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Back in FM2016, using the old training system of set-and-forget, I played 5 seasons into a save with Arsenal and won everything. I realised a good bit in that I had forgot to change my training from "Physical" for a couple seasons, and all of my young/regen players were athletic freaks. I'm starting to see a pattern here.

This is actually pretty funny lol

"Hey, I wanted to congratulate you for your development and your form lately. I don't know what's going on but you all are doing great", says OP while talking to a ripped like a kangaroo on steroids group of teenagers.

>YESCOACHPUTMEINCOACHIWASBORNREADYITHINKIATEMYPARENTSFORBREAKFASTCOACHSOMEONEPLEASEMAKEITSTOPP

Back in, I think it was FM 17, I poured a lot of hours in to the game and was winning everything. My team? Filled with physical freaks like these: https://imgur.com/a/KB4FNEp

The decisions attribute must be incredibly difficult to code into the match engine. It involves so many variables. What makes a good decision in the football pitch? Its something I have always thought about and it does not surprise me that SI has simply been unable to code it into the game.

But the game creators have always known this and been super dishonest about the way different attributes interact in the match engine.

In the context of the match engine it shouldn't be hard. It already knows what a "better" decision is. Plus, the attribute probably accounts for way less than people think it does. I've seen so many things being attributed the the decision attribute that only make sense in theory but are very unlikely to be coded into the game. You could sad literally every move a player makes is affected by decisions but 99.9% of it is not.

It shouldn’t be that hard. An AI usually use decision tree. For it you need to score each node to define value of the decision (similar to chess). Decision attribute would determine how often a player would pick the best possible decision. Example: a player has several passing targets, you need to score each one based on chance to succeed and other parameters (progressiveness etc)

>It shouldn’t be that hard Come on now.

Ive always wondered this as well. How would any non professional footballer know what the right decision at any time is, and how to code that? It’s probably a sham

I'm no computer scientist, but shouldn't it just be something like "given the information available, I have these options: pass to x, pass to y, pass to z". Again, given the information, pass to x has 80% chance of completion, pass to y has 50% and to z 30%. Shouldn't decisions be an attribute that influences how many times out of 10 I choose passing to x? Probably the logic is simple but coding it is a nightmare.

Would be very interested to see someone run the test in a save with real players. E.g can you buy a team of Championship/Euro players with CA under 140 but great physicals and win the Premier League with them?

Will try it tonight. Based on these tests, im pretty sure its a given they will thrive unless we are missing something.

I just don’t think enough of these players exist in the game tbh. He’s basically created a squad of 23 6ft tall Adama Traore’s who are also all well-rounded footballers. Can you find players with 19 acceleration? Yes. Will they also have 15+ agility, strength, jumping reach etc? Almost certainly not.

https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/comments/1aum8zj/a_definitive_test_to_end_the_controversy_about/kr6o78f/ I checked who would fit the criteria in the first transfer window.

Great work dude.

It doesn't discredit that speed is important, it's just that finding enough people to join who are strictly fast is difficult. I'm starting to think having extremely fast centerbacks with infinite jumping helps cover a lot.

Travis Akomeah 

I adressed that in my other comment using Dembele as an example. Its borderline impossible to have a team full of these players and the engine is build for realistic team, which it still isnt.

How did this go mate?

Still didnt do it. Got caught in work. Thanks for the reminder tho, will try it again tonight.

I remember someone on the si forum did that, but in 23: https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/575222-pace-is-king-and-mentalstechnicals-dont-matter-how-to-overachieve-by-using-pace-merchants/page/

Of course the mods and one former mod gang up to discredit the work that person did in whatever way possible

This is more telling than the edited player tests

The comparison graph is brilliant. No redeeming qualities, just pace. Can't outjump, outmuscle or outdribble anybody but still come in third.

I remember getting a stupid number out of Hull striker estupinian (64?) in FM23… it didn’t carry over to the prem, he got 20 only, best striker to try this is weirdly… Hull striker Aaron Connolly he is nearly a goal a game on my save

Probably. I've never had a team completely like that but I've had a few specific players fit that mold. From the top of my head: - Allan Olsen was a Faroese RW I had, he was a very good player don't get me wrong, but he wasn't on paper one of the absolute elite players in the world. His CA was 152 if I'm not mistaken, but he had 16 acceleration, 20 agility, 18 balance, 18 pace and 17 dribbling. Basically he ticked all of the boxes for the meta players (except jumping reach, he was quite short). He became my key player, I designed a tactic around him and he would consistently get average ratings of above 8.00 including a season of 8.75 with 16 goals 20 assists over 17 league matches - yes it wasn't in the Premier League, the level was much lower, but it's still an insane output. I won multiple Champions Leagues with him as my key player, and he scored multiple goals in UCL finals. - Habib Karatas was basically Allan Olsen 2.0, he was the player I signed to replace him when he started declining with age. Attributes were almost exactly the same, 17 acceleration, 20 agility, 17 balance, 18 pace and 17 dribbling with slightly higher overall CA because of the 14 JR. Same story in terms of performance. - Jiri Maly, again a RW, I had with AFC Fylde in the Premier League. 16 acceleration, 19 agility, 15 balance, 16 pace, 16 dribbling, a similar sort of player to Allan Olsen but overall slightly worse. 11 goals and 6 assists in 24 league matches (he was injury prone) in the title winning season. So the answer is probably a resounding yes.

At this point all I can say is thank you for your efforts. Those of us who have played for over a decade can tell you physicals have always been the most powerful attributes. Even if you haven't played for years, but have experienced having a physically phenomenal ST score 60 goals a season with average Finishing & Composure you know all these tests actually hold validity. 

Thanks very much! Our aim was to get more people thinking all this - if you have a spare hour or two, it’s worth trying things out for yourself. There’s definitely something fishy going on.

TL;DR - the original guys test was right, it’s all about the physicals. So just sign a team like the bad guys from Space Jam and you’re all set.

I think these tests are always going to be discreted in way or another, because realistically many people here arent experts in the research field and the methods will always be flawed. I just encourage everyone to test this for themselves in a test save. Forget the player creations with 13,15 or 17 in everything. Just go out there, build a squad using only pace and acceleration as filters to which players to sign, regardless if they are the best technically and mentally available. Bench and sell everyone that doesnt meet the 13 pace threshold, even if they are technically great. I guarantee your team will steamroll the league, even your wingbacks cant cross, your midfielders cant pass and your strikers cant finish at an elite level, just because they will outrun everyone. Of course, players with 1 in everything wont perform, but if you sign half-decent players who are fast at every position, you will dominate. If you believe thats a realistic interpretation of real life, thats up to you. I personally started playing FM instead of FIFA because I was tired of FIFA's pace-meta, believing FM was a balanced, strategic game defined by the fine margins in tactics and team-building. The fact that Adama Traore can likely out-perform many PL strikers in a good tactic just because he is fast in immersion-breaking to me. All this meta findings in these past months have been disappointing to say the least. In the end, a gegenpress with pacey players will always be the best option, and anything else is mere roleplay by the user.

This is what bothers me. People explain it away like if that’s a realistic interpretation of reality. No football manager ever has tried to simply sign the fastest or most physical players. Don’t people think there’s a reason that’s never been done? It definitely isn’t because teams can’t afford to.

FM cant emulate the problems non-technical, pacey players have IRL. Just like it cant emulate the problems a 4th division team might have for playing a gegenpress system with bad players. Thats why what works IRL, both in squad building and tactics, is different to what works in FM, imo.

>the problems a 4th division team might have for playing a gegenpress system with bad players I think people exaggerate this a lot literally just because gegenpress the word is newish and continental. Yeah a fourth-tier team can't coordinate who goes where when pressing the way a PL team would, but if they're playing against a team with a fourth-tier ability to play it out, then you're basically just talking about "put in a shift" football, which has been a staple of British lower-league play for decades.

Eh, the way lower division teams can press and play out of the back is still not close to real life imo. But even then, a bad PL team can still press against good teams much better in FM than irl.

Nah, it's way more problematic than this. I've taken a League One team away to Man Utd and beat them with my standard gegenpressing tactic. That is just silly and a really poor simualtion of real football. Also the way it's depicted in the match engine where non-technical, outmatched teams can easily pass their way around a press, but the high-pressing team still ends up winning. Buying into Football Manager's realism has always required suspension of disbelief

I think it can somewhat, I think people just think 11 is trash. It’s not good for prem but it works sometimes. Luckily if you put all technicals and mental to 1 they lose every game. There’s “absolute shit” and there’s “not good enough for the prem” Anyways, I mostly agree with you. This won’t really affect how I play because I like defensive first soccer which already valued pace and acceleration for the counter. But since I don’t use the editor I can’t find players like in the tests. Edit: for example I asked about this guy https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/s/SFqWXgKvan After a few seasons he’s a solid player, but massively underperforms his xg even in the championship . He’s a good pressing forward and he has a role to play in my team but it if I was relying on him to score it just wouldn’t happen. He’s not at the level of the op, but I think it’s an example of a physicals first player with flaws

> No football manager ever has tried to simply sign the fastest or most physical players Let me tell you the tale of a man named Al Davis..... https://bleacherreport.com/articles/632176-why-oakland-raiders-owner-al-davis-cant-drive-55-speed-speed-speed

The last sentence hit the nail on the head, of course, in a way the game is role play in nature by definition but seriously all the scouting and looking for great attributes for players and creating a correct tactic for players to fit etc. is genuinely a waste of time if you want to win in the game with how overpowered physicals are and how useless so many attributes are. There is no defense for how weird and broken so many features in the game have been for years. SI are lucky EA exists or else they’d be heavily criticised for how lazy they are, if EA wasn’t there to take the heat then FM would (and should tbh) get just as much hate.

Shit, so this is why my very avreage but Fast wing back was so good

I’d be interested to see how many players fit this criteria (which would essentially make a pseudo scouting guide lol). It’s a little disappointing, but in the end role playing is fun anyways. Also people who say the game is too easy can now make it more difficult by signing people with pace and acceleration lower than 15. Problem solved with the “this is too easy” crowd

From memory there tend to be a lot of regens who fit these criteria, which is probably what most people are unconsciously doing when they Hoover up the wonderkids.

There are literally 0 that fit the technicals and the mentals. Let alone the physicals. https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/comments/1aum8zj/a_definitive_test_to_end_the_controversy_about/kr6o78f/

But that’s also dumb, you’d be limiting yourself to signing less fast players in the name of making it less easy. But that’s just not realistic or very immersive in the role playing aspect. Why would a real manager avoid signing fast players?

I don’t know but this is a game in the end. I’m personally struggling along just trying to win the prem from 6th tier with 3 at the back. Why would someone sign someone using the transfer glitch? Why would someone edit players to have incredible physicals? It’s what they find fun. I agree it’s a little concerning that more athletic players are better in a sports sim.

They wont outrun everyone, what you are have done is find the flaw in the X Y co-ordinates part of the maths, ie the ball will be in this co-ordinate (X and Y) who are the two closest opposing players, based on positions, roles tactics etc... so now you have two players that are both measurable distances from the ball, then the game calculates, who will arrive first to the ball and they have a higher starting score before the scenario is even loaded, ie header (jumping reach and heading etc).. the issue is that normally, both teams will have some speedsters and some normal players.. so no one team will ALWAYS arrive at the ball scenario first. But by having every single player as fast and strong, you are leaving zero chance that you will not be first to every ball and also likely to win any 50/50 with the physical stats. In short there is not a place on the field that the ball could land where you will not be first to the ball, which is weighted too heavily by the match engine. The other issue is that you are simulating matches, yes they are full matches that you can see highlights for, but they are still simmed games, simmed games take in half of the attributes (they need to or else we would all need beefier computers) - the meta attributes are used more in simulated matches - if you watch the match in full (not replay) the result will not be as skewed, the game needs to do this because everyone wants huge databases but not to slow down the PC or Console

>simmed games take in half of the attributes Any source for this?

No, only my own testing, I thought it was as simple as Primary and Secondary attributes, ie simmed only uses primary - but its not that simple.. you cant prove it unless looking at the source code, but from my testing it works out that Meta is weighted more when simming... which is NOT a feature that was released with the game (Holidaying seems similar) it also makes sense, the amount of calculations for massive leagues and non watched games, means they need to cut back somewhere, you cant calculate a full game for every single match in massive databases, it would take too long and would use too much ram on most PC's and consoles.. the main issue would be the time taken to calculate - it would just slow the game down.. with instant result mods you are asking for complex calculations in seconds, so they will not use every attribute... I tested similar to these tests, and was shocked, then forced myself to watch every game of a season and the difference was less - ie winning the league by average of 8 points, to coming 4th - its even worse when only HALF the team is loaded with physicals, its not the players, its the way the game uses co-ordinates and arrival speed to scenarios, if every player is a speedster, you arrive first at all scenarios...there is not a single spot on the park to start a scenario where you will not be first to the ball.. and that plays a part even before RNG

But there is no source for this. Everything SI publicly said is that full detail is simmed different from no detail.. So the engine is the same simming or watching the game. Maybe you had different results because it was you managing vs the AI? So the use of shouts and subs are different in these situations, which affect the outcome of the games.

Thats possible, but cant know what shouts ass man used, i did try with no interactions, but then read that ass man adds shouts that generally work when we sim.EVERY test I have done has worse results when not simming, as far as i can tell Meta attributes are overpowered when simming, certainly much more goals - simming even works better without any physicality considerations. I tested (lets call pace/strength -Meta Monsters) Meta Monsters, full team, high attributes, I tested slightly high, same as you, got same results as you, but when I loaded only 50% of the team as Meta Monsters the difference was massive - So I kept upping the amount of Meta Monsters and then decided to watch every game, what I learned was, unless there were several Meta Monsters in close proximity to each other, which you can manipulate by subbing when watching, then they dont do as well. At first I assumed it just meant, Less Meta Monsters = Less Good - but then I spaced them out and restarted the season ie LWB was a Meta, RCB was Meta and in between them were Normals, then I could start to see just normal results... So then I decided to load one side of the field with Metas in tests, assuming one side would do better than the other.... but NO ... what I found was the Meta on the side that had a Meta beside him played better than a Meta that did not have a Meta on both sides of him. ie if there was a Non Meta beside the player, they played worse. So then I tested, all other teams (was just a small mini league) with Mentality Monsters on one side for all teams I played against... so my team had one side Metas, and the other teams had one side of the pitch Mentality - it was pretty even and played normally... from there I could tell that if you are ALL meta, it counted much more. It makes sense.. if you were dropping a ball into a ground from a drone at any given point, YOU will get there first to the ball always with Meta everywhere... the test no one was doing was a team that wasn't ALL Meta. Every test this far has been ALL META vs all Average or all Mentality - its unrealistic to have an entire team that is fast - I went back and tested on FM 2018 which I had logged about 20,000hrs into and Meta did not make as much of a problem - mind you I did one season only on this..Seems the calculation of attributes lessoned when they went to console and touch (assuming) but the issue remains that acc/pac are used in EVERY calculation so thats like rolling a dice with a bonus score for every scenario. The issue seems to be that "player arrival bonus" ie distance from XY divided by speed - gives a "bonus" if you want to call it that, ie getting there first means you will be more likely to win the ball and have more time to act on it. This also explains why Adama is not winning the Balon dor, his whole team is not Meta, he will get there first but when he crosses the non Meta wont be there on the end of it as he cant match his speed.

I love FM but jesus christ, the replied are still filled with people running through a list of justifications for this bs. Turns out FM probably doesn't deserve the title simulation and its reputation as a more realistic football game is out the window. You can still enjoy the game but there is no denying that the ME is just glorified speed comparisons.

It’s amazing the level of mental acrobatics people go through to justify it. Multiple people running variations of the same basic test. It’s very clear what’s going on.

The number of hours people have put into this game makes them defend it to this extent honestly

SI employees posting whatever they are told to say

Now I'm looking back at some of my previous experiences of playing the game and failing to understand why certain players would perform better than expected and why others would perform so badly, and I suddenly wonder whether it was all just down to physicals ...and it's making me feel a bit dumb that I didn't realise it myself I used to put it down to players somehow having non-quantifiable value, but I always knew that didn't make much sense in a game about crunching numbers

At least you’re seeing it. People are being shown information right in front their eyes and sort of refuse to accept.

Find it hilarious how the head to head vs Wolves that season is 1-1 but the aggregate is 15-3

As usual people will bury their head in the sand and claim uNrEaLiStiC iNpuT when every similar test shows the same trends, "unrealistic" inputs or not. Why would SI even bother changing anything when you have people geniunely arguing that great athletes with everything except physicals being worse than amateur level would somehow dominate football in real life?

If SI knew how to "fix" the ME by now, then they would have. It's been apparent for years that they don't. Just look at how many times they tweak one thing just for it to have disastrous consequences, i.e. wingers a few years back sending every shot into the side netting. There are so many long term issues that have never been fixed, i.e. AI player development, player interactions and promises, and physicals being overvalued by the ME, that it's clear that SI doesn't know how to make meaningful changes to the game engine.

SI will not fix any of the terrible stuff in their games because they know they can get away with it. It’s not only attributes, think of how many features have been either completely broken, barely functional or not very fun and haven’t been changed at all. Press conferences, player interactions, DOF, most staff responsibilities, favoured personnel, transfer exploits and bugs, mangers putting out unrealistic teams, AI player development etc. All these have been the same or never improved for years. But hey it’s Football Manager and it’s super detailed and better than FIFA career mode so it’s fine for a lot of people I guess

> transfer exploits To be fair the most recent one was pretty clearly a debug function they added. Not unusual for single player games to have those. Some games give you infinite X if you name your character something specific for example.

I've probably played more FM this past 3 years than like half of this comment section combined, so this is not just anecdotal experience. > Press conferences Fucking lmao. > player interactions Are they great? No. Can you work around them? Yes of course you can. The people that complain about player interactions the most, are the people that have not learned how to deal with them. First, do not make promises you can't keep, be it either an actual promise, agreed playing time or release clauses. Second, if a player wants to leave or to play more, that's not really unrealistic. Let the guy go. People have a way of playing this game by hoarding south american kids and then complain when a world beater player wants to leave their 3rd tier Leyton Orient team to join Man City. Yeah, no fucking shit. > favoured personnel What about it? > transfer exploits This is up to the player. It's your choice to exploit. Are there exploits out there? Yes. Can you cheat the game? Yes. But you don't have to, making that into a negative about the game is absurd, you can like savescum every other match if you wanna cheat so badly, what are we even talking about? > mangers putting out unrealistic teams and AI player development I've played more than 180 seasons, and I've not seen that, at least not as often as people are saying.

Out of curiosity how many players do you think match the physical profile OP put out? Ignoring the physicals, how many match only the technicals OP used?

I have read whole text. Great and interesting research! Playing the game since 2003. I think I will try to test it in some save.

Here is my test: Full detail loaded and premier league only. All clubs transfer embargo. I chose Bournemouth. Fmrte to quickly mass edit all squad players attributes and freeze them. Make manager unsackable. Standard 4-3-3 Gengenpress preset. Injury prone set to 1 All hidden attributes set to 10 All Technical,Mental stats set to 10. Physical stats 20. Apart from 14 for natural fitness and stamina. Go on holiday for one season. RESULT, Every time on multiple runs: Win The League. After lots of different experiments I have concluded that the most important stats are Acceleration,Pace and Jumping Reach. Try and get a team with the fastest tallest players with average other stats and they should out compete other teams.

FMArena says Anticipation as well but the three you’ve got are definitely in there. Not sure why people are in denial if so many others are getting similar results.

Just put all mental and technical to 1 if nothing else matters right?

Yeah have tried that and you can win the league but sometimes you finish second and third.

[удалено]

It´s been this way for a looong time

I think its a very very old code

I believe FM23 does as well.

As someone who beat the PL first season in a FM20 Wolves save, the results line up with my suspicions; although I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad…

Yeah, now that broke my immersion

People will come in droves to defend the game because they’ve spent so much time on it. In denial and defence of the company they love so much despite the fact that even if you ignore the unrealistic problem with the attributes, every single year there is minimal change and broken or shitty features and bugs have not been touched or changed in years.

Plus they keep talking about the physicals. Our point is not exactly that physicals are OP. The point is that mentals and technicals seem to have very little to do with performance.

If that's the point, wouldn't a better test be to compare the impact of teams who have players with ideal mentals and technicals for their position and role vs players who are average? That would give you an idea of if they're having any impact. I'd expect a player who can play IF to perform better as an IF than a player who is less suited, but still roughly as good. It's hard to ignore the point about physicals when you're setting them to 18+ and pointing at the success found from doing so.

The test here did not set them to 18+ though, they were quite a bit lower than that.

We didn’t set them to 18plus

I never read these I just scroll down for the carnage in the comments

Thank you for this test and the plot thickens. I was one of the few that disregarded the 1st big test because it was done with absolute terminators, but this is absolute proof the match engine really favors physical attributes beyond oblivion. Now, even though i accept these results, i feel like we are missing a very big part out. All the conclusions saying the game is broken are missing 2 key things. 1. Transfer logic/World interaction; 2. The AI doesn't force themselves to buy these players. Everybody that plays FM long enough to understand the game knows that physical attributes are extremely important but the game is designed for a "realistic" environment. That includes team building, transfer logic, etc., both for the player and the AI, i presume. To put a scale on the kind of player we are seeing in the simulation, look at [Dembele](https://fminside.net/players/4-fm-24/85140178-ousmane-dembele). A attacking trio of 3 Dembeles would shatter almost every defense IRL. The game is essentially me VS AI, if none of us are trying to sign these kind of players instead of the Bardghjis and Bellighams of this world, so im fine with it. Obviously it changes my perspective on how to measure the importance of certain attributes but my way of playing will remain the same. Its a simulation of being a manager and i will keep playing it as such. No manager ever would be looking for these players at the top tier. The real issue for me is how CA and PA are calculated and how position-less the game is when we are just focusing on the OP attributes. You dont even need a CB to play CB. Get yourself a cheap Dembele. Last but not least, this doesn't invalidate the quality of other players with less physical attributes. Arda Guler is still a world class wonderkid and performs amazingly well despite his bad physical. So yes, you can break the match engine. Doesn't mean it is broken. PS: Can you give Tottenham a break? PS2: Adama Traore is probably a better example than Dembele

Our main issue is that the mentals and technicals matter very little, if any. Besides, Dembele often lacks an end product, I really don’t agree that he’d tear people up irl - the game recognises this by giving him a poor composure attribute, and yet in our test, where we gave only sevens in composure to decisions, everyone seemed to be just fine. That’s why he does so well in game, better than he should, because the poor attributes he has been given have no effect on his performance. This is a clear disparity from real life, and is therefore what our gripe is.

Dembele has 4 goals since October 2022, idk about that

Not in FM tho

I see what you’re trying to say but I think calling Dembele only a physical monster is disingenuous. If you were to translate him to FM terms, he’s good at crossing, dribbling, he’s fast, not particularly strong, great balance and agility, high flair,but one could say maybe his concentration and decision making can be a little off sometimes. His finishing can be wayward. 3 of him would be very good but his mentals would probably stop 3 dembeles from being a world class front line.

Using the test as an example, he is only lacking the strength which only enhances the quality of the player used in the test. I tried to find a good comparison to put the "bad" player used in context with a real player. Another user suggested Adama Traore and its much better fitting than Dembele. "his mentals would probably stop 3 dembeles from being a world class front line" - From what ive seen in these tests, probably not

That’s exactly our point. In game it would absolutely work. You put 3 dembeles as I described in a 433 and you smash any league. Real life? Not so much.

I think they would in FM and IRL, if injuries are out of the equation, obviously not to that extent but i think nobody argues that FM has that kind of accuracy. Most people are looking at that test players thinking its bad one but that combination of attributes is super rare. A team of those is still very strong and that is the main argument, TEAM. And full of players with a very rare combination of physical attributes. If you have access to the save, please check on the performance of every other player that fits that criteria and see how they are doing. If you see Traore, for example, performing beyond expectations then you have shattered any doubt i have about this testing, but chances are, he wont.

Yeah, that was the issue with the first test. We all know that the match engine really struggles with players with 19-20 physicals against average players with 10-13 physicals. We also know that unlike humans that go and try to get wonderkids that can run their socks off when they're 15-16 years old, half of the AI players are just regular humans that are good physically, which is only represented by 10-13 or so pace. When we see highlights and we watch a player with even just 16-17 pace make up acres of space against a player with 13 or 14 pace, it's pretty clear that pace matters. All of this testing really makes me question if I was just ruining my own fun all of this time by trying to get physical beasts (who were also really well rounded) all over the pitch. Like there was one save where 8 of my starting XI was rocking 16+ pace, but they also had all of the other attributes that are clearly less important, so of course they dominate. What we've long known about the important of pace in FM leads players to discard otherwise fantastic players like Jorginho or Moutinho. The match engine really struggles with high physicals, but it's hard to create a game that doesn't emphasize physicals. Whether it's ~~FIFA~~ EAFC or Madden, it's the same way. A quicker player can just get away. > The real issue for me is how CA and PA are calculated and how position-less the game is when we are just focusing on the OP attributes. You dont even need a CB to play CB. Get yourself a cheap Dembele. Yes, this is the biggest issue. I've discarded plenty of CBs/FBs/WBs because they couldn't mark or tackle, because I assumed that even if they could catch up to other players because of their superior physicals, they wouldn't actually do well defensively. As all of this has shown, I should've just gotten the best physical beasts I could've, as long as they had key physical stats and whatever extra stat I was looking for, such as crossing for WBs.

Yet there are other commenters saying that players with combinations of all these physical attributes don’t exist in the game. They absolutely do. Tons of regens are exactly like this. What you described near the end with marking and tackling is exactly what we think is wrong with this game. Your thinking has football logic. Doesn’t matter if you can catch someone if you can’t tackle properly. FMs match engine disagrees.

We know they do. [The other day, I signed this kid off of Rio Ave in one of my old saves.](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/356515617316143104/1206826024852135946/image.png?ex=65dd6b52&is=65caf652&hm=9acdfb91565e3e52db6d2d81530205633aa0ce89c1e56bd4f6b6198708579e3a&) I don't know how high he'll get, but it's feasible that he could grow to 18 pace, maybe even higher. He can't jump, but he can head. Let's assume that he grows like the high PA wonderkid he obviously is. Clearly, he won't be some 140 CA physical beast just dominating people, but would he actually be any worse if he didn't have all of those *lesser* attributes? He's not even a top, top wonderkid, he's just a good wonderkid. I've signed kids with 16 physicals at 15, maybe they weren't great everywhere else, but they were Olympic track stars. I think the problem is that the match engine appears as if it's built around players with roughly his physical attributes as the highest, and yet there are tons of players starting in the game with physicals that are way better than that.

Well...maybe. Go into your save and see how Adama Traore is doing. He fits the criteria and should be dominating based on all these tests, right? But what if he isn't? Who is wrong? I think that all these test are breaking the match engine with an almost impossible combination of stats ignoring the fact that the match engine isnt built for these kinds of scenarios.

Adama Traore usually completely sucks in my saves. You're right. However, whenever I play against whatever team he's on, he often scores against me. Now, is that a question of sim vs playing a match out? I don't know. In a save I loaded up just now to see, Adama has 6g/2a in 15(1) PL apps this season. Yes and no. It's not unfeasible for players with high physicals to exist. Perhaps some of the issues with why we don't see players like Adama dominate for the AI is that the team around them isn't that great physically, or they setup in formations that don't emphasize or promote physical attributes. Humans don't sign Adama, but I wonder if we signed Adama and put him in one of our regular teams if he'd do well. A lot of my star wingers/IFs only have 14-15 pace, but they're also feeding other elite players, so everything is going up for them, both goals and assists.

They could check, Adama plays in Fulham and the kind of simulation used is the same.

They certainly could, but there's a good chance that you don't get this result without an entire team of players that fit the characteristics.

After so many experiments valid or not valid results, the ME and its problems are being discovered. The post does not break my immersion, as i am not that picky in transfers, usually i just listen to best scout. However, I think it does serve as an eye opener for adjusting (at least my) transfer window mentality and choose a player with better physicals even if it is not as technically gifted as other player I might be interested in. I still think that focusing on the required attributes for a certain role would be the way to go if you are building an actual team instead of going full force on world class athletes (or at least way above average for the league you are palying). If anything the community found a way to exploit the engine, add that to list. I will be waiting for more posts like this, I'm sure they will come in the next days/weeks.

Hey guys, so much effort into this post and the experiment so props to you and thanks for sharing. Not disputing any of this but just a couple of suggestions perhaps to really solidify this? I acknowledge how difficult it is to get all these things as perfect as possible but could you or someone else also try the reverse? Giving 8-11s for example in most/all physicals and then 11-16s in the technical and mental..? (just said some random numbers which could be adjusted) Just curious to see how that team would end up like. Presumably it would be somewhere around 15th or below I'd presume..? Or maybe even better and probably some extreme work using the editor (which I've never used so I actually don't know how that would go): make all teams have custom players. 5 teams have good stats across the board (group 1), 5 teams have bad stats across the board (group 2), 5 teams have the stats you suggested or roughly in that ball park (so good physicals) (group 3), and 5 have the inverse (not great physicals but good mental and technical) (group 4). Assuming the top 10 consists of the teams from groups 1 and 3, it would be interesting to compare how intertwined they are in the table. As in, would the top 5 be the exact 5 from group 1 or will it be quite random with group 3? If the technical and mental are not as important (or at least the difference after a certain point is negligible in those stats, whether that point is 5 or 12 or 15 I don't know), then you'd expect the top 10 teams being the ones with the best physicals randomly distributed. Also, I feel like I've lost a bit of enthusiasm for the game now but it was long coming. I think the majority of the people here, we knew the importance of the physical attributes but probably not to this extent.. Anyway, great post, thanks!

Thanks for your comment! I really like the idea, maybe in future we might revisit properly (a bit burnt out and unenthusiastic about FM at the moment, you know the deal). In our first initial experiment we did try a similar approach, but due to dynamics issues and teething problems as part of getting to grips with testing, we don’t consider it valid. The short of it was, two teams. One team had 18s in pace and acceleration, 15s in the other physicals and anticipation, 9s in composure and decisions, 13s everywhere else. The other team had 13s everywhere, but composure and decisions were set at 18 each. I might not remember exactly but it was something along those lines. Anyway, the first team did really well, while the second team got me sacked halfway through the simulation by around January. We also hope that by explaining our methodology, more people would be encouraged to try things out themselves by either doing what we did, or more likely tweaking things to their satisfaction. Neither of us are experts with creating players (I don’t even know how to create a league, I think I’d need to pay for the editor?), but if you create a club, clear squad and try to create players, a lot should be self explanatory. If you have some spare time, it’s definitely worth having a tinker and seeing if you could try something on your own as well?

I hope someone in the comments can take the ideas and run them. We originally did do a sim where mentals were high and I think physicals were 13s, and the team got relegated. We didn’t include it because in that sim we didn’t control for morale, so we couldn’t be 100% sure that wasn’t the cause.

They wont outrun everyone, what you are have done is find the flaw in the X Y co-ordinates part of the maths, ie the ball will be in this co-ordinate (X and Y) who are the two closest opposing players, based on positions, roles tactics etc... So now you have two players that are both measurable distances from the ball, then the game calculates, who will arrive first to the ball and they have a higher starting score ...before the scenario is even loaded, ie header (jumping reach and heading etc).. and before random number generation is added to the scenario... the issue is that normally, both teams will have some speedsters and some normal players.. so no one team will ALWAYS arrive at the ball scenario first. But by having every single player as fast and strong, you are leaving zero chance that you will not be first to every ball and also likely to win any 50/50 with the physical stats. ie there is not a single co-ordinate on the field that it is likely you wont have a player arrive first. which is weighted too heavily by the match engine but has to be as you need pace and acceleration to be linear and measurable for other scenarios. The other issue is that you are simulating matches, yes they are full matches that you can see highlights for, but they are still simmed games, simmed games take in half of the attributes (they need to or else we would all need beefier computers) - the meta attributes are used more in simulated matches - if you watch the match in full (not replay) the result will not be as skewed, the game needs to do this because everyone wants huge databases but not to slow down the PC or Console There is a reason Adama does not perform brilliantly on his own in a team, because YES if the ball drops near him, he will be first there... but that wont happen EVERYWHERE on the park.. Every scenario is calculated like this, but you have ensured that when you cross to a co-ordinate, you will be first to the ball, because every player is faster, you will be first toa header, first to a clearance, first to a through ball... because with speed, you are covering more of the space quickly, each scenario uses the attributes, ie jumping reach and heading for a header...and strength, but then RNG is trhown over the top, but the weighting for proximity/speed, is far too heavy, but can not be adjusted as it affects other scenarios, they would need to re-write the engine, making "arrival speed" a separate and hidden attribute. Think of it like this... you are in the center of the city, and you had a heart attack... if you draw a perfect circle and place an 2 ambulances at 12 oclock, 3 oclock, 6 oclock and 9 oclock - so two ambulances at each of these locations, but one ambulance is a ferrari and the other is a bus.. you will see all 6 Ferraris arrive before the bus.... but if you only had a few ferraris, and the other team has a few, then you might both arrive at the co-ordinate together with no advantage.... This is why on his own Adama does not shine... but 11 adamas means you always have an advantage.. do the test with half fast and half normal

For your first test. The post kicking all this off had this. The 9 meta ttributes at 10, the rest at 20. They finished with 14 points in the PL, 3 more than that Derby side.

Honestly I commend you for the work. Well done. However, as fan and player since CM01/02 who is now a Dad of 2 of very young toddlers. I'm just going to enjoy my game and rage at my screen how I always have and just do things the way I've always done it as this is my downtime to relax for 8 mins a day

Thank you for your research! A couple of things I could point out that could be improved: You put injury proneness and temper very favourably. Did you do the same for every EPL teams? This can already give you a sort of edge over the other teams that is indépendant of attributes. I would argue that 17 to everybody is already extremely high, to make it more balievable I would create a small script to RNG 11 numbers between 15 and 17 and apply the results throughout the team. What bothers me in these experiment is that I believe most players that are very physical are not so good in EVERY physical attributes. There are very fast players. Very strong players, very agile players, sometimes quick and agile, sometimes quick and strong, sometimes balanced and agile, but very seldom they are eeeverything, let alone 11 of them in one team. Once again I would create a RNG for every physical attributes besides pace between 13 and 16 to make them strong, but more logically so. Don't know if what I say makes sense but that's my takes!

Thanks for your reply! For the injury proneness and temperament, our aim was to try to simulate a real player playing the season properly. In other words, if I myself am playing a normal save, I will be resting and rotating players properly to reduce injury risk, and dealing with dynamics issues like contract renewals, and playing time (and never making any promises) to the point where dynamics issues are pretty minimal throughout a season. As a result, compared to a normal save, there is no larger disadvantage for dynamics for opposing teams in this experiment. For your second part, we agree that there is of course more variation amongst real players in game than in our experiment. However, we don’t think this makes our testing invalid - we have shown that the majority of attributes have minimal impact (which is a HUGE deal), and of course in practice, this means that if you aim to sign players with these as many of these meta attributes as high as you can, you are bound to overachieve. We also did not want to overcomplicate the experiment design with many additional variables that themselves lead to further opportunities for error.

I think pointing out that this players likely dont actually exist is a normal playthrough is fair. Realistically, what you're showing in your tests is that these collection of unexisting players can break the game. However, is a player who is good at only some of these meta attributes game-breaking? How good does he have to be in these attributes? Is 17 the right number (because players with 17 at anything are rare to find)?

The answer to your question is that it depends on the league. Of course in the PL, better physicals will be required than in the Vanarama National - the reason we chose physicals at a high level is because the competition is at a high level. Also, the only 17s used were in pace and acceleration, the rest were 15s and 16s, which actually are relatively easy to find - even if you can’t find high attribute values for all of these and for all players, the evidence suggests that you could still overperform purely on physicals. These are by no means extreme attributes, if we had used 19s or 20s I would agree with you, but here what we have done is reasonable. And how do you excuse a team like that, with just seven in composure and decisions, doing so well?

>Also, the only 17s used were in pace and acceleration, the rest were 15s and 16s, which actually are relatively easy to find Individually yes, but players with all of these attributes above 15 are super rare. I don't have the game open right now, but I believe that if you go into player search and filter for >=15 in all of those attributes, you likely won't find anyone. >even if you can’t find high attribute values for all of these and for all players, the evidence suggests that you could still overperform purely on physicals. What evidence? Like I said, all your test is proving is that players with 15 and above in all physicals are game-breaking. This test doesnt show the outcome of having some attributes above 15 and others closer to the 9s and 11s you gave in other areas. What about pacey, but physically weak players? Or strong, slow players? Or decently pacey and strong, but not above 15, and instead closer to 13? This test doesnt show the outcome for these players. I agree with the conclusion that FM does have meta attributes, and that physicals are OP, but because I tested it myself in a recent save, without using the editor, just signing pacey players at every position. I'm just questioning the testing process.

>all your test is proving is that players with physicals 15 and above in all physicals are game-breaking. Not at all. The main point of the post was to also show how little, if any, the technical and mental stats matter in game, compared to physicals. I notice you dodged my last question about it. I don’t want to keep repeating myself about how you don’t need ALL of the meta attributes to be high to see a player overperform, so I won’t. Instead, I encourage you to watch [this video](https://youtu.be/QRFXoPJ1HkA?feature=shared) where ONLY pace and acceleration were improved; despite poor mentals and technicals, even a mismatch of physicals, the team overperformed.

>I notice you dodged my last question about it. I'm not dodging anything, I'm questioning your methods. You asked about me excusing low composure, but I'm not? >I don’t want to keep repeating myself about how you don’t need ALL of the meta attributes to be high to see a player overperform, so I won’t. That's your test though. If you wanted to prove you dont neeed them all to be high, why did you put them all above the average? Like I said, your test and your conclusion are two different things, even though I agree with your point.

How did it go for you, just signing fast players?

I dominated the league. Won everything with really low budget and no expectations from the board.

Who cares about mentals or technicals?

The solution then might be to take very physical EPL players WITHOUT ALTERING THEIR STATS, put them in one team and make a whole simulation of that team as a control group. Then, change only the technical and mental abilities and gimp them to make the very bad for EPL, and see how this group does. If they do similar than the above, then ME is broken. If they tank, then it's accurate to reality.

I think finding players who match this philosophy, who don’t currently play in the prem. Taking the players that match this from other teams would weaken the other teams. I’m also interested to see a list of players who fit this description at all. Maybe I’ll check that today.

Very good point, or maybe just duplicate them

all I see here is validation of what every european football fan knows - the premiership is only about physicality /s

I genuinely don't think this is THAT damning though? It seems that the players have been made in such a way that they are quite good at extremely important things, passable-at-best at nearly everything else, and only weak in few areas. Given what I can tell about the Independent Variables you've set up here, there's overpeformance for some, but very specifically, the player page screenshot available here showing the "average player" for this side doesn't *really* show anything I wouldn't expect. A 6.93 average rating in the Premier League is probably a solid 0.10 higher than I would have bet on, but being good at dribbling and running while not having any extreme weaknesses other than being "just kind of average" on every other attribute is going to create a player who can force better situations for his team regardless of decision making speed and/or composure. I feel like it *doesn't matter* if they're poor decision makers and lack the necessary composure to pick out a pass while being pressured, because all this results in is the player dwelling on the ball. Given the attribute distribution, these players are *at their best* when they're on the ball. They're harder to take possession from, better at punishing tight marking or missed tackles, and able to force more missed tackles than the average player. This post isn't "definitive proof" that the match engine is lying to us--hell, if anything, most of these resulting player stats are close to what I personally would have expected, short of the fairly extreme scoring stats. I want to clarify I don't mean to suggest that good dribbling is all that's standing between you and a Quintuple. The big issue here is more in the actual *match results*, from what I see. These players are good at doing things that particularly punish what it seems the AI tactics are made to do, resulting in more wins and overperformance of player stats. Especially in FM24, I've noticed AI teams--especially in tip divisions--are far less unique defensively than they used to be. Maybe that's just a personal experience, but it feels like every team is just running their own style of a gegenpress with the occasional team running a gegenpress from deep instead of actually parking the bus. Better dribbling and better speed means that these teams can't actually shut any of these players down by playing that gegenpress style. I'd really rather quite like to see how an experienced player manager with "normal" players would fair against a team like the ones that have been created for this test series, because I have the suspicion that a human being would be able to better identify how to counteract the "Oops, All Traore!" Team. If the issue persists *regardless* of tactics, then I think we'd really be on to something. But until then, I'm just not convinced. Lastly, no offense but I feel like this is probably the most importanr feedback: To call it "definitive" on one sample, no matter the sample, is also fundamentally false and is not good scientific practice. Regardless of my personal take on the conclusions and research method, it's important to make sure we are communicating honestly. Especially if your intent is to get more people doing their own studies on this, then avoid calling it definitive!

Firstly, great work and thanks.. but.... What you are have done is find the flaw in the X Y co-ordinates part of the maths, ie the ball will be in this co-ordinate (X and Y) who are the two closest opposing players, based on positions, roles tactics etc... So now you have two players that are both measurable distances from the ball, then the game calculates, who will arrive first to the ball and they have a higher starting score ...before the scenario is even loaded, ie header (jumping reach and heading etc).. and before random number generation is added to the scenario... the issue is that normally, both teams will have some speedsters and some normal players.. so no one team will ALWAYS arrive at the ball scenario first. But by having every single player as fast and strong, you are leaving zero chance that you will not be first to every ball and also likely to win any 50/50 with the physical stats. ie there is not a single co-ordinate on the field that it is likely you wont have a player arrive first. which is weighted too heavily by the match engine but has to be as you need pace and acceleration to be linear and measurable for other scenarios. The other issue is that you are simulating matches, yes they are full matches that you can see highlights for, but they are still simmed games, simmed games take in half of the attributes (they need to or else we would all need beefier computers) - the meta attributes are used more in simulated matches - if you watch the match in full (not replay) the result will not be as skewed, the game needs to do this because everyone wants huge databases but not to slow down the PC or Console There is a reason Adama does not perform brilliantly on his own in a team, because YES if the ball drops near him, he will be first there... but that wont happen EVERYWHERE on the park.. Every scenario is calculated like this, but you have ensured that when you cross to a co-ordinate, you will be first to the ball, because every player is faster, you will be first toa header, first to a clearance, first to a through ball... because with speed, you are covering more of the space quickly, each scenario uses the attributes, ie jumping reach and heading for a header...and strength, but then RNG is trhown over the top, but the weighting for proximity/speed, is far too heavy, but can not be adjusted as it affects other scenarios, they would need to re-write the engine, making "arrival speed" a separate and hidden attribute. Think of it like this... you are in the center of the city, and you had a heart attack... if you draw a perfect circle and place an 2 ambulances at 12 oclock, 3 oclock, 6 oclock and 9 oclock - so two ambulances at each of these locations, but one ambulance is a ferrari and the other is a bus.. you will see all 6 Ferraris arrive before the bus.... but if you only had a few ferraris, and the other team has a few, then you might both arrive at the co-ordinate together with no advantage.... This is why on his own Adama does not shine... but 11 adamas means you always have an advantage.. do the test with half fast and half normal

This may have ruined my experience.

Fantastic test. You are worried about the sample size but that is not an issue. We’ve seen many people replicate similar tests since the original post and they all came out with similar results. As well, the odds of a fluke title win with these stats is extremely unlikely. As such, even a sample size of one is telling enough

You still have an entire team of physically elite players. The only players in the base game with comparable attributes are Haaland, Osimhen, Militao and Dumfries. Haaland is the only one clearly better. These are players that in real life and in game trample over everyone they come across. The game is designed to emphasise elite attributes. I'd like to see the same experiment but with -2 for all of the physical attributes. Very good but not elite. I'd expect to see that team in the relegation zone.

Well our methodology is here, our aim was to get people to get testing themselves. While we can’t know until there’s a test, I disagree that the gap between these physicals and -2 would lead to THAT huge of a difference, my hypothesis is that any team with -2 would remain competent. That also doesn’t excuse the technicals and mentals in game meaning sweet fuck all.

There are 0 players in the game that match _just_ the pace acceleration and jumping reach you used on _every_ player. There's only 19 that have that pace and acceleration. I suggest taking those 19 players, moving any attribute in mental or technical that is over 10, to 10, and trying it again :)

I thought it would be cool to see how many of these players actually exist in FM24. I'm using this player as the example: https://preview.redd.it/t1g38ftjbjjc1.png?width=1707&format=png&auto=webp&s=37872cd9c6b42417669fb552d64ad74a7f06cf8d Searching the mental+technical attributes (and excluding the physicals) there are a total of 0 players. Using only the mentals, there are 111 players who meet the "everything 11's and 2 7's" Using only the technicals, 0 players meet the criteria. This is ignoring that dribbling is _sixteen_ Using only the physicals (at 15 each) there are actually, also 0 players who meet _only_ the physicals. Again, excluding that some of these are higher than 15. - There's 1 player who meets 7/8 physicals - 3 players who meet 6/8 physicals - 12 players who meet 5/8 physicals - 72 players who match half (4/8) the physical traits. Since Acceleration and Pace are all that "really matter" lets check that. 19 players have both 17 pace and acceleration. (0 in the premier league) So yes when you create players to test specific things, then you can see that you can create players that kind of break the system. Do these players exist? It doesn't seem like they're super common. Is this experiment concerning? Yes. Are some attributes stronger than others? Yeah (which we knew because different attribute changes affect CA differently). Do these freak players exist? Not all together. Also no players have 17 pace and acceleration, and 15 jumping reach. Tl;dr I don't see these players existing in the game to even sign if you wanted to. Let alone getting 11 of them. Edit: [This is the highest transfer value player with 17 acceleration and pace](https://imgur.com/WveTzbV) Edit 2: Checking the 19 players who match the pace and acceleration, there is 1 center back. The rest are wingers/strikers/wingbacks. Edit 3: (sorry) There are 61 players who have 16 dribbling. If you are going to claim technicals don't matter, please don't put them in the top 1% of players who can dribble. The highest dribbling attribute in the game is 17

I don’t think this negates anything in the experiment. We picked those because they were flagged as traits that mattered. If you want to debate how point for point realistic our players are, that’s alright. The point is merely to see how well a player who only has physical traits would do. They do way better than any football logic would expect. Interestingly, a team which should ‘break the game’ as you say with top 1% mentals gets relegated. I’m genuinely not sure why people are so quick to defend the match engine in terms of physical traits.

The players just don't exist to do this without the editor. I wasn't looking to discredit the investigation into the match engine, rather than just see who existed to match this. I think the experiment has merit, I was just wondering how easy it would be to make the team from actual players. I also think the people testing are really undervaluing how good these created players are. If the test was physicals at 20, and everything else (including dribbling... why is that always so high?) at 1 then I'd be more convinced. We've seen when that is tested the team gets relegated, indicating that the mental and technical do influence things at some point.

Not sure if you caught the original post nearly a week ago (unfortunately he deleted it). Basically he chose nine “meta” attributes (mostly physicals), set them to 20 and everything else to 1, and did very well. When he reversed it, he found the team did very poorly. A lot of criticism of that post was for using such extreme attribute values, as many said the match engine isn’t designed to handle it. So if that answers your question, that’s why we used the values we did. We’re not denying that it’s almost impossible to find players who satisfy everything there - however, that doesn’t mean the principle is wrong. You could see the same trends to a lesser extent if you set pace and acceleration to 16, or kept everything as we did but ignored one stat, like jumping reach. And a team with 7s in composure and decisions doing that well, physical or not, is an embarrassment on SI’s part.

Yes I caught the original. The case for "physicals + dribbling" is fine, but include that in the comments arguing that "technicals don't matter" Dribbling does seem to be pretty important to this. If your claim is "technicals don't matter" then just test that and put everything to 1 lol. There seems to be a lot of hesitation to do that. Overall I agree it's a bit sad that the engine is like this but I'm still having fun with the game so I'm not sweating too hard.

The hesitations to set everything to 1 are to prevent criticism of lopsided players that the engine can’t handle, as explained above. As we have learned, unfortunately a lot of the community is in denial. If we do things one way, we get criticised. We do things the other way, we get criticised. We’d get the same criticism of the original post if we did what you’re saying and set everything to 1s. If people don’t want to hear what someone is saying they will do whatever they can to block it out. You’re also more than welcome to test yourself with all 1s, so there’s that. It was enjoyable to figure stuff out for the experiment. It’s also not just us who have found fault with the match engine, so as you say, there has to be something fishy going on. Edit: technicals to 1s

I think the issue is that you are still creating lopsided players. I'd be interested to see some "natural experiment" where one edits in or drafts only real players that excel at physicals and not much else. I don't want to deny the match engine has issues, clearly it does. But I'm not convinced these attribute Tests really tell us about the way we play. If anything, we can all feel that gegenpressing is very OP, which turns me off much more.

Does it matter if the players were somewhat lopsided? The main issue with the original experiment with 1s and 20s was that the match engine couldn’t handle them; however here, since the attributes are much more balanced, there isn’t this issue any more. What the post shows is that mentals and technicals for the most part have a very minimal effect on player performance.

As it was shown to you, the kind of player you created doesn't exist in the game. If we are charitable to SI, they couldn't quality test for this "bug". This doesn't rule out that your hypothesis is right, but as said try it with a natural experiment and sign players who excel in these stats but not othes.

Sorry I appreciate the effort gone into this but I think the test is still very flawed, a player with all 15 physicals is still a freak of nature and thats why the game doesnt have or generate this kinds of players. A much more realistic scenario to test how much technical and mental attributes matter is to have 22 teams competing with all players with physicals all at 10 but varying levels of technical and mental abilities and see how they fare. Physicals are EXTREMELY important in football, and all the greatest players have excelled physically at inhuman levels. Messi had the agility, balance and acceleration of an alien. Cristiano ronaldo had the jumping reach of a god. Ronaldo had the strength and explosiveness of a bull stampeding your ass. Ashley cole was a mad defender on the wing because he had the pace to keep up with the fastest wingers in the world, and you can go on. There are technically gifted players that simply do not have what it takes to compete cause they cant win a single duel because the faintest physical contact will destabilize them. Use physically mediocre players and vary the mentals and technicals if you want realistic results.

Speed and agility were part of Messi’s game but most of it was actually between the ears? Reading space, knowing where a pass is, reading defender movements and using clever body feints, excellent passing. I’m surprised you underestimate how much mental ability goes into football.

I think they’ve already done that test and the team overperformed massively. Dribbling is always so high because of this post: https://fm-arena.com/table/26-player-attributes-testing/ If you look, there 4 traits that seem to make a statistically significant difference in the number of points are pace acceleration jumping reach and dribbling. So people have been doing tests where they create variations on these 4 to see if they really screw up the match engine. Lots of people have said it has. They’ve done comparisons between 20s and 1s, but then there were complaints that nobody has 1s so we tried to make the other attributes a bit more realistic. You are correct that very few players in the game at the start match the actual specific trait numbers in the tests. However our point was simply to see what would happen if you gave players high but not extremely high numbers in the supposed meta stats and gave them low numbers in the supposed non important ones. The experiment showed you can just run away with the league. To adapt to your point, probably the closest thing to what you’re saying is to just find all the players who have good numbers in these 4, disregard mentals, drop them on the same team and see what happens. People have done this as well. We aren’t saying our experiment is the only information out there on this. It’s one of many experiments. There’s similar ones out on fmarena, there’s people in this comment section saying they saw similar experiments and changed their transfer strategy to focus on speed only and achieved insane results even though they disregarded mentals. There’s others who look at the results and finally understand why players who were terrible at everything except running were scoring a goal a game in their saves. Have a look at the comments. Anecdotal evidence is not high quality, but if you’ve got multiple similar bits of anecdotal evidence something is definitely up.

I think you’re being too literal. The point of the simulation is to show that some attributes matter a lot more than others in a generic way. Clearly they do and the difference is very dramatic. When applying this in an actual save you are limited by the players actually available and your budget, but using the important attributes you can still select players that will be undervalued by the AI due to poor technicals and mentals and yet will perform better than more expensive players. As various people have demonstrated in the last few years you can have the lowest wage budget in the PL, the worst average for most technicals and mentals, and the lowest CA, yet you can consistently qualify for CL and sometimes win the PL. The point in a real save isn’t to avoid buying players with good technicals and mentals to go with the physicals (of course you would if you have the budget or they are cheap for some reason), it’s that when cost is a factor you should choose the best possible physicals in your price range.

So all these tests were to just reinforce what we’ve known for years. Cool lol. To me, these tests are entertaining, but why create a team of players with no weakness that can’t be overcome with their superhuman physical abilities, rather than just signing the most physical players from league one and the championship and proving the point with actual players?

What you ask for has already been done multiple times. And since those real players have some good mentals and technicals people can still argue that you haven’t eliminated them as an important contributing factor to success. Does it make you feel good to just put down the work other people did and say it’s irrelevant or that you already knew that?

I remember having a player, Christophe Samb in like FM22 who had minimum 18 in all his physicals but max like 14 in everything else as a CM, he was regularly player of the season in my Liverpool team and won many a ballon d’or. Never could explain it

I don't know why people are so shocked to be honest. We've all known for a long time that the best way to dominate the English lower leagues and move up the ladder quickly is to sign or loan in a team of pacey physically-gifted players, so why wouldn't that logic hold the same for the Premier League? The game has always placed a premium on physical attributes, it's just less noticeable at the higher levels because of the overall quality of the players unless you do an experiment like this.

The main issue is how little the other attributes matter, if at all.

When you put them to 1 the team gets relegated, so I guess they matter a little bit.

that’s just as unrealistic as the tests with 20 in every physical. Fact of the matter is, if you buy players with 16-17 pace with 11 in techincal/mental attributes, they will play better than a team full of people with 16-17 technical and mental attributes but 12 in pace. Which just shoupdn’t be possible

Sure it’s unrealistic but these claims of “it’s literally not used at all” are easily tested. “How little the other attributes matter, if at all” If they don’t matter at all, then it’s fine to be unrealistic because they don’t matter at all. If they do matter then op is making a weirdly false claim when we all know physicals matter more.

1. You should simulate at least 10 seasons to see if there is any statistical significance. 2. The gegenpress tactic created fits well the physical choice of attributes. You should check the most neutral tactic as well and the PL average tactic tests (both at least 10x) to see how much a tactic influences results. 3. Even if you pick 11, it's in the middle point of CA. The physicals are weighted the most in the CA calculation. Attributes are not weighted equally, the team you created is most probably dominant in terms of CA anyway. You are supposed to win PL with players in the CA range of 130-150 easily, especially when you use OP tactics. 17 is maxing out CA for an attribute (it is capped at 6-16). 4. The players are only worth 10-13M because they are generated and have no history, so no reputation. They would be much more expensive to buy in-game. There are not many players with that unnatural distribution of attributes. 5. The influence of attributes on the match engine is not linear. The change from 13 to 11 is much less than from 11 to 9. If you pick 11 in most of the technical and mental, the players will be behaving just ok. It would be worth checking how the players behave with technicals and mentals at 9. Also, what the effect is at 7. Are they not worth at all, or there is a level at which the players make so many suboptimal decisions even the extreme physicals can't keep up. 6. Attributes like decisions and composure have an impact together with other attributes, so some kind of average is taken to determine an event. Pace and acceleration are just alone. Dribbling comes with agility and balance. The team has a clear advantage that is hard to beat, with minimized weakness. This is the sole purpose of any strategy game. 7. I believe I could create a much stronger team with the same CA cap, maxing out the attributes that are of very low weight as aggression and bravery, and just average physicals on certain roles. That wouldn't change the fact we are unrealistically exploiting the game engine.

From what I’ve read on FM Arena, when people try the #7 challenge (winning the EPL with lowest CA possible.) Min maxing the meta attributes is still the winner for lowest CA. Ie, ACC/PAC is still the most efficient use of CA. Everyone that has run any kind of controlled test has come to the same conclusion about what attributes are the best. At some point the skeptics, need to prove otherwise. I would legitimately love it if you could prove #7 it would be a FM breakthrough.

I agree probably 10 seasons is reasonable. However, unfortunately we simply don’t have time for it and were basically just doing the test as a see for yourself kind of thing. You can run your own season and see it. Just to put this information together was based on two failed seasons and one ‘successful one’, and then we spent roughly two weeks on and off discussing it. I think people misinterpret what we are saying about these findings and the match engine. Nobody is saying speed and physicality are not important. The problem is that other attributes do not seem to matter at all, and the results coming from these combinations of attributes are not realistic. I understand what you’re saying about CA, etc. However the game simply doesn’t map to real life. The players we assembled are basically a fast scrappy championship side. This team shouldn’t have a player at the top of the assist charts if he cannot pass at a decent level or have any vision to spot the pass. The problem isn’t the physicality, it’s the other attributes. Most football fans would agree that even if a player can run fast (not fast enough to be super human) but he can’t pass, he won’t do much on a pitch.

What is happening with your tests is creating the players that have certain advantages. If you create a 200cm striker with 17 jumping, strength, bravery, and heading, and create tactics that produce tons of crosses and corners, he would unrealistically turn out a better goalscorer than Haaland or Mbappe. At least in some simulations. > This team shouldn’t have a player at the top of the assist charts if he cannot pass at a decent level or have any vision to spot the pass. The bias in the football world to credit the pass giver rather than the taker is very common. The correct statistical test for it is to create one playmaker with outstanding vision, flair, passing, composure, etc, and compare him to the existing physical player in the same setup with multiple iterations. If the crappy playmaker has the best assist numbers, the only conclusion is the pass recipient movement is more important, at least in certain scenarios. It may also be, that there is no need for excellent creativity if, after a simple pass, the other player can dribble out, outpace everyone, and score. I get what you want to achieve, but my experience with physical players is twofold: they are too low on mentals or technicals to be useful, or with good enough mentals and technicals their pace is not enough to simply outrun everyone. The guys with excellent physicals and good mentals and technicals are scarce and very expensive. If you don't play the most reputable and rich teams, it's hard to abuse your findings.

>I believe I could create a much stronger team with the same CA cap, maxing out the attributes that are of very low weight as aggression and bravery, and just average physicals on certain roles. That wouldn't change the fact we are unrealistically exploiting the game engine. It would be an interesting test. Make a CA cap, add interesting synergetic attribute combinations and see how well they do. For instance: **Test A:** **1.** Get best tactics from FM-Arena, check roles on tactics, check FM importance of the attributes for those specific roles. Adopt a 1 (unimportant) - 2 (slightly important) - 4 (crucial) attribute increase based on role importance until you hit the CA cap. Repeat for every player until you have a team with the CA cap tailored to the roles according to what FM is telling you. Theoretically, all things being the same (no injuries, no morale changes, etc. ) this should consistently give you the best results possible. **2.** Use a random starting game template tactic. Adopt the same 1-2-4 attribute increase, but this time using the FM Arena attribute importance, basically creating very fast, strong, aerially powerful players at CA cap. Theoretically, because we know how important these attributes are, they should/can give the team an advantage, but over the long term, it should not produce better results than a perfect mixture of the combination of attributes that FM specifies are the best for a player playing in a certain position. **Test B:** Make Test A's teams play against each other. Theoretically, in a 1 on 1, the team with the optimized stat combination according to FM, using a tactic that has been tested to be one of the best, should consistently beat a team with good but not optimized stats and with an unoptimized tactic.

Paging u/NotthefakeZealand

I don’t think its recent physicals have been overpowered, its been like that for at least 10 years. What i think people miss is - how many actual players can you find with 20/20 acceleration and pace. In all my years playing, i’ve had 1 striker like that and yes he was godlike, but his other attributes were good, he was like a 160CA player, who happened to be Dwayne Chambers. I dont think its feasible to create players with gamebreaking physicals and go “i broke the game i am angryface”. Players with those physicals don’t exist, and when they do they are normally the best players. You can have a mix on a team with 1 or 2 physically incapable players if the others are good, i dont think its surprising the “soccer aid 11” with insane technicals and no physical ability would struggle. Ronaldinho and Ronaldo were washed once their legs went

The players here were given far more reasonable physical attributes than 20s, and besides, the main point is how little even mentals matter. These guys only had 7s in composure and decisions.

Did you read the post? The entire point of this test was to use "realistic" players with 15-17 physicals rather than 20. These players do exist in game, and they regularly outperform very skilled technical players with just "good" physicals.

I think the issue is, if you created a team with 20 in all mentals and technicals, then 12s or 13s for physicals, they'd underperform relative to the fact that that would be the best team ever assembled.

i respect the research but if i approached playing fm this way i dont think id have any fun. the attributes are what define the players character, if you arent using your imagination you really are just playing an spreadsheet simulator.

Exactly what I have been playing this game in the past decade is to scout players based on the true useful attributes. I never buy players who waste their CA on “Decision” or “Off the ball” nonesense. Always physical always speed, and dribbling, some anticipation, single footed. Easily win big trophies and dominate with average CA of 130 or even less. Ever wondered why Kane is so shit in this game? He is slow and double footed. So many useless attributes wasting his high CA. SI have been lying to the entire player base since the start, but their fanboys will keep denying it.

I mean just put 15-17 attributes in all pgysicals. What kind of player do you think has that kind of stats, peak Ibra and Ronaldo maybe. Players that were also the very best in the real world

What about the Xavi and Müller types? Those kinds of players rely more on their technique, or are you going to say they shouldn’t be world class in FM?

What I believe is players like that are still good but you would realistically only need one of them in a team. A team full of them would obviously do worse than a full physical team.

No I am saying there aren't many players with 15-17 across the board physicals stats in the midfield (or anywhere)

This is my issue with this. Of course mental and technical stats matter and should matter as much, but players with all 15-17 physicals would be exceptional, top 1% world class athletes in real life who could be incredibly effective in football even if their technique or mental attributes were relatively mediocre for the top level. 11 of those players could well make a team that could win a league in any given year.

I find people keep moving the goalposts on this one. Firstly it was 19s and 20s are elite. Someone does an experiment where it’s 16s and 17s but that’s still not enough.

That’s just not true at all, there are plenty footballers around the world with fantastic pace, strength and height who are not premier league level.

This is just plain incorrect? There are tons of physically great players outside the top level who scrap for points because they aren’t technically great, but they will run you off the park, while outmuscle you, foul you just to take a draw.

Not that match the group you put together lol

Unrealistic input = unrealistic output.

This is still my take with it. In the end I still have fun with the game. If people would like to play attributeball and only find people with extreme pace and acceleration they can go for it. I’ll certainly try it.

> perhaps there's a reason they have focused more on cosmetic upgrades to the engine? Because that's all the fanbase seem to care about. Every release this place is full of people moaning about how it looks just the same as last year, not realising that most of the work is done behind the scenes, so to speak. I've had countless arguments on here with people who seem to think they could just import the FIFA engine over and basically have photo realistic matches tomorrow if they wanted. That's the sort of uneducated demands they are now up against, and I think they've just decided to fold to the demand of putting aesthetics first. If that's what most people seem to want then why wouldn't they? It's also much easier to just focus on the graphics; it must be soul destroying to put all this work into the match engine then just get slated for being lazy and not changing the UI much. > Are they quietly trying to do this as a crowd pleaser to sweep the very real problems shown here, which are presumably harder to fix, under the rug? I think it's more that the wider fanbase has basically been saying "make it look prettier, that's all we care about" for years. Yeah I know there are plenty of fans who want a good management game but they don't shout as loudly as the kids do. To be fair, FM24 had major work done to the match engine, with the smart player positioning, etc. so it was to be expected that it was a poor year. I tend to only buy the game on years where they don't introduce a big new feature, as that gives them a full year to iron our the issues they always have in the first release. So I'm currently on FM22 and looking at FM26 as my next one.

>Because that's all the fanbase seem to care about. Not really. If this was the case, people would have stopped playing years ago. FM doesnt even have mobile-level graphics and animations, games like Dream League Soccer look better than FM. I'm not arguing on how difficult it is to make FM look prettier, but saying that the player base care too much about graphics is just insane imo. The amount of ugly player models and 3d animations you have to ignore to play FM is ridiculous. Ps2 games made decades ago look 10x better. If you're playing FM in the first place you already dont care much about graphics.

I just need the spreadsheets.

> If this was the case, people would have stopped playing years ago. Read my comment again; "I know there are plenty of fans who want a good management game but they don't shout as loudly as the kids do." > FM doesnt even have mobile-level graphics and animations, games like Dream League Soccer look better than FM "I've had countless arguments on here with people who seem to think they could just import the FIFA engine over and basically have photo realistic matches tomorrow if they wanted. That's the sort of uneducated demands they are now up against!" - here we go again, basically. FM is magnitudes more complicated under the hood than something like dream league soccer; that means to produce a similarly smooth looking animation, many many times more work needs to go into it, and so much more processing power is needed. To make it look any better they would need to compromise on the detail and realism, which is what made the game in the first place. If you were to actually play Dream League Soccer it's a terrible game. To compare FM to it is mental. > The amount of ugly player models and 3d animations you have to ignore to play FM is ridiculous Well I don't think they are ugly, and I don't have to ignore it to enjoy it. I was happy to play in 2D (I actually prefer 2D sometimes, it leaves more to the imagination and I find that more immersive), I even played religiously when it was text only. So the 3D looks fine to me. I don't really care for hi res textures, as long as I can see what is happening and it runs fast on my PC then that's all that matters. > Ps2 games made decades ago look 10x better. Once again, it's beyond silly to compare these things, they are completely different styles of games; no ps2 game was as complicated as FM. Uneducated demands.

FM is not as complicated as you're making it out to be. Its a game based on calculations running on an outdated engine with an unimpressive AI. Games dont really take long to load if your PC isnt a potato as the simulation isnt really that complicated. To act like the game comes short in certain aspects of the engine because part of the player base demands improvement in graphics is silly, specially because graphics are still incredibly shit, and people still play.

How come no-one else has ever produced anything even close to it then? You clearly have zero idea about how software is produced.

I have not bought the game since FM21 and I only play FM21. I was shocked when I first discovered the initial Reddit thread. I just threw out all my players that did not have good pace, but very good mentals and other things, and only bought players that have higher then the average pace, acceleration and jumping. I'm doing so much better... I just thought they were doing something behind the scenes to the match engine every year to tweak it. I'm not expecting this to be 1-to-1 with reality but come on.

I've been playing since CM99/00, currently on FM22. So I know the game like the back of my hand. I just ignore these ME experiment posts and continue playing as I always have, and it's just as much fun as always. > I just thought they were doing something behind the scenes to the match engine every year to tweak it They clearly do. Anyone trying to say otherwise isn't even worth discussing it with.

Sounds like you're perfectly happy with the way things are and I think that is a perfectly fine way to feel about the game. > They clearly do. Anyone trying to say otherwise isn't even worth discussing it with. I was being a little hyperbolic with my statement. We're not going to go anywhere by discussing how much or how little they tweak the engine every year. The problem is I thought I was playing a different game. I suck at this game. I don't want to play the meta tactics, I want to find my own tactic that works. Seeing the tactic I created being tweaked and changed over the season and filling in players that I think are good for the roles in my system is what I thought I was doing wrong. Youtubers I watched telling me that "decision" is a good attribute to have. Me thinking that first touch and passing is going to go well for my position based tactic that I created is going to do well for me. Then not tweaking my tactic, selling these players, and getting pace merchants is what makes my formation work? What is disappointing to me is just that this isn't the game I thought I was playing. Once again it's fine if you like it.

This is our main gripe with the game, and why we decided to post this. If physical attributes are good that’s alright. No real issue there. But if all your tinkering with different attributes and roles means nothing, and the only thing you needed to do was just find the fastest player around, then that’s plain ridiculous. Something is wrong with the match engine.

> Sounds like you're perfectly happy Maybe not perfectly happy, or I'd be on FM24; but the standard FM is held to is ridiculous. FIFA barely resembles a game of football but everyone is fine with that; yet when FM doesn't quite perfectly recreate an entire worldwide football ecosystem everyone acts like they don't even try. > I want to find my own tactic that works That's what I do; I'm primarily here to create my own mad tactics, I've never downloaded or used a meta tactic in my life. And I'm very good at the game; boringly I tend to win any league I play in within a few years. > Youtubers I watched telling me that "decision" is a good attribute to have. It still is. > Me thinking that first touch and passing is going to go well for my position based tactic that I created is going to do well for me. It still will. > Then not tweaking my tactic, selling these players, and getting pace merchants is what makes my formation work? It's just a game; glitches and exploits are an unavoidable part of it, but you don't have to use them. I've been a football management sim fanatic for over 25 years and no other game even comes slightly close to FM. Yeah it could be better in many ways but until someone else manages to make a game that is better in any way (so we know it can be done) then we might be asking for things that are impossible.

> Maybe not perfectly happy, or I'd be on FM24; but the standard FM is held to is ridiculous. FIFA barely resembles a game of football but everyone is fine with that; yet when FM doesn't quite perfectly recreate an entire worldwide football ecosystem everyone acts like they don't even try. Because people know what game they are playing when they play FIFA. They know that pace was king there. It's been known for awhile. You're going into that knowing that's the game you're playing. I don't think this was known for FM. > It still is. [But it isn't.](https://fm-arena.com/thread/5351-should-you-follow-the-highlighted-attributes-of-the-roles/page-2/) I know that isn't a perfect study but at least I have something to reference other than anecdote. > It still will. Not as much as pace or acceleration. Not nearly as the FM Arena tests show. > It's just a game; glitches and exploits are an unavoidable part of it, but you don't have to use them. I've been a football management sim fanatic for over 25 years and no other game even comes slightly close to FM. Yeah it could be better in many ways but until someone else manages to make a game that is better in any way (so we know it can be done) then we might be asking for things that are impossible. I feel like you think I'm asking for a game that 1-to-1 resembles reality which is not the case. I think you and I just have different opinions about what we would like to see in this game and should just leave it at that.

lol bro you’re just choosing to be ignorant in order to not feel as if you’ve spent the last 20 years on a shit game. That’s fine. But please don’t act smarter than everyone else. Do this tests yourself and see how you do. Try a save only buying the best physical players you can buy

On the one hand, I think a team of not-very-skilled players who were also the hands down best athletes in the world would and should dominate any sport where athleticism is a huge contributing factor. I don't care if it's football, American football, rugby, basketball, ice hockey, field hockey, la crosse, whatever. All of those sports, someone who is top 5 in the league in running (or skating) AND aerial presence AND strength is probably going to be an elite player as long as they have the basics. While there are examples of women's teams beating male youth teams, generally a U19 team for a major club is going to be better than all but the very best women's sides in the world; U15 Dallas beat the US International Women's side, Salford Youth Academy beat the Manchester United Women's side. This isn't because a bunch of 15 year old boys are technically and mentally better than the best women in the world; it's because they're already 6 feet tall, 180 pounds, have much higher elevation, and run faster, and those advantages trump the technical and mental advantages of their opponents. If you took the Olympic track and field gold medalists, trained them for a year to play football, and turned them loose in the Vanarama National League, they would be *terrors*. They would make a ton of mistakes. They would miss a ton of passes. They would probably set a record for most Own Goals in a season. And they would still win. Because they're just much better athletes. On the other hand, I think it's becoming really clear that certain roles that aren't very physical and are very useful may just not be viable. Plenty of veterans who are losing legs have found a second wind by becoming more Poacher-esque, or more of an Enganche. A player who can orchestrate from the midfield. If I had your commitment, I'd like to see the test that really would kill or perfect this theory: does a team full of these physical monsters outperform a team with physical monsters mixed with a few controllers; does adding an Enganche with elite mentals and technicals improve the team or make it worse? Does a central midfield with a BBM that's more tech/mental and physically slightly below average and a BWM that's all physical perform better or worse than having a physical freak in each slot? I really like how you differentiated the positions; but that's what I'd like to see. Does introducing a little variety make this whole house of cards fall apart? That, to me, would be the deathblow. If mental positions are still better as physical monsters with no technique/mental, then it really doesn't represent reality.

What happened when Usain Bolt, an olympic athlete and a gold medallist tried to play football? Yeah, he was as good as an amateur player, probably worse, all he had was his speed and his acceleration - in FM terms. These tests show that mental/technical attributes have little to no say in a player's performance. I am testing this since i saw the other post about the "9 meta attributes", only signing pacey players. Two seasons in, two promotions and currently sitting in first place with the odds at 100-1 of winning yet another promotion.

Did you literally just go for pace and acceleration? Or did you prioritize any other stuff? And what did you do to find a keeper?? I've always wondered how a GK fits into these experiments

Yep, only pace and acc. When trying to find a good keeper y prioritize Reflexes and Agility but even then, i think GK's are a beast of their own regarding attributes. There are times were an amateur keeper will save every single shot, and then you have Alisson playing with no hands

He didn't have a single point in First Touch. "Like a tranpoline", they said. Like, it isn't enough just to be an athlete; we wouldn't say this individual Olympian would be a good footballer. We would take a hundred Olympians, see who can also master the basics, and turn them loose. And we could probably build a team that would be professional caliber with very little football training. Just because a 35 year old Usain Bolt couldn't make Manchester United doesn't mean physicals aren't the most important aspect of football. Also worth pointing out, Usain was trying to get into PL; I said they'd dominate in the National League with insane physicals and barely any training. If a player had National League technicals and was the best athlete in the PL, they'd be able to play in the PL. Players with Championship technicals/mentals that are also the best athletes in the PL would do very well in the PL.

I think you are using the term "athlete" a bit loosely. A footballer is an athlete? Yes, kind of, but not in the sense that an Olympic gymnast is. Physical skills don't carry from one sport to another like that, if they would, we should've seen a lot of new "archetypes" of footballers and we didn't. We still have the absolute freaks of nature like Haaland and Ronaldo, we still have the "Messi-esque" type of player, great balance, quick with the ball, good dribbler (Not like Messi of course). All I'm saying is that in order to be a pro football player one must have a very define sets of skills and yes, football is becoming more and more physical, but that doesn't mean that talent and footballing intelligence must go out the window in favor of more speed and muscle. That's the way SI is approaching the ME. More speed, more muscle, less talent/intelligence/

That guy is basically just rewording the age old American opinion that “ USA produce the best athletes in the world, if they didn’t all play basketball and nfl they’d dominate global sports” Anyone who has played football knows how far you’d get if you were fast / strong but with shit technique and mentals… not far at all

I dont think so

This is just incorrect. Physical exceptionalism really doesn’t take you that far in football if you don’t have any technique or a football brain

At the end of the day it’s a game, not close to IRL but the closest we’ve got. Are there exploits yes, but you can choose to use them, are there issues yes, but there also work around for said issues. I’ll play the game how I want to, I’m using my tactics and the players I want/find when scouting. These experiments just take the fun out of a game, cause now rather than now going into the game to see if you can beat it with using said exploit, you’re now having people say there is no point to playing because of this little thing. If we all just played the way we’ve been playing this whole match engine experiment thing just screams of people who were losing and now want something to blame. And to add y’all keep doing it with unrealistic players. Just my opinion

Hardly a “little thing” is it, though? Finding out that over 2/3 of attributes are a lie? A game that markets itself at realistic and as close to irl as it gets for a game, should be held accountable for mistakes of this magnitude. It’s a laughable, cheap ploy of yours to blame people who question things as people who are frustrated for losing too much.

Not really cheap and like I said at the end this done with unrealistic players, not just from their visible attributes but down to their hidden ones as well

If anything I would bet a lot of the players who started asking questions were players who were getting unrealistic success with players who weren’t particularly good, so they started digging.

nice test. interesting results. but those cyborgs you made look like great players to me, for the tactics you've used. pass into space, run at defence, counter, counter press, high d line high press. with pacey forwards who can tackle, finish reasonably well. defenders who are all faster than most forwards etc etc imo, try to play a pure tiki taka system with them in a test. my point is, give the engine a chance to demonstrate the risks in playing low tech and mental players in the wrong system. imo that's the only way to see if there's a bug. but still, they may do pretty well playing tiki taka. but i think that system logically should call on more mental and technical stats. even catenaccio style deep defending should be more of a test for mentals and tech. what these tests show is that gegenpress style is really effective with the right players. well irl liverpool showed that for a time, when they had the players they dominated. irl it's not easy to find the cyborgs required for that system. and in your test there's no shortage in quality substitutes etc fitness requirements is a big draw back in playing gegenpress

First of all, the forwards only had 11 finishing and just 7 tackling. Secondly, while I like what you're trying to say, it's not a gegenpress should be able to work if the players are poor mentally and technically? Just because it suits the players doesn't mean it gets a free pass on over 2/3 of the total attributes. We agree that other setups might expose the players more, but even with the one we used, there is no way the players should have performed that well.

I like what you’re trying to say, but these players had stats like 7s and 11s for tackling and finishing. I agree it’s a possibility these kinds of players get exposed with a slower tactic, I still think it’s absurd that with any tactical system whatsoever mental and technical attributes have little to no say. Gegenpress in real life doesn’t work that way even if it’s arguably the most effective system in current football. If you’re high pressing an opponent you still have to know how to tackle, how to make the runs, make the right pass after regaining the ball. The match engine oversimplifies the game to a comical level. If I’m a defender that’s fast but am poor at tackling, shouldn’t I just be collecting yellows and reds for fun, even if I can catch up to my man after he beats me on the dribble?

well, this is what i'm getting from the tests. which makes it seem more of a challenge to me to build a dominant tiki taka team. maybe i'll try that next. just my opinion, but i think gegenpress requires the least tech and mental attributes of all systems, those are nice to have. it requires physical attributes. physicals are essential. 7s and 11s are actually pretty good, play LLM and / or watch some lower league footie you'll be amazed. 11 isnt poor tackling. just like 20 for tackling doesn't mean you'll win every tackle. there's 100s of factors at play simultaneously. OP also compensated for that and has stay on feet instruction in the tactics. perfect for low mental and tech player