Anything changed this season..?

[Antonio Gustavo Hernandez]

You are wrong, you were just lucky to buy special recommendeds or it's just a coincidence (you were lucky either), most of them are really losers no matter what their skills or stats (before you buy).

This goes to Funger cause I have been reading his posts and I liked his style, similar to mine lol;

"Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? Insanity is doing the exact same ****ing thing over and over again, expecting **** to change."

Vaas Montenegro

[Tactician]

That idea that Nordeus was punishing me for not spending loads of tokens....

If that is the case (and might be the case, that is programmed to occur), then this is bad. It is wrong to 'force' users to spend, even if their team is good enough or the manager did his job as a manager..

On the football side, a team has to make recruitment or changes when required. Not doing recruitment may penalise the team when facing certain situations and will likely to penalise the team much later when the decent-performing years of current players in team are over or when some of the players retirement time has come.

In my opinion, some undesirable things happen in this game because of poor simulation and some things happen in the game in attempt to boost the income of the company. So there are two main things - poor simulation and business. In some cases, both are the cause or are linked.

[PoisonedMonkey]

I'm not genuinely suggesting that, but it just seems weird that since spending loads of tokens on those two players who, overall, only raised my teams percentage a couple of percent, that I haven't lost since, sit 4th in the league 3 points off 1st, and top in the current scoring challenge.

And yet my two top scorers are my wingers that I've had for three seasons.

I just don't understand why it's happened.

[Tactician]

I'm not genuinely suggesting that, but it just seems weird that since spending loads of tokens on those two players who, overall, only raised my teams percentage a couple of percent, that I haven't lost since, sit 4th in the league 3 points off 1st, and top in the current scoring challenge.

And yet my two top scorers are my wingers that I've had for three seasons.

I just don't understand why it's happened.

That is what I am saying, that happened maybe because of poor simulation. Your team might still be good for this season and even the next season, but due to poor simulation, the game had detected that you should make significant recruitment and hence has been penalising you or giving you indications that you need to make recruitment. By buying some players, you satisfied what the game wanted. You bought players from the recommendations list, but the same effect could have happened if you bought scout list players or negotiation list players or even players from the auction list.

There can be 'conspiracies' too. For example, the game deliberately makes your team under-perform or certain specific players under-perform in attempt to tempt you to buy players from the coming recommendations' list. There have been a lot of observations that support this suspicion.

[PoisonedMonkey]

Mmm. I'd already bought about 5 players through negotiations, but I'd planned to keep a lot of my team from last season as they were young and trained quickly.

Whatever it is, it's confused the hell out of me.

Appreciate your comments though Tactician, glad I'm not just going mad..!

[Jeeves]

The word of the day is - Apophenia and from there Confirmation bias.

One can find patterns and see conspiracies everywhere they look especially when these go along with one's desire for logical explanation to one's personal concerns, questions and generally things that are on one's mind.

I can agree that there are troll matches in the game. I get 'em every now and then myself. Rarely but still (Idk, maybe like once a season?). And I'm reporting them with all the details and especially formations and team mentality settings.

But since I'm always reading things like "I did changes during the match and nothing happened!!!" I always ponder, what kind of changes? Doing changes just for the sake of it or with the expectation that these will make a difference simply because you changed things up a bit, does not mean that these will actually make a difference. I've explained it before in some other threads - I go in to a match with a set idea after I check out the opponent's Squad, starting formation and think about the tactics & mentality choices he/she made. Then I think about what might I change during the match if things don't go my way (There isn't always an obvious and clear counter to the opponent. Some times you just... don't know), based on what I've observed and the conclusions I reached.

Let's talk tactics/strategy/all that good stuff.

Opponent is there
Match starts, the opponent is present, and I start tracking what's going on.
1) Things go my way? - The opponent is bound to change something, so I sit and wait, checking his formation, waiting for his sub if needed, keeping an eye on the match stats.
2) Things go awry - Time to make a change. I try to decide if I just want to change some arrows + mentality and touch up on my chosen formation here and there (and see where it leads), or I go full blown redesign.
Note: Second scenario usually occurs when I didn't see a clear way to take advantage of the opponent and counter them, or when the opponent actually reacts to my machinations during the match.

Opponent is absent
So what if the opponent doesn't attend the match? Usually I win. But most of the time these people leave their teams in a formation I can deal with (Especially with open flanks... oh boy, oh my!). Sometimes though I find myself loosing even against a weaker opponent. Btw I also beat stronger opponents and regularly so. I outplay them. This is not something strange in my eyes sorry, no matter how much someone might deny stuff like this. This is a game and its obvious that as any other game the engine follows a set of guide-line rules. I will talk more about this later. So yeah, sometimes I just... don't know. I just can't penetrate. Especially against someone who parked his damn buss on the pitch... Then, I start pulling my hair during the match. I make changes and nothing happens. Great. So now what? Well it's obvious that I just can't figure it out. I try to think on what I might be missing, if there is some hidden fault in his design I just don't see. Sometimes I do figure it out, other times I don't. These are not strange results though. You win some you lose some, that's life. To me a troll result is when I lose with a lot against someone who I know for a fact that I counter. Counter hard even. And those happen even with my team. Devs are aware of stuff like this and I hope me and the other Admins will be able to talk more about this soon.

Figuring out the game engine

Anyway. So what was all that about an obvious base set of rules that the engine follows? Yeah so about this - I've played the game for several years. New version was just an infant idea back then. What I noticed soon after I started playing was that the game seems to take formations quite literally. What do I mean by this?
If there is a player on the ML spot and the opponent puts a MR of his own. That ML will be in conflict over any possession of the ball for as long as there is someone on that same spot to cover him.
Arrows are a wonderful way to break this balance because they make players go out of position! Lets take the ML / MR example - If the MR has an UP arrow, he will go forward during the match right? So he's going behind your MR who's supposed to cover him. So what now? That guy has a clear firing solution at your goal-line now. Here's how to counter that advancing ML:
1) Put DOWN arrow on the MR - He will try to stay back and he will actually be present in the same spot where the ML is with his UP arrow.
2) Put a DMR - He will be on the ML's spot by default at all times.
3) Put a DR with UP arrow - He will attempt to position himself forward and will be present in the same spot where the ML is with his UP arrow.

What happens with AML and AMR's?
Obviously there aren't any L-ST and R-ST spots, so where does that leave the forward wings? Well from what I've observed, that doesn't matter because for these guys the UP arrow is basically a command for them to go behind the defense. And you can really see this being the thing if your opponent has set an off-side trap laying and waiting for you.

What happens with STs?
Again, obviously there isn't any A-ST position. This command follows the same rule-set as for the AML/AMRs. Also a lovely little trick to deal with the defense line when attacking from the sides is to put an ST with a DOWN arrow. He will keep back and the defenders around him/on his spot will latch on to him, especially if the opponent chose the Zonal marking style.

From here, to...
What happens with DR/DC/DLs?
The same really, but in reverse. What does that mean? Remember the example I gave earlier with how the ST can pull away defenders? Well if your defenders are neutral (no arrows), an ST can definitely pull them forward (from your perspective obv), and you want those guys to stay back most of the time, right? So put a DOWN arrow on the ones you wanna stay back at all costs. This is how I personally am able to play with only 3 DCs, sometimes even against opponents who try to abuse my open flanks.


All of this is what I mean when I've spoke about tactics, formations, counters, etc, in previous threads on similar subjects. Yes, troll results do seem to happen. I ain't going around this, I've experienced those myself. But they are not the norm, no matter what people say. The thing with these cases is that people start to tunnel vision on their existence and use them as a scapegoat for ALL of their bad results. I'm sorry but this is not the case. How often such incidents occur is blown out of proportion, and I'm saying this because here in the forum, we're still a tight and smaller community (I really wish this to change and for us to grow) which leads to corruption of factual data (Which is also a lackluster evidence since of the data sample we can get from the forum). At the same time, as I've mentioned in the past, I talk with the support team every single day and I even help out with some of the cases they receive. We check stats, logs, data, opponents, etc, in cases where the a troll result is reported. In 20/30 cases a month, I see between 2 and 3 legit troll results, off all reports. It happens, yes but not on the magnitude that seems to be floating around this place.

Overall the game is a game, and when you play it enough you can start to establish a general feel as to what kind of primal rules there are that the engine seems to follow (Like my example of players being present in the same spot). There is quite the method behind this chaos.

At the end of the day, we wanna make a fun game and you have to agree that Top 11 is actually fun. It's why this game still keeps us engaged. And again I want this message to be clear as day! - This does not mean that the game doesn't seems to act up sometimes, we understand everyone's concerns because we're all in the same boat here.


So the Admins here, we have our sleeves all rolled up and as SaucyFC and SOLID have been saying, we wanna make things more transparent and, just, talk, more with all of you and share more from the kitchen!


P.S.
Antonio Gustavo Hernandez props for the Vaas quote there. Awesome antagonist! But even though your and Funger's attitude can be admirable for how forward and out there it is, I'd still like to ask that we refrain from stuff like motha'****ers. Also slapping on a few dozen of exclamation and question marks at the end of sentence doesn't make the message seem any more bombastic, especially when there are profanities in it.

[KenoticFC]

I appreciate your answer Jeeves and its one step towards the clarification that we need.
I don't get angry at all if someone doesn't agree if troll results are real or not ,but as someone who has experienced so many I still have undeniable proof they happen a lot.
I never considered or will consider troll if the manager is active, They happen so many times against really really weak teams that have not been touched by their managers for more than a season. This is so discouraging because it means preparation, training, morale and even quality difference does not mean anything if you are destined to lose. If i have a noticeable difference in quality from my opponent and I am even favorite than it's his job to counter me, big teams don't have to lose much sleep when they face small teams. Many of us started to wounder what can cause these kind of results and there have been so many suggestion that I want to share in a concise way, I'm sure I will forget many.

1. Troll results happen to help the predestined team win the league despite your direct results against them (I've talked many times how I ve lost the title despite beating the other 3 competitors.)
2. Abandoned teams are artificially more stronger especially if you are attending the match. I'm 90% certain of this since I have not had a troll result since I've stopped watching matches. Matches I attend and win are usually with minimal results on the other end those I dont are with big difference,
3. The 100% shot efficiency troll is the cheapest way the game decides to tell us you've been punkd despite dominating it. Your players decide to miss every shot all of the sudden.
4. Tactics are not the case for troll results. So many people have posted pics of facing the same abandoned team they face in both the cup and the league. The dominate the match in the cup with great victories and in the league they get trolled. Clearly there where no changes made to justify a counter here.
My main point is THIS. TE should reward players who come daily for their teams. It's discouraging to lose against lower rated forsaken teams. Let the title be decided among those who actually care to play. Why should the engine make them stronger. You don't train your team for a month than good you deserve to lose against a fit team.

[Jeeves]

Snip*

Aye Kenotic, I hear you loud and clear. Mayhap there should be fail-safes programmed in to the engine? Basically to give a passive advantage to the side that actually attends the match. Buuuut.... ugh, idk. Sometimes the team isn't abandoned nor is the Manager in a different time zone, instead the person can be busy (Me whenever I can't attend) or otherwise indisposed. It's an iffy subject and it warrants discussion for sure.

EDIT: Of I forgot about something I wanted to talk on, as well. The dreaded Assistant Manager.

I personally find the guy useful. Nah, nah, hear me out! As the engine itself, the AM obviously follows specific rules/events that trigger his comments (These are pre-written obviously). This turns the AM in to a useful tool, and additional gauge through which you can figure out what's going on during the match. Like if your opponent is employing heavy counter-play, or off-side trap, etc. I don't rely on him constantly but I always check what he has to say because at the same time I'm following what's going on the pitch via the animation and match stats (Yes I also do a quick hop-over to the Home menu and then back in to the match just to be sure that everything is up to date). Because as the example I mentioned, that of counter-play - If I see the message that informs me of my opponent's playstile, I would quickly double-check mine and the opponent's formation and try to determine how and from where is he able to gain control of the ball and even swing things around in his favor (e.g. Heavy defense + Flank-counters). Plenty of his cues are a dead giveaway as to what the opponent is doing and a hint at what's the chosen mentality. And I don't mean the fluff messages like: "Hey we're already steady in the lead, why don't you take some of our guys off the pitch for an early shower, huh?" and other such. I'm talking about specific messages like ball-possession comments, opponent players going through your defenses, and so on.

Note: And I know that the guy has been easy on the bottle sometimes ya don't need to remind me of the huge thread about his, ahem, exploits... just don't mind the fluff comments and if you keep a steady observant look on the live match using the 'ol Mark 1 eye ball,
you can get some good hints from him.

[Van Banana]

P.S.
Antonio Gustavo Hernandez props for the Vaas quote there. Awesome antagonist! But even though your and Funger's attitude can be admirable for how forward and out there it is, I'd still like to ask that we refrain from stuff like motha'****ers. Also slapping on a few dozen of exclamation and question marks at the end of sentence doesn't make the message seem any more bombastic, especially when there are profanities in it.

Saw him in the end of credit scene of the new spider-man. Really good movie too, highly recommend it.

[funqer]

There's nothing wrong with my attitude. i was actually "soft" with those words. because this game is punishing those who actually play. i am playing this game for almost 3 years now, and it's never been more chaotic and non-realistic as it is now. whatever you and the support team may say, i find it impossible to lose 4 games in a row in the league (all opponents 15-20% weaker) and draw with the last place (40% quality) who had 0 points, after being in first place after 13 rounds with 5 points lead. teams i beat during the first half of the league are now impossible to beat. i've lost 4 out of the last 5 matches in league. i was online at every single one of them, made changes, dominating, and still lost. i can't beat anyone right now. teams against i won 4-0, 5-0 are now beating me 1-0, 2-0. my top-scorer, who had 16 goals in 12 matches during the first half of the season can't score not even 1 goal right now. not even when he is 1on1 with the gk, all shots are off-target. all matches are pretty much the same: i'm dominating, 65-70% possesion, lots of opportunities, can't score at all. the opponent has 3 chances, score at least 1 goal and i lose. right now i am on 4'th place, 14 points behind first place. pretty cool, huh? many thanks to your server. i won the league almost every season until now (22 out of 24), i don't think that someone who doesn't know how to manage his team can achieve that. but something like this never happened to me before.

i also find it impossible to beat 2-1 in first leg of semi-finals in cup, away, and then lose 5-0 at home with 2 players being sent off. (he got 6 shots on goal, 5 goals). many thanks to your server again.

do you still think that the problem is me? as a manager? that i do things the wrong way? i'm not so sure about that.

and let me tell you something. Do something with that server and do it now, before it's too late. i've seen 4 of my friends who quit playing this game and there are more to come, including me. i can't stand and watch how my well-prepared 120% team can't beat an 40% abandoned team. this is more than ridiculous. so do something about that and only when you know for sure that your server is doing the right job, only then you can come and say that my attitude is wrong. because no one, not you and nobody from nordeus is giving me back all the time and money i invested in this game.

Peace, funqer. with Q.