Pad-23

While playing on FM with Shakhtar i was drawn to play Valencia in the Champions League knock out stages. I noticed Joaquin and Vicente had played a total of 4 Games combined, both had not been injured. This was due to the formation Koeman plays
3 central midfielders, no wingers!!!
Surely he would adapt his formation to include a World Class player such as Joaquin??

the_muffinman

Yes, this is one of the big flaws of the game engine.

Finally someone else who also notices this issue. The problem is that managers always tend to play their favourite tactic, which usually is the tactic they played at their previous club (first and second preferred formation of a manager in the editor, Koeman 4-1-3-2, 4-2-3-1). This shows how basic the AI of a manager is in the game. After a couple of seasons top players can therefore be sometimes picked up for a bargain, because of total mismanagement of a new manager. This has nothing to do with the ability of the manager, worldclass manager make the same costly mistakes also.

I feel that in this area the game CAN and SHOULD be improved in the short term. I tried to fiddle with it in the editor, but I have come to the conclusion that the managers preferred formation is the only variable which decides what the team will play, at the current club but also in a possible future club. Preferred formation of a team, the previous manager or the chairman and the available players do not have any influence on how a new manager will play.

What worries me that this problem has always been present in FM, but SI are somehow still unable to spot this . Even more because in fact the fundaments to fix this is already available in the editor and it is actually very easy to solve/improve: In the editor it is possible to set a preferred formations for a club, chairman, manager and ass. manager. I think compared to how it currently works it would have been better if the CLUB FORMATION resembled the tactic that the club currently plays under its manager. The combination of the managers preferred tactic and playing style together with its interference and tactical knowledge should decide if a manager adopts the tactic of the previous (interference), plays the clubs favourite tactic (interference manager rep.) or chooses its own (favourite or best looking at team line-up).

I'd like to add that its not just the AI for formation selection that is very basic. The squad selection and squad status system for AI managers is also way off. Every team has 1 first team and atleast 3 rotation players for a specific position in the team. Perhaps this is common in the EPL nowadays, but it certainly isn't in every league (imo it should depend on the budget and ambition of a team).

In my opinion what you mentioned is a serious issue. After a few seasons managers switching teams cause complete havoc on the transfer market, completely disrupting teams, and making the game very easy. Ofcourse some think it doesn't matter, you should just make use of this bug. I think it is cheat which can be exploited also in FM08, but should have been fixed by now. It shows that the programming of certain areas in the game is certainly not that brilliant, actually a little basic for current game standards. :eek: