Hello,

Over the last few days, we’ve seen quite significant changes to the timing of in-match stats updates. Broadly speaking, today if you change team tactics, they are updated at the top of the minute (e.g. 15:00, though there can sometimes be a delay of a few minutes); some tactics are updated straight away, whilst others aren’t; changes to the sliders are sometimes applied instantly, as are other changes. Position changes aren’t always reflected immediately...

At the same time, drops in fitness are more or less smoothed out throughout the match, which also affects the stats slightly, but that’s not a bad thing.

In any case, being able to adjust tactics down to the second – or at least see the effects of those changes – shouldn’t be possible. It makes the match completely unreadable: how can you know which stats will be used to calculate the MDM? And if you have to make changes every 10 seconds in a tight match – which is still necessary to constantly adapt to the opposition – matches will become a nightmare.

To make things clearer, I think we should go back to something much simpler:

• Changes to instructions, style, positional changes and substitutions should be applied at fixed intervals: 4 minutes, for example (plus the 45th minute), to match the average over recent weeks. A new player would have no trouble knowing what counts. No more randomness from that point of view – I really do find it a real nuisance.

--> During those 4 minutes, the only thing that would vary is the players’ physical condition, hence the automatic drop in stats. --> I’ll stress this again: the randomness of not knowing which set of stats will count in advance (I’d prefer to make that clear) is really not great. It’s been a flaw in recent years. You could see it in hindsight, and there was a pattern to it (3–7 mins and 2–6 mins in recent weeks), but the random element was far too prominent. Returning to a regular or deterministic rhythm also gives you a chance to ‘catch your breath’ and makes it much more relaxing to follow the match.

• This brings me to a second point: changes to positions and playing style shouldn’t be visible to the opposition during that time. Whether on the club’s profile or the ‘Teams’ tab during a match. Firstly, because those playing on PC have a significant advantage when it comes to adjusting their team at the last minute, but also because it’s now extremely easy to automate these changes on a PC, making them just before the stats are updated in response to the opponent’s moves.

Have a good day,

Galy

Salut Galy,

Elle est sympa la proposition,

Si je comprends bien c’est un retours « aux sources » comme on a pu connaître dans les années 2010 ? Il me semble que c’était 3’ à l’époque !

Well, I’m really not keen on fixed-interval changes of 3’ or 5’, with opponents glued to the screen and ready to press a button at 2’59” or 4’59” to catch the other off guard – no, thank you very much! And even worse were the days when a goal would appear at 5’01”, 10’01” and so on… and you’d have to wait until 4’58” to press your button. Help!

I’d be more in favour of updates at random intervals during matches (though I don’t know what the servers hosting the game can handle). For example, in a match there’d be 40 updates at unknown times, varying from match to match – say 1’43”, then 3’12”, then 7’29”, then 8’54” and so on…

In real life, when a manager makes a substitution or changes tactics, some changes have an immediate effect whilst others take a while to kick in. For example, if two players swap positions or a midfielder starts playing more defensively or more offensively, the effects might be felt 10 seconds later or 3 minutes later, depending on the circumstances – and the manager doesn’t know this in advance.

But the idea of tactical changes being implemented at regular intervals known to everyone? Frankly: no, no and no.