Hello! Welcome to our first dev blog! Or should we say Mod Blog?
We’re writing this because we want to give you insight into what we’re actually doing. We are all here because we’re FM obsessed and have all spent an ungodly amount of time playing the series. This post is also recognition of the work Sports Interactive devs put in to give best Football Manager experience possible every year (just don’t mention FM25 ok)
Following in the footsteps of “Sakura” and his Chinese match engine mod, the Korean match engine mod, and then the “Asian Fusion” match engine mod, we are on a quest to make the visualisation of matches as pleasing as possible. Our aim is to unshackle the players that we see on the screen, open the door to wider tactical diversity and even unlock animations that had never been seen before. All of this despite our work being limited to the modding and fine tuning of a physics file.
We are simply modifying a file that contains several parameters governing the physics seen in the game’s 3D Match Engine. Players are seeing all manner of movement and animations they had never seen before.
What exactly are we doing?
We are simply modifying a file that contains several parameters governing the physics seen in the game’s 3D Match Engine. We adjust parameters such as ball speed, delays in certain actions, goalkeeper reaction times, player movement speed on the screen, ball movement speed on the pitch, and many others. It is a fine-tuning job that involves the following two tests: We do not alter the animations, we do not create new ones, but by tweaking these parameters it seemingly unlocks the engine. Even in the original Chinese mod or Asian Fusion match engine mods, where very little was really changed, players were seeing all manner of movement and animations they had never seen before.
Once we are happy, we run our tweaks through our double pivot of testing. Stats and Eyes.
- Statistical testing – This is basically a massive numbers test. We simulate multiple leagues until at least 2050 to ensure that results-wise our match engine isn’t going wildly off-piste. We compare season by season numbers to real-life data to determine if the consequences of our work do not create unrealistic results.
- Visual testing – This is basically a massive eye-test. We run through hundreds of matches using comprehensive highlights and full-match mode to ensure that not only are matches more dynamic, varied, and reflective of your tactics and players roles – but that also nothing “weird” is going on in games.
Arguably the best part of our mods are significant knock-on effect on how tactics are manifested in game. Players move across the pitch more fluidly, there’s more 3rd man runs, the opposition even looks to exploit your tactics much more. All in all the results from fine tuning this “simatch” file truly are incredible given we aren’t exactly rewriting the entire engine, merely unlocking it. Player roles even function in a more realistic manner. Another benefit is that “meta” tactics are often less effective and overall tactical diversity is increased including more defensive styles of play becoming feasible.
FMTweak 1.1
Today we launched our first patch of our FMTweak Match Engine Mod, or FMTweak 1.1, and we focused on the following areas:
- Fixing an issue where defensive lines would break up in an unnatural manner;
- Reducing the unrealistically high number of corners;
- Adjusting physical values, such as how fast or slow players head the ball and perform sliding tackles;
- Addressing the passiveness of defensive players during the defensive phase of play.
Don’t just take our word for it though. We brought videos of the issues we wanted to fix. Mamma always said Show don’t tell.
Why is AWB lagging?
In this first example of things that annoy us in FM, AWB does this annoying pause we’ve all seen before in FM24 and just lets the ball-carrier pass, and then chases from behind. It’s like he’s on dial up with 200ms lag.
AWB goes on an adventure.
In this second example of things that annoy us in FM, AWB ignores Edouards threat in his zone and instead goes on an adventure to press the ball for no reason. Sancho does not track Mitchell (to be fair this seems very realistic for Sancho), so it becomes a 2v0 in the right-back area.
Eduoard daydreaming.
Mitchell presses Bruno so Edouard just ignores Sancho – Casemiro pass is awful but is the same as the issue above in terms of marking (The terrible pass again is very accurate to IRL Casemiro at least)
We fixed it though.
We fixed that reaction lag.
No longer watching and not reacting. Watch AWB’s positioning here with the head turn and swivel back around once the ball is switched to the left flank, he reacts almost as quickly as you’d expect.
Note the speed of AWBs reaction to the ball over the top.
With the ball in behind, you can actually see him turn his head to look at Mitchell as he chases back.
Again look at the speed of Dalots reaction.
Dalot steps up but then pivots on his back foot to swivel back when he realizes his mistake as he can’t reach Doucoure.
Our work does not stop here.
Our journey continues. Next, we’re reworking the player rating system to accurately reflect performance based on on-pitch actions. Initial improvements are already in beta for central defenders and attacking midfielders, and we’ll expand soon.
If you got this far thank you so much for reading. We want to bring you all along with us as we work to make FM24 the best it can be.
Thanks,
FM Tweak