Why is there some games you just can't win?

[louiscfc]

I'm currently managing Chelsea who are currently unbeaten in all competitions(only in October!). I'm scoring loads of goals and not conceding many. I've signed both Neymar and Hazard and they're scoring for fun.
One of my main aims I have been set is to reach the final of the Europa League, so I have to play some of my better players.
I've played 2 games and won both 4-0 and 6-0 against teams I've never heard of and my next game is against Metalist, who I've just about heard of(These are all Europa league group stage games). Due to previous saves I know that if you are on a good run, the following game gets harder and all of a sudden you lose one and BOOM! You have a ****** spell where you don't win for about 10 games which is completely unrealistic when you see the likes of Chelsea, Man U and Barcelona, they might lose one but then bounce straight back, but oh no, not on this game.
So I pick a strong line up with my same tactics that I've been successful with and somehow I get smashed 4-0. What???Really?? So I turn it off, start again, and play a more cautious tactic, 2-0 at half-time with Ivanovic getting 2 headers. This is more like it!!! Praise the players, start the second half, a bit boring and safe. 76 minutes gone, 2 subs made and I've turned up the time wasting. Immediately they strike from a corner, Ok, I suppose that could happen(Bearing in mind I'm missing sitters at the other end as usual!). 83 minutes gone and it's a disaster, they cross the ball in, Ivanovic is on the edge of the area, it hits him and goes in(The edge of the f*cking area!!!!!). 89th minute, ball is crossed in from the right hand side again and who's running back toward goal on the penalty spot? Yep, you guessed it, Ivanovic, once again it hits him and goes in. 3-2 down, 2 own goals from 12+ yards out. I lose the game and will almost certain lose the next 5 or so...League over!...sacked.
There are certain games you're just not meant to win, and this is one of many, the main downside to FM12
Sort it out!!!!!!!

 

[Van Tournhout]

I see your point, BUT i've no sympathy for players who rage quit.

If you lose a game, take it on the chin and move on. Everyone hate's losing, if you quit everytime you lose until you win.

Where is the challenge, infact where is the game? That's what I call unrealism.

 

[Mullen19]

I get what you mean, as sometimes the game does feel scripted
The ammount of late goals I've conceded gets me mad!!
But as he ^ said, theres very little point in playing the game if you are going to turn it off every time you lose. You could just not play the game and say that you won every game as you would have, but its your game do as you please

 

[louiscfc]

I see your point, BUT i've no sympathy for players who rage quit.

If you lose a game, take it on the chin and move on. Everyone hate's losing, if you quit everytime you lose until you win.

Where is the challenge, infact where is the game? That's what I call unrealism.

Trust me, I don't normally quit because I feel the exact way you do, I just found it bizarre about how unreal the game was so I tried something different and still lost. There's no point to keep quitting as I have found out there's certain games you can't win.

 

[FM Nutter]

Everyone complains about how "unrealistic" the game is or "they lose games they never thought they would lose".

The reason you lost, you got your tactics wrong. Simple. This happens in real life. Teams lose against ****** teams because one gets their tactics wrong.

 

[Piginho]

Everyone complains about how "unrealistic" the game is or "they lose games they never thought they would lose".

The reason you lost, you got your tactics wrong. Simple. This happens in real life. Teams lose against ****** teams because one gets their tactics wrong.

Not necessarily. OK, this has been debated at length, maybe a year or two ago, with a very long thread and no conclusive answer. Why? Because none of the game's programmers have come out and given a definitive answer.

Some believe that the game is "scripted" to a greater or lesser extent. Some like FM Nutter believe that you are fully in control of your destiny and responsible for all your own defeats.

I'm afraid that extensive experimentation proves that neither of the above is true.

Why do I say this?

First, I would like to stress that I do not make a habit of replaying matches, however, for the purposes of trying to determine the truth on this matter I have replayed hundreds of matches over the years. I have been playing since CM 03/04 and in that time have played many thousands of matches and can assure you that the replays are still a small proportion, but easily enough to provide good statistical data.

Our OP, louiscfc, said that there are some games that you're just not meant to win.

I have replayed matches that seem this way and have never failed to eventually win the match, with the maximum number of replays required somewhere in the region of 20-25 times.

This shows that it is very unlikely that there are matches that you are just not meant to win. Although I haven't replayed every single lost match to prove that you can always win it eventually, I have played enough and I reiterate, I have never failed to win it eventually, to prove beyond reasonable doubt, that it is possible to win every match.

So, does this prove FM Nutter right, in that I got things wrong the first time I played?

Not at all. I have replayed both by changing significant parameters, tactics, team talks, selection etc., and I have played even more replays changing absolutely nothing at all. The result is no difference. You are just about as likely to win a replay by playing exactly the same as you did when you lost as you are if you change a bunch of stuff.

You can lose a match 3-1 and then reload and replay, set everything exactly the same and win 4-0. I've done it many times to prove the point. Of course, it may take 10-20 replays to get your 4-0 win, or you may do it on the first replay.

If anyone is interested in finding out for themselves, rather than arguing about it here, I would suggest you do some of your own experiments. What does this prove? If you lose 3-1 first time out, replay with same settings and then win 4-0, it shows that it was not necessarily your fault that you lost first time out, otherwise how could you win replay with all the same settings?

So what explains the unexpected results? Evidence from all of these replays points to some randomness or probability modifier being programmed into the game. This is not difficult as pretty well all aspects of the game relate to numbers and statistics which translate in the match engine to the percentage likelyhood of something happening.

These, so-called unwinable matches are simply matches that have had these probabilities weighted against you in some way, to make certain matches much harder to win. This could be a routine written in to monitor your results and take you down a peg or two if you're doing too well, or simply a randomly generated harder to win match.

This is necessary, as most of us wouldn't get much enjoyment from always winning. We need a challenge to want to continue playing for years on end. Is it annoying to lose these matches, especially if it's a home game against lowly opposition? Yes of course it is, which is why I have determined to get to the bottom of it by replaying so many matches.

Now that I know what's going on and have a good idea how the games programmers have achieved it and also accept the need for it, I can happily play and lose these games, knowing that if I won all the time I'd lose interest, but also knowing that if I lose It's not necessarily because I got something wrong.

I know that people on here will disagree with me, but that's only because they haven't done the level of experimentation that I have done.

Oh, and another request to SI. If you haven't built some kind of probability adjustment or random difficulty adjustment of some kind into the game, then come out and say so and then we can put this to bed for good. Also, please don't be pedantic about my choice of terms, which may not be correct technically, but describe in words how you have programmed the match engine.

I don't seriously expect an answer from SI. They probably believe that we can't handle the truth!

Maybe they're right, as those who believe we are in full control and always to blame for our own poor results, can't handle the idea that the match engine weighs the odds heavily against us so we will most likely lose whatever we do. Those that believe the game is so scripted that there are some games that we are not meant to win are happy to blame the match engine for all of their defeats and this also isn't true.

Conclusion.

Play how you want, believe what you want, but most importantly, enjoy playing!

 

[InValide jr]

I think that your in control of your destiny with si throughing in some curve balls where by sometimes you come up against a team in real form and theres very little you can do to beat them, i had a save where i lost 5-0 to west ham (lower prem) as spurs (CL champs) i decided to save as a new game so's not to loose my save and reload the old save to try beat them. 11 trys later and 8 times holiday'ed later too the closest i came was 2-2 , i tried a range of crazy stuff and my 3 tactics plus the morale was excellent in my team. i guess either it was west ham getting lucky 19 times or they were just on a hot streak - maybe a team meeting with their manager means they will win 24/15 times the next game.

when this sorta stuff does happen i do question the games mechanics and if the decsions i make really do make a differnce but if you play through without reloading you wont know you would have lost that game 19 times in a row so maybe thats the point of it. scripting for realisim (providing you dont reload and discover it?)




anyway idk but i would say theres defintly a mixture of "its in your own hands" and "Random team form" not scripted as such but a random event triggerd randomly which makes a team very good for a game.

Having said that i've tried it with other loses and won it the next time round so i think these hard to win games are rare but are deffintly caused by something inbuilt into the game mechanics

 

[Francisco Pires]

Man, it's tactics! There are some tactics that just don't work against others (real life example: Tiki-Taka vs Ultra Defensive). You can't win every game in a season using just one tactic.

My strategy is having two tactics (both at fluid) that, although both of them are similar, they have some differences that can turn games (high vs low defensive line and 4 vs 5 midfielders).

Almost every tactic I played against can be beaten by one of them so I try to choose between both (still haven't found the perfect criteria to choose though I've gotten better at it). So, if I'm not dominating (most likely I chose the wrong tactic), I just switch at half time and I usually make some awesome comebacks.

EDIT: Forgot to add...

Besides this, there are two factors. One is luck which is innerent to football IRL and in the game. The game is basically probabilities resulting of different weights like attributes, morale, form and, of course, tactics. Conceding early can turn an easy match up into a very hard one, but again, same as real life!
About morale, it's not just the "superb" that matters. Playing away or home and how well the game is going matters even more than "superb". Also, superb doesn't mean your player will play at it's max, in fact, over-confidence comes in!

The other is, yes there are game you just can't win. In my save, this happens to me against man utd and tottenham away (4 seasons and I only beat each once in away games). Also, I ALWAYS play bad against Newcastle, home or away, since the first season, but I'm 100% positive it is because of something in their tactic.

There is also the fact that some teams get boosted against stronger teams and some strong teams play bad against lower ones (hint: check any player in the editor for hidden attributes).


In the end the game is a big mathematical system, very unpredictable, with lots of factors way out of our control, but also dozens of them on our hands. But I don't think it cheats like "oh you're playing too well, let me make you loose next game".
Those games are usually caused by a very high/low defensive line, a defender marking the wrong guy, a player that should/shouldn't be pressed/tight marked in opposition instructions, you playing too narrow/wide or too slow/fast, over-confidence, a boosted home-playing team, a boosted GK, lack of enough midfielders... the list goes on...

 

[Smokeydubbs]

I try to figure out this engine all the time. I've had games that seem impossible to win, I've fiddled to see how CA/PA is calculated, and I still have no idea with either of them.

Piginho has said it better than I could, and has years more experience with it.

I believe the game is just random.

 

[SCF]

Man, it's tactics! There are some tactics that just don't work against others (real life example: Tiki-Taka vs Ultra Defensive). You can't win every game in a season using just one tactic.

My strategy is having two tactics (both at fluid) that, although both of them are similar, they have some differences that can turn games (high vs low defensive line and 4 vs 5 midfielders).

Almost every tactic I played against can be beaten by one of them so I try to choose between both (still haven't found the perfect criteria to choose though I've gotten better at it). So, if I'm not dominating (most likely I chose the wrong tactic), I just switch at half time and I usually make some awesome comebacks.

Did you actually read Piginho's post?

 

[Mike.]

Not necessarily. OK, this has been debated at length, maybe a year or two ago, with a very long thread and no conclusive answer. Why? Because none of the game's programmers have come out and given a definitive answer.

Some believe that the game is "scripted" to a greater or lesser extent. Some like FM Nutter believe that you are fully in control of your destiny and responsible for all your own defeats.

I'm afraid that extensive experimentation proves that neither of the above is true.

Why do I say this?

First, I would like to stress that I do not make a habit of replaying matches, however, for the purposes of trying to determine the truth on this matter I have replayed hundreds of matches over the years. I have been playing since CM 03/04 and in that time have played many thousands of matches and can assure you that the replays are still a small proportion, but easily enough to provide good statistical data.

Our OP, louiscfc, said that there are some games that you're just not meant to win.

I have replayed matches that seem this way and have never failed to eventually win the match, with the maximum number of replays required somewhere in the region of 20-25 times.

This shows that it is very unlikely that there are matches that you are just not meant to win. Although I haven't replayed every single lost match to prove that you can always win it eventually, I have played enough and I reiterate, I have never failed to win it eventually, to prove beyond reasonable doubt, that it is possible to win every match.

So, does this prove FM Nutter right, in that I got things wrong the first time I played?

Not at all. I have replayed both by changing significant parameters, tactics, team talks, selection etc., and I have played even more replays changing absolutely nothing at all. The result is no difference. You are just about as likely to win a replay by playing exactly the same as you did when you lost as you are if you change a bunch of stuff.

You can lose a match 3-1 and then reload and replay, set everything exactly the same and win 4-0. I've done it many times to prove the point. Of course, it may take 10-20 replays to get your 4-0 win, or you may do it on the first replay.

If anyone is interested in finding out for themselves, rather than arguing about it here, I would suggest you do some of your own experiments. What does this prove? If you lose 3-1 first time out, replay with same settings and then win 4-0, it shows that it was not necessarily your fault that you lost first time out, otherwise how could you win replay with all the same settings?

So what explains the unexpected results? Evidence from all of these replays points to some randomness or probability modifier being programmed into the game. This is not difficult as pretty well all aspects of the game relate to numbers and statistics which translate in the match engine to the percentage likelyhood of something happening.

These, so-called unwinable matches are simply matches that have had these probabilities weighted against you in some way, to make certain matches much harder to win. This could be a routine written in to monitor your results and take you down a peg or two if you're doing too well, or simply a randomly generated harder to win match.

This is necessary, as most of us wouldn't get much enjoyment from always winning. We need a challenge to want to continue playing for years on end. Is it annoying to lose these matches, especially if it's a home game against lowly opposition? Yes of course it is, which is why I have determined to get to the bottom of it by replaying so many matches.

Now that I know what's going on and have a good idea how the games programmers have achieved it and also accept the need for it, I can happily play and lose these games, knowing that if I won all the time I'd lose interest, but also knowing that if I lose It's not necessarily because I got something wrong.

I know that people on here will disagree with me, but that's only because they haven't done the level of experimentation that I have done.

Oh, and another request to SI. If you haven't built some kind of probability adjustment or random difficulty adjustment of some kind into the game, then come out and say so and then we can put this to bed for good. Also, please don't be pedantic about my choice of terms, which may not be correct technically, but describe in words how you have programmed the match engine.

I don't seriously expect an answer from SI. They probably believe that we can't handle the truth!

Maybe they're right, as those who believe we are in full control and always to blame for our own poor results, can't handle the idea that the match engine weighs the odds heavily against us so we will most likely lose whatever we do. Those that believe the game is so scripted that there are some games that we are not meant to win are happy to blame the match engine for all of their defeats and this also isn't true.

Conclusion.

Play how you want, believe what you want, but most importantly, enjoy playing!

Actually replaying doesnt prove much, because each time the random factor can change. No match is exactly the same.

They have given an answer, and not for the first time.

They have said there is no scripting/rubberbanding/ weighted probability rating of of any kind of any kind. repeatedly. Over and over. Anyone who spends any real time following the likes of PaulC will see this. All games are winnable, but it doesnt mean you will win it. The chances of winning a game come down to every factor that goes into a game, from the weather, to the quality of your players, to the tatical line up, and about a hundred other factors in between. And that is just before kick off, the chances then fluctuate based on how the match unfolds, based on changes you make, the AI makes, how the player reacts and again so many other factors in between. A good FM will be able to work these factors to their advantage, but not all factors are under your control, and that is where the randomness comes into play.

But there short answer is that there is no game in FM that is artificially made unwinnable or balanced against you.

And its nothing to with experimentation. Its cold hard programming fact, as upheld by SI mods who are ex FM programmers and thus get to speak freely.

Whether people believe that is up to them, still doesnt change the facts.

There are many issues and things wrong with the game, I spend a lot of time pointing these out on the SI forums, after all i want the best game possible but "unwinnable" games are not one of them. Anyone who claims there is fixing of any kind simply is wrong.

 

[Piginho]

Mike,

First of all, I didn't say that any games are unwinnable, just made more difficult, in fact I said the opposite, in that in my experience all games are winnable.

I've proven the above by winning games as lower league teams against top teams, sometimes first time around and sometimes after lots of replays. Some of these games you would never expect to win in a month of Sundays.

If these SI mods, who you claim are ex SI programmers, have often said that there is no probability adjustment or random difficulty thrown in, then please post the links so that I can read their comments. Even if these exist, I would be more convinced if a current SI match engine programmer were to come out and say it.

You also say that there are many issues wrong with the game, but I didn't say that this was wrong, again, quite the opposite if you read my post properly.

You say, "Actually replaying doesn't prove much, because each time the random factor can change. No match is exactly the same."

This proves my point, that even if you get your tactics, team talks, instructions, team selection perfect, that there are random factors, and you can call them what you want, that may make it difficult for you to win, but hey presto, you replay with exactly the same parameters set and you win, so what? Did you get your tactics wrong in the first match, but right when you replayed? You can't have it both ways if you leave all parameters the same, we have to come to the conclusion, like you said, each time a random factor can change. This proves beyond doubt that you are most definitely not in full control.

You talk about the weather, your tactical line up, the quality of your players and a hundred different things affect the chances, or probabilities in the game and of course you are right, but my contention, born out from the evidence of my own eyes through such experimentation, is that either the programmers put in a random extra difficulty, whereby the odds of things happening in you favour have been adjusted against you because you have been winning too many games, or they simply have a random difficult match generator which does the same thing.

If there are a hundred or more factors which the match engine takes into consideration while the match is being played and the combination of all of these factors and their relevant mathematical weight will affect the probability of for example, your striker scoring with a shot from the edge of the box, why is it so hard to comprehend one extra factor, such as a match difficulty modifier being thrown in to adjust all of these odds one way or the other?

 

[A. J. Crowley]

When you get in a good streak, the game does get progressively bitchier in an attempt to stop you
Which is not to say that you can't fight through it - I've went entire seasons unbeaten
Still, it's annoying. Especially since the slips usually happen against teams you should be crushing and not against teams that could actually pose a threat

 

[Mike.]

Mike,

First of all, I didn't say that any games are unwinnable, just made more difficult, in fact I said the opposite, in that in my experience all games are winnable.

I've proven the above by winning games as lower league teams against top teams, sometimes first time around and sometimes after lots of replays. Some of these games you would never expect to win in a month of Sundays.

If these SI mods, who you claim are ex SI programmers, have often said that there is no probability adjustment or random difficulty thrown in, then please post the links so that I can read their comments. Even if these exist, I would be more convinced if a current SI match engine programmer were to come out and say it.

You also say that there are many issues wrong with the game, but I didn't say that this was wrong, again, quite the opposite if you read my post properly.

You say, "Actually replaying doesn't prove much, because each time the random factor can change. No match is exactly the same."

This proves my point, that even if you get your tactics, team talks, instructions, team selection perfect, that there are random factors, and you can call them what you want, that may make it difficult for you to win, but hey presto, you replay with exactly the same parameters set and you win, so what? Did you get your tactics wrong in the first match, but right when you replayed? You can't have it both ways if you leave all parameters the same, we have to come to the conclusion, like you said, each time a random factor can change. This proves beyond doubt that you are most definitely not in full control.

You talk about the weather, your tactical line up, the quality of your players and a hundred different things affect the chances, or probabilities in the game and of course you are right, but my contention, born out from the evidence of my own eyes through such experimentation, is that either the programmers put in a random extra difficulty, whereby the odds of things happening in you favour have been adjusted against you because you have been winning too many games, or they simply have a random difficult match generator which does the same thing.

If there are a hundred or more factors which the match engine takes into consideration while the match is being played and the combination of all of these factors and their relevant mathematical weight will affect the probability of for example, your striker scoring with a shot from the edge of the box, why is it so hard to comprehend one extra factor, such as a match difficulty modifier being thrown in to adjust all of these odds one way or the other?

It wasnt just a reply to you, but to people in general. Same misinformation goes round all the time.

If these SI mods, who you claim are ex SI programmers, have often said that there is no probability adjustment or random difficulty thrown in, then please post the links so that I can read their comments. Even if these exist, I would be more convinced if a current SI match engine programmer were to come out and say it.

Firstly for this link, go onto the SI general discussion threads. And hang around long enough because sooner or later, Because you wont get them answering you on here. We are not the official forum. For all the asnwers you are looking for you are in the wrong place. Nothing would make me happier than to show you, but you are asking me to find 10's of posts from hundreds of thousands. But im going to go one better and get PaulC to message me back in the next few days.

Look out for posts by wwfan (TC), and PaulC (Match Engine), and Ackter (who is the ex SI programmer I mean) or even message them yourselves, if you give them the time to respond they will explain, especially wwfan. I'm not here to convince you, I'm saying how it works. Belief doesnt come into it. If you are not convinced that is fine, but it still doesnt change that there no stacked coding, and there never has been.

You say, "Actually replaying doesn't prove much, because each time the random factor can change. No match is exactly the same."

This proves my point, that even if you get your tactics, team talks, instructions, team selection perfect, that there are random factors, and you can call them what you want, that may make it difficult for you to win, but hey presto, you replay with exactly the same parameters set and you win, so what? Did you get your tactics wrong in the first match, but right when you replayed? You can't have it both ways if you leave all parameters the same, we have to come to the conclusion, like you said, each time a random factor can change. This proves beyond doubt that you are most definitely not in full control.

The games are not made more difficult through arbitray.

You assume these factors are always against you, they in fact can go your way. The point is that they are random.

The random factor isnt one specific factor. Of course you are not in total 100% control, you are not in total control in real life. You dont control every kick of the ball, whether your player kicks left or right. You cant control if that cross field pass might work one reload, but then get intercepted in another from which they score. You cant control if your player gets injured, from being hacked down by the opposition. You cant control that you might score from a fluke cross because their keeper makes a mistake he couldnt make in 100 games. Could go on and on, but im sure you get the picture. That is just part of the "random factor"

If there are a hundred or more factors which the match engine takes into consideration while the match is being played and the combination of all of these factors and their relevant mathematical weight will affect the probability of for example, your striker scoring with a shot from the edge of the box, why is it so hard to comprehend one extra factor, such as a match difficulty modifier being thrown in to adjust all of these odds one way or the other?

Because that deliberately weighted factor isnt programmed into the game. That is the point I am making. An abitrary factor saying "The player is on a 25 game winning streak, we are going to make his opposition player like gods" doesnt exist. That is fixing the game. There is no fixing in the game. There is no deliberate stacking of the game against the player, like you would get in Total war for example. There is nothing that affects the players chances of winning in any kind of unfair manner.

For one thing the ME cannot tell the difference between the AI input and the player input.

Some games carry more pressure, such as a CL final, and these matches can be harder if your players are not big game players ( ie high stats in pressure, and important matches and good personality traits and determination, these are hidden stat that only be seen by FMRTE or the editor) But there is no code that starts tipping the balance.

but my contention, born out from the evidence of my own eyes through such experimentation, is that either the programmers put in a random extra difficulty, whereby the odds of things happening in you favour have been adjusted against you because you have been winning too many games, or they simply have a random difficult match generator which does the same thing.

Neither of these things exist. Never have, and never will. The closest you get to any kind of difficulty setting is choosing your rep at the start of the game.

Your posts are well written, and a nice change from the crazy ranting, but it essentially boils down to the same question: Is the game fixed?

Answer: No

 

[Chriis]

Questioning the realism of the game... I think the keyword here is game, games do tend to have the odd feature that isn't an exact replica of real life, that's the point of a game really.

 

[TakedaLegout]

Wait a sec, what about the games that you just can't seem to lose? Do you re-start and see if you would've lost next time out?

Not gonna lie, in the last FM I owned (09), I wanted to see how far I could take my team so I would restart until I won key games. Made it a LOT of fun getting to EC, ECC, all of the accolades and such but I could never shake the fact that my team didn't deserve to be there. For FM12, I have refused to re-start, even when I knew the 0-6 blowout was going to destroy my team's morale and make the board give me grief. You win some, you lose some. C'est la vie.

 

[Piginho]

Look out for posts by wwfan (TC), and PaulC (Match Engine), and Ackter (who is the ex SI programmer I mean) or even message them yourselves, if you give them the time to respond they will explain, especially wwfan. I'm not here to convince you, I'm saying how it works. Belief doesnt come into it. If you are not convinced that is fine, but it still doesnt change that there no stacked coding, and there never has been.

Whilst I accept your rock certain belief in this, this doesn't necessarily make it so and I will go on to explain in a minute.

You assume these factors are always against you, they in fact can go your way. The point is that they are random.

Actually, no I don't. I have not said that any suggested randomness adjustment can't work in your favour, although I can understand you assuming that, as I have not talked about the other side of the coin in this thread. It is something that has been discussed at length in the past however. So yes, I do accept that if the odds are stacked against you, you can be helped by random factors to win anyway.

The random factor isnt one specific factor. Of course you are not in total 100% control, you are not in total control in real life. You dont control every kick of the ball, whether your player kicks left or right. You cant control if that cross field pass might work one reload, but then get intercepted in another from which they score. You cant control if your player gets injured, from being hacked down by the opposition. You cant control that you might score from a fluke cross because their keeper makes a mistake he couldnt make in 100 games. Could go on and on, but im sure you get the picture. That is just part of the "random factor"

This is why I say that even if you do get everything right you can still lose even if you are by far the team favoured to win. By the way, this is the way it should be, as there are some things in life that give you negative experiences, that you couldn't be expected to avoid. I don't believe in fate, which is one end of the spectrum, but I also don't believe that we are in total control of our destiny due to unforeseen occurrences that can have impacts on our life that we can't control.

Because that deliberately weighted factor isnt programmed into the game. That is the point I am making. An abitrary factor saying "The player is on a 25 game winning streak, we are going to make his opposition player like gods" doesnt exist. That is fixing the game. There is no fixing in the game. There is no deliberate stacking of the game against the player, like you would get in Total war for example. There is nothing that affects the players chances of winning in any kind of unfair manner.

OK, this is why I disagree. You're playing as Man City in an FA Cup quarter final at home to Scunthorpe (this is not meant as any disrespect to Scunthorpe fans). You are not complacent, so you pick your best team and tactics to suit the opposition. The weather is fine, morale is as good as can be, your team talk ensures your players aren't complacent, in fact you even take time to give individual team talks to suit each players mentality and form. Guess what; you lose 1-0.

You're saying that there are enough random factors in the game to allow for this result, but here's the problem. If all probabilities were taken into account the match engine or game software might determine that Scunthorpe maybe has only a 5% chance of winning, with a 5% chance of a draw and 90% chance Man City win. That would allow for you to lose, but only a 1 in 20 chance of this happening. That would mean that if you replayed the game, so that in all you played it 20 times, you would expect 18 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat.

This is not what happens in practice. You might have to replay a game like this 5-10 times or even more to get a victory.

If we accept for example that this game only has a 10% chance of a negative result, either a draw or defeat and we have to replay so that we end up playing 10 times to win, then do the maths. It would be the same probability of throwing the same number 9 times in a row on a ten sided dice, before we finally throw any other of the 9 numbers to give us the win. What are the odds? 1 in 1,000,000,000. It's not reasonable to accept these odds and we therefore conclude that there is extra randomness built in over and above all the the parameters that we know of.

Some games carry more pressure, such as a CL final, and these matches can be harder if your players are not big game players ( ie high stats in pressure, and important matches and good personality traits and determination, these are hidden stat that only be seen by FMRTE or the editor)

This also makes my point. If there are hidden player stats which affect the game, why shouldn't there be other hidden parameters that affect results.

Your posts are well written, and a nice change from the crazy ranting, but it essentially boils down to the same question: Is the game fixed?

Answer: No

Thank you, there's no point in ranting and I don't mind if the game has a hidden modifier in it to affect match difficulty in the way I describe. Is the game fixed? Well that depends what you mean by fixed, but by my definition no, not fixed, but yes, on occasion the software has been written in such a way as to provide shock results that cannot be explained within the normal randomness in the games parameters, hidden or not and using my example above, shows that the game designers have done their best to make the game realistic by adjusting match difficulty (or easiness) so as to create variety and interest in the game. The problem is that they are trying to appeal to different gaming mentalities and as such, you cannot please all of the people all of the time.

 

[FM Nutter]

OK, this is why I disagree. You're playing as Man City in an FA Cup quarter final at home to Scunthorpe (this is not meant as any disrespect to Scunthorpe fans). You are not complacent, so you pick your best team and tactics to suit the opposition. The weather is fine, morale is as good as can be, your team talk ensures your players aren't complacent, in fact you even take time to give individual team talks to suit each players mentality and form. Guess what; you lose 1-0.

Sorry, but this I disagree with. IRL, anyone can beat anyone, no matter what team, players, form ect...

I can give many examples. One good one.

Arsenal vs West Ham, 2007

Arsenal had about 30 shots on goal, most of the possession. We had about 5 and yet what was the final score? 1-0 to West Ham. Considering that we was fighting relegation and our morale was poor, would you have expected that? No of course not, yet it happend because thats football.

A different example, Barcelona vs Chelsea second leg Champions League 2012.

Chelsea go down to 10 men and are losing 2-0 at the Nou Camp with Barcelona having all the possession. Would you have expected Chelsea to come back? No course not, yet they got their tactics spot on and came away with a Draw on the night and a win on Aggregate.

This can happen in Football Manager, its Ok saying to replay the match and change tactics and the result is different but how do you know if that is scripted or not? if this happend in IRL, and matches were replayed and tactics were changed, how many results would be different?

This is what many people fail to realise, what happens in FM can EASILY happen IRL and replaying the game doesn't make a difference because your not in control of the opposition and you don't know what the AI do to counter your formation, you don't know what team talks or opposition instructions they use, again just like IRL but again sometimes the team gets it wrong. You don't expect a team to lose and BAM they can lose . Take the Premier League season just gone for example.

 

[Piginho]

Sorry, but this I disagree with. IRL, anyone can beat anyone, no matter what team, players, form ect...

Check my posts and you'll see that I completely agree with this, any team can beat any team.

This can happen in Football Manager, its Ok saying to replay the match and change tactics and the result is different but how do you know if that is scripted or not? if this happend in IRL, and matches were replayed and tactics were changed, how many results would be different?

Actually, as I have already said, I have tried both changing the tactics and leaving as they were. When I say leaving them as they were, I'm talking about exactly the same and with no in game changes whatsoever. When you replay under these conditions the start conditions are the same and your actions do not affect the differences between one replay or another. The only thing that can then change the result is the games own inbuilt randomness, or method of decision making when faced with all of the various probability inputs from the multitude of different factors that affect individual game play actions and hence the result.

This is what many people fail to realise, what happens in FM can EASILY happen IRL and replaying the game doesn't make a difference because your not in control of the opposition and you don't know what the AI do to counter your formation, you don't know what team talks or opposition instructions they use, again just like IRL but again sometimes the team gets it wrong. You don't expect a team to lose and BAM they can lose . Take the Premier League season just gone for example.

And yet in your earlier post you said that if you lost it was your own fault as you got your tactics wrong.

I'm saying that you can get your tactics and everything else spot on and be heavily favoured to win and yet still lose. This is reasonable, because as you say, citing the Arsenal v West Ham example, the unexpected can and often does happen.

But, from this we deduce that even if you get everything right you can lose, so losing may not be your fault or because you got you tactics wrong, as you claimed earlier.

I don't like the use of the word scripted, for what I believe is happening in the game, as this implies a far greater control on outcomes than is the case, almost suggesting a linear storyline and that whatever you do, the outcome will be the same.

Equally, I am not prepared to believe that the games designers have not put in a method of, on occasion, stacking the odds, either against you (which we all tend to think anytime we lose, which of course is unreasonable) or for you (which none us notice, because when we win it's always down to our own brilliance, right), so notice, I said, on occasion.

Short of SI's own programmers showing me the code and explaining it to me, I will never be persuaded otherwise, as my own experimentation, which has been very extensive, supports all of my argumentation.

They obviously wouldn't want to admit to what I am suggesting, as this would alienate the section of their buying public who would be outraged by the suggestion that the game mechanics have a method of stacking the odds, so to speak, but I don't see them coming out with a clear denial either. Why, because it would be a lie and I don't like lies to such an extent that I personally would set out to prove my arguments and then sue their posteriors, if I could get the resources so to do.

 

[TheBetterHalf]

As written earlier( not in here in generall) tactics are only a small part of the game. If the players are not up for it, beingcomplacent, drop in form,slightly exhausted. Unmotivated, you/the *** man has given a dodgy press conf that does not match the ambition and mental state of the players... And naturally all the above things also goes for the opponent.

Now, consider a scenario where you have a disadvantage in the above ( poor press conf, complacent players etc) and the opponent have an advantage here( fired up team, players having a form peak etc), would you expect to win ?