nickdundee

I made a post a few weeks ago stating that i did some tests playing my strongest team in there best positions and then playing the same players but playing them all out of position. My CD as CF my LB as a RM etc and was shocked to see the results ended up being the same for both team after 18 matches. I got various responses and the only one that could explain it was my good team as i called it underperformed and my bad team didn't. My logic was if my team was playing bad in opositions they were suited to they should play worse in positions they hadn't got the attributes to be successfull.

To follow on from this I came up with a way to do a test to see if players are playing to there overall current ability or to there individul player attributes as they should. I open the FM editor and went into the Chelsea team. The only thing i changed was the rating in the positions tab which rate a player to how suited he is to a position. If a player is giving a 20 he is called a natural for that position in the game and if he has a 1 he will be called ineffectual. I then changed all the players(bar the goalies i left them as they were) so my CD would now be called a AM or striker, MY striker would be a Defender etc..(remember this change only changes the description of the players best postions it doesn't give him the attributes to be successfull in this postion) I made these changes so i could go on holiday for a year and let my assistant take charge. These changes don't effect the player attributes at all they just con the assistant into playing players in position they are supposed to be ineffectual in.

I then set up the game loading my new database and went on holiday for a year. When i checked the results and the formations my assistant used for the year he did what i expected and played all the players out of postion. Amazinlgy Chelsea still won the league by 7 points on 91 points with a GD of +45( an average of 2.39 points a game). They also won the Champions League the FA cup and the Charity Shield. In the stats for the season i had the top 3 in average rating. These were Michael Essien with an average rating of 7.56, he played 41 matches during the year all as a striker. Didier Drogba got an average of 7.42 and played 52 games all as a Central Defender. Richard Carvalho got 7.41 and played 32 games as an Attacking Midfielder and 19 as a Central Midfielder. All 3 of these players were playing in a position they were said to be ineffectual. You wouldn't tell by there performances.
Note this test was done by going on holiday my first test was done by watching the game in fast mode with key highlights and the results were the same.

Every player in the team for the whole year played in a position that SI describes them as ineffectual. They state in the manual that "You are free to play him there but he will not perform well". Well i've got news for you, he will play well and he'll play just as well as in the position that he's described as a natural. This all means that the players attributes are pointless and a farce.

The players are obviously playing to there overall abilty level meaning if Player A who is a CD and has an abilty level of 174 with a dribbling attribute of 8 and finishing attribute of 5 he will play better up front than a Forward with an ability level of 160 and a dribbling attribute of 18 and a finshing attribute of 18. A player with an overall ability of 180 with a tackling attribute of 6 will tackle better than a player with an overall ability of 170 with a tackling attribute of 19.

Si also state in the manual on page 37. "It is essential to understand the importance of player attributes in Football Manager 2008 and how they affect various parts of the game". Really? You could definetely have fooled me about there affect. Calling this a farce is possibly an understatement for a game renowned as being realistic.

Drunk Beware

Hmmmm if this is correct, then it is deeply upsetting.

Lyssien

By that you mean that he played e.g. Drogba as a DC?

One potential problem with this experiment is this: database attributes get modulated at the start of the game, according to CA. So, if I got you right, this may well mean that Drogba's changed (with respect to the db values) in a way that suited his new position. This change should not be extremely ... huge, but with these high CAs you never know. This change should be visible in-game, btw.

Anyway, I have no reason to disagree, but I am not 100% persuaded either. For one, you keep using world class teams for your experiments. How about taking Bolton or someone, setting all Acceleration and Pace attributes to 1, and see what happens?

fmadonai

I concur and have done the same thing as the op, holiday and achieved a similar result.

I think you have to take into account though, if your buying fm2008 to go on holiday, then you should expect the game to take short cuts, and the individuation of stats vs the quality of team appears to be one of those short cuts.

homerjnick

Would be interesting to compare player attributes with both DB's?

Ie the one unmodified and the other with the new positions.

Stuyvesant

Screenshot or it didn't happen.

Drunk Beware

Another thing, would it be different if you played through the games?

james4624

I hate to be a nerd, but a sample size of 18 matches is way too small for you to draw an accurate conclusion. To get an accurate conclusion you would have to play at least a few thousand games. If then you were still getting the same results then you would have every reason to be worried.
Having said that though I do agree with you that attributes don't seem to be as important as they should be.

Ched

This is quite alarming, a response from SI would be highly appreciated.

Any chance of some screen shots for this? Because i dearly hope this is just a wind up, not that i'm accusing nickdundee of anything, i just hope FM08 isn't a farce.

nickdundee

Yes i thought of this but in my post i pointed out that in my first test i actually watched the matches and the results were the same.

I don't think using world class teams should matter. Remember SI states that the players play to there attributes and my team played well above there attributes in the positions thye played in. Si also stats players will play bad in postions there ineffectual in. Well they didn't.

I also had a quick check of the attributes against the originals and they hadn't altered to suit the players new position. I'll check again later to make sure although i'm out for the evening now.