Forum | Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By dagriggstar (RA) - 19-03-2021 03:01

[AUSNZ]

So for awhile now I've wanted a topic where we talked about very specific potential sim improvements, something more thought out than "My team had more shots on target why did I lose". Something that also is not "I want a new sim" either. Something for specific situations that occur and how things could be improved. Anyway, these are my notes from across this season just past.

Attack
 - The location of both a striker and any nearby defenders does not appear to have a discernible effect on whether the shot will be successful. This means that as the defending team, we make no effort to actually protect the goal, we only wish to win the ball back as soon as possible. So typically we should just play ultra high defensive lines and not care about conceding 1on1 chances, no matter how open the striker is.
 - The vast majority of passes are made to players that are not open. Part of this is that players can almost run as fast as the ball travels and part of this is consistently poor pass choices being made. 
 - One reason wingplay is generally better than short passing is because there isn't a great difference in pass accuracy between the two choices. I think short/ground passes should be made about 10% more accurate to help with that.
 - Players often ignore an open player on the wing. This is especially evident if you play with two wide players.
 - If you drop a player into the space between your opponents defenders and attackers, that player will not be passed to out of defence. All passes out of defence go to strikers. 
 - Just generally on open players being ignored, if you assume these players are training together they should be going into games with an expectation that, my team-mate is positioned there just like in training, even if I can't see him. Like the player with the ball should always know where his team-mates are. 
 - Set Plays and corners need some attention. Currently you concede a freekick and it's like "cool, I'm about to get the ball back with a goal kick". Players should go up for freekicks in attacking positions. Set Plays should give some kind of boost to players that are I guess "being passed to" in such situations. Like my big central defender practised heading in goals from this specific spot on corners logic. We should be able to place players in certain spots on corners.
 - Players don't typically dribble away from the goal, or try to hold up the play and wait for support. It's kind of strange that they will pass backwards (presumably to try hold onto possession) but won't do this.
 - When any player makes a run forward with the ball, they run to the exact same spot. Like they aren't interested in probing the defence or anything.

Defence
 - Wider defenders often simply sit in space. They often have no concept of where the ball is and run "back to position" when in fact the ball is "free" and they are the closest player to the ball.
 - Defenders in general have no concept of offside or how to play an offside trap. Wide defenders can play 2-3 attacking players onside by dropping about 15% lower than the other defenders.
 - Defenders tend to pick up the closest player to them and stay with them, even if there is another player nearby in a more dangerous position. Sometimes this results in players dribbling past them with the ball and no tackle attempt being made. Other times this results in defensive midfielders being deeper than actual defenders.
 - Defensive players will attempt to cover the wings, if there is a wing player running through with the ball uncontested. They will not attempt this if the striker is central and running towards a 1on1 with the keeper. Defenders should chase any attackers that are through on goal regardless of if they are on the wing or not.
 - Goalkeepers should not save so many shots. Like every time your striker is through on goal you can't get excited or anything because the vast majority of the time you know it will be saved.
 - Players should be better at tackling, maybe like an extra 10%. If players can't tackle, it makes counter tactics less effective. We should be designing a sim that rewards people being active rather than passive.
 - Passive level "aggression" does nothing. As in, defenders just don't do anything, even shadow.

General
 - To use an FM term, the dimensions of the Managerzone pitch are very small, so there is almost no room to put a functional midfield. Players are either attackers or defenders. Many current attacking strategies rely on this, for example playing one winger almost in the very attacking corner of the pitch and another about 10 pixels inside and behind. This has the effect in the sim of these two players effectively occupying the same place on the pitch just 10 pixels apart. Ideally, we users would be able to choose the dimensions of our home grounds, although I imagine that would be difficult to implement, at minimum the default should be larger.
 - Midfielders in general don't cover as much ground as they should. They could stand to drop back more and go forward more. Or like, we should have that option.
 - Currently, to my eyes at least, players' skills deplete completely as they run out of stamina. Like a player with 10 shooting and 0 stamina by the end of the game plays like a "fresh" 0 shooting player. I'd like to see a higher "tired" level, like that player would play half as good (so a fresh 5 shooting player at the end of the game) as at the start of the game. Like when you are exhausted you don't lose all your skill.
 - I think players should be able to sprint/jog/walk. Reuse those PS animations, at least for jogging/sprinting
 - It actually surprised me how much curl on the ball players get when passing in the 3D. It would be cool if the camera moved around on corners/freekicks to show this off. 
 - The skill gap between each ball level is too small. Results where a team that has say 33% less value than yours probably shouldn't happen. Because of the economic side of the game teams will generally be very similar in terms of each player's skills, so the difference in each level of a players skill should be larger, otherwise we may as well be flipping coins. As I write this up, there are 3,260 teams that have at least 66% of the top11 value of the highest team. Even if you have the most valuable team, really your odds going into any cup are like 1 in 2000 or something, even with a more consistent sim.

"Hidden" factors
So personally I do believe there is at least one "hidden" factor in the sim, that players currently gain and lose confidence depending on if their previous actions were successful or not. I've seen others talk about what I'm going to call a pressure mechanic, that affects players based on whether they are favourites or not. A final factor I considered in the past was the weather, obviously in the viewers we don't see any difference but in the text write ups of games it is sometimes specifically mentioned. 
In each of these cases, we as managers have no way of interacting with such factors. Like we can watch a game, watch a striker not score from 12 shots and then we can't sub him off or anything. We have no feedback on a player's body language. For this reason, such "hidden" factors should not exist in the sim. Because even if you identify, oh this tactic didn't work because my striker has low confidence and their keeper has high confidence, you can't do anything about it, therefore the only feelings you can possibly get are frustration or resignation. If weather is a factor we need a weather forecast. If any of these factors exist, to be honest we should know about them and we should be able to interact with them.

So for awhile now I've wanted a topic where we talked about very specific potential sim improvements, something more thought out than "My team had more shots on target why did I lose". Something that also is not "I want a new sim" either. Something for specific situations that occur and how things could be improved. Anyway, these are my notes from across this season just past.

Attack
- The location of both a striker and any nearby defenders does not appear to have a discernible effect on whether the shot will be successful. This means that as the defending team, we make no effort to actually protect the goal, we only wish to win the ball back as soon as possible. So typically we should just play ultra high defensive lines and not care about conceding 1on1 chances, no matter how open the striker is.
- The vast majority of passes are made to players that are not open. Part of this is that players can almost run as fast as the ball travels and part of this is consistently poor pass choices being made.
- One reason wingplay is generally better than short passing is because there isn't a great difference in pass accuracy between the two choices. I think short/ground passes should be made about 10% more accurate to help with that.
- Players often ignore an open player on the wing. This is especially evident if you play with two wide players.
- If you drop a player into the space between your opponents defenders and attackers, that player will not be passed to out of defence. All passes out of defence go to strikers.
- Just generally on open players being ignored, if you assume these players are training together they should be going into games with an expectation that, my team-mate is positioned there just like in training, even if I can't see him. Like the player with the ball should always know where his team-mates are.
- Set Plays and corners need some attention. Currently you concede a freekick and it's like "cool, I'm about to get the ball back with a goal kick". Players should go up for freekicks in attacking positions. Set Plays should give some kind of boost to players that are I guess "being passed to" in such situations. Like my big central defender practised heading in goals from this specific spot on corners logic. We should be able to place players in certain spots on corners.
- Players don't typically dribble away from the goal, or try to hold up the play and wait for support. It's kind of strange that they will pass backwards (presumably to try hold onto possession) but won't do this.
- When any player makes a run forward with the ball, they run to the exact same spot. Like they aren't interested in probing the defence or anything.

Defence
- Wider defenders often simply sit in space. They often have no concept of where the ball is and run "back to position" when in fact the ball is "free" and they are the closest player to the ball.
- Defenders in general have no concept of offside or how to play an offside trap. Wide defenders can play 2-3 attacking players onside by dropping about 15% lower than the other defenders.
- Defenders tend to pick up the closest player to them and stay with them, even if there is another player nearby in a more dangerous position. Sometimes this results in players dribbling past them with the ball and no tackle attempt being made. Other times this results in defensive midfielders being deeper than actual defenders.
- Defensive players will attempt to cover the wings, if there is a wing player running through with the ball uncontested. They will not attempt this if the striker is central and running towards a 1on1 with the keeper. Defenders should chase any attackers that are through on goal regardless of if they are on the wing or not.
- Goalkeepers should not save so many shots. Like every time your striker is through on goal you can't get excited or anything because the vast majority of the time you know it will be saved.
- Players should be better at tackling, maybe like an extra 10%. If players can't tackle, it makes counter tactics less effective. We should be designing a sim that rewards people being active rather than passive.
- Passive level "aggression" does nothing. As in, defenders just don't do anything, even shadow.

General
- To use an FM term, the dimensions of the Managerzone pitch are very small, so there is almost no room to put a functional midfield. Players are either attackers or defenders. Many current attacking strategies rely on this, for example playing one winger almost in the very attacking corner of the pitch and another about 10 pixels inside and behind. This has the effect in the sim of these two players effectively occupying the same place on the pitch just 10 pixels apart. Ideally, we users would be able to choose the dimensions of our home grounds, although I imagine that would be difficult to implement, at minimum the default should be larger.
- Midfielders in general don't cover as much ground as they should. They could stand to drop back more and go forward more. Or like, we should have that option.
- Currently, to my eyes at least, players' skills deplete completely as they run out of stamina. Like a player with 10 shooting and 0 stamina by the end of the game plays like a "fresh" 0 shooting player. I'd like to see a higher "tired" level, like that player would play half as good (so a fresh 5 shooting player at the end of the game) as at the start of the game. Like when you are exhausted you don't lose all your skill.
- I think players should be able to sprint/jog/walk. Reuse those PS animations, at least for jogging/sprinting
- It actually surprised me how much curl on the ball players get when passing in the 3D. It would be cool if the camera moved around on corners/freekicks to show this off.
- The skill gap between each ball level is too small. Results where a team that has say 33% less value than yours probably shouldn't happen. Because of the economic side of the game teams will generally be very similar in terms of each player's skills, so the difference in each level of a players skill should be larger, otherwise we may as well be flipping coins. As I write this up, there are 3,260 teams that have at least 66% of the top11 value of the highest team. Even if you have the most valuable team, really your odds going into any cup are like 1 in 2000 or something, even with a more consistent sim.

"Hidden" factors
So personally I do believe there is at least one "hidden" factor in the sim, that players currently gain and lose confidence depending on if their previous actions were successful or not. I've seen others talk about what I'm going to call a pressure mechanic, that affects players based on whether they are favourites or not. A final factor I considered in the past was the weather, obviously in the viewers we don't see any difference but in the text write ups of games it is sometimes specifically mentioned.
In each of these cases, we as managers have no way of interacting with such factors. Like we can watch a game, watch a striker not score from 12 shots and then we can't sub him off or anything. We have no feedback on a player's body language. For this reason, such "hidden" factors should not exist in the sim. Because even if you identify, oh this tactic didn't work because my striker has low confidence and their keeper has high confidence, you can't do anything about it, therefore the only feelings you can possibly get are frustration or resignation. If weather is a factor we need a weather forecast. If any of these factors exist, to be honest we should know about them and we should be able to interact with them.

Bl: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By tuahtora - 19-03-2021 04:52

[MIC]

Yes agree sometimes there is hidden factor

Απ: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By whatsupmen (NCA) - 24-03-2021 08:04

[ΚΟΠ]

I believe that there are more “hidden factors” maybe the exact position of a player can have a huge impact on the % of success (if is attacker % of scoring goal). Also we have to learn in what % the sim leaves to completely luck. I saw many times a team that can get many “lucky results” (less chances scoring more goals) but I strongly believe that is not luck is knowledge so if there are so many hidden factors of the game I can understand that no one can give you that in a plate but maybe they can give an instruction or something on how to proper dig into that. Because as you all know if you don’t know these stuff you are doomed to fail despite the years you have in the game (I my self play the game since 2007 I still don’t have a clue) and also is very sad that many managers have the knowledge and they deny to help others.

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By webregas - 25-03-2021 12:29

[ENG]

@dagriggstar - good thread and read, valid points and constructive feedback 👍

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By dagriggstar (RA) - 26-03-2021 05:03

[AUSNZ]

Something I left out for whatever reason - Heading should refer to a players ability to win aerial balls, not just a players accuracy when performing a header.

I do think there is a strong element of randomness just built into the simulator. If we look at a possible I guess 'attack chain' for wings it might be something like
1) Pass to winger (40% chance)
2) Dribble past defender (65% chance)
3) Cross to striker (45% chance)
4) Striker scores (20% chance)
That's a 2.3% chance on any given attack you would score. 
I would consider each extra skill ball to add about 3% success rate to each individual action. So if you have 2 extra balls in say all the relevant areas you would get a 4.3% chance to score on an individual attack. 
I would then read that as since you should be scoring about twice as often you should be winning about twice as often. But that's only 66% to 33%. So having two extra balls in everything means you expect to be simmed 33% of the time, assuming identical tactics. That seems very high for such a mismatch. 
None of these numbers by the way are based on any data, just sort of my general feeling about how the sim is working.

Something I left out for whatever reason - Heading should refer to a players ability to win aerial balls, not just a players accuracy when performing a header.

I do think there is a strong element of randomness just built into the simulator. If we look at a possible I guess 'attack chain' for wings it might be something like
1) Pass to winger (40% chance)
2) Dribble past defender (65% chance)
3) Cross to striker (45% chance)
4) Striker scores (20% chance)
That's a 2.3% chance on any given attack you would score.
I would consider each extra skill ball to add about 3% success rate to each individual action. So if you have 2 extra balls in say all the relevant areas you would get a 4.3% chance to score on an individual attack.
I would then read that as since you should be scoring about twice as often you should be winning about twice as often. But that's only 66% to 33%. So having two extra balls in everything means you expect to be simmed 33% of the time, assuming identical tactics. That seems very high for such a mismatch.
None of these numbers by the way are based on any data, just sort of my general feeling about how the sim is working.

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By numchacar - 26-03-2021 12:57

Common guys the sim is how old now? it's 2021 we need a new sim this one is beyond outdated and as consumers we deserve the best sim as we are using our hard earned money to enjoy this experience.

Here are thing's I see happen to often:
1. There is no offsides for started that needs to be implemented.
2. A player is running on towards goals defenders can catch him and he is about to be one on one with the keeper then he passes it back to centre of the field - needs to be fixed
3. A player is running on towards goals defenders can catch him and try's to run the ball into the net but keeper gets him - needs to be fixed
4. A player in the far attacking part of the field with the ball runs all the way back with the ball to the other side of the field - - needs to be fixed
5. wing tactic are OP on mz - needs a buff
6. more things need's to be added to the game for example - zonal marking, man marking , floated crossing, drilled crossing, choosing weather to mark a certain player out of the game.
7. Penalty shootouts need to be fixed and not on a timed basis

The sim needs an update or an altogether revamp . it's 2021 last sim update was 2016 and we are using SIM 2.40.

I think we can all agree 5 years and no sim update is pretty poor. Most games do an update every 3 months to 6 months to yearly.
To sum it up this year no bug fixes have been done or anything on mz and last year not much had been done to improve the experience.

Common guys the sim is how old now? it's 2021 we need a new sim this one is beyond outdated and as consumers we deserve the best sim as we are using our hard earned money to enjoy this experience.

Here are thing's I see happen to often:
1. There is no offsides for started that needs to be implemented.
2. A player is running on towards goals defenders can catch him and he is about to be one on one with the keeper then he passes it back to centre of the field - needs to be fixed
3. A player is running on towards goals defenders can catch him and try's to run the ball into the net but keeper gets him - needs to be fixed
4. A player in the far attacking part of the field with the ball runs all the way back with the ball to the other side of the field - - needs to be fixed
5. wing tactic are OP on mz - needs a buff
6. more things need's to be added to the game for example - zonal marking, man marking , floated crossing, drilled crossing, choosing weather to mark a certain player out of the game.
7. Penalty shootouts need to be fixed and not on a timed basis

The sim needs an update or an altogether revamp . it's 2021 last sim update was 2016 and we are using SIM 2.40.

I think we can all agree 5 years and no sim update is pretty poor. Most games do an update every 3 months to 6 months to yearly.
To sum it up this year no bug fixes have been done or anything on mz and last year not much had been done to improve the experience.

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By numchacar - 26-03-2021 12:58

numchacar wrote:

Common guys the sim is how old now? it's 2021 we need a new sim this one is beyond outdated and as consumers we deserve the best sim as we are using our hard earned money to enjoy this experience.

Here are thing's I see happen to often:
1. There is no offsides for started that needs to be implemented.
2. A player is running on towards goals defenders can catch him and he is about to be one on one with the keeper then he passes it back to centre of the field - needs to be fixed
3. A player is running on towards goals defenders can't catch him and try's to run the ball into the net but keeper gets him - needs to be fixed
4. A player in the far attacking part of the field with the ball runs all the way back with the ball to the other side of the field - - needs to be fixed
5. wing tactic are OP on mz - needs a buff
6. more things need's to be added to the game for example - zonal marking, man marking , floated crossing, drilled crossing, choosing weather to mark a certain player out of the game.
7. Penalty shootouts need to be fixed and not on a timed basis

The sim needs an update or an altogether revamp . it's 2021 last sim update was 2016 and we are using SIM 2.40.

I think we can all agree 5 years and no sim update is pretty poor. Most games do an update every 3 months to 6 months to yearly.
To sum it up this year no bug fixes have been done or anything on mz and last year not much had been done to improve the experience.

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By schr - 26-03-2021 14:11

[BotP]

Yes, I agree that there is a hidden factor in the SIM.

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By schr - 26-03-2021 14:13

[BotP]

I also agree that we need an update or even a new SIM.

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By numchacar - 29-03-2021 17:48

schr wrote:

I also agree that we need an update or even a new SIM.

way to long with out an update! Glad you agree

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By dagriggstar (RA) - 29-04-2021 05:24

[AUSNZ]

Attacking players don't react to their team-mates running with the ball. For example if a defender makes an interception, with no players in front of said defender they may start running the ball forwards. The defensive midfielders neither cover the defender running forwards with the ball nor run forwards themselves to be a passing option. The result is that usually the defender simply runs to the spot where the defensive midfielder is.

This also happens in attack with midfielders essentially running into their own strikers, who stay in place rather than drift somewhere else to try and get open.

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By black_devils - 04-05-2021 22:34

[AZE-MZ]

numchacar wrote:

I think we can all agree 5 years and no sim update is pretty poor. Most games do an update every 3 months to 6 months to yearly.
To sum it up this year no bug fixes have been done or anything on mz and last year not much had been done to improve the experience.

Yeap, exactly!

23-04-2024 22:50

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Season 90 · Week 4 · Day 22

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Football

Football » English » ManagerZone talk

Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By dagriggstar (RA) - 19-03-2021 03:01

Bl: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By tuahtora - 19-03-2021 04:52

Απ: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By whatsupmen (NCA) - 24-03-2021 08:04

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By webregas - 25-03-2021 12:29

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By dagriggstar (RA) - 26-03-2021 05:03

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By numchacar - 26-03-2021 12:57

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By numchacar - 26-03-2021 12:58

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By schr - 26-03-2021 14:11

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By schr - 26-03-2021 14:13

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By numchacar - 29-03-2021 17:48

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By dagriggstar (RA) - 29-04-2021 05:24

Re: Specific Sim Notes/Improvements thread

By black_devils - 04-05-2021 22:34