I see Jak seems to having a little moan about bad form of late:
He's got this pretty much spot on I think, the patterns are pretty much as he describes. I haven't had chance to rant about this post reset because I have made specific pain staking efforts to manage my form in such a way that I do not enter bad form. Alas, that's all gone down the pan due to me being offline for about 36 hours and losing a shit load of AI games at the start of the 3rd run of the EFA - the worse possible time it could happen. Before the third run started I was planning to post about how this is usually the point everything goes wrong.
I'm still getting results here and there but i'm definitely in what Jak describes as stage 2. Every game is a shit storm of disallowed goals, sending offs, injured players, knocks, freak events, last minute goals, super keeperings etc. Games suddenly become a combination of the worse series of events you can possibly imagine, then you go home after the game to find the opposition reserve team has fucked your sister.... and stolen the microwave, then taken a shit on your doorstep.. a massive shit.. which smells.. bad.
I think I might actually get out of this one though as I still think I might have cracked away form. It could just be coincidence, but away results while entering bad form are unusual.. we shall see.
What Jak probably isn't aware of is "stage 7" where your team enters really appalling form where it's virtually impossible to win any game against any team no matter what you or the opposition does. The only solution seems to be to sell and replace most of your team. I've experienced this twice, it's not good, believe me.
On a positive note I received a nice 4.5 star graduate from my academy today who has 16 in jumping, 16 pace and can play DR or DM. Awesomeness ! Only had 4 grads in a month from my 1.5* academy, 2x4 star, 1x3.5 star and 1x4.5 star. I've sold the others for a pittance because they didn't fit my formation or I didn't need them. I wonder why my academy isn't broken ;)
Friday, 14 May 2010
Thursday, 13 May 2010
Back In Black
I'm not really having a good week.
First off, i'm currently on jury service which is actually a strangely similar experience to playing FML. Basically you sit around doing literally nothing all day, in a room with some other people who are also doing nothing where there's a couple of annoying people who chat bollocks most of the time, but other than that there's not much going on. So you just sit there, just waiting for something to actually happen, then it gets to lunch time and you you wait to see if you might get sent home. Then you come back the next day and do the same again hoping today will be the day something will happen.
The problem is, you can't actually ever leave this room just in case you get called onto a jury (challenged to a match) and in the event you do actually leave the room and go outside (log off) you can almost guarantee something will happen. Then when you finally get into the action, you find it's some long ridiculous drawn out process and something which should have been finished in a morning has lasted 3 fucking days (and I don't get tomorrow off now damnit!)
To compound my woe, I appear to have food poisoning, so between spending my time in court and the toilet, I haven't had much time for FML the last two days.
The 3rd run of the EFA started 2 days ago at 19.15. So I log on today after a few days off and see i've got 8 AI games or so due to land tonight. Now I know that I wont have AI in any of these because i've not been on. So I start throwing out challenges and of course most people just IGNORE them as usual (fuck sake, just DECLINE IT) I challenged one guy around 4 times today, left the challenge in for 15 minutes or so, AI due tonight. He ignores it and sure enough, he wins the AI rights because I didn't challenge him within the correct window of opportunity or rubbish. Has he challenged me ? No, he's made a deliberate effort to actually not play me.
*update - log on this morning and i've lost every single AI game. A whole fucking months worth of work is going to be effectively ruined because of this joke of an AI rights system. I'll almost certainly be in bad form now, i'd never ever let the team lose more than 2 in a row, i'd imagine i'm gonna end up near bottom of league now. And as per usual AI games i've got a load of fucking injuries. very very very very angry*
Now I missed the first 2 days of the last run also and despite being online after this quite a lot, I essentially lost AI to 90% of my games which is what I expect to happen again this time.
The league games I got in have started well enough though, still undefeated and got a nice 5-0 victory. I'm pulling out of all friendly competitions now and going casual now for reasons i'll no doubt rant about another time (basically, the XFA is shit, and we don't need more quickplays etc) but the main reason is because of this stupid major/minor form you have. True enough, after my 5-0 win I roll up at rank 400th, won 2 games in the last 20 or so and he pastes me off the pitch and he's 2-0 up within 5 minutes.
Anyway i'm back in credit for the first time since the GW launched! Sold some of my youth players on, only modest profits really but it's put me back in the black. Players are still too expensive and I feel like i'm getting left behind. No doubt by the time Messi and the like come up people will still have loads more money from selling on youth players for silly sums.
I tried selling a 28 year old MC, average of 7.50+ last season, 7.07 this season, playing great, MV £850k for £500k yet no one would even bid. Decided just to keep him until he's old and i'll release him, worth more to me than a tiny sum of cash.
First off, i'm currently on jury service which is actually a strangely similar experience to playing FML. Basically you sit around doing literally nothing all day, in a room with some other people who are also doing nothing where there's a couple of annoying people who chat bollocks most of the time, but other than that there's not much going on. So you just sit there, just waiting for something to actually happen, then it gets to lunch time and you you wait to see if you might get sent home. Then you come back the next day and do the same again hoping today will be the day something will happen.
The problem is, you can't actually ever leave this room just in case you get called onto a jury (challenged to a match) and in the event you do actually leave the room and go outside (log off) you can almost guarantee something will happen. Then when you finally get into the action, you find it's some long ridiculous drawn out process and something which should have been finished in a morning has lasted 3 fucking days (and I don't get tomorrow off now damnit!)
To compound my woe, I appear to have food poisoning, so between spending my time in court and the toilet, I haven't had much time for FML the last two days.
The 3rd run of the EFA started 2 days ago at 19.15. So I log on today after a few days off and see i've got 8 AI games or so due to land tonight. Now I know that I wont have AI in any of these because i've not been on. So I start throwing out challenges and of course most people just IGNORE them as usual (fuck sake, just DECLINE IT) I challenged one guy around 4 times today, left the challenge in for 15 minutes or so, AI due tonight. He ignores it and sure enough, he wins the AI rights because I didn't challenge him within the correct window of opportunity or rubbish. Has he challenged me ? No, he's made a deliberate effort to actually not play me.
*update - log on this morning and i've lost every single AI game. A whole fucking months worth of work is going to be effectively ruined because of this joke of an AI rights system. I'll almost certainly be in bad form now, i'd never ever let the team lose more than 2 in a row, i'd imagine i'm gonna end up near bottom of league now. And as per usual AI games i've got a load of fucking injuries. very very very very angry*
Now I missed the first 2 days of the last run also and despite being online after this quite a lot, I essentially lost AI to 90% of my games which is what I expect to happen again this time.
The league games I got in have started well enough though, still undefeated and got a nice 5-0 victory. I'm pulling out of all friendly competitions now and going casual now for reasons i'll no doubt rant about another time (basically, the XFA is shit, and we don't need more quickplays etc) but the main reason is because of this stupid major/minor form you have. True enough, after my 5-0 win I roll up at rank 400th, won 2 games in the last 20 or so and he pastes me off the pitch and he's 2-0 up within 5 minutes.
Anyway i'm back in credit for the first time since the GW launched! Sold some of my youth players on, only modest profits really but it's put me back in the black. Players are still too expensive and I feel like i'm getting left behind. No doubt by the time Messi and the like come up people will still have loads more money from selling on youth players for silly sums.
I tried selling a 28 year old MC, average of 7.50+ last season, 7.07 this season, playing great, MV £850k for £500k yet no one would even bid. Decided just to keep him until he's old and i'll release him, worth more to me than a tiny sum of cash.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
The Kids Aren't Alright
I have high hopes for this lad I found on the free agent list recently. He's gained 3-4 in some attributes already and he's looking pretty good ! Technically he actually looks better than my second best senior defender.
Youth attributes seem crazy high at the moment, especially for such young players. I reckon my youth team could do a job against a lot of senior sides, i'm just too scared to risk it right now! As i've been a bit fed up lately I haven't really bought or sold anyone so I think it's time to do a clear out for the 3rd run of the EFA which will no doubt end in disaster! Barely had any injuries at all so far so quite a few can go.
Speaking of DCs we know that jumping is the attribute to watch for to make them average well. I have had a gander over the anomalies in the data, the players with high jumping but a poor average rating to see what they have in common. The results are pretty much what you would expect in that they all have low pace/acceleration and especially agility!
I've been looking over the striker data again trying to work out how to sign the perfect striker. I won't do any more graphs as the data analysis thing is Andreas' bag but I am rather confused by it at all.
There's a couple of issues with trying to make any sense of the data too. If you look at DCs they are pretty much going to be unaffected by tactics in terms of how they perform as it's a fairly standard position and most teams play 4 at the back. But when you look at strikers there's all sorts of variables, how many are playing up front ? What formation ? Support or attacking ? I find in my own formation with the way I have it set up that only 1 of my players tends to score many goals. So it depends who is playing where on what they are going to score.
So, what attributes effect a strikers average rating ? Actually, pretty much none of them ! We all know that jumping does but none of the attributes really have a significant link to a players average rating.
So what does effect it ? Rather obviously, it's goals scored.
So what attributes effect goals scored ? Pretty much all of them ! Any attribute you would associate with being a good striker, including technical ones, like finishing, have a significant increase on the average number of goals per game scored.
The reason i'm confused is, based on this, I can't work out how some of my strikers have been able to score so many goals considering I have long advocated physicals over technicals but the data simply doesn't support this to be true.
So if you are looking for a striker what do you need to look for ? First off, i'd suggest ignoring average rating. While this may seem odd, it's only linked to goals scored, and goals scored is linked to how and where the player is played. Clearly a player with a high average rating will also be good, but likely more expensive. I wouldn't be put off by a player that has a poor scoring record if the attributes look good. The only attributes which don't really seem to do much are bravery, determination, influence and team work.
There doesn't seem to be any secret to the perfect striker, good players will score more, simple as that. It's almost every single attribute that has an effect on it, they higher they are the more they score.
I suspect it's likely linked to CA and hidden attributes in a significant way (obviously, attributes are linked to CA but you know what I mean). If I had some names from a RS GW I think I could do a vlookup on a FM10 DB extract to compare to CA.
ME 1 - T-Bag 0
Monday, 10 May 2010
Too Quick to Type
They're quick to talk when they can't be seen, hid behind computer screens
It's bitch bitch type type, delete, re-write, we're shite, that's right, according to them.
I'm sure there's one thing that we can all agree on, and that's that I should probably shut up occasionally. So with that in mind, I decided i'd write a new post.
Back on old FML I created my own version of 460 before it became big time and it was far superior to the popular version on the forums. I decided to share this with my mates and promptly spent the next 4 months sitting 2nd in the GW and 2nd in the league behind one of them. I figured at this point I should probably stop telling people these kind of things.
So spin on a year and some guy is beating me 4-0 or something and he tells me he's been following my tactical advice. Damnit! I've had several other mails telling me similar things and they all seem to be doing better than me. With that in mind, i'm considering not revealing my latest tactical thoughts ! I think I might have even cracked away issues to some extent. I thought no one listened to my ramblings!
Anyway, despite my monster fixture pile up last night I managed to win run #2 of the EFA top tier qualifying. P44 W27 D9 L8
How much did that cost me in players? Lets have a look:
£250k - record signing
£27k
£29k
£33k
£1
Total cost of my first choice 11 is £830k. Considering I won the first season qualifier too, it does beg the question of how my current balance is -£834k. My total wages are £74k and that includes a full youth team. Podolski signed for £57k wages this morning, i'm not entirely sure how I am supposed to significantly improve my team so it looks like i'm sticking with the duffers for the foreseeable future.
It's bitch bitch type type, delete, re-write, we're shite, that's right, according to them.
I'm sure there's one thing that we can all agree on, and that's that I should probably shut up occasionally. So with that in mind, I decided i'd write a new post.
Back on old FML I created my own version of 460 before it became big time and it was far superior to the popular version on the forums. I decided to share this with my mates and promptly spent the next 4 months sitting 2nd in the GW and 2nd in the league behind one of them. I figured at this point I should probably stop telling people these kind of things.
So spin on a year and some guy is beating me 4-0 or something and he tells me he's been following my tactical advice. Damnit! I've had several other mails telling me similar things and they all seem to be doing better than me. With that in mind, i'm considering not revealing my latest tactical thoughts ! I think I might have even cracked away issues to some extent. I thought no one listened to my ramblings!
Anyway, despite my monster fixture pile up last night I managed to win run #2 of the EFA top tier qualifying. P44 W27 D9 L8
How much did that cost me in players? Lets have a look:
£250k - record signing
£27k
£29k
£33k
£1
Total cost of my first choice 11 is £830k. Considering I won the first season qualifier too, it does beg the question of how my current balance is -£834k. My total wages are £74k and that includes a full youth team. Podolski signed for £57k wages this morning, i'm not entirely sure how I am supposed to significantly improve my team so it looks like i'm sticking with the duffers for the foreseeable future.
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Jump Around
Andreas over It's A Numbers Game at kindly sent me some of his data last week. I have decided to create some graphs to show the relationship between attributes and average ratings.
The following is for the DC position only and is based on data of 1173 players, I believe from GW Sanchez.
Jumping vs Average Rating
Strength vs Average Rating
Tackling vs Average Rating
Marking vs Average Rating
Positioning vs Average Rating
Concentration vs Average Rating
I've checked most of the attributes and the only ones which seem to actually have much of an effect on a DCs average rating are jumping and strength. I may have missed one or two as I didn't check them all, but I checked all the obvious ones.
As you can see, key defensive attributes like tackling and marking have no effect whatsoever on average rating. I stuck a couple of metals in there and again you can see that they don't do anything either. They also don't have any effect at all on the number of goals you concede per game.
So lets have a look at how attributes effect goals conceded. This is based on the average number of goals conceded per game.
WOW ! We have found a non-physical attribute which does something ! Concentration !! Interestingly you see here that while high jumping leads to high average ratings it does not lead to less goals conceded. The only things I can find which really seem to impact this much is stamina and concentration (there may be others, not checked them all)
No surprise that again tackling and marking have absolutely no effect whatsoever. As I have been banging on about for a long term, physical attributes don't do anything ! (This isn't quite true for other positions as I have found out though)High tackling actually appears slightly detrimental, although this is likely that because there's fewer players at the higher end of the scale who happen to be bad in other areas.
So, what have we learnt here today ? Nothing new as it happens.
- Tackling & Marking = useless
- High average ratings = Jumping & Strength
- Less goals conceded = Stamina & Concentration.
Just a quick note on form again.
Beta team has won 2 in 20, I am to be fair the worse team by a long shot. Guess who the two wins were against ? 1st and 2nd of course ! 1st is probably one of the best teams I have seen on FML - a full team of RS with Kaka and the likes. He smashed me 8-1 away. I won 3-0 at home.... I also beat 2nd 4-1. The boot is on the other foot this time. I signed Lavezzi to keep me up with 2 games left to play, alas when I signed on the game had already been started against me. One game to go, looking bad :(
The following is for the DC position only and is based on data of 1173 players, I believe from GW Sanchez.
Jumping vs Average Rating
Strength vs Average Rating
Tackling vs Average Rating
Marking vs Average Rating
Positioning vs Average Rating
Concentration vs Average Rating
I've checked most of the attributes and the only ones which seem to actually have much of an effect on a DCs average rating are jumping and strength. I may have missed one or two as I didn't check them all, but I checked all the obvious ones.
As you can see, key defensive attributes like tackling and marking have no effect whatsoever on average rating. I stuck a couple of metals in there and again you can see that they don't do anything either. They also don't have any effect at all on the number of goals you concede per game.
So lets have a look at how attributes effect goals conceded. This is based on the average number of goals conceded per game.
WOW ! We have found a non-physical attribute which does something ! Concentration !! Interestingly you see here that while high jumping leads to high average ratings it does not lead to less goals conceded. The only things I can find which really seem to impact this much is stamina and concentration (there may be others, not checked them all)
No surprise that again tackling and marking have absolutely no effect whatsoever. As I have been banging on about for a long term, physical attributes don't do anything ! (This isn't quite true for other positions as I have found out though)High tackling actually appears slightly detrimental, although this is likely that because there's fewer players at the higher end of the scale who happen to be bad in other areas.
So, what have we learnt here today ? Nothing new as it happens.
- Tackling & Marking = useless
- High average ratings = Jumping & Strength
- Less goals conceded = Stamina & Concentration.
Just a quick note on form again.
Beta team has won 2 in 20, I am to be fair the worse team by a long shot. Guess who the two wins were against ? 1st and 2nd of course ! 1st is probably one of the best teams I have seen on FML - a full team of RS with Kaka and the likes. He smashed me 8-1 away. I won 3-0 at home.... I also beat 2nd 4-1. The boot is on the other foot this time. I signed Lavezzi to keep me up with 2 games left to play, alas when I signed on the game had already been started against me. One game to go, looking bad :(
Insomnia
Hmm.
PP has me top of league, my AI never wins, no sleep for me tonight ?
I could moan about how this has happened but i'm still in a reasonably good mood after Leeds promotion yesterday
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Keep Pushin' On
One of my post reset rules was that I must wait 24 hours before any rage related sales or crazy antics. This makes quitting harder work than it used to be.
I've decided to just keep pressing on for now and see how things go and just try not to get too stressed. It's not as though i'm doing bad or anything, pretty much been top 30 rankings for a long while. Predicted Points actually has me top of the league at the moment and i've only lost 4 games so far this run. But those 4 games that I lost were epic bullshit and some of the draws too. I can think of one game all season where I have lost in a normal way to a team which played better than me.
Anyway I came up with this conspiracy several months back and I still think it might be true - They have made the ME enormously random on purpose. It's been changed without us knowing to stop teams winning too much. It makes perfect sense and it's complete genius.
Teams like me log on every day trying to find that perfect formula to create an all conquering winning team, we win 20 games in a row then BANG can't win for shit. Get mad, come back later and BOOM winning everything again. So you THINK your so close to getting it right, you keep messing, tweaking, changing, trying to get it to work..... except it's not possible.
It was actually exactly a year ago that I set my old GW record for games undefeated - standing at an impressive 90 games (ended only by a broken 2 legged cup game) this was a totally geniune record of league games and matches against the top teams. The current record on my GW today stands at 36. So while we carry on trying and failing to find the perfect formula the smaller teams get their kicks by randomly pasting good teams every so often so even they think they are doing something right.
I've also got a pretty good youth team, pretty much all high potentials on low wages which I picked up from the free list so I could perhaps make a bit of cash on those in a while or some should be good enough to make first team football.
I'm going to try not buying any players (not got anyone all season, still playing with guff) and perhaps try and ninja Messi or someone.
Speaking of form the beta team are having an interesting time of it of late. I restarted a couple of seasons back and picked a team of youngish, decentish potential players and i've done barely anything with them buying only about 3 players.
First 2 runs in the Championship I finished mid table before BOOM promoted after a good run of form in run 3. Came out all guns blazing in the Premiership and finished 6th in the first run (again, not bought or sold any players) next run i'm 10th. The third run is finishing up right now and i'm bottom of the league, getting an absolute hammering conceding 21 goals and scoring 1 in my last 7 games including an 8-1 defeat. I can almost guarantee i'll be relegated again from the Championship next season as i'm not going to buy anyone and my form is wrecked.
I've decided to just keep pressing on for now and see how things go and just try not to get too stressed. It's not as though i'm doing bad or anything, pretty much been top 30 rankings for a long while. Predicted Points actually has me top of the league at the moment and i've only lost 4 games so far this run. But those 4 games that I lost were epic bullshit and some of the draws too. I can think of one game all season where I have lost in a normal way to a team which played better than me.
Anyway I came up with this conspiracy several months back and I still think it might be true - They have made the ME enormously random on purpose. It's been changed without us knowing to stop teams winning too much. It makes perfect sense and it's complete genius.
Teams like me log on every day trying to find that perfect formula to create an all conquering winning team, we win 20 games in a row then BANG can't win for shit. Get mad, come back later and BOOM winning everything again. So you THINK your so close to getting it right, you keep messing, tweaking, changing, trying to get it to work..... except it's not possible.
It was actually exactly a year ago that I set my old GW record for games undefeated - standing at an impressive 90 games (ended only by a broken 2 legged cup game) this was a totally geniune record of league games and matches against the top teams. The current record on my GW today stands at 36. So while we carry on trying and failing to find the perfect formula the smaller teams get their kicks by randomly pasting good teams every so often so even they think they are doing something right.
I've also got a pretty good youth team, pretty much all high potentials on low wages which I picked up from the free list so I could perhaps make a bit of cash on those in a while or some should be good enough to make first team football.
I'm going to try not buying any players (not got anyone all season, still playing with guff) and perhaps try and ninja Messi or someone.
Speaking of form the beta team are having an interesting time of it of late. I restarted a couple of seasons back and picked a team of youngish, decentish potential players and i've done barely anything with them buying only about 3 players.
First 2 runs in the Championship I finished mid table before BOOM promoted after a good run of form in run 3. Came out all guns blazing in the Premiership and finished 6th in the first run (again, not bought or sold any players) next run i'm 10th. The third run is finishing up right now and i'm bottom of the league, getting an absolute hammering conceding 21 goals and scoring 1 in my last 7 games including an 8-1 defeat. I can almost guarantee i'll be relegated again from the Championship next season as i'm not going to buy anyone and my form is wrecked.
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