Congratulations. You just earned 16.5 points for this submission. Your new points total is 28.0. To see the leaderboard, as well as what this points thing is, [click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/wiki/leaderboard).

All that work, don’t feel discouraged. You tested an idea and you have your work to show for it. This is awesome I appreciate the work

Generally I'm all for people doing these kinds of tests, and OP kindly said many times that his tests were by no means extensive. However, in this case, I've seen so many people stop playing FM because of claims like the one from OP. This makes me really sad, since if you take the time and try to replicate the test or take a deeper look into some of the details, you will find that either OP did something wrong in his setup, he got really unlucky or he did some cherry-picking (basically 'p-hacking') to get a result that supports his hypothesis. Here's a short post I've did about the results when trying to replicate this. https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/comments/1b32yw0/refuting_nonmetaattributes_test/ Please, always take every pseudo-test and analysis on here with a BIG grain of salt.

So the two of you did the same test, you got different results although not even by much, and the conclusion is that he deliberately cherry picked or faked his results. Okay.

> if you take the time and try to replicate the test or take a deeper look into some of the details, you will find that either OP did something wrong in his setup, he got really unlucky or he did some cherry-picking (basically 'p-hacking') to get a result that supports his hypothesis. So, are you saying this person did any of that? Because it sounds like it. Can you show us where?

My guess would be an issue of the setup + simply RNG. OP did not deactivate injuries and forced the AI to use the same starting eleven over and over again. This can lead to very odd runs where either everyone is jaded (RST) for the entire second round or squad getting rotated simply by players getting injured.

In the championship my best player consistently was a guy with no mental attribute over 10 (except teamwork and determination at 11) but 17 JR, pace and accelaration. He won player of the year twice as well with an average of 7.35. At the time I was puzzling how, but this makes it all clear. I already felt kinda meh about FM about the recurring bugs every edition, the stuff they promised but didnt do. So actually don't know if I'll bother in the future. I might just go clean up my backlog instead

Similar to my experience with Oliver Burke in the Champ, and I had him last year when the topic of meta attributes and testing was getting widespread enough that I had heard about it **17** Pace/Accel. / **8-10** in every important winger attribute The highlights consistently showed him being kind of an idiot—getting to the byline and losing the ball, dribbling into dead ends, skying it long, etc. The difference was he also *consistently* got highlights every game. It was eye-opening seeing him be an easy 7.0+, 5+ g/a for the whole season, even performing against PL fullbacks in cup games

I mean Traore is nothing but fast and dribbly and he makes highlights like your in game Burke irl so it’s not exactly unrealistic. Sometimes real life makes a boring video game. I’ve always said the difference between the average championship player and Prem player isn’t technical ability it’s athleticism. Namely raw speed and stamina. Look at how many YouTubers can do better kick ups and free kicks than most PL players yet they’d never sniff a pro pitch because they can’t run for more than 10 minutes. So physical attributes being “meta” is just how football works

I don't agree. At the top level, what differentiates between players is their mental ability. Their decision-making, composure on the ball, ability to concentrate for 90 minutes and in a very high intensity. I think mental abilities are very important.

> I’ve always said the difference between the average championship player and Prem player isn’t technical ability it’s athleticism. How is this upvoted? Absolute and utter nonsense.

I feel like I kinda was able to glean most of this from playing the game a decent amount, listening to experienced players talk about how they play. It’s always been known that physical traits matter a lot, it just wasn’t known in the popular community how bad it really was. There are a couple changes I will make though in my assessments. I will value off the ball, first touch, and finishing less then i did before on attacking players and it looks like positioning is not as good as I thought on defensive players.

Yeah — if you go back to older posts on the SI forums, you'll see that people knew that the physicals were really strong going back almost 20 years. However, I don't think anybody realized *just how strong* they were until the FM-Arena tests started up last year. It's to the point where the best defensive players can have really poor positioning and tackling ratings. All you need is speed. I really hope this is remedied in FM25 with the new match engine, but I doubt it will happen.

Every major feature SI has given us in the past several games has either been cosmetic or broken. I highly doubt they have the ability to fix fundamental issues with the match engine when they can't even do basic stuff like AI transfer logic.

What exactly is wrong with AI transfer logic?

It's non-existent.

Unfortunately I think the match engine upgrade will be mostly cosmetic.

When I was playing about with the editor, I was shocked to find out how important physical attributes are to current ability. I was adjusting Dalot's attributes because the default ones are totally wrong; he's incredibly quick and a physical beast who can run all day. But putting some of his physicals to 16+ made him like a 160+ player. Absolutely ridiculous.

It’s probably not that ridiculous. Bellerin went from being talked about as one of the best right backs in Europe to a bang average full back after he lost his lightning pace. You’ve also got lads like Adama Traore that make a living at a high level as a physical beast with league 2 level technical skills. Honestly I’d say pace is what separates the Van Dijks and Salibas of the world from a lot of the bottom end of the premier league defenders too.

Although it isn't all that matters. Ruben Dias is slow as a glacier yet he's one of the best defenders in the world.

Also Thiago Silva

I think part of the issue here is how the match engine doesn't really factor in inconsistency in player speed throughout a game and especially the velocity gap between players with different stats is far larger than what it is in real life. Dembele is fast but he doesn't really fly around a sprinting player to meet them face to face and he certainly doesn't posses the ability to phase through a defender's body to take possession from their backs like he always seems to do to my players when i play him in FM24. Physical players in FM24 are kinda able to somehow outrun the ball and there's very little a team can do when any pass can be intercepted like that. Technique and finesse rarely come into play and i've really never seen a player dribble past another, once they grab the ball the attack and defense are basically racing each other on 99% of the time. If a defender gets in the way of an attacker he can do nothing to outplay him and he will lose the ball if he doesn't find a pass.

Sure, but lads like Calhanoglu still have a career at the top without being physical speciments, which is the opposite of what the engine does...

Zealand did a good video on stats for forwards. I think finishing was one of the least important ones.

I remember it was mostly because of having traits that the significance of finishing is diminished? Places Shots - offsets the lower finishing by sort of "increasing" it during the game; this usually just means the player takes their time before shooting Shoots With Power - there's a chance the keeper can't really hold on to it and the ball still goes in Shoots From Distance - keeper may be in a bad position to save the shot Likes To Lob Keeper - basically just have to get it beyond the reach of the keeper, instead of worrying whether or not it's going towards the goal

It's the least important in a vacuum. Meaning that you can't have a striker who is only good at finishing. It's still important in combination with other attributes. Finishing after all is just how accurate they are striking the ball and doesn't take into account how good they are at getting open or beating defenders.

This test feels the most real of the ones I've seen. No weird artificial freaks. You're just boosting technicals to a set value, while leaving physicals in their natural state. The fact that it changes nothing proves that either simming in full detail doesn't actually use the match engine (or, at least, the same version of the match engine), or that the match engine just doesn't give hardly any weight to non-meta attributes. If I had to guess, the match engine uses player positions to determine whether or not to "roll" for certain actions. If the position is wrong, it just doesn't. So, for example, IF your player is positioned well for a cross after beating his man, THEN it rolls everything for a cross. If he isn't, it either applies pre-set attributes or applies a steep penalty that essentially makes it as such. The problem with this is that any of the stats that aid in your player getting positioned right are therefore the only stats that matter. Whether your crossing is 20 or 1 doesn't matter if your pace/acceleration/agility can't get you in the relative position that allows you to "roll" attributes. So, in effect, the physical position attributes (including dribbling since that likely gives the ball a good position that allows for stat rolls) are the only ones that matter, since players with worse ones never even get to use the technicals. The engine just isn't smart enough to understand "the guy can be standing in the right spot because he's so fast, but he lacks the ability to then do anything to fully utilize this position so the cleverer and more technical player can still beat him." All it sees is "Player X is in position Y so the cross fails automatically." It makes sense when I imagine the match engine being a glorified DnD dungeon master. It greatly simplifies the number of calculations if a simple position check on the front end can bypass hundreds of stat rolls. "If position = X, then skip all of the rolls and apply this result instead." It would save thousands of calculations per match, maybe even tens of thousands. The only alternative is to go full physics-based, to where being in the right position is only half the equation. I suspect a big reason in the change in engine is to allow the engine to run way more "stat rolls" in a more lightweight way because attempting that level of detail as-is would basically make the game unplayably slow. I know zero about programming, but that's my guess.

I think you've nailed it with that explanation. The Technical Attributes, for example are only factored in at all when the player is in possession (Passing, First Touch, Crossing etc) or IN position to use them (Marking, Tackling etc). They are therefore all conditional on their Physical Attributes (with Mental having an impact too, in terms of things like Anticipation, Positioning, Off the Ball enabling the player to compensate somewhat for a lack of Physical Attributes). So, if you are slow, you aren't going to use your Tackling, or to get close enough for Marking to be factored in. If you lack the Physical Attributes to get on the ball then your Technique, Passing, Dribbling etc are not going to be used all that often. We've all seen players like that who may be talented footballers, but who can't get involved in the game as they are slow, not industrious, strong etc. As all players primarily degrade on Physicals as they age, they become noncompetitive to the point where they retire. Something like Dribbling, however when combined with excellent Physical Attributes can be very impactful as the athletically superior player will be getting lots of chances to use it and - unlike Passing, Long Shots, Finishing etc it actively benefits from being paired with Acceleration, Pace, Agility etc.

It’s been hard for me to go back to the game after this. I ran a similar test with a friend and we had created a team with top mentals and average physicals. That team was relegated as well. We didn’t post that part of the experiment because it wasn’t as exhaustive as the others, but we still felt like it said a lot. This experiment is in fact very good. Nobody can accuse you of just using supermen or unreasonable players. I hope people stop defending SI so they can do something about this. Edit: I think one thing people fail to realise is how far reaching this problem is. The entire transfer strategy of the game is a sham if we accept that these tests are correct. Firstly people complain that players with insane physicals don’t exist at the beginning of the game. Fair enough, but once you get 7 years or so in, the game is full of newgens who are quite close to the monsters people complained about. 18s and 19s in pace an dribbling. The next, and even worse bit is that the AI scouts and buys players assuming all attributes are useful. You can therefore sell any player who has top attributes but is slow, and use the money to buy speed.

It pissed me off to come here from FIFA because already fed up with pace merchants only to come here and witnessing another game that do “simulation” with another pace merchant as good indicator in football. Honestly fuck this shit

Fr Bro… ik Fifa and Fm are two different games & shouldn’t be compared but this is the reason I left FUT ffs.. people playing a LB upfront cuz of his pace & him doing better than an ICON ST with avg pace.. now this is in fm too?… & I used to wonder why certain players play as tho their attributes are a fake despite their important matches, consistency and determination being high along with great technicals & mentals… All this while I didn’t know the game was predetermined if u have good numbers in some stats, what then is the use of the other attributes?

It’s mildly understandable in FIFA because it would be frustrating (but funny) to tune it so that Joe Gomez automatically misses no matter your inputs and Antony randomly does a spin instead of crossing even when you pressed the right button.

Can’t believe those bastards thought maybe someone like Adama Traore is good example as a real football player

> I ran a similar test with a friend and we had created a team with top mentals and average physicals. Average as in literally 10 each, average as in average for the typical player in FM, or average as in average for a PL player? If it's one of the first two then I reckon relegation should be the likely outcome in any reasonable simulation. Even in the third case I'd imagine the team would struggle to defend properly

I've found the game enjoyable if you treat it as an immersive experience and get really into the storyline you're creating. Whether you decide to go for players with strong physicals or not is up to you. One thing you could try doing is using a skin that hides all attribute numbers to give yourself a handicap. But, yeah, you are 100% correct that this ruins the entire transfer structure of the game. In particular, knowing that Pace and Acceleration are so overpowered is enough knowledge to let you fleece the AI at every single turn.

>The entire transfer strategy of the game is a sham if we accept that these tests are correct While I get your point, this is a grand total of 6 tests. There's plenty to criticise about FM and SI, this is far from robust, statistically relevant testing. You'd need to run this thousands of times with more restrictions on the team. This is a great starting point no doubt, it provides a useful hypothesis, and gives a good idea of where to start. It doesn't prove anything though.

I mean, every test that FM arena does on this shows the same thing. Honestly I have yet to see a test where that wasn’t the case. 

Oh I'm not arguing the results. I'm just saying every test I've seen is very small and limited. You'd need to run thousands of the exact same sim with rigorous controls to say it for sure. Just as an example, OP's post makes no reference to injuries or fitness. In three tests, they would have an outsized impact, a 9 month injury would account for 25% of the time; across a 1000 tests, it'd be less than 0.08% of time.

The FM arena tests have 4000+ games for several attributes. Some people here just don't want to believe or just want to disagree to troll. The game has always been like that and still fun

https://fm-arena.com/table/18-player-attributes-testing/

So I’ve got no idea what post OP is referring to, but just so I’m clear, was it not widely known that physicals have the great weight in terms of rating allocation? I’ve seen that when messing around with player stats using the in game editor, things like agility or pace can change your overall rating with an increase of 1 point in those skills, but you could go for 15 to 20 corners for example or I think 15-19 decisions and it would have the same impact as going from 15 to 16 agility.

My understanding is that Pace and Acceleration (and some other physicals) end up having a higher weight in how CA is calculated than the other attributes. However, they are more important in the match engine than even those weights would have you believe. [Check out this test on FM-Arena](https://fm-arena.com/thread/2980-game-changing-player-attributes/) as an example. The CA of the players on both teams are exactly the same — and yet pushing that CA towards Pace and Acceleration and reducing it elsewhere causes the team to win a huge number of matches. In other words — if you had a striker with a 5 for Long Shots but a 20 for Pace, you want to take him over the striker with 12 for Long Shots and 15 for Pace. The CA weighting doesn't indicate that.

……. Fuck man that’s me done with FM this year after reading that (that sounds dramatic but I needed an excuse to try helldivers anyway) I’ve heard FM25 is going to be something completely new, apparently they’re doing an overhaul of just about everything, maybe that’ll get better there too

It will mostly be a cosmetic upgrade, although supposedly a big one. Don't get your hopes up.

Too late my hopes are already sky high

You're setting yourself for disappointment. The changes might be great to make the game look better, but I'd be willing to bet that the actual match engine that runs the numbers and the simulation will barely change to reduce the impact (possible bugs) in the whole game since the graphical engine will be overhauled.

Well you're probably right but I'm looking forward to it anyway :)

Yeah, the biggest issue for me is the AI. The game is already incredibly easy if you don’t role-play/limit yourself. The issue is that the AI goes around blowing their transfer budget on 28 year olds with 13-14 pace.

Watch the Zealand test. Absurd physicals but without work rate, teamwork and stamina and the team literally gets relegated. Absurd physicals without dribbling and the team also gets relegated. Yes, having absurd physicals breaks the match engine, but that doesn't prove that "nothing else matters", in fact, it proved that attributes like teamwork, work rate, stamina and dribbling also have an outsized impact.

Zealand’s “test” gave all the players 1 stamina, of course the results wouldn’t be replicated if every player is burnt out by the 10th minute?

Zealand is an awful tester. Really would be the last person I'd take any notice of.  How can anyone ever say passing is the most important attribute? And his keeper test was also wild 

Fanboys are holding FM from change. And yes, the fact about physical attributes importance was known years back. This game needs new owner. SI is not able to work things out.

I play as if they all matter. No idea if they do or not. And don’t care. It wouldn’t be fun for me to exploit the match engine with stuff like that.

Basically saying “yeah I don’t care that the game doesn’t work properly and most of the attributes and numbers actually don’t do anything” It’s like if you played Pokémon and was like “ehh 90% of the moves don’t actually do anything, idc I still enjoy the game”

Oh don’t get me wrong, it would be a bummer for sure. But I’m not gonna go change the way I play the game even if I knew for sure that was the case.

Much like the first post, shit design gives shit data which gives shit conclusions If you want to test for the incidence of an attribute in performance then you need to have identical players in all teams, same managers and staff, same tactics, no transfers, and minimize the risk of injuries or contract bullshit that affects morale And you have to use attribute ranges and distributions that are likely to be present in game enough to be relevant And you have to do it over a large enough number of games that they are relevant The only testing that I’ve seen so far that comes close to that did so in a custom league over 5 seasons that come up to about 6K matches (40 teams in the league) Unsurprisingly, the results are not nearly as skewed as in the other tests Yes, physicals are weighted heavier than most other attributes. Yes, mentals and most technicals are weighted slightly below them It doesn’t matter if you have the first touch of a god or Romario like finishing if you can’t get to the ball 9 times out of 10 You got good passing? Better have someone that can beat the defender to the ball still It should not be controversial to anyone that’s played 5 a side against younger / stronger opponents even once Edit: source https://youtu.be/SyRqvXYbUOs?si=g9JUimqYwVarlapD

There was some tests done using fucking AI simulating thousands and thousands of games, no test comes even close to this level of data size.The AI had to use a specific tactic that used gegenpress or vertical tiki-taka, I don't remember, and had to distribute CA to the starting 11 and find the best spreads for all positions. Surprisingly enough, physical attributes weren't the only ones that mattered, at all. Also, unbelievable, the attributes were completely different depending on the position and roles of the players. The thing is people are confusing "Technique and Mental don't make a difference" which is untrue, with "Technique and Mental make a big difference in the performance, but in the end, you'll get same or probably better results with super fast and physical players, abusing set-pieces and crossing." which is probably true. While to some it might be the same there are actually major differences at stake here. Because the moment SI nerfs just ONE element: Heading... Then we'll all see completely different results. Just nerf heading to oblivion and then we'll see all other attributes do matter, now that you actually have to play football to score goals. If they didn't matter at all, then if they nerf headers, every team will just be shit and that's it. I doubt that would happen.

Yep, like I said: shit test design gives shit data which gives shit conclusions Also, I didn’t really mention larger scale tests because all the ones I have seen simulate/instant result or holiday matches The one I linked the matches actually get played so the level of detail is much greater and less of a black box of whatever goes on under the hood with the match engine

I use those weightings to rate players. Most people who use them ignore them with anything with a weight under 50. The only real departure from the fm-arena attribute testing is Jumping reach is only really important on CBs and it loveds WR My teams end above average in the “meta attributes” and below average in the “non meta”. It was also tested on a wild tactic that does not resemble what most people run at all. https://fm-arena.com/thread/4174-zaz-blue-dm/ The engine likely works similar to DnD or other rpgs so anything increases the amount of dice rolls is going to be significantly more beneficial than anything else. A smaller % of large pie can end up bigger than a larger % of smaller pie. I wouldn’t call the unmeta attributes useless but I would rate them as “nice to haves”. It’s pretty clear a lot of them have a very low impact above RNG. Like + 5 long shots on the entire team only resulting in one extra goal is wild.

Do you have a link to this "better" test you mentioned?

Added to the post, sorry was on the go when I posted

For a pokemon game just playing through the story, most moves are pretty much worthless/do nothing. Plenty of people still enjoy playing it, so I'm not sure that example works the way you think it does.

Yeah right I mean did you know anyone who used a stat boosting move growing up? Found out the value of those moves now that I’m older and play more difficult romhacks

Yeah screw this guy for playing the way he likes right? Why are you trying to convince someone else they should be upset. I get where you're coming from. I would prefer they matter as well but why do you have to convince someone else to stop having fun.

Wrong example, the right example would be if there would be super-powerful moves with no downfall, easily abusable, in Pokemon, and you'd just play without them. You'd still need your other moves to be selected and used right to make the most out of them. In the end you'd be better of using the stupid OP moves but if you're not, there's still a difference between good moveset used efficiently and terrible moveset with poor decision-making. You're just not gonna get better results while playing immaculately with the non-OP moves than while playing no-brain using them. But, in a "no broken moves" context, the rest would still matter.

That’s how low the standards these geek put to their favourite game. Congrats to SI though making it yearly game to these people and got ez cash

Could never do this, because I every time I look at a player profile there will be a voice in the back of my mind saying, hey, you know that stat probably means nothing, right?

its not that it means nothing, its just that it doesnt mean as much as you think it does

Good for you. The rest of us do care if the games works properly. If it did, then both you guys who like to role play and us who want to play a management game could be happy. Calling this an "exploit" is kinda ridiculous. If most attributes do not do what it says they do, or have very little effect, then merely playing the game is "exploiting" the match engine.

I’m just saying I’m not going to change the way I play. I agree with you that I want the game to “work” properly and all the attributes should matter. But like, it’s the year 2039 in my online save with a friend. I’m not going to now go start buying guys with nothing but physical attributes, for me that wouldn’t be much fun.

Exactly. It’s a game. We are playing a game and we know it’s a game. Some people want to min max or speedrun or break games. They can go at it. That’s fine. I don’t understand or support that but they can play their game however they want. Some of us want to play the game slowly and within its boundaries. 🤷. That’s great too. It’s just strange to see the people in the first group always coming out to criticize those in the second group lol. Strange.

I feel like there are more than just two groups here, and they way I’ve seen the drama play out so far, is there is a group which is rightfully (In my opinion) critical of SI and upset that some attributes seem not to matter in the ME, then there is a group who are telling the other group that it ‘doesn’t matter just play the game’. Which I don’t think is a reasonable take, and simply serves to shield SI from criticism. If your position is what you say it is then then you have no dog in this ‘fight’ and you can just ignore all of these posts since as you said it won’t affect how you play the game.

Only one group spends hours running “tests” with questionable methodologies though. 😂 Your opinions are valid. Others opinions are also just as valid. To each their own.

Yeah not every test is gonna be perfect, and there are valid criticisms to be had about methodology. But if your stance truly is “I will play the way I want to regardless”, which is completely valid, then none of this should matter to you. And you can let the few of us who are interested in these kinds of experiments discuss their merit.

Attributes working properly, as advertised, in the game would not affect your "group" in any way. You do see how this is not a "agree to disagree" situation, right?

It's not so much that they don't. It's that they matter according to the tactics you use. Getting goals from set-pieces and crosses being the most efficient tactic, and it requiring literally only physical attributes and good heading, you can get the same results by using garbage but physical players than you'd get using excellent well-rounded players. But now try to use a possession tactic with technical and smart players, and now try the same exact tactics with shit players. You'll most definitely see the difference. Ie the problem isn't really that ALL the non-meta attributes don't matter, it's that, while they do, in the end, you're better-off just focusing on meta attributes and using shit players with good physicality, that will get you even better results. There's a difference there, if they didn't matter at all, then you'd have the same results using a tiki-taka tactic with players that have superb technical and mental abilities, than with the same players with poor technical and mental abilities. And that is not the case. What happens is scoring headers is way too easy and physical abilities make it easier. So having you whole squad physical means you'll be scoring goals more easily than with a tiki-taka system. Most of the "non-meta" attributes actually work just fine and matter as much as they're supposed to, but just the combination of a few of them really not mattering enough (Crossing, overall technique when it comes to eliminating players-just push the ball far and run fast right? In real life you still need technique) and others mattering WAY too much (scoring headers being way too easy) means it doesn't matter if they matter or not. They're not needed. Simple as that, they do matter. But you don't need them.

Ready for the SI defenders and the “I don’t care if the game doesn’t work at all and attributes are almost entirely fake I still like it so this post and your research is worthless” brigade to come out

I understand the comments that say they will keep on playing despite the circumstances, even if I don't like it. But what I don't understand is the comments that shit on the original post and this one by saying it's not well methodological and/or flawed. As if the antithesis posts from zealand and the likes of him were done well. Zealand literally missed the original point of the post, too

Zealand misses the point on purpose because he's a FM youtuber, he has a vested interest in pretending attributes and the match engine aren't broken, you can't create content once you admit that there's basically only one way to play because tactics and attributes barely matter.

100% agreed, financially and logically it is the opposite of a wise decision for him to be truthful about it

In the video where he was testing the theories from the last post,he actually replicated the results but still said that it didn't matter since the original post was weirdly phrased. It was very funny to see how he justified the results he was constantly getting. Wonder what happened,he used to criticize SI over stuff like the "Dynamic Youth Rating"


BusttheNet guy claims he disproved all these claims in less than 30mins on his live stream. People on SI forums have asked him to provide the video. It would be interesting to see what he considers to be a good method since he believes these tests are, I quote, laughable. Surely if it is *that* easy to disprove, SI should come out and do it once for all.

He knew he gonna become jobless without FM. Great strategy though you can see almost FM youtuber do the same shit to hide it

‘I love my Placebo Manager 24 chump and there’s nothing you can do about it’

SI hasn't been innovating for the last 10-15 years or so. Even now the "big" game engine change will just be a new coat of paint on a 20 year old rusty shitbox. And the thing is their audience are 30 year old dads who just don't really care, so there's no reason for them to innovate. Only hope that I see is someone new breaking into the market and kicking SI's ass. I'm quite surprised it has not happened yet because the market is quite big and SI is the only competition.

Did you freeze their attributes for the baseline seasons? Because player growth might also impact the test.

I would be interested in the following: - Given as a team: how much was the stat increase **in the stats matching their playing role**? - It's a bit silly, but why was the star rating only upped by 1/2? - Is there a change in xG, xGA, key passes, chances created etc? Goals from open play? The player you highlight is a nice example: In his role it was Decision, Work Rate, Passing and First Touch that really improved. Is it... maybe genuinely only worth 1/2 a star? Also, given the injuries you mention, I don't think the results for the prem are so bad if the star rating is accurate. The best and the worst results are both significantly better for 1/2 a star. And the premiere league has high variance to begin with. My suspicion is that physical stats (+ Dribbling) are so dominant because they brute force situations with vs. checks on important moments. Like Strength vs. Balance or Agility, or Pace vs. Pace. The technical or mental attrubites are more about getting options or chances. This would be fairly realistic as well. Messi would be nowhere without proper balance. acceleration and agility. I'm the most suspicious about finishing, technique and composure, The meta stats say very little about goals from open play, which I would imagine require the above stats. The striker should at the very least score more often when gaining an opportunity. Great work, anyways!

I'm not questioning the results and disputing the current consensus regarding FM but my question is whether there are some meta attributes that are mental as opposed to just physical and dribbling because I've played this game for a long time and there's always been players with poor physicals who do quite well, either AI or human controlled. I remember on FM15, Pirlo was like 35 and would rack up high average ratings and even get nominated for the Balon d'or. Right now I've got a save with two midfielders with declining physicals and dribbling still do well.

Exactly. AI players with high mentals and poor physicals can also do extremely well. I was so happy when Matic finally retired in my save, because he would dominate and score against me every time, despite playing BBM and barely being able to walk. I really don’t care about anything that isn’t playing the game with full manager control and without lots of manual editing of attributes or ca/pa. Of course, you need physically dominant players to win at the top level, just like you do in real life. You can’t compete in any top professional environment with a team of only technicians who can’t run or compete physically. However, you can get good results out of players who are very technically skilled and/or intelligent, while compensating for them in your team and tactic. That’s just football. I don’t think the match engine is anywhere near perfect, but to me it feels more like football than in any previous version of the game I’ve played. If I can succeed and win anything I want to in the game building my team around creative passers with those guys getting plenty of assists and contributions, I’m happy enough. Of course I also make sure I have players who can run and compete physically around them. That’s just how you build a team. My real theory about what is going on is that what these tests people are trying to do are actually showing is not that attribute balance in players is totally out of whack, but instead that pressing is completely overpowered and far too easy to do in the game. We all know pressing tactics are the strongest, so of course we should also assume physicality would be the most important thing for top players and teams to have. Pressing is great in real life too, but it’s difficult and comes with costs. People complain constantly about injuries, but if pressing were realistic, there should be far more muscle injuries due to the exertion of playing in high-pressing systems than there are in FM. Clubs that focus on pressing have sports scientists that can calculate exactly how many more injuries they expect to have in a season due to their tactical intensity. FM has improved this area by making players tire more quickly, which has made it harder to close out games (another positive for FM24), but it still doesn’t cost nearly enough to press week in week out. Pressing systems at the top level are also incredibly complex with traps and varying structures based on the opposition. It’s not easy to coach, and you have to continually adapt, or you get figured out. None of that shows up in the game, and it would be extremely hard to replicate well. It is a good thing SI are considering this kind of stuff more and more, and I think the match engine will keep improving, even if it inevitably can’t keep up with actual football or fans’ wishes. Anyway, as someone who cares most about being able to set up teams that play entertaining football with lots of flair players, the game is still fun for me, so I’m pretty happy with it overall.

And yet, this test, as many others, did not use high pressing tactics. The trend is still the same no matter what tactics are being used. People need to stop saying "physicals are important, just like in real life" because that's not the issue here at all. The issue isn't physical attributes being important, the issue isn't physical attributes being weighed more than the others. The issue is that a select number of attributes is so important that it renders everything else almost useless. There is no "just like in real life" scenario here.

Nah, not having your explanation at all. In this test, all non-meta attributes are raised to 16. That means that over the course of a season, every single pass is attempted by players whose passing, vision, etc. are minimum 16 (ie top class midfield playmaker level); every single header falls to a heading specialist (16 heading, 16 bravery...); every single shot is taken by player with top class finishing (16 finishing, 16 composure); every single challenge is contested by players who are brave tackling specialists, etc. etc., and you're telling me that that shouldn't add up to a considerably improved season for the team in question? There's no explanation needed other than the match engine being far less complex than it's sold to us as.

I’m sorry it has ruined your enjoyment of the game. I’m gonna keep winning with my technical and creative players.

Although not definitive, it's a good contribution that adds to the growing suspicion that the match engine is, in fact, not anything near what I expect it to be. I have played this game since CM4, bought every version until FM21, but bought FM22. I decided I probably won't buy any other version until there is a significant improvement. One of my biggest pains playing this game through the years has been the fact that doing a change (tactical, substitution) significantly increases the chance of a clear-cut chance or goal happening. Often, immediately after confirming the change, the match typically skips to a throw-in, which often results in a goal or at least a big chance. To be fair, I seem to score as often as I concede, but if I have a slim lead with 30 minutes left to play, I rarely make changes. I do understand that it's difficult to develop a match engine that accurately replicates the mechanics of a football match, but I highly doubt that there has been any development of significance in the match engine for many years. I have noticed strange attributes spread (e.g., most strikers have low finishing, full backs lack dribbling and crossing), but these don't seem to matter a lot. I guess all the time spent identifying players with the right mental attributes has been a waste. All they need is pace. One question for OP: Although the team didn't perform any better results wise, are the average rating of the players better after the attributes were changed? I often notice that when my team plays badly, most players also have a bad ratings. 4+ star rated players seem to receive high ratings although they don't seem to contribute much.

From my memory the answer to your last question would be no. I’m at work so i can’t check the saves right now but i believe it was actually the opposite. I remember on the save where the boosted team got relegated the player with the highest average rating over the course of the season was Olise on a 6.71

Thanks for posting this! The skeptics likely will never be convinced. The thing that really got me was [this test at FM Arena](https://fm-arena.com/thread/2980-game-changing-player-attributes/). Basically — if you redistribute the CA of your players into Pace and Acceleration and away from all other attributes, the change in their performance will be astounding. A team that normally should finish at the bottom of the table will win the league. That means that you should be training all players for quickness at the expense of everything else. It also means that you should focus on buying young players with Pace and Acceleration of 15 or so, since you can train them to become the best players in the world after 3 or 4 seasons. It's pretty world shattering stuff, if you ask me. I think it explains why the "Youth to Gold" approach tends to work so well. You can also find incredible bargains on older players who still have their speed. Now, I *do* think there are ways to get invested in FM again. You've got to treat it like an immersion exercise rather than focusing exclusively on victory. But, having said that, it's going to be really hard to forget that you know that maxing out two or three attributes will be enough to completely defeat the match engine.

I remember someone from SI forum said that CA matter more than attributes in the match engine. As you just changed and freezed the attribute but not the CA, I suggest doing another test where you change the attributes then set the CA to the new suggested CA, if the new CA surpass PA then set PA higher as well. And maybe don't freeze attribute because in your first test you didn't freeze, meaning young players's physical could develop by a small amount.

If you check out the test which Zealand did (and the post from Reddit he references in his video) you’ll see that CA (the number itself) has no impact. You can win the Prem with a 80-90 CA team if that CA is distributed to the “Meta Attributes” and conversely you can get relegated with a 180-190 team if they are lacking in those “Meta Attributes”. I think CA only matters to the AI when picking a team/starting 11.

I know, what I was trying to said is that OP set attributes higher but didn't increase CA, so there's a potential that the match engine downgrade their attribute to match their CA. But honestly, if Zealand won the prem with 80-90 CA meta players, then it's clear as day this game is f*cked, there's no need for any test anymore.

Ah okay I see what you mean, I think that as long as attributes a frozen, the game will not readjust them to match the CA.

G. F.gbm.t.vb r,g.4 fm

> You can win the Prem with a 80-90 CA team if that CA is distributed to the “Meta Attributes” His test didn't prove that though, it proved that you can win the Prem if: 1. ALL PHYSICALS and dribbling are 20. 2. Determination, Teamwork, Work rate are still 13. If you take Stamina out and the 3 mental attributes the team immediately gets relegated. The conclusion is that you can break the match engine with an incredibly niche focus in specific attributes, not that a player simply better in meta attributes will be better.

The conclusion is that players with 1 stamina and natural fitness are terrible regardless of other stats, which makes sense. He didn’t bother to test having those stats at 13 and the mentals still low.

I feel like you’re being pedantic, but yes it was the meta attributes as well as those other three, but my overall point in my previous comment was that the CA number itself doesn’t affect performance but rather the distribution of that CA is what is important, which the test does somewhat imply.

Was there not an argument that actually playing matches placed a greater emphasis on non meta attributes, and all quick sim/holiday modes did was simulate primarily on meta attributes? Could be wrong though. Perhaps a more accurate test could be, in theory, playing all the games, and leaving all ingame decisions to ass man. This would be very laborious obviously, and there’s more variables at play. But the impression I got was that meta attributes were some kind of “processing shortcut” when holidaying- again, would be interesting to find out further.

As far as I'm aware setting the detail level to full, which I did for all EPL matches, should mean the games are simulated in the way they would be if the matches were played. I'd be happy for someone to correct me if I'm wrong though lol

You are correct. Simming in full detail uses the same engine that is used when you are managing/watching the match play out. Your results are, sadly, unsurprising.

Has this ever been tested? Outside of SI "saying" that's true? Because SI say that all the stats matter so...

Honestly SI can lie all they want because they knew they can’t fix this shit to this day. To think that people do the same test with another version of the game and get the same results tells you how long they have made the same copy paste for years

how do you know it uses the same engine? I mean, the game can even give you a full match. It does make perfect sense that the game would use a more detailed engine for games you are playing. You can put 10 leagues to full detail and it gives you results for 150 matches in 5 seconds on any Saturday. You think the game is including everything all the way down to individual instructions for every player? How can it possibly do this without using magic? And I think for some things this is fairly obvious. For example you can go on holiday and come back in January to see that the entire squad is unhappy because contracts or whatever and yet they are still winning normally - but if you play the games an unhappy squad absolutely tanks form. But maybe you know something I don't, hence the original question.

It does seem odd that all those matches (and I have more than 10 league in full detail on any save) would simulate using the same level of detail as games you sit there and watch (and try to affect in real time). That would use a lot of computing power (note: I'm playing FM20 on a setup I built back in 2012 and the game plays smoothly and quickly), so I'm dubious about SI's claims from a technical standpoint. Also, as others have stated, it is an unusual position to assume SI are being transparent and truthful in asserting all matches are played out in the same way regardless of simulation type, yet that they are being false when it comes to the claim that all Attributes are factored in. Seems like discounting equivalent evidence to confirm a preconceived opinion. I've sent out players on loan in multiple versions of FM to leagues being simulated at various detail levels and get some strange results. A clearly good prospect who stinks the joint out, but who I'm certain would play better (and do, in fact) when with my team (getting the games watched etc). Usually these players have good physicals. And I do not use exploits, downloaded tactics, teams full of wonderkids, anything that imo break the simulation experience, so such players should preform to the same level. I've actually got one player out on loan at a good team atm who has high ratings in all the alleged "meta" Attributes, but is lacking in the technicals I desire in a DM. He's now 23 and hasn't improved those weaker areas (they aren't terrible, just around the 11-13 range, physicals are c. 16-17), so this loan is to put him in the shop window prior to a sale. He's not performing well, however. I'm also well aware that some players (notably attackers) who have strong physical attributes, but mediocre mental and technicals can be a major headache, outperforming expectations. I feel their physicals just blend well together, or that they have hidden stats which complement them in some way.

It is a known fact, straight from the mouths (or keyboards) of SI developers on their forum.

Do you have a source or something like that?

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/535949-full-detail-vs-quick-match-sim/?do=findComment&comment=12755702 https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/567798-about-match-engine-developers-pls/?do=findComment&comment=13717422

thank you brother.

Is there a chance that SI S-lied about this too?

Yeah I see- only SI knows, and they’re a black box at the moment in terms of communication

SI have said playing the match vs simming in full detail does not use a different match engine.

The question would be why would they even use different engines for both. It makes no sense to even suggest that it is possible that they differ

[https://imgbox.com/DI2y6UwO](https://imgbox.com/DI2y6UwO) Graphed the important data to help visualising the effect (or lack thereof) of these changes. Even though 3 tests is a rather small sample size and the data has some massive variation (Boosted team finishing 10th and 18th with exact same stats), I do not expect a larger sample size to show any significant correlation considering goals conceded also rose on average. More robust testing is required to draw any reasonable conclusions but the early signs are troubling. Thanks for going out of your way to test this stuff, but I would've recommended giving the team an actual tactic. Maybe not 4-2-3-1 gegenpress, but something that tries to play attacking football (the way most players play the game).

I think it's also really important to point out that there just is a lot of variance with these type of tests considering so many variables affect football that we cannot place controls on (rng due to consistency, form causing drops in morale, home advantage, etc.). People like to cite Fm-arena's tests (they do great work over there with tactic testing and all that) because of they're "robust" tests of 2,400 matches. Even in their tables, you see the exact same teams with the exact same stats having 20-30 point swings. I think much larger tests are needed, but may also not be possible. I think it's important this type of discussion is had about a game that aims to simulate football as close to the real world as possible. I can't think of one physical (maybe stamina) that De Bruyne excels at, and he's been at the top of world football for the past 3 years in a world dominated by analytics and data.

Great work, I really like your approach to this experiment, particularly leaving the meta attributes constant between both trails and also having them at realistic levels (not those 20 stat physical monsters or those 1 stat decrepit men). It really gives more insight into the effect of the non-meta attributes in the context of a more realistic play through.

Placebo Manager 24

Would you mind sharing the save games of your unchanged vs. changed setups? The average rating in the image of Odsonne Edouard went up so much with the extra attributes, was that from the 10th place run? When I am trying to replicate the setup with the default 4-2-3-1, my Crystal Palace ended up last place multiple times, might be just RNG, but would be interesting to see if there's a difference in the setup. EDIT: I am not able to replicate these results at all. @OP, please make sure to verify that your setup is correct. In my tests, where I've set all non-meta attribute to 16 (even if they were higher before, as this is way faster to do via FMRTE), I've finished mid table in all runs (12., 11., 13.), while the unchanged team kept getting 18-20th. The boosted team even won the FA cup, beating ManU 4-1, Man City 2-1 and Chelsea 2-0 in the Final. I'd recommend using FMRTE to freeze attributes + ca. This post is highly misleading.

Do you mind posting screenshots for proof? :)

Yes, currently doing a few more runs (want to have 5 for each) and then I'll sum it up in an extra post!

Assuming that the conclusion is correct, I wonder how long it's been like this or if it's always been like this even in much older versions.

We've always known physical attributes are very important in the match engine. But nobody knew it was actually this bad.

"Next, I went to each player and I set every attribute to 16 besides physicals, dribbling, anticipation, and concentration, which I left unchanged." I was more speaking about how seemingly meaningless the none physical attributes are judging by this experiment.

its impossible to boot up the game and play knowing any player that looks like the new coming of pirlo is as good as a second division joe with 16 dribbling

Thanks for doing this. Genuinely.

I wouldnt be too hard on myself, you are hopefully part of the narrative that is put forward to SI, to show how much of shit show their match engine is. Your work is another nail in their lazy arsed approach to this game, that even if not right now, surely at some point in the future, they will have to address. So thank you for your work. Hopefully we have a more rich, immersive experience as a result. After all, SI cannot bury their heads in the sand after the sheer volume of similar results that have been reported from many different sources

Idk man my dlp with like 10 pace and fuck all strength still manages to dominate games

Now imagine if his attributes were actually good

More burying head in the sand from the player base. As it's getting increasingly more and more likely that the predictions of most attributes being nearly useless are becoming more true, now we're getting less "the test isn't perfect therefore it's invalid" but more "oh well, it's still real to me dammit" posts. SI should be thanking their lucky stars the community is like this. Which by itself is interesting considering so many play FM for apparently being the best *simulation* of football there is. You always hear how much of a joke other match engines are compared to FM.

The vast majority being upvoted are being critical so I have no idea what this analysis is.

Give it time, there will be more of those saying testing is bad, like in previous posts on this topic. Plus I meant more in general. You'd be eaten alive if you were to post this on SI forums, and that's closer to what your average FM player is like.

Your results are discouraging, for sure. But it’s a very small sample size. Did you check how much of a role injuries played across the six seasons? Maybe you could make them all 18 instead of 16, and then do a third sample where you set them all to 2 or 4 and see what happens. I also think it makes sense that physicals are going to be disproportionately influential. You don’t play top flight football if you don’t have elite physical attributes.

It's definitely a small sample size, you're right. At the time I figured 16 should be enough to show a clear difference but it would be interesting to see if 18, 19, or 20 gave different results. As for injuries I would definitely set everyone's injury proneness to 1 if I were to run these tests again. Every season had at least one major injury. The two weaker seasons from the boosted team saw Ayew miss 5 months and Eze a month and a half in one, and Franca missing 6 months, Schlupp missing 2, and Edouard missing 1 in the other. Injuries 100% played a role here but I do feel like that shouldn't be enough to see such a talented team be relegated. The control seasons saw a lot of injuries as well. Even the two 12th place finishes saw Riedewald, Mitchell, Clyne, Olise, and Johnston all miss over a month in one, and Ahamada plus Olise and Clyne again all missing over a month in the other. I think that fact that I ticked "use current lineup when possible" meant that some players just got run into the ground. And I do agree about physicals being disproportionately influential. I've actually already been prioritizing physicals over everything else in the game for years, but it's a bit disheartening to see the other attributes may not have any impact, even a disproportionately small one.

You can make a database from the pre-game editor then delete every injuries, basically mean zero chance of injuries for every player.

16 is more than enough to show an effect, if there is one. As for the rest, I posted on this topic with a friend just over a week ago (his comment is near the top on this post), we found it useful to set the injury proneness as you say, plus having low controversy and temperament to deal with dynamics issues and allowing the AI to rotate players. It also meant going back into the save semi frequently to deal with dynamics issues to make sure zero came up, and it took a while, but it helped. Your test and write up is absolutely fantastic though and we’re glad to feel vindicated a bit, even with niggling bits here or there in each test that people will complain about I think the overall trend is clear at this point. It’s undeniable that Miles is scamming us, whether he means to or not. The sad thing is that it seems the match engine upgrades for FM25 are mostly cosmetic.

Is it so for every version of FM? I'm playing right now FM 2021.

I think we need somebody to do such tests with considering their tactical styles as well, for like is pace and strength still the deciding factor for a team who plays tiki taka style.

Thanks for testing. Fair too little data to draw any conclusions. Would need around 7 or so tests before the results would be useful statistically and even then it wouldn't be super strong. Nonetheless what you've done is interesting and hopefully leads to more data being added by others to review.

Can’t say I have noticed really, my non league save some players with higher stats in those areas are good, some not

To counter some of the doom and gloom, I think one thing to remember with these tests is that a team like this would never be made in real life. Even a Barcelona tiki taka team needs at least 1 pacey guy like Alba, a strong DC, etc. And although most stats are boosted, certain positions like winger are losing some key atts. For example the wingers having 16 marking/tackling is kind of pointless while their lower dribbling and pace makes them worse than good PL wingers in doing their main job. So the team having no options to beat a fullback 1v1 could lead to bad results.

We should all help OP gather more data if he wants. We could run the games with OP's parameters so he has more data and make even more accurate assumptions

It’s been this way for years. I remember spamming pace in the championship manager days

What are the current meta attributes?

Wonder if the fanboys will still cope after seeing this. Decades of arguing that the FM is more realistic than fifa, and at the end we find out that this game is just about pace and jumping reach, lol

The brass neck on SI is truly inspiring

i haven’t been too involved in this controversy but there is no way the non-meta attributes don’t matter at all in an actual save. Messi basically has bad physicals and 20 dribbling and i just refuse to believe that these are the reasons he dominates the match engine while his outstanding technical and mental attributes contribute nothing at all. My biggest issue with any of these „scientific tests“ is a team of 23 identical players is so inherently unrealistic and unbalanced to begin with that i’m not sure what relevance they’re supposed to have for me when i’m playing fm. Try creating more complex tactics and try it with a team of players who you think are extremely well suited for what you’re asking them to do (that doesn’t mean 20 in every important stat) and a team of physical beasts who can’t kick a ball and i’ll be interested in the results.

Messi had above average meta attributes And you are still having the same fallacy as some other folk are. You believe that a game engine is sentinel. It is not. It weighs some attributes more than others

this years messi doesn’t have above average physicals and certainly not godlike ones but plays like a top 5 player in the game. I don’t deny attributes are weighted different but to quote OP „I see nothing to suggest that the non-meta attributes have any impact at all on the match engine“ this is a totally different statement than strength is more important than passing or vision and i don’t believe OPs conclusion is accurate

Messi has 16 accel, 15 pace, 18 balance, 16 anticipation, 15 agility and *20* dribbling. The guy is a meta machine, way above average in meta stats

I mean you may refuse to believe it but in my save I bought Martins forgot his name Alex athletico Portugal player s 17 dribbling 18 pace 16 ability everything else is bad . He was like 20 games 12 goals. 10 assist My best player in my team is 18 pace 19 accel 18 dribbling 18 agility . He has 10 finishing 12 passing 11 crossing His stats line 4 season is ike 50 games 20 goals 25 assists 7.70 above average . He is right footed amr and he cuts inside and scores with his left non stop with abysmal finishing

as i said the major conclusion from OP: „I see nothing to suggest that the non-meta attributes have any impact at all on the match engine“ is what i refuse to believe. Physical attributes being overvalued by the match engine is true but not to the extend that OP is suggesting at least that’s my opinion.

In OPs experiment, as I understand it, he left the meta attributes unchanged for both sets of trials, which would have the effect of isolating the impact of the increase in non meta attributes would have on this palace team (which is a top flight team so we would expect them to have decent physicals anyway). And since there was barely any change in points/placement between the two trials I feel like OPs conclusion is somewhat justified because this basically implies that all else constant there is no benefit in having higher non meta attributes. There are criticisms to be had about sample size and perhaps the inconsistent effect of injuries though.

Don't those stats for Edouard tell a story though? He went from 11 goals, 0 assists, and a 6.58 average rating to 14 goals, 8 assists and a 7.1 rating. He had XG of almost 13 and 1.56 XA. The stat changes turned that into a 8.72 XG (so he well over performed) and an XA of 6.57 (which he also overperformed). 6 player of the match compared to 1. Triple the dribbles per 90. Passing is down 3% (with more vision and higher passing are you taking more risks?) Tackle % went up almost 10%. And his value almost doubled. It also looks like they went much further in the cup competitions that year. And perhaps I'm in the minority, but aren't physical traits in real soccer a big determining factor in your success? You can be the best finisher in the world, but if you're not fast and strong enough to get space it doesn't matter. If you don't have stamina, you won't be on the pitch as much. You can be an amazing dribbler, but if you have no balance it doesn't matter. I also wonder if there are unintended consequence doing one of these "I'm just boosting stats to 16" tests. The immediate to me is having a roster of 16 corners players doesn't provide a huge leap in performance. Many of these have diminishing returns. Does giving an entire team 16 aggression do as much harm as good? Are you doing long throws all the time and giving up possession? Can you have a team with all 16 leadership? Don't you want some players who are a little selfish and not all amazing teammates? A good rating there might not make players better in some scenarios. Does improving tackling and marking matter as much as we'd think when the player doesn't necessarily have the matching physical attributes to take advantage? And for a team in the top tier, do we think raising finishing from 15 to 16 should make an incredible difference? Here's the test I'd like to see. And the Edouard example offers a glimpse. Go find some incredibly talented physical players with some glaring holes in their games. Some guys who are missing 'intangibles.' Some guys who are missing physical traits. And some missing both. You know the guys I'm talking about. The ones 'holy cow this guy is amazing!' until you see he has 5 strength. Those speedy wingers who can't do much else but run. Do a control sim. Record their stats. The sim again with some targeted boosts. Some players get physical boosts. Some in the 'intangibles' realm. Give them a 5 and 10 point boost in those ratings (so we aren't drastically changing their DNA as a player). Then let's see what happens. I'm guessing quite a few of those players take an Edouardian leap from 6.5 to 7.1.

agree with this 100%. i think, if anything, technical/mental attributes undoubtebly have an impact still on performance, but it would've been useful to see how much more of an impact increasing the physical atributes to 16 would've had - we might find that the physical palace team saw a significant improvement in their league position and therefore deduce that those attributes are certainly weighted higher than they should be in the ME. but also, as you said, not all the 'non-meta' attributes being increased should guarantee an improved performance. surely there is no team that would benefit from having 25 different leaders? or every player being aggressive and brave in the challenge? or having 25 different players competing for set piece duty.

Yea not buying the game again anytime soon. Fuck them

I’ve actually completely stopped playing since the initial tests were done. There really is no point, feel like a fool for pouring so many hours in. For reference I’ve been playing some form of manager since CM 00/01

So on both tests you either survived easily or were relegated in different tests. Maybe the match engine is just completely random because there is no consistency in the teams performance and it just appears random.

There is a lot more than attributes and tactics that influence how many points you get over a season. If 1-3 key players get injured for a month or more during a congested schedule, that alone can drop a lot of points.

FM RNG was measured by FMArena, over a single season the RNG variance for an identical team is 25 points give or take.  It reverts to the mean over multiple seasons, but that is well within the FM arena numbers 

I'm sorry but this is another worthless test. Leaving aside the issues with sample size, detail level etc I want to cover a few points that others haven't. Firstly the tactics you are using already bias physicality when in possession. The two wingers and a SV on attack, AF and WB are roles which primarily favour the meta attributes and limit the impact of others. The whole attacking gameplan would be focused through them with no build up from the back or short passing etc. Then the changes you have made to players are actually very minor. The only meaningful attributes that Eduoard has had boosted by a significant amount (4+) are work rate, vision and passing. Boosts to attributes like crossing, heading and long shots will only ever make a very marginal difference because they are only used a handful of times a match even by strikers. You haven't shown the defenders but I would think at Palace's level most of their important attributes are already close to 16. Increasing Tyrick Mitchell's bravery a bit is not going to have an impact and boosting Joel Ward's finishing to 16 is completely pointless. This isn't new information. Everyone who has played FM or watched a single real life match knows that having a striker that is much faster than the opposing defenders is very effective. Who would have possibly thought it? /s Equally everyone should know that a DLP who can't run but has 20 vision and passing can dominate a game in FM. The simplest way of showing how stupid these 'tests' are is to use a physically excellent but technically and mentally poor player in a role like regista, DLP or enganche and see what performances you get out of them compared to a player suited to the role. Everyone needs to stop trying to extrapolate any meaning from these terribly designed tests which force the game into places it was not designed for. Clearly none of you have ever heard of 'garbage in, garbage out'

Yeah, you'd totally look at the boosted Edouard and think "meh". It's hilarious at this point what people will say to defend this.

The boosted Eduoard isn't much better than the default. His Dribbling, Anticipation, Concentration and Agility have even been lowered because OP can't set up the test properly. Despite that the boosted version did perform significantly better anyway. He may look like a sea of green but his 16 for Corners, Crossing, Free Kicks, Long Throws, Marking, Tackling, Aggression, Bravery, Positioning, Teamwork, Flair and Leadership will make little to no difference to how he performs as they aren't essential for an AF. He already has good or decent physicals, finishing, heading, technique, off the ball and decisions. Better vision, work rate, long shots and passing will help slightly but won't make a meaningful difference to performance as an AF. What is hilarious though is how many people seem to not have any understanding of how the game works or that the value of attributes is dependent on the player role and team tactics.

The game being so lopsided has killed my enthusiasm for the game. I’ll just sim to when my team builds the new stadium. And maybe the expansion. And call it. Was planning to start a new game but what’s the point if it is this bad. I’m glad for the original poster who brought this to attention initially. And everyone else who keep posting their tests too

~~All this work and it’s useless.~~ ~~Please raise your hand if you simulate all games per season. If you raised your hand, congratulations, you now know what attributes to look for.~~ ~~The rest, doesn’t.~~ ~~Even if you select simulation in detail, the game doesn’t simulate the same way as if you’d actually watch these games as I understand.~~ ~~If you think I’m wrong, please provide proof.~~ ~~I don’t have proof either but that’s at least my subjective experience when playing games and also having simulated a lot of games in the past.~~ **I am wrong.** Someone posted proof here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/s/zgWetnsAjL](https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/s/zgWetnsAjL)

The attributes cork in concert with each other. So, passing, vision etc. ​ If you look at them in combination, the effect iss much more pronounced.

While this experiment looks solid and I'm not really surprised by the results as a FM veteran, I do have a few quips: -I'm not surprised that a tactic without any instructions/plans to make better use of more technical players don't show a significant improvement in end result (ie points/standings), but it would be very surprised if this hasn't lead to more possession at least. Basically it's easier to reach a higher floor performance with physically outstanding athletes and that does runs parallel to real life developments. Smaller teams/countries are getting up to par with the big boys with more professional fitness/strength training and teams find it harder and harder to break them down even if you have the riches of talent like Man City or Real Madrid do. -The results may be similair, but the style of play and type of highlights shown could (should! and I'm seeing the difference) be totally different from baseline view. It might not matter for some players but for me it matters alot! It's the difference between watching Mancini City with 3 holding midfielders or Pep City total football even though results were comparable initially. The way I play FM is make a boutique tactic and buy/develop beter and better players who execute plays/patterns I want more and more often. This feedback loop DOES work in my experience purely looking at the type and amount of highlights, but it doesn't lead to vastly different/better results than when I started out, just more concistency. One thing I do notice is that stats don't work linearly and the engine seems to punish you more on the extreme low and high ends. It's feels a bit like dice rolling (D20) in DnD. For example having 10 str won't be a big deal if opponent players are usually 11-16str, but having below that (ie 5 str) will actually be very detrimental as every opponent will have a 10 point str gap on that player and it's quite visible in engine and results. At the same time, if you play with wingers with 18+ jump, they will be very dominating against wingbacks who typically only have around 10 jump. If you test with 20 or 1 any stats, I bet you find very extreme results you won't find playing normally. I would be interested if someone did experiments on this

Default tactics are one of the strongest you can use. The average player probably does more harm than good by using specialzed roles and tons of instructions. It's wrong to look at it as a "tactic without instructions". Literally the only thing you have to do is up your pressing game and that's it. No need to touch anything else with top players.

This isn't any sort of reliable test for how the match engine works on any level. You need almost 100 more simulations before you even remotely came close to numbers that could prove or disprove anything. A 6 season test is a joke.

The meta attributes are they just the physicals?

When EBFM tested home ground advantage, he tested 1,000 matches per variable in a strictly controlled environment. You’ve tested 6 seasons - changing 1 variable - where the control group doesn’t remain the same. It’s an interesting premise that would warrant further investigation but I do think this test is totally inconclusive. There’s clearly some issues with the simulated match engine, I’m not denying that. I’d be very interested to see properly controlled tests on the pace issue using the match engine.

In older fms home ground advantage even applied to teams whose name is put first (left side) in matches played in neutral grounds. Where can I read this EBFM test?

https://youtu.be/KNQ-cSFSqgw?si=SGE2CEOPFAhjlgnr

Can we stop trying to find every little loophole and finally look at the big picture? Look at the players in his team, look at them. Bright green attributes everywhere. Anyone would spend dozens of millions for any of these player, and he has 11 of them in the field. They got relegated twice out of 3 times. Yet for some reasons people like you try to find the little tiny loophole to discredit this test. Please tell me honestly you would look at one of these players during a scout session and be like "yeaaah no this guy is shit for EPL" and hit the red cross on his report.

"Can we stop trying to find every little loophole and finally look at the big picture?" - It's possible to do both. This test proved nothing - so I won't be brandishing my pitchfork based off it. Running such a small sample isn't a 'little loophole' - it's a massive fundamental flaw in the methodology of the test. I don't fully understand the weird outburst to my post. I did explain I accept there clearly are issues with the engine, but I'd quite like to find out exactly why - rather than just screaming from the rooftops. The now-deleted pace test post was much more comprehensive with this, and I didn't have any issue with it.

So what issues do you have with FM arena tests with sample size of 3000 games?

Has anyone tested if the match engine works the same way when one holidays vs when one plays thru every game?

It has been stated that full detail results in the same outcome (ideally but who knows when and where you are making subs and touchline shouts). So whether or not you play or sim, you shouldn’t see wildly different results

Its pretty sad, but if been focusing on the meta stats way more since its been found out that it only matter, like no point in doing all this shit when nothing matters

I'm still playing Fm2007, I may try to figure the situation of this version. But I'm thinking about a different method. I'll play just one match about 20 times or maybe 50 to see the test subject average score, then change the non meta stats and do it 50 times more.

Soooooo if I want to break out the Vanarama National what guys am I looking for.......🤔🫣

None of you people know enough about statistics and the scientific method to make any real conclusions with these half-assed experiments.

Ignorance is bliss

Sets up a tactic/roles based around counter attacking and speed and then claims that non meta attributes don't do anything. I'm glad we got to the bottom of this. (Meanwhile, my team with the lowest physical attributes in the league in nearly every single category is about to romp to the title for the second straight year because I actually know how to build a tactic for technical players to thrive)

No this is all wrong, those players don't exist. You can't say non-meta attributes have no effect. They do have a miniscule effect which changes everything and also adama traore... s/

Everyone in here freaking out, while I don’t think these results prove a whole lot. So you have a mediocre prem team and a slightly better and prem team, both of which had 3 pretty mediocre seasons. With this really small sample size (I understand it’s very time consuming) i don’t think this experiment has more implications other than that the prem is a very competitive leagues and that non-meta attributes aren’t as effective as meta attributes (no shit Sherlock, that’s why we call them non-meta) I think there is A LOT more testing to be done to reach any of the conclusions all of you are jumping at. Let’s test ANY league that’s not as strong as the prem with more variance in strength of teams and players..

Look at the difference in Edouard attributes, it's not "slightly better" by any stretch of the imagination. He's one of the best and most versatile players in the world in the after screenshot. The test itself isn't fully conclusive but there is no way you can say these results are expected in any way. After all, whether the non meta attributes have any impact on the match engine *at all* should not really be the question. I'm sure if you ran this test with higher sample size you'd find at least slight differences but the difference in perceived ability of players is so big that you'd most certainly expect it to show itself even in small sample size. Everything else being the same, the boosted team should perform much better over 3 seasons. The meta attributes being so dominant over the rest is not really a "no shit Sherlock" situation. Vast majority of the player base does not know this.

As a control could you do the simulation with boosted meta attributes? That's the missing bit for this test to properly see. Great work though!

The first one is the control, since OPs focus is on the impact of non meta attributes (increasing them), given a constant level of meta attributes.

Hey thanks for the post OP! I can only see the one photo for Edouard tho?

I apreciate for your efforts but this kind of tests doesnt show any sign about attribute impacts ive been playin the game since 09 die hard mode. Over the past years technical parts got more impactful. İn my experience "non meta" attributes are important but it dependa on how u utilise them. Every season is different and has so much different variables that effects the results and impact of attributes. And in my experience somenof the mental attributes are sneaky Real meta attributes. And impacts more than physics

I’m so over these posts. I’m just gonna keep playing FM the way I always have. Worked so far

Yeah to each their own. It’s a single player game so if you get more enjoyment out of the game by ignoring stuff like this more power to you! Clearly some people are interested in this sort of thing and that’s who i’m making this post for, but by no means am I trying to police how anyone plays FM.

You guys look like you don't actually play the game. Be honest, are u signing center backs with 13 tackling and 13 finishing instead of 16 tackling and 8 finishing? The AI can easily put the players in wrong positions because they are good at almost everything, you know... Jamie Vardy wouldn't be a good ball winning midfielder just because he has nice stamina, bravery, work rate, determination etc, he needs to actually be trained in that position. And guys like CR7, Modric, Immobile, Lewandowski are still beasts despite having mid physicals. I'll only start to draw conclusions if you do the test while being unemployed and put 16 in all attributes that are ideal for each position/role (16 tackling, positioning, marking for center backs) but leave the "meta" attributes unchanged. If the results are the same then maybe we should have a really tough conversation.

Everyone obviously plays the game, I dont get your point. I'm currently using a retrained winger with 7 finishing in the Bundesliga, scoring a goal per game as a striker, I also have a wingback with 6 tackling, 7 positioning and an average rating of 7.7. Maybe prime Jamie Vardy would be a good BWM, have you tried?