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

[Piginho]

First things first "people like you" is a bit much. I am not being dismissive of you so lets leave it at that.

You're right of course, and I apologise. I should stick to the argument and not put in personal jibes.

Secondly, Danbo actually stated he scored first in he game he won (read his post again).

Well obviously, as he won it 4-0! Why don't you read my post again? I said, "maybe in one of his horrible defeats he scored first".

Thirdly, I never said the outcome was not fixed or that this was your point, I simply stated that the game is not fixed.

Good, then we agree on this point.

As I said before I have been playing FM and CM before since CM3 and before that LMA and Player Manager so please don't try and be rude or talk down to me mate (I ain't picking an argument just making a point).

Hmmmm, I'll come back to this one under "For those of us that try and improve our own abilities" a bit later.

As people have said already the game has changed since the days of CM3 and even FM05, now things like team talks, squad morale, in game conditions, injuries, confidence and motivation are big factors now, all I am saying is this.

Of course, which means that there are more variables than ever to be taken into account by both player and AI, but why should this preclude the presence of an additional variable, which for want of a better description, we'll call an odds stacker, which I believe has been present since I started playing CM 03/04 and has been present ever since including FM 05 right through to FM 12. That's not to say that it also hasn't gone through some changes in this time, but if you do enough of your own experimentation in a controlled manner, you should be able to prove to yourself it's existence.

Thinking that the game stacks the odds against you is an easy out, it seems to show that the player can find an excuse for loosing a game he was meant to win. It takes the fun and "real lie" element out of the game (not that it is real life but it tries to sim real life) replaying games is a bit of a cheat but one that many, including myself, have done.

Again, you fall into the category of people who believe that they control everything in their lives and that if things go wrong it must be their fault in some way. Tell me, if you're walking along on the pavement, fully observant of dangers and hazards, but while doing so, a bus comes along and as it approaches one of it's tyres bursts, causing it to lose control, it mounts the pavement and runs into you, killing you instantly. Was this your fault for not anticipating the danger? Was it down to you to be somewhere else safe? Was it the bus drivers fault? Was it the fault of the tyre manufacturer? and so on.

If the game has an odds stacker, as I suggest, then it's only mimicking real life and it doesn't excuse you if you lose, you still have to look honestly at how you prepared for the match and how you played it. Sometimes you will conclude that you got something wrong and at other times you will accept that the odds were un-naturally stacked against you. It's not a cop out, but then how each player enjoys his game is up to him. Accepting that the game has some form of odds stacker does not take the fun out of it for me as I'm the sort of person that has to understand what's going on, especially if it affects me. Play as Barcelona and improve the handful of weaknesses that it has and you could reasonably expect to win almost every game. That would get boring eventually, so it's made difficult to keep you interested.

You say that replaying games is a bit of a cheat and I agree, it's a lot of a cheat, but why did we all do our first replay? Surely it's because we were outraged at losing, when we feel we should have won. After the first few times, I started to see a pattern and started to do it to prove a point. You say that you have replayed, but imply that this is only occasional. I assure you that if you do it in a controlled way and sufficient times, you will come to the same conclusion as I have.

No, it doesn't take away the fun as it attempts to use unpredictability to copy real life.

For those of us that try and improve our own abilities (again in the game) loosing is essential, and I am sure the great David Moyes would not be promoting the use of the FM series if it was, in essence, a fraud.
So let us all keep believing we are better than Wenger, Fergie, Hodgson etc because that is why we buy it in the first place.

You imply that I don't try to improve my own abilities by imagining that I always replay, rather than improve my game to win. Let me assure you that I have already explained my motivation behind replays, but that when playing a serious game for my own enjoyment, I do not replay. I would refer you back to a couple of challenges that I was involved in using FM 2010, both set by Pompey_Dan, where as part of the challenge rules, he insisted that the number of saves was limited and that players had to submit their saves to him for inspection should any questions be raised.

Pompey_Dan limited saves to one per game month and I am on record posting to suggest that he limit this still further. The first of theses two challenges involved helping Argentinian team, Rosario, to avoid relegation and get the best average points per game. They have a more complex system to decide relegation/promotion, based on results over three years. I won this challenge and only saved my game three times during the 6 month game play period, so I obviously had some long game play sessions.

The next challenge involved trying to rebuild the Inter team and getting back into Serie A, following the match fixing scandals in Italy a couple of years ago. Again, I won the first part of this two part challenge and again with far less saves than the permitted amount.

So, yes, I'm a very experienced FM player, even if it doesn't go back quite as far as you. I'm also very happy to play without replays and have proven against alcomers to be successful at it when I choose to.

An odds stacker does exist, but it doesn't spoil the fun for me.

 

[AmunRa]

You're right of course, and I apologise. I should stick to the argument and not put in personal jibes.


Well obviously, as he won it 4-0! Why don't you read my post again? I said, "maybe in one of his horrible defeats he scored first".


Good, then we agree on this point.


Hmmmm, I'll come back to this one under "For those of us that try and improve our own abilities" a bit later.


Of course, which means that there are more variables than ever to be taken into account by both player and AI, but why should this preclude the presence of an additional variable, which for want of a better description, we'll call an odds stacker, which I believe has been present since I started playing CM 03/04 and has been present ever since including FM 05 right through to FM 12. That's not to say that it also hasn't gone through some changes in this time, but if you do enough of your own experimentation in a controlled manner, you should be able to prove to yourself it's existence.


Again, you fall into the category of people who believe that they control everything in their lives and that if things go wrong it must be their fault in some way. Tell me, if you're walking along on the pavement, fully observant of dangers and hazards, but while doing so, a bus comes along and as it approaches one of it's tyres bursts, causing it to lose control, it mounts the pavement and runs into you, killing you instantly. Was this your fault for not anticipating the danger? Was it down to you to be somewhere else safe? Was it the bus drivers fault? Was it the fault of the tyre manufacturer? and so on.

If the game has an odds stacker, as I suggest, then it's only mimicking real life and it doesn't excuse you if you lose, you still have to look honestly at how you prepared for the match and how you played it. Sometimes you will conclude that you got something wrong and at other times you will accept that the odds were un-naturally stacked against you. It's not a cop out, but then how each player enjoys his game is up to him. Accepting that the game has some form of odds stacker does not take the fun out of it for me as I'm the sort of person that has to understand what's going on, especially if it affects me. Play as Barcelona and improve the handful of weaknesses that it has and you could reasonably expect to win almost every game. That would get boring eventually, so it's made difficult to keep you interested.

You say that replaying games is a bit of a cheat and I agree, it's a lot of a cheat, but why did we all do our first replay? Surely it's because we were outraged at losing, when we feel we should have won. After the first few times, I started to see a pattern and started to do it to prove a point. You say that you have replayed, but imply that this is only occasional. I assure you that if you do it in a controlled way and sufficient times, you will come to the same conclusion as I have.

No, it doesn't take away the fun as it attempts to use unpredictability to copy real life.


You imply that I don't try to improve my own abilities by imagining that I always replay, rather than improve my game to win. Let me assure you that I have already explained my motivation behind replays, but that when playing a serious game for my own enjoyment, I do not replay. I would refer you back to a couple of challenges that I was involved in using FM 2010, both set by Pompey_Dan, where as part of the challenge rules, he insisted that the number of saves was limited and that players had to submit their saves to him for inspection should any questions be raised.

Pompey_Dan limited saves to one per game month and I am on record posting to suggest that he limit this still further. The first of theses two challenges involved helping Argentinian team, Rosario, to avoid relegation and get the best average points per game. They have a more complex system to decide relegation/promotion, based on results over three years. I won this challenge and only saved my game three times during the 6 month game play period, so I obviously had some long game play sessions.

The next challenge involved trying to rebuild the Inter team and getting back into Serie A, following the match fixing scandals in Italy a couple of years ago. Again, I won the first part of this two part challenge and again with far less saves than the permitted amount.

So, yes, I'm a very experienced FM player, even if it doesn't go back quite as far as you. I'm also very happy to play without replays and have proven against alcomers to be successful at it when I choose to.

An odds stacker does exist, but it doesn't spoil the fun for me.

You do make good points in you post but I think we will have to agree to disagree.

Your point about me doing my own experimentation is kind of is not essential to me. I have played enough manager games and enough in the SI family to confidently say the I do not think there is an odds stacker. My opinion, not yours I know.

Me saying "thinking the game stacks the odds is an easy out" simply meant that you can simply say "it was the games fault not something I did/didn't do. How can I avoid that in the future." If an odds stacker does exist in the game then why make it in the first place? (The game)
I do not believe in fate, I believe you make your own destiny. If I get run over by a bus then I can't really say anything either way as I would be dead. You can not control everything in life, somethings are bigger than you. But as a manager you can influence it so your team has the best chance.
This is all football is, chance, a 50-50 chance that x will beat y. That Barcelona (the most dominant club side in the last decade) will loose to Levante is not pre-determined in the stars. On the day Levane played better and Barca were overconfident and arrogant.
In sport anybody can beat anybody because it is unpredictable. FM tries to mirror this so it is as close to real life as possible. It is only this unpredictable nature of sport that makes us keep watching, keeps us interested and so on.

An odds stacker as you call it would take away this unpredictable aspect to the game and make if "fake" because in real life (which the game is trying to sim) when the odds seem stacked against you (Swansea vs Arsenal) or in your favor (City vs Fulham) the underdogs can still cause an upset because they are more determined.

I don't think it is an odds stacker, more the hidden attributes of the 22 players on the pitch and the ability o the manager to motivate his side to win the game.
This is just my opinion.

 

[Piginho]

You do make good points in you post but I think we will have to agree to disagree.

Yes obviously, as you are happier believing what you currently believe.

Your point about me doing my own experimentation is kind of is not essential to me. I have played enough manager games and enough in the SI family to confidently say the I do not think there is an odds stacker. My opinion, not yours I know.

It's precisely because you haven't done sufficient experimentation in the way that I describe, that you come to this conclusion. You don't want to do this, because, as Jack Nicholson says in A Few Good Men, "You can't handle the truth".

Me saying "thinking the game stacks the odds is an easy out" simply meant that you can simply say "it was the games fault not something I did/didn't do. How can I avoid that in the future." If an odds stacker does exist in the game then why make it in the first place? (The game)

In line with my comments in my last post, yes you should always look to see what you might have got wrong, but after careful and honest analysis, if you find nothing, it may be because there are still things that you have missed, or it may be because the odds were un-naturally stacked against you.

Why make the game in the first place, with a built in odds stacking mechanism? Because there's a massive market for it and it's possibly the best way to programme in the likelihood of getting unexpected and unpredictable results. It's essential really and doesn't make the game a fraud.

I do not believe in fate,

Good, neither do I, which I have said before.

I believe you make your own destiny.

largely true, but time and unforeseen occurrence can affect any of us, so only true to a point.

If I get run over by a bus then I can't really say anything either way as I would be dead.

And when you're dead you're dead! OK, let's assume that you're paralysed for life instead, so you can still reflect on who's to blame.

You can not control everything in life, somethings are bigger than you. But as a manager you can influence it so your team has the best chance.
This is all football is, chance, a 50-50 chance that x will beat y. That Barcelona (the most dominant club side in the last decade) will loose to Levante is not pre-determined in the stars. On the day Levane played better and Barca were overconfident and arrogant.
In sport anybody can beat anybody because it is unpredictable. FM tries to mirror this so it is as close to real life as possible. It is only this unpredictable nature of sport that makes us keep watching, keeps us interested and so on.

The game has to simulate the fact that you can't control everything in life and matches are rarely 50-50 chances of winning. You influence the odds in your favour as much as you can and for most of us, by the time we got a good range of tactics that work in different scenarios and have built a superb team, training our players and achieved excellent morale, we would be winning virtually every game. Most of us would get bored, so the game has to find a way of negating all of our positive influences, to give the AI a better chance to win and to keep giving us a challenge.

An odds stacker as you call it would take away this unpredictable aspect to the game and make if "fake" because in real life (which the game is trying to sim) when the odds seem stacked against you (Swansea vs Arsenal) or in your favor (City vs Fulham) the underdogs can still cause an upset because they are more determined.

That's precisely why an odds stacker is essential. It's there to make it unpredictable. If you enter every game with the odds heavily in your favour, you'd expect to Win all of the time. Computer's just crunch the numbers (yes I know I'm oversimplifying), so it needs an odds stacker, or modifier to throw in some unexpected outcomes.

I don't think it is an odds stacker, more the hidden attributes of the 22 players on the pitch and the ability o the manager to motivate his side to win the game.
This is just my opinion.

Of course, all of these things have a massive effect, but again, not enough when all is going in your favour to explain unexpected defeats, which I maintain are down to an odds stacker, or probability modifier or something like it.

When I say people like you, it's not meant as an insult, because we all have different mind sets, different psyches if you like, and for some, the knowledge that the game has such a mechanism built into it would destroy there desire to play altogether.

You might counter, that for others, myself included, we have to find a reason that's not our fault, another mind set if you like.

One thing's for sure. The programmers know, but they will also be cagey, because they have to cater for the biggest market possible and whatever they come out and say could lose them valuable customers.

So, yes, we'll have to agree to differ.

 

[Robloxrepairer]

It is annoying, but FM would just be extremely boring if you won every time.