retired_FaultyFate

Everything below is imo so no offense please. I see two potential problems here. First one is you are Arsenal, so most likely play attacking football - nice looking, but vulnerable as it can be countered relatively easy. In the season when you won, AI allowed you to run ahead and then other teams were solving their local problems (CL spot, avoid relegation etc.) rather than challenging you for title.

Next season the first priority for AI is to challenge you. And it does it very well as you don't change anything. Moreover, you have EXACT same squad, and here the second problem comes. As irl, your players MUST feel competition. It does not mean you have to change your entire squad, but one or two high quality players, plus more or less regular rotation should do the trick. Pesonally, I almost never play the same 11 two games in a row unless I do not have choice (everybody else injjured, suspended, on int duty, etc.). I make one or two subs every game, more for the sake of team development and competition within squad, rather than to give some players a break. Also, if I play next game against Man Utd (example), I know that Ronaldo has to be watched carefully, so I put MR with better defensive skills, etc.

Tactics are VERY important. The thing is I believe tactic should be built based on your players' abilities, not vice versa. I don't think you can apply Arsenal's tactic to Luton and expect it will work. The reverse is possible, since your squad can adopt more defensive tactic easier due to players quality. Hence, if you want to have "universal" tactic, you better have something close to "normal-defensive" rather than "attacking", as it seems to reduce AI's chanses to counter you.

firefighterhilf

I think you're wrong here. Teams probably will look to play more defensive against Man Utd next season, particularly against Ronaldo. And that's only after them winning the league for the first time in a few years. If they then go onto win it again next year teams will have to try and adapt to close the gap again.

As Man Utd played good attacking football teams will definitaely start to play differently against them. But it won't start next season, it will have already started last season when teams realised the way they were playing and the danger certain players were presenting (no-one expected Ronaldo to have quite the season he did at Man Utd after the world cup shenanigans).

And that brings us to Chelsea. Two seasons of domination has caused teams to have to think more about how to beat them and counter their tactics. This is not the only reason they haven't won the league this year but, as wwfan has said, one thing starting to go against you can be enough.

retired_rolando.perez

First of all, I want to thank you for adding to the debate with a valid example of why someone might accuse the system of ill-play, something which I was unable to do due to the fact I have never found anything to be worthy of the title "cheat" in the game.

I want to point out that the drop from 1st to 12th, while unrealistic, is not completely impossible. History is there to teach us lessons; look back to the past and there are countless examples of teams dropping a great number of rungs in the ladder. Leeds are a great example, and as much as it pains me to say it, Liverpool haven't been able to reclaim top spot since 1990. More recently, Everton finished 4th then 11th in consecutive seasons. Now, while these examples are proof of the general concept of clubs 'falling from grace', it is uncommon as you say to fall from top spot to 12th. The main reason for this is that the team at the top generally has a class manager, ie a manager who is willing to cut his losses and mix things about when things haven't gone to plan. The old cliche about Wenger having Plan A, but no Plan B offers the perfect solution as to why Arsenal haven't won the league since the 03/04 season. However, being a world class manager, Wenger was nonetheless able to adapt sufficiently enough to stop a complete fall of their perch, and they remain a top 4 side. You on the other hand, were clearly unable to make such adaptations, or made the wrong ones, and as such had a dramatic drop. However, that said, even mismanagement alone wouldn't most likely not cause such a drop, but in combination with another potent factor, it becomes a lot more believable...

... your inactivity in the transfer market!! Football is a relative sport. When one team improves its playing staff, so do all the other teams, and they remain at a similar level quality in relation to one another as they were in the previous season, regardless of the fact that individually clubs become stronger than their previous season selves. Now, you left your team the same, while the rest of the league added better players to theirs, and suddenly your team no longer retains its relative dominance, since it has failed to improve alongside the other teams. Ask yourself, why do managers who win the league continue to buy first team players? Well, simple. Because everyone else does. Think about it; if every season a team improves 5% but you don't, then you have lost 5% of your strength. This, coupled with poor adaptability in terms of recognizing that teams are likely to try and play for the draw and therefore close you off, is certainly enough to culminate in the sort of table drop you witnessed. It would be interesting to note how many draws and losses you had in your 12th place season, since high draws would certainly point to the idea that it wasn't other teams attacking a beating you, rather other teams playing more defensively and playing out a draw.

To summarize, I am going to theorize the situation you were in during that season. In the previous seasons, other teams improved their teams and bought better defenders. As you correctly said, they had learnt to defend against you, so your 3 consecutive titles couldn't have been purely tactical. However, you must remember that as they bought better defenders, you bought players of your own, and retained your relative dominance. However, in season 4, you kept the same team, while the other team improved their defences (and their attackers too thinking about it). They kept the same defensive tactics, but it became much more successful since they had improved more than you, and you began to lose points relative to the amount your team had failed to improve. In these circumstances, you had 2 options; adapt, or keep plugging away. Now, if you kept plugging away then teams would have continued throughout the season taking these points off you, explaining your drop. If you adapted, but incorrectly, then you would've also suffered the drop (in fact you would've more than likely sped up the process of your own demise). As such, the reason for your demise is perfectly clear; a) failure to improve relatively, and b) failure to adapt at all/ sufficiently. Therefore, this very much concludes that the AI does not cheat, and that is without taking into account the more minor factors such as media and morale.

retired_FaultyFate

neonlights, I totally agree :thup:

There is always room for improvement, and if you fail to find one, it brings you into trouble. The fact that Drogba was the best in the last season does not guarantee it will happen the next season, even though his attributes (virtual or real) may stay or even improve a bit.

Btw, I believe failing to find right place for improvement is exactly what happened with Chelsea last season. Instead of strengtening positions they realy needed, they brought a couple stars (Shevchenko, Ballack), who are great but did not fit (yet?). Once Terry was injured, they did not have a player who was able to cover for him. And their tactic based on strong defense started to fail. The other teams were able to explore the opportunity. Of course, the failure was not dramatic, and if it were mid-table team nobody would have nooticed.

retired_janae55

Well considering the problems we had last season, I am proud of what we managed to achieve.

On topic though, regarding what you said wwfan, I think too much is based on hypothesis. No offense, but this is a computer game and things are not as "humanised" as you hypothesized in my opinion. Assumptions of team receiving morale boost when playing abig game may be the other way round - a team faces so much pressure against the big team and thus perform poorly than usual, and the big team wins easily.

Another point I would like to raise is that it is annoying how AI always tend to play defensive. Not all managers do that irl even if their teams are the underdogs. Some managers will still play offensive because they go for a win, not playing for a draw or loss, even if their team is not as good as that of the opposition. It is annoying going into almost every game of the season to face a defensive team.

The problem is there is too much gray area within the game, and it is the lack of understanding that causes so much dissatisfaction and frustration.

retired_FaultyFate

Ubos,

I am not saying Chelsea did bad. I was trying to give a real life example how things may go worse than expected even if you have superior team. Most of troubles Chelsea had were unpredictable, but the defense problem became clear. Likewise in FM07 you may not expect problem, but better be safe than sorry. Especially since in FM you don't spend real money

retired_bethalarcon2007

I would say the more accurate observation is that the game does not perfectly mirror real life. When it deviates from real life in ways that disadvantage the player, he claims the game cheats. What's really happening is that it's behaving unrealistically. It's the same, however, for both the player and the PC.

IMHO, one of the biggest situations is with the 4-2-4 for the computer. That formation isn't that successful in real life, even where the other team doesn't bunker down. What really happens is that it dramatically increases the chances of either side scoring a goal. In FM, however, if you don't react - you'll concede far more than is realistic - and you won't score as much as seems authentic.

Now, many players throw up their hands and label this a cheat. It's not. The close-up-shop tactic in this forum effectively counters it. But the problem is - that tactic probably "shouldn't" be necessary - at least to the extent it is in the game.

Another situation involves uber-powerful teams against real weaklings. You have to tweak this far more than is realistic. Don't get me wrong - bunker down and counter tactics can be effective from time to time. But you probably see them working more in the game than in real life unless you make adjustments (and even then, imho, the incident rate is still too high, especially 10 years into the game).

I don't like the lack of realism. But it's not a cheat.

retired_rayrhi

I would say that you give the game far too much credit. Lads, this is a game. Don't forget this. You are all comparing it to real life, and it's distorting the reality of it all. The game doesn't know that it has to improve each year to beat you like a real manager would do. It's programmed to do what it does and that's it. It seems we are all lost in this virtual planet of football and it doesn't even exist.

Tactics are WAY too important in this game. I've mastered it now, finishing 3rd with Derby in the Prem in my second season with a relatively sh*t team. All of this hypothetical babble is unnecessary. You don't need to tweak, and it's not that important that you bring in super players to challenge effectively. I have two tactic sets that I switch between when I deem necessary. Not once have I tweaked the finer details in the two seasons I have played. All of these exquisite intricacies and the super-intelligence that the AI seems to harbour is all humanly created on these forums. The game does not know that much, trust me. It's all fantasy, and our enthusiasm toward the game. We relate FM so much to real-life that we assume that AI teams act the same way. I would suggest that you just find a basic global system and I swear to you, you'll succeed. The proof is in the pudding as far as I am concerned.

As for 'cheating', you could technically say that the game does occasionally. Simply because of the lack of feedback, we are in the dark. Example: Last season I was cruising at home to Plymouth 1-0 and they went down to 9 men. They switched to a miraculous 4-3-1 formation. In the 85th minute, they were dominating big time, and the highlights were continuous. In the 92nd minute, their full back played a lush through ball to their lump of a striker whom finished clinically. I was playing a deep defensive line and attacking the flanks. In my next three successive home games, teams tied the game in the dying moments. Now, is this cheating? Well, the fact that I don't know why this happened leaves me a little stumped, and my theory is that the AI over-compensates becoming more clinical when it realises that it can not match you. You only have to look at the shots on target/goals ratio and the evidence is quite staggering. So, technically, you could say that this is 'cheating'. I reckon that this has been incorporated in to the game to eliminate 'super tactics'. I don't mind it though. It just feels a little 'cheap' when it happens...

retired_rayrhi

And to elaborate:

all of these theories that have been created (re-ranking to name but one), do little but distort the reality of FM and simply ease the pressure from SI to explain themselves. As wonderful and important as these forums are, we have unwittingly created a smoke-screen for SI to hide behind. Everyone of us whom makes a point that is accepted by the intelligent folk that inhabit these here parts, is adding to the 'virtual manual' that we have created. The problem with this is that every statement is a mere stab in the dark, and the quest for truth is ultimately in vain. I enjoy theorising (although I do not have a fetish for ambiguity like our friend wwfan—I am joking), but I can't escape the thought that we are doing SI's job for them. I think it was Chand that mentioned half of the game has evolved while the other half has not. He was referring to how advanced the game has become, yet how non-existent the feedback system is. I think it's high time that SI pulled their finger out and made a genuine attempt at explaining not only the slider system, but how each one is really linked. It's all very well for those of you who have figured the game out, but there is a growing gulf and an increase in disgruntled fans that simply just don't get it. I feel for them because I can relate to them. It's took me almost a year to 'master' the game, and I can tell you honestly, that some of the elements of my tactical set-up are not entirely logical, or 'football-like'. Simply put, it works because it works, and has taken many hours of trial and error. I have mentioned somewhere else: a feedback system would make mastering the learning curve a most enjoyable journey of discovery with many moments of 'ahhhhh, I see...'. I for one am a little fed up of being left somewhat left in the dark over certain things...

retired_jojo2222

yes it does, its called the 4-2-4.