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PoisonedMonkey 
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.
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Originally Posted by Jeeves
