Gaming Football Manager 2024

[Alex99]

Anyone got a TLDR version?

Did tactics matter at all? For example if I played a 4-2-3-1 attacking formation and a 5-3-2 defensive formation, would it not matter if the game was set up to have a squad with those key attributes?

The team's CA ranged from 119 to 141, but won the quadruple. Squad view rated them from 1.5 to 3 stars.

The tactic was set to a custom 4-3-3 as apparently 4-2-3-1 is overpowered.

Decisions and Composure were set to just 7 for all players. Pretty much everything else not a physical attribute was set to 11, with the exception of dribbling, which was set to 16. Physicals ranged from 15-17.

General conclusion was that key attributes were effectively meaningless. Players were putting in great performances despite having poor to average-at-best attributes in everything but the physicals.

 

[SilentWitness]

The team's CA ranged from 119 to 141, but won the quadruple. Squad view rated them from 1.5 to 3 stars.

The tactic was set to a custom 4-3-3 as apparently 4-2-3-1 is overpowered.

Decisions and Composure were set to just 7 for all players. Pretty much everything else not a physical attribute was set to 11, with the exception of dribbling, which was set to 16. Physicals ranged from 15-17.

General conclusion was that key attributes were effectively meaningless. Players were putting in great performances despite having poor to average-at-best attributes in everything but the physicals.

The first line tells you everything really. Ffs.

 

[Chipper]

Yeah, it's long been known that good physicals are huge in the game.

Think people most commonly cotton on to it by noticing that they can go for advanced forwards with lots of pace and acceleration when they're on a bit of a budget relative to the league they're in. You also get these beastly target men knocking about. Not as commonly used by human managers but you sometimes notice them at AI clubs scoring loads, especially in weaker leagues.

Same thing for central defenders, where jumping reach is a big plus, pace and acceleration again if you can find them.

Don't think they're quite as important in some other positions but you still notice it. A common thing when you watch highlights is after clearance by a defender (kicked or headed) and when two players contest the ball. If you win it there by getting to it first because your player is quicker or stronger, and get away from your man then you can be running into space and you see a lot of attacks start that way when watching. Physicals must help.

I don't normally bother finding them specifically, but another one is that if you're lucky enough to have wide players with good jumping reach you can score lots of headers at the far post as full backs can often be small. The opposite is true, decent jumping reach full backs help prevent that.

Think another way to notice the importance of the physicals is just to look at how many players in each division have good attributes in those departments. In real football you might expect lower league players to be a bit better matched up in those terms, it's the one thing they might be relatively decent at if they were to play a higher team in the FA Cup etc. while not having anywhere near the skill. In FM they're always way behind on that too.

These from my current save:
PL players with 15+ pace 203 (20 clubs)
Championship 127 (24 clubs from now on)
League One 65
League Two 35
National League 13

PL players with 15+ strength 79
Championship 40
League One 23
League Two 13
National League 2

FM Arena did some similar testing on this - they too found pace and acceleration to be very important - https://fm-arena.com/table/26-player-attributes-testing/

Edit: If you can't be arsed clicking, a team that would get around 60 points a season would get 81 if adding 5 pace to all their players, 80 if adding 5 acceleration, 72 if adding 5 jumping reach, 70 if adding 5 dribbling.

If you take off 5 points pace they only get 29 points.

Adding 4 points to all technical or mental attributes gets 75 or 72. It does make you better but not as much as a difference maker as honing in on the pace/acceleration attributes if you had choose and you can often pick up fast but relatively unskillful players fairly cheaply.

 

[Alex99]

The first line tells you everything really. Ffs.

Yeah, by apparent overall ability, it should have been a championship squad.

They had a three game run in the league where the aggregate score was 27-2.

 

[SilentWitness]

It makes sense that this is the case the more you think about it. Beto, who is useless in real life was a 40+ goal a season striker for me. Just had a look and he has very good physicals....

 

[Maagge]

Anyone got a TLDR version?

Did tactics matter at all? For example if I played a 4-2-3-1 attacking formation and a 5-3-2 defensive formation, would it not matter if the game was set up to have a squad with those key attributes?

I don't think they've tested with a bunch of different tactics. They used 4-3-3 as apparently 4-2-3-1 is the "best" tactic. They didn't touch set pieces.

I'm guessing it will work unless you're playing a completely mad tactic.

 

[Alex99]

I don't think they've tested with a bunch of different tactics. They used 4-3-3 as apparently 4-2-3-1 is the "best" tactic. They didn't touch set pieces.

I'm guessing it will work unless you're playing a completely mad tactic.

Half tempted to re-install and try with different tactics, but can't be arsed with the admin of creating the squad.

 

[Maagge]

Half tempted to re-install and try with different tactics, but can't be arsed with the admin of creating the squad.

Yeah it's probably extremely time consuming. It would be interesting to do it for a bunch of teams and have all of them play different tactics to see which tactics are best for predominantly physical teams.

 

[Lay]

I kinda figured physicals were the most important and useful stat. Going up the leagues, you'd be advised to just sign physical players and that the other stats didn't matter.

A few editions ago, I was managing Inter and had Icardi up front who had great finishing but piss poor dribbling and I couldn't get him to score at all. I trained his dribbling so it went to 14 and he was a completely different striker. Ended up constantly scoring 40 goals a season. I've never signed a striker since with shite dribbling.

 

[padr81]

Some Chinese guy won the pl with a squad of 1 ca and a tactic of 4 defenders, 3 dms and 3mcs. He just put all the points from that ca into pace and acceleration. And jumping reach for cbs.

It's important to note all 1s for stats is negative 100 CA and all 20s would be 270 ca.

Also some really important hidden stats don't count towards CA. He also said a lot of mental stats do nothing and trekkers are useless cause of how the game works.

 

[Maluco]

Some Chinese guy won the pl with a squad of 1 ca and a ractic of 4 defenders, 3 dms and 3mcs. He just put all the points from that ca into pace and acceleration. And jumping reach for cbs.

It's important to note all 1s for stats is negative 100 CA and all 20s would be 270 ca

It’s getting harder and harder to ignore that’s it’s just an imaginary playpen and not really a simulator.

A lot of what we thought mattered (training, stats, coaches, shouts) doesn’t actually mean anything.

 

[padr81]

It’s getting harder and harder to ignore that’s it’s just an imaginary playpen and not really a simulator.

A lot of what we thought mattered (training, stats, coaches, shouts) doesn’t actually mean anything.

For sure. It feels like only 2 things matter. Physical Stats, pregame morale and tactics. But even then the Chinese dude who did the experiment said a huge chunk of how the match plays out happens before the game even starts.

Like everything they added in the last 10 years is just busy work.

 

[Maagge]

Some Chinese guy won the pl with a squad of 1 ca and a tactic of 4 defenders, 3 dms and 3mcs. He just put all the points from that ca into pace and acceleration. And jumping reach for cbs.

It's important to note all 1s for stats is negative 100 CA and all 20s would be 270 ca.

Also some really important hidden stats don't count towards CA. He also said a lot of mental stats do nothing and trekkers are useless cause of how the game works.

There's a description of a similar experiment in the post by @Berbaclass above.

 

[padr81]

That's insane and shows how easy it is to murder the game.

Using the Chinese training of 2 quickness, 1 match practice and 1 attack, plus 7 recovery, you can easily get every youth in your club with 90+ PA to 17 pace and acceleration by the time they turn 20 as long as they start at about 8. Combine that with 4231 or 424 gegenpress and the game is dead.

I might run a little test game for myself to see just how much you can break this by smashing together all the busted things.

Busted tactic, plus training to create pace monsters who kick a ball like sterling, and sign 2 193cm+ cbs with 20 jumping reach and do the near post corner routine where you set one of them 1 v 1 at the near post.

 

[Maagge]

That's insane and shows how easy it is to murder the game.

Using the Chinese training of 2 quickness, 1 match practice and 1 attack, plus 7 recovery, you can easily get every youth in your club with 90+ PA to 17 pace and acceleration by the time they turn 20 as long as they start at about 8. Combine that with 4231 or 424 gegenpress and the game is dead.

I might run a little test game for myself to see just how much you can break this by smashing together all the busted things.

Busted tactic, plus training to create pace monsters who kick a ball like sterling, and sign 2 193cm+ cbs with 20 jumping reach and do the near post corner routine where you set one of them 1 v 1 at the near post.

Yeah essentially you only need to look for a few attributes when scouting and training youth and not give a shit about the rest of them. Doesn't matter if they're half a star or whatever.

I wonder if it even matter which coaches you're hiring.

 

[Lay]

Yeah essentially you only need to look for a few attributes when scouting and training youth and not give a shit about the rest of them. Doesn't matter if they're half a star or whatever.

I wonder if it even matter which coaches you're hiring.

Doesn't make a difference in my experience. Matches are the best way to improve the players.

 

[Chipper]

Going to the Premier League.

Almost completely bottled promotion from the Championship, 64 points from the first 25 games, 33 from the last 21. Home form kept us going because away was a disaster, 5 points in 10 away games since the new year.

I'm going to blame the squad for getting unhappy, all got upset in the new year saying we needed more depth in right midfield. To be fair to them, our second choice was rubbish on his attributes, but he started for us in League One. Told them no, but they were angry as hell, and I ended up signing someone just before the January window was up but it didn't improve the form despite them saying they were happy now. The new signing was useless when he played.

At the same time that was going on our 4th choice striker wanted a loan and I said no, we need at least 4 options in a 4-4-2 which pissed a bunch of them off too. He signed as a squad player, should have known what to expect! He ended up with 9 starts and 9 sub apperances for the season. Not bad for a 20 year old who had never played a professional game before I'd say. Got him for nothing after United released him.

Anyway, job done in the end. Lets see what sort of squad I can put together, sticking to all Welsh players. 2nd and 3rd nationalies allowed as we have a Scottish/Polish/Welsh centre back. The game considers him Welsh so it's good enough for me.

Got a transfer budget of 17.3 million and a wage budget of £325k a week. Hoping we can sign this guy on a free that we've had on loan for 2 seasons as his contract is up at his parent club, got to wait until the final month before I can offer him a contract if his parent club don't in the meantime. He can't take pens to save his life but with 8 penalty taking he was our highest rated taker.

 

[Alex99]

Yeah it's probably extremely time consuming. It would be interesting to do it for a bunch of teams and have all of them play different tactics to see which tactics are best for predominantly physical teams.

Didn't make a team, but loaded up all the European leagues, set the date for the start of the Irish season so it was after the winter window, and started unemployed. Team at the bottom of the Gibraltarian league binned their manager with 4 games left, having drawn 3 and lost 13 of their 16 matches, scoring just 6 goals.

Got the job the day before their 17th match, checked their stats and they had lowest averages for pace and acceleration. Filtered the squad to include the U23s, sorted by acceleration and pace and picked based on that. Literally had players with half a silver star rating, according to the tactics screen.

Lost the first game 3-2 after conceding two late goals, but the players were absolutely gassed as half of them had been sat in the reserves not playing. We also hadn't managed to train so I changed the training to basically all physical for the rest of the season.

Won the remaining three games, all 2-1, beating the team in 2nd in one of them too. This, despite having a squad half full of players that weren't even considered remotely good enough for the league, but were a bit faster than our opponents.

Game is absolutely fecked so I've just binned it completely.

 

[Chipper]

Premier League is wild with this sort of underpowered squad. Feel like an extreme version of Blackpool when they were in it.

Played 11 W4 D1 L6. 12th place so far, with a game in hand or two over others, not sure why. Sitting 8th on the xG table but everything our opponents hit ends up in the back of the net. Given up 16xG but let in 26. Conceded 4 penalties (joint most in the league), 4 from indirect free kicks (most in the league), 5 from corners (joint 17th in the league). Our team have turned into fouling machines, out of depth and we just kick everyone.

Need a new set piece coach and a new goalie.

Signed that player from the previous post in the end but not on a free, cost us 6.25m and he's already managed to break his leg. Don't know why the board were so stingy with transfer and wage budget, we're making money hand over fist from the TV deal and are projected to have 45m in the bank at the end of the season.

Tried to sign a 32 year old Daniel James on a free a couple of times seeing as we're keeping it Welsh, and he'd ask for about 20k a week before getting mad and turning around asking for 70k. Also managed to piss off an agent who pretty much controls all the Welsh players which wasn't good. He said he was tired of us enquiring and then not following up.

Did get Gabriel Biancheri, currently with United in the real world in on a free and am paying him top wage on 55 grand a week.

Oh, and our stadium is so weird. 6500 capacity in the Premier League which I thought wasn't allowed? Minimum is 10k as far as I know. We closed down one quadrant to convert it to seats but didn't bother converting either end behind the goals or one side so we just have one side open and the two corners on the opposite side.The rest is unused terracing.

 

[Santos J]

Oh, and our stadium is so weird. 6500 capacity in the Premier League which I thought wasn't allowed? Minimum is 10k as far as I know. We closed down one quadrant to convert it to seats but didn't bother converting either end behind the goals or one side so we just have one side open and the two corners on the opposite side.The rest is unused terracing.

First year in the Prem is 5k with 1k seats but within 3 years needs to be 10k+ so you'll probably have a new one soon if you stay up!