can tell you how important pep talks are and how they can dominate just by saying the right things at the right moments......the game is programed for that.

Even when you read the news after the game, it will tell you that the game was turned because of your aggressive half time talk....not because of your tactical change. So the game is being quite honest and telling you what happened there. You just decide to think its a joke but its not.
 
have a look at what the AI is really doing lol
Also, if its doing what you say....why does it need to wait till 2nd half to do it....why cant it realize it needs to adapt after 10 or 15 minutes....because it sure is unable to adapt till half time.
If you are running all over them over the first 10 minutes you will keep attacking and maybe scoring for all the first 45 minutes :)

Unless they score some odd goal and.....morale changes.....not tactical tweaks....its really a lot more to do with morale changes.

Have a better look into the games and see what is really happening.

Notice how the kind of plays is always the same. If you don't change your tactic you will see more or less the same game.
What really changes is the way in which the players play it.
And it makes quite a change if one team has the upper hand and can just anticipate those balls and pass confidently....as the other just misses the same passes and cant anticipate anyone.

Also, what is really happening is if you launch some new player from the bench, unless you give a really bad pep talk, he will come into the game willing to show something. And this can bring changes. The timing of substitutions as a lot to do with controlling a 2nd half performance....just because of this extra changing factor of the new fresh and motivated player.

But many human players can tell you how important pep talks are and how they can dominate just by saying the right things at the right moments......the game is programed for that.

Even when you read the news after the game, it will tell you that the game was turned because of your aggressive half time talk....not because of your tactical change. So the game is being quite honest and telling you what happened there. You just decide to think its a joke but its not.
It doesn't matter WHEN they decide to change, it's THAT they decide to change. Watch matches and you will see a change to become more attacking.
 
Show me any team in any European league with 8 players injured from their A squad at the same time.
Just indulge me....

It can well be that in total the game is programed to have 70% of real life injuries.
The issues are with injury time and with when they happen.
And here the game makes it quite....lets say....unlucky.....

After you play 4 or 5 seasons you will see 6 to 8 players injured once or twice.
But this is something that does not happen in real life...not at the same time.

I cant even remember Manchester United having 6 first team players injured at once......
Or Chelsea.....

Can you tell me if and when this happened.....

Injuries should maybe happen more often but be less severe on average and be more mixed along the season.

United had horrendous injuries under LVG so this isn't true.
 
I just had a miracle countered by another miracle.

2 points behind Juve going into the last game, tough match away at Inter. We took the lead and shockingly Juve hadn't been able to score, thus putting us in pole position to win the title. I was hoping for the game to just ******* end while still staring at their score, but there was a highlight of Inter attacking like EVERY ******* 30 SECONDS.

We were holding on, we were winning the league, Juve still hadn't scored. I set the team to contain in the 80th minute, and it raced to the 90th with just 1 or 2 highlights.

View attachment 131436

This game was made by psychopaths.
 
City not even starting negotiations after a £200M offer for an extremely unhappy Sergio Kun ("wants CL football!" "wants to join Arsenal!").
 
City not even starting negotiations after a £200M offer for an extremely unhappy Sergio Kun ("wants CL football!" "wants to join Arsenal!").

I do hope you made the offer just to see if they'd accept and that you'd not actually buy any player for 200m lol.
 
I do hope you made the offer just to see if they'd accept and that you'd not actually buy any player for 200m lol.

I have a save with United in the 5th season and money is literally worthless. I always have maxed out transfer budgets.
 
I do hope you made the offer just to see if they'd accept and that you'd not actually buy any player for 200m lol.

I just wanted to make a proper marquee signing. Too often when I play I fall into the same rut of making the sensible buys and getting the best value for my investment.

This time I wanted to make a god **** mark. I wanted to break every record in the book and I wanted specifically to drag away one my main rivals' absolute top players.

If the stars align I'm going for Sergio Kun again next year idgaf.
 
I just wanted to make a proper marquee signing. Too often when I play I fall into the same rut of making the sensible buys and getting the best value for my investment.

This time I wanted to make a god **** mark. I wanted to break every record in the book and I wanted specifically to drag away one my main rivals' absolute top players.

If the stars align I'm going for Sergio Kun again next year idgaf.

Better to build a good squad and trounce them repeatedly, they'll only spend your £200m on someone equally as good or on 4 other world class players! Still though, it's up to you :) I've got it in for City in my save as they beat me to the signing for a world class English centre back before I'd made my club big enough to be able to compete reputation-wise. Since then I've gone on to beat them in 4 consecutive League Cup finals and have knocked them out of 2 of the last 3 season's CL. Revenge is mine!

I have a save with United in the 5th season and money is literally worthless. I always have maxed out transfer budgets.

I know but it's also fun to build a colossal bank balance. The most I ever managed was £1.2b in an FM14 save with Spurs, I think it was 2042/2043. I've never managed United though, I expect it's much easier to build up a massive pile of cash as they are already established in terms of sponsorship, stadium size, world-wide reputation etc. I also just generally take umbridge to paying massive wages so I'll never pay anyone more than £140k per week. It means I can't buy star players from massive teams but it's not necessary to dominate them all.
 
Better to build a good squad and trounce them repeatedly, they'll only spend your £200m on someone equally as good or on 4 other world class players! Still though, it's up to you :) I've got it in for City in my save as they beat me to the signing for a world class English centre back before I'd made my club big enough to be able to compete reputation-wise. Since then I've gone on to beat them in 4 consecutive League Cup finals and have knocked them out of 2 of the last 3 season's CL. Revenge is mine!



I know but it's also fun to build a colossal bank balance. The most I ever managed was £1.2b in an FM14 save with Spurs, I think it was 2042/2043. I've never managed United though, I expect it's much easier to build up a massive pile of cash as they are already established in terms of sponsorship, stadium size, world-wide reputation etc. I also just generally take umbridge to paying massive wages so I'll never pay anyone more than £140k per week. It means I can't buy star players from massive teams but it's not necessary to dominate them all.

I find it strange i made it to the 5th season with MANU considering how ******* boring it is.
It might have to do with my 4 champions league semi-finals aka. the Guardiola curse.
 
Think we've all experienced this on 16 or 15 before. Sold a player for a pretty awesome deal, ****** off half the squad.

Managing Lokomotiv Moscow. Romped to the title. Much of the summer was fending off interest in my players. Zenit wants Alan Kasaev, a solid Russian winger. Not an outstanding player, but he had a great year due to the tactic. He's Russian (which makes him extra valuable in Russia), versatile, and solid. But he was a backup payer who started a few more matches late in the season because of rotation and he was playing well. I had no long term plans for him because he's 30 and not going to improve. I knocked back the first bid from Zenit, which was at his value of 7m Euros. They came back with the same offer, so I tried the "ask for the moon to scare em off" method, which backfired. 20m up front, something like 10m structured. That much for a player who won't have any value at all in a year or two? I would stupid to turn it down. Sucks to lose a Russian national and a versatile one at that, but I already sold Maicon (my "primary" left winger) and bought a 21 year old from Dinamo who is the most promising Russian left winger.

But of course, selling a 30 year old rotation player for several times his value angers a teammate. I don't have the option to say "I've already brought in a really good young replacement, give him a chance". And I'm not going to promise to spend the money on a replacement winger, because I'm not - its ear-marked to land the best young leftback in Russia. I picked something, it made the situation worse, etc etc etc. Good times. Don't think it will lead to a revolt or cause me to lose players I can't lose. But still... the options are too limited.
 
Morale......

******* MORALE!!!!!!!!

I was fighting for a champions league place with stockport.
Won at Newcastle 6.3
Beat Arsenal home 4.1

Then comes West Ham away and a team meeting......

All squad gets ****** because they think I was not ambitious enough.....

And they concede 3 goals in 30 minutes from West Ham......

I would like to see who programmed this.
I will give them the chance to talk whatever they want to me before I bat the **** out of them loool
Because you know.....I am all fired up by the pile of **** you did and nothing you can say is going to turn my motivation off loool

Because this is how reality works lol

Seriously....this game is programmed like if talks where Jedi Mind tricks.
Yes, I am aware sometimes a well placed talk can do wonders. But its not ******* Jedi Mind trick!!!!!
And all who have ever played football know this lool
Because we are humans! We have our own minds. The coach can scream or talk whatever he likes. If someone is decided to get out there and do something, they will. They are not even listening to the coach.
Its like...when your team is on a rampage and winning games and thinking it can reach even higher. It does not matter whatever the coach says. The whole team feels they can do it and they will try to do it!!!!!!
 
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It doesn't matter WHEN they decide to change, it's THAT they decide to change. Watch matches and you will see a change to become more attacking.

Ohhh

We are talking different things here :)

I am discussing the 2nd half morale change which is quite real inside the game and is linked with half time talk.

You my friend are discussing the last minutes tactical changes which also happen. But they happen a lot later in the game. I think you will notice the AI only shifts to more offensive like mid 2nd half. It tends to go along with when they will launch fresh players....but it does not always happen at the same time.

If we will discuss these late 2nd half tactical adjustments, its a whole other thing. And a bit of a stupid thing I might add.

I don't know if you ever played football.
But in real life most managers and teams will not risk going forward so late in the game.
Problem is everyone is going to be tired.
We are humans and not all players inside the team are going to believe and push hard for a comeback.
This makes for very dangerous times if you try to push forward so late.
You are going to stretch your team a lot and it takes only 1 or 2 guys not willing to run like **** for you to get some big trouble....because you are going to give the other team lots of space somewhere.

So if you did not know, this is why in real life most teams seem to settle down and just play safe around the last 15 minutes.
Yes, there are factors here like playing in front of a home crowd....if the crowd starts pushing the team then its more likely everyone will push forward together.
There are also other factors like important matches. If its a final its more likely you are going to try a do or die kind of thing.
But overall, on league matches, you don't want to push on the last minutes.
You get tired out there, you don't always believe you can turn things around. Many times if you did not manage to score so far, its quite hard to believe you will do it in the last minutes.
And also, the manager has no way to talk with all players during 2nd half. So everyone is feeling the game their own way and its not so likely the whole team feels confident to push forward together. Again, remember for you to go forward you have to trust everyone will press high and run back like **** if need be. And simply....at around 70 minutes, you don't always believe this to be possible.

Again....

Watch real life statistics and tell me how many goals you see in the last 10 minutes.
Then compare with FM2016........
 
Watch real life statistics and tell me how many goals you see in the last 10 minutes.
Then compare with FM2016........

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/oct/30/the-knowledge-premier-league-minutes-goals

As for the game, rather than going with the "it's your tactics" brigade I'm going to say:

Depends on the tactics (of both teams). ;)


CmI0CX8.jpg



Where you are 100% wrong is how AI operate which suggests you struggle to read what's going on (which is no shame). They don't change late in a match only, they may change at any point, depends on the traits managers are given. They don't simply switch to more aggressive/less aggressive mentalities, they change roles and duties etc. too, as those govern forward movements. Unlike 99% of human players for instance, it is comparably rare to see an AI manager who starts with two forward bombing full backs. In fact, on occasion you might face AI this defensive they have both on defend duty (never run forward an inch). However if they go attacking, that's precisely what is happening. Whilst that influx of attack dutys typically happens late, it is by no means the only point an AI may change. They can change formations at HT outright, and switch to something different upon scoring / conceding immediately at any point. Key bit is, they play matches dynamically and it's not as simplistic as you make it out to be. In fact, they can go even more defensive in an attmept to avoid a heavy beating after conceding multiple times already. Keep the formation widget open, it is given visual cues when changes are made (attack duty players typically are slightly advanced in the widget and vice versa). That is subject to change though as each AI man has attributes edited into the db and manages different teams with different expectations out of each match (tough away tie maybe playing for the draw, home tie against weaker side accepting no less than a win etc).

Unfortunately FM 2016 has some issues with defending of wide areas, so when both of the backs advance, it is those wide areas being overloaded whilst previously the opposition defenders weren't tested. During the above run, that was also the only time we conceded late.

wdX1PPa.jpg


From looking at the goal spread though, you might see that upon taking leads (almost all of the goals scored first half), we switched to playing keep-ball. If they don't have the ball, they can't attack and overload those defensively suspicious areas. Repeat though, it's a bit unfortunate that with FM 2016's weak areas, it is unfortunate that this plays into the way AI works. If they go more attacking, which often but not always happens late, that's when the engine weaknesses are tested the most. So in that you have a point, and hopefully will get adressed in future releases. Supposedly magic pep talks officially last maybe ten minutes into a half, and all of the above has much more of an influence on the dynamics of each match. As it's connected to player positioning and attacking movement, perhaps to no big surprise. A particularly bad reaction to a teem meeting might contribute to things, but it will never once be a sole root cause of such a (supposedly) meltdown, provided it was one. Goals might have all comes of flukes or bugs, after all. Speaking of which, I once lost an FM match due to 3 direct free kicks getting converted.
 
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1st season - Won 3. Bundesliga.
2nd season - 7th in 2. Bundesliga.
3rd season - 2nd in 2. Bundesliga. (on goal difference, so annoying)
4th season... the start.

View attachment 129146


This will surely bruise our 'winning team' egos.
 

Hmmm

I don't know if I am oversimplifying somethings and not coming clear.

I do see the AI making changes. Just I tend to see them coming late in the games or at least only in 2nd Half.
I have yet to see an AI cope with my team during the first 45 minutes if they concede first.
Its either they score first or they are doomed till half time.

And actually.....you know what.....
That's exactly what I see from your data also looool
You are having way better 1st halfs vs 2nd halfs......funny isn't it????

Sorry...did not want to come as joking with you.

To be honest I understand what you were talking about.
But in the end you did agree with me that the AI tends to be more aggressive more or less from the 60m mark onward.
And I believe if you did a little bit of effort you could also agree with me that the AI tends to be better on 2nd half for morale reasons....due to aggressive team talks after having played poorly in 2nd half.
 
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And I believe if you did a little bit of effort you could also agree with me that the AI tends to be better on 2nd half for morale reasons....due to aggressive team talks after having played poorly in 2nd half.

Posted something overly wordy initially but I'll keep this brief:

I couldn't agree with that an inch. If you only ever see AI tactical changes late you struggle to read what's going on. If you think there's magic pep talks that turn a toothless side into a dangerous one in isolation you struggle to read what's going on. If you consistently concede late it's partly an annoying match engine issue (see above) and party your own doing.

That screenshot posted isn't indicative of a worse 2nd half performance of the team. It is indicative of seeing out leads mostly taken in the 1st half by playing keep-ball once they were taken rather than looking to add another couple goals in the 2nd. In other words, neither are you guaranteed to ship goals in the last 10 minutes as you claimed, nor do you concede lots of goals in the 2nd half due to AI managers performing magic pep talk tricks. There is lots of stuff going on, weird-*** AI decisions, bugs, etc. But so far there's typically always something to do about it. It even is on FM 2016, which has an unfortunate couple of engine issues. Which are all related to (AI) tactics, and very little to magic talks. As it is 100% tactics that determine player positioning, and thus whether and when areas are overloaded or not, no surprise.
 
Team meetings always, and I mean always end up with most if not all my players morale going down.

Midway through the season no matter what you say in a team meeting the morale always goes down, my most recent one was last night, just won Northern league 2 with South Shields (started a LLM to keep me going til FM17) and I say that I'm going to keep faith with the squad plus 1 or 2 additions can make a good mid-table finish, every player says I'm being unrealistic and that we shouldn't put too much pressure on ourselves.
 
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