Something about the FM24 match engine has come to light and shocked the Football Manager community. A fan managed to prove that only nine of the FM 24 attributes really matter and that all the other attributes are just there for show.
This experience was conducted by a Reddit user and its results left the Football Manager community in disbelief. It's not a secret that there are more important attributes than others in FM, but most players didn't think it was to this extent.
So let's find out how the FM24 match engine was exposed.
The experiment
As mentioned above, a Reddit user decided to experiment to see how much the so-called meta attributes are important in FM 24. These meta attributes are pace, acceleration, jumping reach, strength, balance, agility, anticipation, concentration, and dribbling.
The user selected Manchester City and in one case increased the meta attributes of all players to 20/20 while all the other attributes were at 1/20. In the second case, the team had the meta attributes at 10/20 and all the other attributes at 20/20.
The meta team had an 80-90 CA, meaning they were at the Vanarama League level, while the second team had an astonishing 180-190 CA, which meant they should be able to walk over every team in the Premier League with ease.
He then simulated one season with both teams, delegating all the responsibilities to the staff, and not interfering in any single aspect. The results of both seasons were shocking, to say the least.
The shocking results
The team that was supposed to stomp the league and lift the Premier League trophy with ease was relegated! In 38 matches the non-meta team only managed to achieve 14 points despite having a 180-190 CA.
As for the meta team, they finished second place in the league with 84 points, just one point less than the champion. Despite the players having a 1/20 in attributes such as finishing, passing, vision, and technique, they managed to score an impressive 66 goals.
Furthermore, with players who had just one point in the tackling, marking, and positioning attributes, this team only conceded 23 goals.
What this means to the FM community
This experience proved just how important the meta attributes are, but also killed the immersion of the game. If there are only nine attributes in the whole game that make a difference then players will disregard the other ones.
Why would I look at my midfielder passing ability if I know it doesn't matter? I will just get a player with an incredible pace, acceleration, agility and dribbling for that position even if he just has seven passing.
Yes having some attributes more important than others is normal, as not all of them can have the same importance. But ALL of them need to matter even if just slightly.
If tackling, marking, and positioning doesn't matter in a defender then that is immersion-breaking, as these aspects are key for defenders in real life.
Knowing that from the 30-plus attributes that exist in FM 24 only nine of them matter takes so much joy out of the game, and in a way makes FM seem closer to EA FC 24 than most FM fans would like to admit.
There are always ways to exploit the match engine, as like everything else in the world it isn't perfect. However, one thing is having specific formations and tactical instructions that break the game. This can be fixed with a patch and doesn't affect all the FM players.
But when you make most players' attributes useless, that is something that affects everyone in the game, and that breaks the immersion of all managers around the world.
Forget about finding a defender with good defending attributes, or a number 10 with great passing ability, just make sure they are fast, strong, agile and you got yourself a Premier League title.
Is this real?
It's worth noting that this experiment is not exhaustive. It's also not been shown as repetitive yet. However, we are sure some database gurus are already setting up tests of their own to see if they can recreate the results of this one.
We will certainly be watching closely to see if anyone can replicate this outcome, and perhaps change a few recruitment focuses in our save in the meantime.
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